September 12th Huan was out of the house before I was out of the bed this morning, I wasn’t late, she was early. Relaxing with my morning coffee and checking the weather I could go out around ten but would have to be back before twelve. It was a good forecast!
When I went out I popped across Little Island to see what new structure had appeared, one that we could see from our house. It turns out there is going to be a tea and coffee place there.
Good news? It may be for some people, but others will not be happy at all. If you look at the second photo, in front of the new building there used to be an outdoor gymnasium set sized for children. Behind the building there used to be the same for adults. Both have disappeared.
Keeping an eye on the weather I quickly made it around the town, buying the things that we didn’t buy yesterday when the lift was out of order.
After lunch, and after I had prepared today’s dinner, I left Her Ladyship sleeping and I went off out again, to buy eggs, (the last remaining item on the shopping list), and to make up some lost kilometres from yesterday. Unfortunately, the weather forecast lied and I ended up soaked again!
The walk was long enough, down and up the main road, to the market and then home, over seven kilometres. However, the rain meant that there was not a great deal to see. All I found for you was one car and one motor scooter. The car stickers had meaning, something that you or I could actually agree with. 请关远光, Qǐng guān yuǎn guāng - Please turn off the high beam. And亮瞎眼, Liàng xiāyǎn - Bright and blind. The scooter was less easy, 台铃, Tái líng - Taiwan Bell (Google) Table Bell (Bing). In fact 台 (Tái) has many more meanings according to MDBG, a Chinese dictionary site. At least the English on the scooter was easy!
Jobs complete it was back home and finish dinner by adding the noodles. Yes today was another noodle day; curry flavoured chicken noodles, yummy.
September 13th The learner had a day off today so gracefully decided to accompany me for a stroll around the river. We were too late for a longer walk, and I only had my sandals on. Huan managed to find a lizard before we had gone too far.
Next it was me with stickers on a car again. The first one appears to be the mirror image of a fake Gucci logo, but I have no idea what the second one is meant to be. Can you help?
At home I spotted something in my shirt. Lots of photos were taken but the only ones that worked were the ones where I had put it out of the window using my flip flop.
Just like yesterday, I sent the boss off for a kip while I went out to increase those kilometres again. I managed to find some more critters for her.
Today was a good day for birds too; I captured two, from a distance of course. The first one was a very lucky shot, that bird was tiny, less than half the size of the second one.
“Love is like a butterfly, As soft and gentle as a sigh, The multicoloured moods of love are like its satin wings, Love makes your heart feel strange inside, It flutters like soft wings in flight, Love is like a butterfly, a rare and gentle thing.” With thanks to Dolly Parton. I got very close to this particular butterfly; in fact it didn’t fly away until I touched it. I did wonder if it was looking at its reflection in the camera lens.
That was the end of my photos for the day. However, we had a delivery from Taobao and Huan had me working to replace the wheels on our little amplifier. I wasn’t happy because the new wheels were not exactly right and I had to do a bit of a botch job. She was happy and took thirty two photos, mostly of my belly!
Today was not a rainy day but my two walks seem to have left me wetter than actually being out in the rain. Checking the weather on the computer, which for some reason has gone back to Chinese again, the humidity is showing 94%! We need more heat to dry me out.
September 14th Lucky me, I had the pleasure of Huan’s company again; ‘teacher’ is still up in Wenchang delivering moon cakes to his family. I gave Huan her choice of route and she chose the Landfill walk, I agreed of course. The first thing we saw was a scene of countryside bliss, lots of chickens and a few ducks frolicking around a stream.
Someone, or something, has been eating mushrooms or a mushroom anyway. I can guarantee that it wasn’t Huan and she didn’t even mention ‘trying’ this one.
Let’s have our first two creatures of the day. Sorry, the photos could have been better.
I might as well stay with critters; this snail caught my attention purely because its ‘foot’ seemed to be so spread out. Maybe it was to enable it to adhere to the surface of the concrete pole?
This next one appears to be a ‘Pill Millipede’ from the family ‘Arthrosphaeridae. Huan knew it from when she was a child, not this exact one of course; she also knew that it would curl itself into a ball if disturbed. It did just that and we ended up chasing it down the hill to try and put it in a safe space before we moved on.
On the way down I found a precarious spot to perch and create a panorama. SWMBO kept telling me to stay away from the edge. It was no good me explaining that I was perfectly safe!
Just to keep her on tenterhooks I found a small path a bit further down and called her back to take my photo. There was no way for me to progress though so I couldn’t wind her up anymore.
Would you believe it, Huan managed to spot yet another lizard. I have no idea how she spots so many more than I do. I can guarantee that it has nothing to do with me scouting for attractive looking female members of the species!
Huan’s plan had worked; we had walked far enough to avoid the need for another walk today for me. Instead, I could have an afternoon nap too, and boy, did I enjoy it!
I had talked myself into cooking again today, that will be three times this week, not counting the weekend. Huan had said something about feeling tired so I told her she needed more iron in her diet. Rightly or wrongly I suggested liver and I ended up cooking it. It was cut into small pieces and fried with onion, garlic, scallion, long green pepper, all diced up. When almost done I added some processed peas, just for my British palate! Mine was served on a bed of mashed potato, Huan’s, shown below, was served in a well of the same mash.
September 15th Back to school for the student, so an early start for me. I walked to where they do their road lessons, didn’t see them though; they were ‘up the top end’.
Seeing how overcast the sky was I decided to head upriver, along the road. That is normally a very hot walk requiring the wearing of hats. Needless to say, mine was at home. I’m not really fond of hats but sometimes I give in to the boss’s wishes.
