May 2nd
She didn’t want to do any studying this morning so we went off to the bap market looking for sausages. I showed her a new road!
Madam decided we should also buy some Xinjiang bread on the way to the sausage shop. Here we are after that saying hello to a cat and to a little boy who also liked the cat. Mind you, the cat was not keen on having his tail played with so soon went and hid.
We walked home then, on the opposite side of the river so that our usual Xinjiang bread supplier would not see us and get jealous!
I almost convinced Huan, and myself, that this was a lizard sitting at the other end of the pipe. I was wrong; it’s just a seed pod.
We may not have found a lizard but we did find other little creatures. The first one is not missing an antenna; it is using it to feel over the edge.
We found two more, a stink bug that allowed me to get a good facial close up, and a locust whose portrait was not so good but whose side profile is fine.
Of course the director was only mildly satisfied, she would have been happier if we had spotted a red breasted lizard, even happier if we had seen a frog and over the moon happier if we had seen another snake! Not to worry, after lunch and a nap, much needed for me, I cooked dinner so she was happy again. There is no recipe today; it was pre-packed black-pepper steak from Pinduoduo. My verdict, it was rubbish, too much water inside, very salty and no taste of black pepper. Last year’s sprouts and peas from the freezer were not so bad and the microwave baked potato was fine. Mine was better than Huan’s because I like butter!
May 3rd The student studied and the chef cooked and that was the morning. The student is a little worried about the new app she was given as her scores are not up over the 90s as they were on the original. She still has over a week to go so I have all faith in her. The chef was busy making a beef curry, Huan had been given an enormous piece of beef which she cut up yesterday.
To my pleasant surprise Huan said she wanted to walk with me after lunch so I decided to take her in the reverse direction of my 13th April walk, the one where I crossed the river early. Almost immediately we spotted filler cap art, the first one loves 95 octane, the second needs an explanation. (+93 Octane) 加油嘴呢 Jiāyóu zuǐ ne - Come on, mouth? I hope that clears up any misunderstandings you may have had.
Huan only realised that we were not taking the kindergarten in the countryside route when we turned down the side of the bridge and headed through the undergrowth.
We reckon it must have been at least four years since we both walked this way, long before the new road was built. It wasn’t so easy then either. We, or should I say ‘Eagle Eyes’ spotted something today that she hadn’t done previously on this path. She then tried to take photos of me taking photos, I can’t seem to get her to ‘fill the frame’ when she is looking at the screen. In the first photo you can barely see what I am looking at, despite the cropping, in the second I cropped even further but doing that the quality is substantially degraded. Look closely and you may just see that the lizard has her foot on my finger. (Yesterday we learned that it is the breeding season and the males are the brightly coloured ones.)
Were my photos any better, well I think so and I hope you agree.
Not long after that we had to hop back onto the road, in the sun, until we found the crossing.
Soon we were over the river and on the other main road,
Approaching civilisation I asked Huan to take a photo of my sun kissed face, yes, I had forgotten to wear my hat this afternoon. As usual, she held the phone too far away.
Almost home and a yellow car popped into my field of view and you know I can’t resist them. Mind you, the only Jeep I like is the soft top, preferably with raised suspension and deep water modifications. This one had a demure little lady on the rear door. 女人 可以不美 可以没钱 但是 一定要作, Nǚrén kěyǐ bù měi kěyǐ méi qián dànshì yīdìng yào zuò – woman can not be beautiful, can have no money, but must do. I know, the translation seems to be not quite right.
Why don’t we finish the day as we started with yet another filler cap, yet another young lady and yet another octane rating. 请加 qǐng jiā - please add (92 octane). This young lady seems to have a broken heart for some reason.
We walked much further than planned but enjoyed ourselves all the more for it. Our curry was just what we needed although I was disappointed with it. It was another packet paste version but the English wording was “Spicy Curry” and I foolishly believed it!
