July 25th Another failure, or a partial failure anyway. Huan’s bus and walk plan didn’t work because I was too late getting out of bed. However, we still had time for a walk, and we hadn’t had any local walks together for quite a while. Today we decided on the “Mansions on the Hill” walk via the little island and the path across the river. We found bugs on the way; the first is a Rhynocoris iracundus or an Assassin bug.
Next is a regular visitor to these pages, a Trabala Vishnou, also known as a rose-myrtle lappet moth or more commonly a hairy yellow caterpillar!
This next one is one that we haven’t seen before. Google wasn’t too much help but it is possibly a Spined Soldier bug, a member of the stink bug family.
All of those little bugs were spotted before we even reached the bridge to the island. Once over the bridge, the old pathway was almost a no through road, almost.
Everything had grown a lot since we last walked this way but after the initial fight through the bush the going was quite easy and very pleasant.
Another bug popped up to say hello, it looked like a dragonfly but it was unlike any we have seen before. Google says it is a Neurothemis Fulvia, or a fulvous forest skimmer. (PS Fulvous just means tawny colour.)
On reaching the end of the path, and looking inside an old workshop where we have seen cows before, we found it had been taken over as a rubbish recycling place. They must be hoping for better things as this was at the entrance: - LHS - 财神到, Cáishén dào - God of Wealth arrives carrying what looks like a gold ingot. RHS - 长寿爷, Chángshòu yé - Lord Longevity carrying a birthday peach. These come from traditional Chinese tales and are often on display.
Soon we were on the road to the Mansions on the Hill and then going down the path at the side.
Once through the woods and over the irrigation canal it only took a few minutes until we reached one of our favourite little ponds. Huan takes great delight in trying to sneak up to this pond the startle the resident turtles and fish. Today there appeared to be no life there at all.
Down at the farm by the river, Huan was surprised that the cats were not chasing or trying to eat the chickens. The young farmer told her (I think), that they all grew up together. Ducks and chickens also share the same feeding dish, although the cats stay away from that!
Coming back into the village everyone was busy. In fact under many of the umbrellas there were literally whole families, children too, getting on with the planting. A farmer’s life is definitely not an easy one. I may have tried it when I was younger, but not now, I’m too long in the tooth.
The next part of the route was to look for Huan’s turkeys, she loves them, not sure why. On the way we had a water stop and chatted to a very old friend.
I got the prize for spotting the turkeys first; in fact I saw one up a tree. This rather surprised Huan so I pointed out that, just like chickens, turkeys are birds too. Huan however, got closer than I did so you can see her photo instead.
She also managed to capture this image in the bottom of another turkey attempt. I love the way the white chicken is watching her as she takes the photo.
We did take a few more scenery photos on our way through the village
and towards home, but we don’t want to have too many photos for the first day
of the week, do we. Instead, how about a picture of a nice little door handle?
This comes from a Great Wall Pick-up; I’m not sure which model. Huan and I
often remember seeing a “Wingle” or a “Sailor” outside our building in
Arriving home we found that we had walked nearly nine kilometres, which meant that only a small walk would be needed after dinner. Today’s chef, after an afternoon nap again, was to be me. No recipe was needed today; it was noodle soup with “hot-pot” fishy extras. At least they were supposed to be fishy. Memo to self, next time go to the fish market!
July 26th Success! Well, initially anyway, we were both up early enough for ‘bus and walk’ day. We took a #5 to its last stop in the mountains where it stopped for a charge.
Our plan had been to take the
tourist service bus from the terminus up to the rafting start and then walk
back down the walkways. (Remember, I am too old to raft down.) Unfortunately
for us, there was no service bus because the rafting place was closed, “not
tourist season”. Here the tourist seasons are based around the Chinese
holidays. If you ever intend visiting, anywhere in
For us, plan B came into effect, we have walked back through the army base before, we have walked back the other side of the river before, and so today we decided just to take the road. Here’s the view downriver and the turn-off to the non-existent tourist area.
Eagle Eyes must have had something on her mind, she missed this lizard. Mind you, it is certainly well camouflaged against the tree.
The next spot was down to me again, I asked Huan if I was looking at a fake goose. It looked enormous from where we were, it’s a shame we couldn’t get closer. I would estimate that its beak would have been somewhere above my stomach at least.
Three-nil to Bob, I spotted this one too.
Having time on our hands, we popped into the “Cultural Farm” area where, you guessed it; we found absolutely nothing for tourists to see. The houses are pretty though.
It was warm today so no speed was involved at all. The good thing is we were going downhill all the time and the views were well worth seeing.
In what seemed like no time at all
we reached Nansheng and took the back road around to a new housing development
called ‘
Before long Huan was taking far too many photos of me taking photos, I kept one.
