Ice Cream King, Chef Bob, Army Queen, Tourist Food.

March 7^th There go those best laid plans again. Why? Because Huan’s leader seems incapable of making plans and keeping everyone informed in advance. This morning Huan had a message to say that they had a rehearsal down by the river this morning. Consequently I just went for a short walk, around the town, to buy some pork for tonight’s dinner. In the town, a lot of buildings now have scaffolding, as you see here. We think that they are simplifying and beautifying the shop fronts in a similar way to what we have seen in smaller villages.

After lunch, her ladyship had two rehearsals, one at Yefeng and one at OAP school. I walked her and her friend up to Yefeng and then went off to make up some kilometres. The first thing I saw was another bit of beautification. This was a corner previously hidden by a steel fence with various metal works item from the shop next door stored there. It’s all been cleared and this young lady was busy planting grass. I told her she was doing a grand job!

Not many photos were taken at all today so I thought it was time you saw this young fellow again. He always comes running out of the shop when I let him know I am coming, he will also always sit by my side. What he won’t do, no matter how hard I try, is look at the camera!

I did have an ulterior motive in going out this afternoon; the fridge was out of ice cream. We can’t have that can we? I managed to resolve the situation.

With Huan being so busy I was playing at chef today, hence the pork shopping this morning. As I often do, I forgot all about taking photos of preparation, cooking or the finished meal ready to serve. Never mind, you can have the recipe instead. I used some other green vegetable instead of kale, and as always added garlic and onion. It seems strange to make a noodle dish that then requires a knife and fork for the pork. We both cut our pork into little pieces first!

March 8^th Another day, another dollar. We can’t say that anymore can we, both of us being retired. Huan was having a little mumble about performing with no pay, until I pointed out that it is her choice and nobody is making her “work for free”. Today she was an army girl, and this was her in the barracks prior to going on parade!

I could quite understand the mumbles today though; she had three shows to do today. The first one was outdoors at Yefeng. Here you can see the whole group performing and then saluting.

From there it was taxi driver Bob taking Huan plus two to the OAP School for the second of today’s shows. Somewhere along the way we lost two, they were performing elsewhere.

Opportunities to take photos were limited here, especially as I was a floor above the show and unlike last time, they were performing across the narrow side and not the long side. You can probably see from the photo above that I am looking down on them. When they performed they were even closer and hence at a much steeper angle. I did make a video, something I’m not going to share as the sound was managed pretty badly. The ladies were quite happy with it, here’s a screen shot of them in full flow.

A much needed lunch break was next, not much rest for Huan though, she had to change for the afternoon show. This was to be indoors at Yefeng. Why so many shows today? Because it is International Women’s Day. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Women's_Day) Before coming to China I have to admit I had never heard of this particular day. I can remember having to look up the history before, you don’t have to, the link is above.

For the third time today, fifth if you count return journeys, I was the taxi driver. I had to deliver the ladies by 14:00 even though their show didn’t start until 15:00. I had a walk around town for an hour. Staying with the ladies, they did take photos of each other. Also, when I returned I tried but getting within camera range was almost impossible. Here’s one of theirs and one of mine.

My time wasting walk was not too bad; I got some air in my lungs, had a little exercise to boot and took a few photographs.

Show over, Huan was happy to go home; she was the only passenger for my last run of the day. Her friend who had been with us all day decided she wanted to stay and watch the rest of the show. She will have found it difficult, as I did.

Once home my first job was sorting out videos and photographs, then sending them to the boss for onward transmission to the rest of the team. Once that was done, guess what? I was the duty chef again, this time I was cooking Italian, I use the term loosely of course. It calls for garlic leaves; I used garlic stalks as we both like them so much. I also did the usual and added onion and garlic. The chorizo was replaced by a Chinese sausage. It went down well for both of us, despite me charring the underneath a little. I’ll know better next time. In case you want to give it a go, and why wouldn’t you, the recipe is here.

March 9^th Lazybones, a.k.a. Bob, was up late this morning so that put the kybosh on a morning walk. I then decided that after Huan’s very busy three days she should rest today and not have to walk at all. Surprisingly she willingly accepted my suggestion. Mind you, after dinner she was back to hulusi practice with her friends so I had a solo walk then, in the Twilight Zone.

The first half of the walk the scenery was fine.

“She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes”. It wasn’t “she” that worried me, nor was it “round”, it was more like “it” and “down”. Was that great big nasty cloud of rain going to come down the mountain and ambush me before I got home?

I’m sure you probably all know that song, if not go here and show your young grandchildren. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-S920KGltQ&ab_channel=KiddieOK or here to learn more https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She%27ll_Be_Coming_%27Round_the_Mountain. Anyway, I beat the rain home, but not Huan. She beat me to it by a few minutes.

March 10^th Shows are over so I assumed the many rehearsals would be as well. Of course I was wrong! Having no walks I thought well, it’s Friday, I can watch Taskmaster. Wrong again! Using Express VPN I was barred from seeing it, why I have no idea. Huan came home with more photos, not bad ones either, apart from the information overload.

We did manage to get out after lunch for a nice long walk but I forgot part of the plan. We were supposed to check on a walking route that may be lost for a while, Huan didn’t know what I meant, and it slipped my mind somewhere along the kilometres. We went past the Li cultural centre, it was on our way, and just down the road we spotted a “Jeep”.

In Fanmao village we did the usual and turned right into the countryside. Knowing our ‘time’ plan today we decided to get off the road.

This was the view looking back when we reached the head of the valley.

Soon we were following a small irrigation canal, enjoying the scenery very much.

Meanwhile, I spotted a beautiful bird and Huan spotted a thing!