May 4th “May the 4th be with you!” If you are confused then you must be either too young, too old, or not conversant with Western Cinema. https://www.starwars.com/star-wars-day will help, they even have food and drinks recipes! For us, it was just me, Huan has no interest…
Today’s schedule was very much the same as yesterday’s, only the route was different, oh, and I didn’t have to cook. After lunch we headed towards Changhao and I stood in the middle of the road, bringing the wrath of the head of HSE down on me.
One reason for going this way was that Huan wanted to ‘use’ the new little tunnel that goes under the highway exit. It is only on the Wuzhishan to Changhao lane. I repeated the middle of the road trick, and received some more helpful criticism!
You can probably see from all the previous photos that today was a hot one, someone told us it was 35⁰C but we can’t confirm that. Our friend Shifu told us that nobody else was stupid enough to go out in the afternoon. I guess I must be of the ‘mad dogs and Englishmen’ type and I must have corrupted the young(er) innocent mind of the boss. We did think of cooling down here, but I think the owners may not have been too happy!
We were heading for one of our regular country walks but this time clockwise rather than anti-clockwise. Soon the bridge to Caobao village came into view.
And here are two snaps taken from the bridge, one upriver, which we thought was quite beautiful, and then one downriver, through the wall towards where we took the bridge photo from.
Entering the village we found a new sculpture. I was not sure of the significance of the yoke not being connected to the bull, maybe there is some telepathy at work!
Passing through the village and over the next bridge into a roadside village, I had to stop for some liquid refreshment. Now normally when a British guy says that he means beer, but I can assure you I meant only water. Not only was I very thirsty but my back hurt too, between my shoulder blades, Huan thinks the sweat causes that. I had to sit down for a short while.
Back on the road the sun was still merciless, serves us right for going out in the afternoon. We had to walk another four to five kilometres to get home, with no shade. I didn’t stand in the middle of the road this time!
Big softie had to stop again, when we got to Shifu’s shop, well it would have been rude not to stop and pass the time of day wouldn’t it. Of course, more cool water was needed for me, and of course Huan had to take more photos.
Arriving home I could quite easily have gone for a two or three hour, or even longer, nap. If I had done that I would have missed Huan’s fish and cauliflower with corn bread. Instead I woke myself up with a little shower. We both realised this afternoon that summer is definitely on the way, maybe we should try for morning and/or evening walks until wintertime. If I am alone, no worries, but Huan would prefer cooler times.
May 5th The boss put me on escort duty again this morning; her hulusi buddy was not joining her. First we had to go and drop off a notebook at the learner drivers’ office for Yú, she asked for Huan’s help. Having watched Huan use this notebook, from the first page, the last page, and assorted pages in the middle, when she has tried to reinforce answers that she initially got wrong, I have no idea how this is supposed to help Yú. I certainly can’t see rhyme or reason!
There was no teacher at music school today, no class leader either, but they managed.
I left Huan to it and went off through town. At the Yefeng complex they have one of those environmental display boards, I did take a couple of photos but they were rubbish. Instead I will list some of the display readings for you, as of around nine o’clock this morning:
Ambient sound, 50.3dB.
PM2.5, 5.6µg/m3.
PM10 8µg/m3.
TSP, 49.2µg/m3.
Temperature, 28.6⁰C.
Humidity, 80.7%.
As you can see, it was substantially cooler than yesterday afternoon. I stayed in the town and out of the sun anyway.
Some of God’s creatures were still on hand to have a chat with.
Others were fenced off by man made obstacles.
Approaching the bap market from the other end I could see that the market authorities had been busy. Mind you, the sign doesn’t actually say that selling is not allowed here, it says 综合执法 Zònghé zhífǎ - comprehensive law enforcement. I guess the traders understand.
So where did they go instead? Why, behind the buildings of course.
And onto the next short street to the main road.
