August 22nd With some trepidation, on my part, we headed to the dentist’s this morning. For trepidation you can just read ‘fear’. The first part was easy, another x-ray because it was a long time since my last visit and because of the symptoms I described. Here I am having a little bit of fun ‘driving’ before I was fully connected and the machine was switched on.
Extraction was the decision, which I didn’t argue with, although I was not too happy about the injection I was being given here.
That anaesthetic, in a small disposable syringe, turned out to be not enough so out came the heavy guns, almost industrial in their size! Both ‘empties’ are shown here.
When the dentist decided I was
numb enough, he went to work. As far as I was concerned I was nowhere near numb
enough and as he tugged the pain made me want to leap out of the chair. I don’t
know if I’ve told you before but in
The bad news is that I will have to have a bridging crown fitted to cover the crater left by that tooth. The good news is that, to allow the crater to heal enough for further dental work to take place, I don’t have to return to the dentist for a month.
With only having the tooth taken out we still had plenty of time for a morning walk, even if I did have a mouthful of cotton wool. Our first subject was this car, which has “LOTSO’ 莓烦恼, Méi fánnǎo - raspberry trouble” The fruit looks like a strawberry and Méi by itself just seems to mean berry so it’s anyone’s guess.
The driver’s door had something else on it; I didn’t take a photo because the driver was sat there. Searching Google at home it turned out to be the logo of the band “My Chemical Romance”. Do these two sides of the car go together in anyway? For me there is no connection at all.
Walking along the river road we spotted two of our four legged friends indoors. Instead of opening the door and letting them out we cracked the door just enough to go in. It very much appears that Huan has a new friend. Chatting to the owner she told us that they are two very different personalities. If they go out in the car, when they stop the light brown one will not leave the car until the owner gets out and opens the door for him. The other meanwhile will already be out and chomping at the bit.
Arriving home after seven kilometres my face was quite painful, and it still was when we went for our OAP nap. However, sitting here now writing this I feel much better. Less anaesthetic does have its benefits.
Dinner was down to me today, I had found some cheap sauerkraut in a last week so I was going to serve that up with some fried pork. To add some colour is used some cherry tomatoes and a few processed peas; you can’t see the peas very well. It may not be a recommended way of serving sauerkraut but the tomatoes went with it very well. This plate is Huan’s.
August 23rd Does having a tooth out make you tired? I think I slept well enough last night but I had no particular desire to get out of bed this morning. Someone had sneaked in last night and super-glued me to the bed! Old bodies do have other needs though, exercise being one of them, so I eventually crawled out and joined Huan for a walk. Today’s destination was Luobote village and its surroundings. First Huan had to buy her lottery tickets, while she was doing that I found this car. I think I know what they mean but I have no idea why there is a shady character with a hoodie. 你拼命挣钱的样子, 虽然有些狼狈, 但是你自己靠自己的样子, 真的很美. Nǐ pīnmìng zhèng qián de yàngzi, suīrán yǒuxiē lángbèi, dànshì nǐ zìjǐ kào zìjǐ de yàngzi, zhēn de hěn měi - You look like you're trying to make money, Although a bit embarrassing, but you look on your own, really beautiful.
I was experimenting a little with some of my photos today to see if I could manage with the longest zoom only. My reasons were the possibility in the future of buying a longer reach zoom lens. Some of them though start where mine ends. Luobote village came out all right but on the whole I still need a wider aperture.
Huan found me a beautiful dragonfly and then she thought I was taking a photo of a leaf. It’s not of course, it’s a butterfly.
My friendly cows were not so friendly today; in fact they were downright lazy. I’ll have to get the RSM to sort them out.
A common or garden earthworm graces our pages next. It was in the middle of the track so I thought I would move it to the side out of the way of random motorbikes. It began to thrash around quite vigorously and I noticed the white extrusion. Is it an extrusion, or is it an intrusion? Google image didn’t come up with much at all except possibly a flesh fly larva. Anyway, photo over; I was able to move it to the side.
Another scenery photo now, taken because I forgot to take one a couple of hundred metres before. We asked the farmer where his fish ponds had gone and his reply was betel nut trees make him more money. This is looking back his way, he is downhill and round the bend!
Let’s have another fly boy and then a dining table for the boys that cluck more than fly.
Next I came upon a cage full of poultry, none of whom would come and say hello. They were all far too busy, just like this one.
Back to the village and a view from the other side.
Very close to this point we found a craftsman taking apart an old table. The second picture shows why it is such a difficult job. The two halves were glued together with rather long steel pins in the middle. Rather him than me!
Next we want you to tell us whether this is nature or nurture. Why are these dragon fruit plants happily growing on betel nut trees?
Goats come up next and Huan wanted me to get close to them. There was a small problem though, two rather large mounds of droppings in front of the cage. I had to lean on the ramp.
Huan then provided me with a pre-packed lunch for them; all three you can see in this next photo turned their noses up at it. I guess they don’t like all greens.