Soon the path became more difficult, that was when we spotted a couple of geese. Maybe we should have heeded their cackling and found a better way through. It’s not so obvious from the second photo but I ended up with lots of minor scratches and seeds everywhere.

Eventually we got back on track with the irrigation channel, it led us to红也水库 Hóng yě shuǐkù - Hongye Reservoir. That was where were headed so at least we got something right. Here’s the reservoir and Huan “running up that hill” a la Kate Bush. I was looking for the steps!

This was the view from the reservoir.

And this was the reservoir.

And when we eventually found the road again this was the front view of the reservoir.

This road took us back to Fanmao village where we could stop for some much needed water, cool, clear water! By now I had all sorts in my boots, time to take them off and have a good look. Huan thought I should throw the socks when we got home!

From the village it was a right turn onto the road to somewhere and back towards home. Our time plan had been so that when we arrived back at the duty free building we could eat out. We were a little early so the children’s stuff wasn’t yet set up.

All we needed was food though and there was ample of that available.

Huan chose肉夹馍Ròu jiā mó, meat in a bun, also known as a Chinese hamburger. She also had it with涼皮, liángpí; 'cold skin', a noodle dish. I usually like to have it with chips.

Because this was my treat I also bought shells, something Huan likes but doesn’t often have.

What did I have? Chicken breast and a couple of sausages, no photos, they weren’t worth it. I did also treat Huan to dessert, and me of course.

Half way through it Huan decided it should be recorded, that could be why I’m not smiling. The other reason has been retouched; I noticed I had a drop of something on the end of my nose!

On the way home we spotted what we assumed was another attraction for the children, dinosaurs. Another wrong assumption was that this little food street was for Women’s Day, it seems it was for ‘tourism’. (旅游美食购物节, Lǚyóu měishí gòuwù jié, Tourism Food Shopping Festival.) There’s nothing specific to Wuzhishan in those food stalls, so we are still very much in the dark. Not to worry, it did what it said on the packet and filled two bellies!

March 11^th Market day comes round every Saturday, I like to see what’s there, Huan likes to spend money. On the way today, in the river in front of Tea Street, we spotted the walkway team. At least we assume that’s what they are.

Nothing special jumped out to be photographed today; instead you can have four shots of Huan spending money. You can’t see her big smile though!

Finally, to our surprise, we found more work going on in the river, between the Fodelai bridge and the last bridge. There is already a walkway here, on both sides of the river so we’re now a little puzzled. Time will tell I suppose.

March 12^th Sometimes I wonder how it is that many older people that I know wake up early every morning whereas I often sleep in. It was after nine when I roused myself this morning, that meant we were too late for a morning walk! We had to go after lunch instead. Huan chose Feicui Park but as we got close to the turn off which would have had us heading uphill I could see that she wasn’t exactly full of beans. I gave the option of Feicui or wrong way round the river. She chose the latter, no complaints from me, still a long walk but no hills. There were very few photo opportunities today, a couple of white birds, but too far away to be good. All we could see was the progress of the walkways along the river.

From that picture above, (the other side of the river), and this one below, (our side of the river), you can see that the new walkway is a lot higher than the existing one on the other side of the bridge in town. Now we are wondering again; are they going to raise the river height to allow boats? Who knows, we could one day see a dragon boat race down our river, that would be nice.

Flora takes last place today, here’s a lovely pom pom for you!

March 13th Monday normally means shopping, but not this week. Instead we decided that we should investigate what I forgot earlier this week, what has happened to our ‘behind the village’ walk. To do that we started off on Little Island where we met a couple of old friends and Huan took some photos.

And here is the one I was taking; she looks more like a toy than a real animal!

Taking a short detour we found a couple more animals, this time more normal pets.

Huan stayed on the road through this small village, I went through the fields and had to come back through a hedge. Not to worry, the photographer was ready!

We shortened our route a little today, my phone told me that there would be no rain in the next two hours but didn’t say what would happen after that. The surrounding mountains told us that there was a possibility of getting wet today.

Huan thought you should see some water lilies before we reached our objective.

When we did reach our objective, or rather the far end of it, we found that whatever they are doing it is circling back towards the village or maybe towards the new construction area.

We backtracked a little and then followed the trail towards where our objective would normally begin. They have been busy! There are new reinforced edges, there are drains under the ‘road to be’ and it is very wide. It looks like we will not have lost our walking route it will just have changed. No doubt they will add trees and pavements so our walk should still be OK.

Before our walk looked very much like this all the way behind the village.

Leaving our tiny piece of rural pathway behind, we returned to the road. We surmised, and maybe you can see why, that the new road is going to bypass the village. It appears to be a turn off from the road to somewhere leading to the new construction the other side of the village. This would lessen traffic through this village and through the one at the other end of the road to somewhere. Now we are wondering just what the new construction is for.

Homeward bound, we took the irrigation canal track, it seems to have been cleared a little. Where we joined it we had to squeeze past a small excavator. Huan thought it had been parked there to stop people walking that way. When we got to the other end, we discovered that she had probably been right. They didn’t want anyone going the other way either.

Why don’t we finish our walk, and our week, with a beautiful floral arrangement. This one however, was not created by us mere mortals but grew all by itself. I thought it was very pretty; Huan wasn’t so sure, what do you think?

My last job this evening was moving the car to make sure we can get out early in the morning and putting a plastic bag over the gear knob. “Why?” Well, it has been affected by over seven years of sun and bits of plastic are starting to flake off. The bag is to stop those bits falling into the mechanism. We can’t buy another knob in Wuzhishan, if we have time we’ll look in Haikou. Otherwise we will have to wait until we go for another service in Sanya. Off we go then, stay tuned to see how we get on in Haikou. Bye for now!