Even with all those fruit and vegetable options it never crossed my mind that I should buy tomorrow’s salad stuff! Ah well, at least I was home before Huan to prepare lunch. I was also on dinner duty again this afternoon, the third time this week! Things need eating from the freezer so I actually volunteered again, today was pork noodle soup.
After dinner we went walkies, partly looking for salad stuff, mostly because Huan had to visit one of her banks again. I looked at the pond and listened to a lonely invisible frog.
The indoor market, while having most of what we wanted, did not have everything, and the stall holders were beginning to pack up and go home. We decided to follow the family motto, “Don’t do today what you can leave until tomorrow”!
May 6th The student almost made us miss the market today; it was nearly half past ten when she raised her head from her studies. We had to go for the weekend salad and she didn’t want me to go alone this morning. On our way we passed a woman peering into some bushes so of course Huan had to peer as well. There was a poor little bird in a box, someone may have rescued it. They even put some rice in the box for it to eat. There was no chance it was going to fly away, maybe whoever found it would return later. Huan picked the box up and insisted I take a photo of the poor chick, which was probably terrified; I tried.
A more successful photo was taken of another flying creature.
That was it from the camera, but as we were walking to the indoor market and the lottery ticket shop, I spotted a little girl having some trouble with her ‘market trolley’. She had obviously been having fun helping her mother and was now pushing the trolley home, complete with chicken in a bucket and a set of weighing scales. She was quite happy to accept my little bit of help, even said 谢谢(Xièxiè) - thank you, and then went on her way. Unbeknownst to me, Huan had been busy with her phone all that time.
And that was all we saw today, sorry. There were plans for an early evening walk but Huan didn’t really want to go and in my case, sheer laziness set in!
May 7th It was my choice of route today so I suggested up the main road to the fourth turn-off then returning via the over the hill route and the third turn off. Even though we had the camera, Huan was still busy with her phone, and she still thinks turkeys are beautiful.
What were my photos like? Well here are two, babies first and parents second.
We hadn’t gone far around the corner, (I nearly said bend but most of you think I went there a long time ago!), before the spotter found a lizard.
It’s a long time since we walked this route. Last month we did it the other way round, 6th April if you want to check back. Going this way these two photos show the old road and the new.
Within minutes we were at the old holiday place again.
This time we didn’t forget to take a photo of the old fisherman, at least that’s what we think he is. I think there is a fish in his basket.
Also a closer look at the bridge.
Yet again I had to stop Huan eating things off the trees, these are coffee berries.
This time we were taking our original route, behind the holiday resort building. Also this time, we decided to translate it for you. It’s one of those where you have to separate the words on Google Translate or it doesn’t work properly. 妈儿乐生态乐园, Mā er lè shēngtài lèyuán - Happy Mother Ecological Paradise.
Passing some more fruit trees, this time sapodilla, I will leave you to Google, we ended up above the resort building on paths that, despite some landscaping being done, we recognised.
Way behind me, I am usually well out in front, I heard the plaintive cry of “Bob! Lizard!” so back I went and followed orders, although this one wasn’t so easy.
The scenery was almost as I remembered, certainly near enough for me to recognize it.
Now if you look carefully at that last photo, you can see where the shade reappears part the way up and then there is a little sunlight from the left hand side. That is the way I remembered, that is the way I wanted to go, that is not the way the Expedition Leader wanted to go. She wanted to follow the track and bear to the right! It went higher and higher and before too long we were looking out across the tops of the rain forest covered mountains.
Sometimes I thought we were heading down again, in fact I hoped we were, but then around the next corner the track continued upwards.
Eventually we could go no further. In this next photo you can see the path we came up on the right, the insurmountable obstacles on the left and in the top left, way down below us, the highway. On this walk we usually go under the highway so you can imagine that by now I was doing a lot of muttering under my breath.
We had to backtrack and look for a way to a fishpond we had seen. I sat for a while, exhausted, and Huan looked for a way down. Check out her camouflage!