That last photo shows where we could cross until the recent advent of the rainy season. The next two photos show where we cross now, the first looking upriver and the second downriver, back the way I came. This is between seven eight kilometres into today’s walk.
Huan usually carries a bottle of water with her when we walk; I just keep my eyes open for oases. They usually look something like this! This one was just over the ten kilometre mark and it seemed like a good place to stop for a cold coffee and a sneaky fag. Sshhhh! Don’t tell Huan!
On the way home I took a detour to buy the weekend’s lunch makings, we will be busy tomorrow with television visitors. I took the opportunity to stock up with cold drinks for them too, just in case they need refreshments a la chez nous.
By the time I eventually reached home I had covered fifteen kilometres at an average rate of 13 minutes per kilometre. I don’t think that’s too bad for an oldie! Mind you, I definitely needed a nice afternoon nap later.
I was the duty chef again but it was only noodles with meatballs. They were shop bought meatballs so very highly processed, I will have to get Her Ladyship to prepare and freeze a few hundred for future dinners; they would taste much better.
After dinner the Minister of Home Affairs had me working again. There were no little creatures for you to see today but there was one big one, a very sweaty one at that. Why is it I always end up in strange positions whenever I have to do any work in the house?
All that was left after that was the preparation of the weekend’s salad, we have no idea how busy we will be or when, or even if, we will have time tomorrow. It was good to get it all finished and relax for the last bit of the evening.
September 16th Fame again! We
had visitors from ‘up north’ this morning, they wanted to have a chat cum
interview with us about how we ended up here in Wuzhishan and our views on
The ladies arrived with two Canon cameras, one Sony and one Fuji
Instax, (I think that’s what it is called). They also had two tripods, cue a
short English lesson on where words come from! The
Huan managed to use my camera and take one of me and the lovely ladies.
And finally, when everything was done, and I had bored everyone with looking at photos on my computer, they made a small video, which I thought was just a ‘timed’ photograph. They kindly sent me the video and a couple of screenshots.
Keep an eye on the Youtube channel, I will either upload this alone or tag it onto the end of the video made from the day’s interview. We’ll have to wait and see.
After they had all left and we’d finished our lunch Huan needed a nap. I went out for a stroll. In less than two kilometres I was beginning to wish I had stayed in as well, I was feeling exhausted too. Still, I had to persevere and luck was with me, I was able to find our friendly lizard.
At the end of seven kilometres that was my day finished. Dinner was already prepared and in the fridge so no more work for me today. Instead I binge watched Die Hard, or the first three anyway.
September 17th Last night our visitors had asked if they could walk with us this
morning. I explained that it would be only me, Huan had a driving lesson. After
an unsure start due to the weather, both forecast and happening, we eventually
got on the way shortly before nine. The route chosen was through Luobote
village to keep it short enough for the ladies, they were off back to
Unfortunately there was no sign of the children who often run up shouting my name. On the plus side, the cows were there and came to the gate for a chat and a tickle. I don’t have photos of that but I think there may well be a video somewhere.
Being mere youngsters all of the ladies probably had much better eyesight than I do. Here is Zhou pointing out a lizard for me and then the resultant photograph from me. The lizard is very much to the right of the frame because its tail disappears on the left!
Being young girls and all carrying cameras when we came to a reflective window they all had to take photos. I joined in but cut myself out of the frame just for you!
We did manage to see Huan’s turkeys, a few dogs, some piglets, lots of chickens and ducks and even the goats in a cage. We also managed to avoid the rain; that came in the afternoon after lunch. The walk turned out to be eight kilometres for me, probably six and a half for the girls. I’ll bet they were surprised they had walked so far. Here they all are ready to go and find lunch before heading back up north.
My plan had been to go out for another walk after dinner, but after my nap I felt too lazy and just finished the Die Hard movies. Tomorrow is another day!
September 18th Tomorrow arrived and became today, normally a shopping day. Huan had a lesson this morning and we still had enough of everything in the fridge so shopping was postponed until the next tomorrow! The weather didn’t fail me this morning and I was out before half past eight. The first subject I found was a dragonfly that appeared to have done a nosedive straight into the concrete. How it got into this position I guess we’ll never know but the ants were certainly enjoying their ‘manna from heaven’.
The ongoing struggle to capture birds continues.
Next up a couple of views over a stream; the one that runs in front of the empty villas with no property deeds. It would not be a bad place to live.
Now normally when I show you ‘car art’ it is a sticker or two only. This car had one on the bonnet, a beautiful one on the driver’s door, one on the rear door and another on the hatchback door. We can’t be bothered to translate all of these so feel free to have a go yourselves!
Along the route I found the ladies but my timing was wrong to catch Huan in the driving seat. Hear she is giving me a (regal?) wave from the back seat.
From a dead dive-bomber to a beauty that is still flying.
My penultimate snap comes from my ‘loo’ break, a tiny baby in the corner of the room.
And finally, a large smiling frog Maybe he is smiling because he is not in the pot. All his relatives are though, this is a new ‘frog’ restaurant just opened not far from our house.
Twelve kilometres were covered this morning, another lovely nap was taken after lunch and then we stayed in and did nothing. It’s just as well we did that because late in the afternoon the heavens opened. It is still raining now although not so heavily as I finish this post. Mind you, I can’t upload it yet; we lost our internet along with perhaps a thousand other households during the storm. Hopefully it will return before tomorrow.
Luck is on our side, the internet has returned at precisely 21:40. See you all next week, bye for now!
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