This next photo I am quite proud of. I spotted this bird on the floor in front of me; Huan had not seen it and didn’t know what I was doing. It flew into the trees nearby and, very unusually, I was able to keep it in my sights. Huan was both surprised and delighted.
I think that’s enough snaps for the morning. It had been a slow walk, nearly twenty minutes per kilometre, and I still felt rough. After lunch I decided to forego my nap though and go out again. Huan didn’t go with me, she was happy to stay at home. Around the town I went and came back via the river. I did have a rest at three kilometres.
Huan thinks the bird is a baby egret so maybe they are on their way back for the winter. That means the ‘snowbirds’ should be returning soon too. I wonder where this fellow spends his summers and winters. Do you recognise him?
Yet another car with words of wisdom. 擅长急煞, 酷爱熄火. Shàncháng jí shā kù'ài xīhuǒ - good at rushing, love flameout. I have absolutely no idea who, or what, the character is!
Somewhere after this my fitness app hiccoughed on me once again and told me that I had completed eleven kilometres in one hour and twelve minutes! All I can think is that I put my phone back in my pocket without locking the screen.
Almost home and I came across a man pointing his camera up into the trees so I stopped by his side. When he pointed I could see nothing for leaves so he suggested I move to his other side. He was filming two squirrels running round and round the tree seemingly having loads of fun. I took what photos I could but in retrospect, maybe I should have taken a video too.
Arriving home I felt a lot better than I had earlier. In fact the more I walked this afternoon the better I felt. There was still no real speed, around fourteen minutes per kilometres and I am still not on target for this month but not to worry, it will do.
August 24th Yet again we were late getting up, or at least I was. My batteries must be running down! I wonder how they can be recharged. Because we were late a round the river walk was the choice, and at the beginning we found, “wait for it”, cows.
To our surprise they have started beautifying the side of the river behind the old army barracks. It will be nice to one day walk in that area. However, sometimes beautifying for people can change things for other living things. On the corner in this view there used to be a lot of trees, people could not walk there at all, and every winter egrets would nest there.
When we walk the director is never happy unless she finds things for me to take pictures of. I’m happy just to walk, and if the opportunity arises so be it. I don’t usually search for the opportunities though, I have no need to. Huan did find the first lizard today, I tried using aperture control and manual focus instead of intelligent automatic, whether or not it worked I am not really sure. I found the second one, manual focus was absolutely necessary for that.
While I was a couple of trees further on snapping another lizard, Huan was busy with her phone and a butterfly. She did quite well!
And this is what I was doing.
Today was a good day for squamate reptiles, here is yet another one.
Huan had another go with her phone to catch a squirrel that I had given up on. She is getting better, maybe time to let her take over camera duties?
By the time we arrived home we had covered ten kilometres, Huan thought that was enough for the day. I told her I still needed more but that I would go after dinner. Naps were the order of the day after lunch. For the duty chef, me, life was easy. I took a quiche out of the freezer yesterday, heated up today and we had it with the leftover processed peas. Lovely! Now Huan does not have to cook tomorrow, there is still enough quiche in the dish!
Laziness almost set in but I did get myself out after dinner. I started off by going through our upper crust neighbourhood, the villas where we live. Now my roots are both English and Welsh so I read a lot of news from both. Often I read about the problems of ‘second homes’ and the effects they have. Here is a sample of some of our second homes!
Probably three quarters, maybe more, are like the first three photos. I would be happy with the first one; the garage is actually on the right and underneath the house. The owner of the fourth one bought two or three villas, knocked one down and joined what was left. It’s been like that for a year or more now. We’ll just dream on, no money and legally we can’t buy anyway!
To make up my kilometre shortage I went shopping, bought some baked beans for tomorrow’s quiche and some more sauerkraut. We are going to have it the Chinese way over the weekend, in a stew. I will cook but Huan will teach and assist.
August 25th Success! We
managed to be out early enough to take a long walk up towards
Huan was delighted to find a lizard, a rare occurrence on this road. This was a tiny one.
Somewhere around the five kilometre mark, (+/-), we turned off to look for the track that we knew should take us into the countryside and down the back way to the village of Zahao.
Sometimes Huan is not sure that we are proceeding as per plan but she realised it was the right place when she saw this. The first time we ever walked here we could easily cross from either side to the structure in the middle. Today the whole lot looks far too rickety.
Sometimes, in fact a lot of the time, I consider myself very lucky. It’s not every wife who would be happy traipsing through the woods with her crazy husband.
And here she is again when we found the way across. We did need a farmer’s help to find this place though, he was not happy about us trying to go through his farm and disturbing his dogs.
By now Huan knew that I hadn’t gotten us lost!
Atuoling is Atuo ridge, somewhere above us I suppose. Here you can see the valley looking towards Wuzhishan and home.
I do believe that Huan was on the cusp of thinking we were lost again, but I knew this track and after a few minutes so did she. She ran round me to get me crossing the stream.
Of course I had to play up to the camera.
The stream itself was beautiful.
Back in town we spotted a drone flying up and down the road. Whether or not the ‘pilot’ was working or having fun we are not sure, but he was checking on the progress of road re-surfacing. It’s interesting watching the machines in action. There is a video on my Youtube channel.