I had to do a lot of bum shuffling to get down, the going was not easy at all. Huan loved it of course, she was busy making videos and giving me helpful(?) advice. At one stage when I was walking in front of here, the leaves under me slipped and I landed on my backside again. I needn’t have worried; ‘Scoop’ was there to make sure it was on the record.
When we finally got down to somewhere more comfortable, all I needed was a lie down!
We weren’t recognizing anything we were seeing now that we had reached ground level again. We had seen some old broken bungee trampoline rigs for children, we could see some kinds of ponds in front of us, and then I spotted something in the trees too. It looked like a mini assault course; we began to worry about just where we had ended up.
We seemed to have stumbled across a no longer used adventure park. Our sense of foreboding grew until we turned the corner and found ourselves at the other end of the resort building of the Happy Mother Ecological Paradise.
Lucky for me we were not far from civilization and our supply replenishment point. Yes, I needed more water, much more. In fact after topping up we headed for the #1 bus stop where I knew I could buy even more! We did stop on the way to chat to a rooster that needs a lick of paint. I would hazard a guess that this is not Foghorn Leghorn, but the rooster from the Chinese zodiac. We didn’t think at the time and didn’t look for the other eleven animals.
Soon enough we were on the bus and on the way home, weary but happy.
Arriving home it was one of those no lunch days for me, no shower either, just more water, collapse and sleep. It was heaven!
May 8th Plans were made, and, plans fell flat. It was time to visit the hospital to replenish all the various medicines I have to take, last month the doctor only gave us one month. However, as I don’t need to have any more tests until March 2024, we can visit without an appointment; another doctor will check the computer and sort us out. That was this morning’s plan.
Getting there, a little damp as the rain was on the way, we were told that the ‘prescription doctor’ was too busy with real patients and that we would have to come back later. Back home we went and got absolutely drenched. Huan even had an umbrella, which I declined to share so that she would be better protected but she was still almost as wet as I was.
Hot showers and hot coffee were next on the agenda followed by shopping. The student decided I should go alone again this week, I think as the test date nears she is worrying more. She was rather surprised when I got home as to how ‘fast’ I had been. I explained the difference between ‘man shopping’ and ‘woman shopping’, at least for us two anyway.
We tried the hospital again in the afternoon and were more
successful. The doctor saw us, we had my new prescription filled and we went to
stand around in the cashier’s queue. Note the masks; there is a Covid variant
in
The hospital was still busy but we got through the cashier’s place easily enough. I showed Huan one of the man/woman differences, or at least me/most Chinese women differences. The ladies in front of us had to go through their handbags after the cashier had already done her bit whereas I handed over the prescription, the money and my hospital card as soon as I reached the front of the queue. In no time we were at the pharmacy window.
Almost immediately they called us back and told us that we couldn’t have the medicine we had been prescribed, it was too large a quantity. Having already paid, and having a prescription, we had no option but to go back to the doctor’s office. She was apologetic, she had prescribed nine months for one instead of three. New prescription in hand, back to the cashier’s office we went. Here is Huan with the old and the new prescriptions and the instructions for the cashier.
After getting a substantial refund and the new papers stamped we headed back to the pharmacy where this time all seemed to be fine. I say ‘seemed’ because first of all the refund was more than I had expected, and secondly when we got home I did not appear to have the right quantities of some of the medicines. Not only that, but others had been changed, type, manufacturer or pill size. Maybe I would have an easier time understanding if it was in English as well as Chinese, but it isn’t. With Huan’s help we think we sorted it out, at the end of the month we may have to visit a pharmacy in town to top up one or two again. I do wonder how confused older people without partners cope with multiple medications.
Anyway, all’s well that ends well and the week has ended with me still alive and kicking, despite Huan’s best efforts on our recent mountain walk! Next up for us is the dentist for me and the traffic police for her. See how we get on next week. Love to all, bye for now.
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