What was I trying to get? I wanted the whole view in front of me, which was not possible without creating a panorama. This was stitched from twelve different shots.
At last! Huan achieved one of her main aims when we are out, she found a lizard.
More snaps were taken, of little bugs, but for some reason they were all out of focus. Now as I am using the camera on full automatic, with intelligence even (iA), I have no idea why. Still, there is enough from that little walk. Actually it wasn’t so little, when we added up the walk to the bus, the walk itself, and the walk from the bus, we had over ten kilometres.
After a nice lunch, which we were both ready for, Huan went for the usual OAP nap while I went out to grab a few more kilometres. By the time I got to the island bridge I was feeling the heat, it was 33⁰C. From the second bridge I spotted some new decoration on the apartments next to ours.
By the time I reached four kilometres, the second photo here, I was beginning to regret not following Huan’s example with her nap. My walk had turned into more of a meander.
Tired though I was, my aims had been achieved, making up for missed walks due to rain or idleness. Today’s total was nearly seventeen and a half, that’ll do me!
July 27th Last night Huan succumbed to my constant nagging since her driving test and phoned her instructor to start some more learning again. What I really wanted was for her to get back in the car quickly thus remembering what she might have done wrong and also remembering that she liked being in a car driving. It worked; she booked a lesson for this afternoon. That meant all we needed this morning was a relaxing walk in the town.
Let’s start with the birds; they always seem to know just how far to stay away from us to prevent me getting better photos. This is cropped from 2920x5184 pixels to 704x975. Any further cropping and all detail would be completely lost.
Luckily we can usually get nearer to lizards, and Huan was on the ball today!
And that was it for the morning, the walk was nice and relaxing, but the opportunity for any decent snapshots just wasn’t there. Once home, and after lunch, Huan went off to have some relaxation with a nap before her lesson. I stayed awake to begin the preparations for dinner.
Jumping in the car at ten past two, to ferry the learner and the instructor to the training ground, the temperature showed 42⁰C. Granted the car had been sitting in the sun all morning. Our A/C is pretty efficient so inside was fine by the time ‘teacher’ joined us.
Once at the training ground, the big smile was reward enough for me, Huan was happy to be back in the driving seat. It was my turn to take far too many photos but only one was even halfway good enough to share here.
As for me, I was “On the road again”. Is it Willie Nelson or Canned Heat? The answer is whichever you prefer. If you’re not sure then get on to YouTube and listen to both!
I only had an hour so after nearly four kilometres and a coffee stop I was soon back in the car waiting for the boss. Just look at that temperature now!
I thought I would try a selfie in the car, which was nice and cool inside by the way. The A/C had been on for a good ten minutes before I took the previous photo. Huan liked this picture because, for once, with a lot of concentration, I had managed to look at the camera cut-out on the screen instead of just looking at the phone!
Earlier I had mentioned preparing
tonight’s dinner. Yes, I was the duty chef again, and we were having fishcakes,
chips and peas. Well, the recipe says they are tuna patties but then again it’s
American and not British. I had made the patties in advance to leave them in
the fridge while we were out, that part worked. As usual, ingredients had to be
modified a little, the
It worked well enough for us, and I would say that if you fancy it give it a go. You could use different varieties of tinned fish or perhaps even make it with real cooked fish, which would maybe taste even better. Our accompaniments were very British, chips and peas! Yummy!
July 28th Today was much like yesterday, Huan had arranged another lesson in the afternoon so a sandal wearing saunter was taken in the morning. Almost immediately we found bugs! This one, according to Google, is “Oxyopes salticus”, or in English a “Striped lynx spider”. This is the first time we have ever seen one of these.
Google wasn’t so clear on this one, it could be “Aegomorphus clavipes”, it could be “Mesosa”, it definitely is a longhorn beetle.
The eagle-eyed zoologist was on form today and spotted this one that I could barely see at all.
Our saunter was a riverside one, and very pleasant it was too.
We walked home via the town square just to see if anything was going on there. It wasn’t, but here’s a photo for you anyway.
Huan had another solo kip after lunch, I decided against it. I was worried that I would sleep too long or that Huan would have to wake me up perhaps making me grumpy. My eyes succeeded in remaining open for the duration and at the appointed time we were at the training ground. Today I was not “on the road again” but off into the woods!
Once through the forest I was back on the main road heading back towards Wuzhishan. Looking up this view reminded me of world maps, although it doesn’t match any particular country.
Pretty soon I was off the road and into the woods again where I followed a track leading upwards. Only having an hour again I had to turn back at this point. I think we will be back exploring these paths when Huan has more time.
Coming back down I spotted some little creatures that I hadn’t seen on my way up. Not being able to get too close and not wanting to alarm them too much I kept my distance and decided you could have a pastiche of piggies, a hodgepodge of hogs, or whatever you’d like to call it!