Our last photo of the day is another beautiful insect, a caterpillar in my favourite colour. If you want to buy me a new car, remember that, it’s yellow!
After lunch we both needed a kip, we had walked just over twelve kilometres this morning. That wasn’t enough for Huan though, she dragged me out again this afternoon to be her bodyguard. (I know, hahahahahaha!) She was visiting banks to sort out her investments and telephone companies to pay the internet for our apartment in Ledong. We added another seven and a quarter, I guess we will sleep well tonight.
August 26th It didn’t work, neither of us slept very well! Saturday today, and the market was back, but there wasn’t a great deal to photograph.
Our annual car show was back after three years or so, but it wasn’t at the riverside, instead it was in a tent in the town square.
As you can see from the above photo, the space is not very big and overall there was nothing that stood out too much. I did like this one though, a competitor for the Taycan.
Being an old British guy, I also have a soft spot for Minis, so I took some snaps of a Mini Cooper, almost British Racing Green but with yellow mirrors.
You may just notice the future Minister of Transport in two of those pictures, taking an interest in the proceedings. You may also ask why, especially as when I have dragged her to see cars before she has always seemed bored out of her mind. It would appear that, due to her driving lessons, her little fingers have been busy on her phone. Many Chinese people, in particular the older generation, have this belief that foreign cars are much better than Chinese cars. They also believe that foreign cars use less fuel. With us being on our third Chinese car, and not having had any problems, you would imagine that Huan is immune to what she sees on her phone. I only wish that was true! At the moment it is not a problem, we will not be in the market for a new car for years, unless our lottery numbers come up that is.
Our walk was nice and relaxing today so we kept to that theme. I had planned an evening walk but as I am back on target I decided to relax too. It was good!
August 27th Sunday comes but once a week and normally it is a long walk day. Today, at around half past eight, we were both watching the rain coming down thinking we would have to have a lazy morning again. Neither the computer not the phones forecast rain so it was a little odd. Even odder, the rain stopped not long after nine and the skies cleared so off we went. Flat countryside was our plan, across the river and towards Yari. From above we watched a whole procession of ducks, geese and chickens following their ‘Dad’.
As we reached Panmaocun, (may be Fanmaocun), we noticed the gates to the Li visitor centre were open so we popped in for a quick visit.
Huan had the time of her life, trying all sorts of different instruments, here’s one of them. As for me, Huan would have you think I was shouting at her. However, looking at my eyes I think I was telling our guide that Huan was just a little bit crazy!
We took far too many photos so we’ll share just a few here. Let’s start with an assortment of instruments, Huan tried a few.
We’ll follow that with some lovely bags, some beautiful dolls and some arty scarves.
And then we are back to Huan making music.
The next room was full of old things, even before I got in there, very interesting.
Unlike many museums, we could pick up and feel things here. We were careful of course. The next room was a studio complete with a full mirrored wall.
Eventually I managed to drag Huan out of there and we resumed our walk. I was beginning to think she wanted to spend the rest of her day there. I wanted to find creatures and scenery.
The next one was not an easy snap, the caterpillar was under a leaf which meant I had to bend down, on an incline, with nothing to support me while trying to find the caterpillar through the viewfinder. Why didn’t I use the flip out screen from a more advantageous position? It’s broken!
Huan spotted this next one and then took many photos of me trying to get close to it. Only one of her photos showed the lizard in the shot, I did actually get closer as you can see.
This particular walk is quite nice, especially on days where the sun is prone to disappearing. On very hot days we tend to avoid it, today was good.
Our plan didn’t include any ‘off-road’ paths today but some dummy, who shall remain nameless, but it wasn’t SWMBO, decided he could find a short cut.
Needless to say it was an error of judgement on my behalf and we had to backtrack. Huan went back exactly the way we had come, I went through the rice fields trying to balance on one of the ridges between fields. There is a video on our Youtube, at least I didn’t fall in!
Let’s have some creatures now, it’s certainly been a week for them.
The last one needed shooing off the road before approaching motorbikes had the opportunity of squashing it. Mind you, we have never seen flat lizards, only snakes, frogs and rats, with the occasional chicken and the even rarer dog or cat.
Leaving the countryside and heading back towards the main road we took a look back.
And I think, as we are now up to eighty seven photos I had better stop for today.
August 28th Monday’s back and so is shopping with the usual bickering over the list. Not to worry, everything we needed was bought. After lunch I decided no nap for me because I had yet again slept very badly last night. Huan thought that if I wasn’t going to have a nap then she wouldn’t either. I planned to go out for a short walk. Huan did not agree to go with me! She did give me explicit instructions though on how far I should walk.
Knowing that we had a lot of photos for this week I wasn’t really looking this afternoon although I did have the camera with me. First I will show you two sides of a car, only because the lady is in a different pose on each side. We have no idea what the Japanese characters mean but this the last five Chinese ones 異世界生活, Yì shìjiè shēnghuó - life in another world.
It was a very quiet walk today but I wasn’t complaining, it made a nice change.