July 29th Today we had a normal Saturday, just like the ones we used to have. That involved a market walk and shop in the morning to buy the salad makings for our weekend dinners.
We took the camera with us but didn’t find a lot to take photos of. All I managed to find was some pets on sale, quite a few little puppies, many birds and these little creatures. I’m sure you probably know better than me what they are, so I didn’t Google this time.
On our return trip, having seen this guy selling birds earlier, we passed him again and Huan was so taken with the fact that the birds were not in cages that she had to take a picture.
We followed that with a lazy afternoon which included the often obligatory nap with plans to go for stroll after dinner. What a shame, rain stopped play and we had to be lazy yet again!
July 30th Morning, morning. Good morning! Morning, morning. Happy morning! Morning, morning. Shiny morning! Good morning. It’s time to wake up! There’s one for you, see if you can find the singer and the song! Both of us teddy bears were up reasonably early this morning and we set off for a Rendishan road and over the mountain walk.
Passing to the right of the marker stone we headed off into the hills.
Soon we arrived at 番道村 - Fān dào cūn, where we found a cat on a wall.
The cat wouldn’t come anywhere near us of course, and a couple of houses further up the resident dog retreated as high as it could go.
To go over the mountain we first had to go through and up the valley.
That picture shows the easy part, these next two show the hard(est) part.
Now that we know this route very well, within minutes we were over the top and through the trees and approaching the trail. The trail had disappeared!
On this occasion we found a way through, in the future we may have to modify our route somewhat. Here’s the view looking back after I had replaced the bamboo barriers. Previously I had held them up for Huan, she then proceeded not to hold them up for me!
Soon we were down the path and nearing the old tourist place which, from a distance still looks like it would be worth a visit.
Only when you get nearer do you find out that it is actually getting worse.
I lost my leader on the way back to the main road, she had spotted turkeys and veered off to take some phone photos of them.
By the time we reached three legged dog corner, we had covered ten kilometres. I considered that more than enough for Huan and saw her on to a #5 bus. She was secretly pleased.
Stopping for some refreshments myself a little later I spotted this. Unfortunately I have no idea what it was. It was moving quite fast but whether it was an animal or something being carried by other animals such as ants, I really couldn’t say. In this case Google was no help whatsoever only suggesting various marine organisms.
You know what this next one is, and so do I. Mind you, it was a race to try and get a snapshot. It kept looking behind itself and running on ahead of me. Out of the three ‘successful’ shots only this one is worth sharing with you.
My last photo shows two best friends having a giggle.
By the time I reached home I had covered another three and a half kilometres, no further exercise would be needed today. Instead afternoon naps were mandatory and then relaxation.
July 31st Monday’s are how we know what day of the week it is. Not having to work anymore, and not having any real weekends, we know it’s Monday because it is shopping day. Today that day almost turned into fun for Huan. It seems we spent enough for her to have a go at throwing hoops to win something. She aimed for a bottle of wine, for me, the bottles of course were in the furthest rows. Here is the athlete after a tremendous throw which resulted in her hoop hitting the back board at a very fast rate of knots! We didn’t win anything…
Driving lessons were scheduled for today, thanks to my constant nagging, so we headed off to the countryside. The local village was having a wedding party, today and tomorrow, so Donald had to be left at the side of the road.
From the dampness in that photo you may guess that the weather was not up to much today. As opposed to what the computer told us, it was actually cloudy with showers.
With no Yú to accompany Huan, I only had one hour to wander around so I took a stroll down the road, over the Caoban bridge to the weir. Here is a view of said weir from an angle that you have not seen before. If you’re wondering why I didn’t cross it today, it’s because I was wearing shoes and not boots.
Going back on myself, quite a painful experience they say, I saw some clouds between the trees and thought they might make a nice little picture.
On the way out the trees attacked me, grazing my forearm, luckily with no leaky blood. At home Huan asked why there was no photo to include here. The truth is I forgot all about it. Going around in circles at the training ground whiling away the last few minutes waiting for the Commander, two little ducks started waddling down the hill towards me. By the time I got the camera out the chicken had advised them that I was one of them ‘orrible ‘umans!
Meanwhile, just a few yards away, overseeing his realm was Lord Chicken himself.
When the lesson was over, ‘teacher’ needed a lift back to town with us so on the way to the car he had to make a small video where he called me his boss. How little he knows … At the time I thought he was just taking a selfie so I was quite surprised to see a video when I got home. I was able to get a decent screenshot though so here he is, Mr. Teach!
Rain stopped play this evening so that means that there will be no more photographs for today and also that this post will not be late! See you next week with some more retirement ramblings!
PS I got more than 300k this month, in fact, even with lazy days and rainy I got 315.64. Not bad eh?
