August 29th The end of the month is nigh, the Prime
Minister needed to use her bus pass today. I don’t know how the bus passes in
the
The organisers did try and get me tested too but as far as I am concerned, with the hospital tests every few months, and the visa medical every eleven months, I don’t need any additional checks.
Once off the bus we headed off through the countryside and ran into a wee beastie that for some reason we have never seen before. Our initial thoughts were that it was a rabbit but looking at it at home, it could also be a pig. What do you think?
As always, “
And this route is a lovely walk, no traffic sounds, mostly just chickens, dogs and insects.
There aren’t many human produced sounds either, but Huan did find one and had a chat with the young lady doing the work. It surprised Huan that it was a woman and not a man. It shouldn’t have of course; we see lots of women working in the farms and the villages when we’re out.
Before long the little creatures showed themselves, first a beautiful dragonfly.
And next a not fully in focus Red Stink Bug.
Let’s move on to flora next, a car port made from passion fruit and some wild aubergines.
From the ugliness of egg plants to beauty of a butterfly
Although I did find the butterfly it was ‘Eagle Eyes’ who spotted most of today’s critters. That was certainly the case with these next two; I could hardly see them with just my naked eye. The zoom lens was most definitely needed.
I take the credit for the next one though.
I’m also the one who takes credit for all the ‘view’ photos. Huan likes them when she sees them, either in ‘real life’ or on the PC but she rarely asks me to take them.
The last picture above is the final drag towards the Nansheng bus stop. Yes, we were going home by bus. Our walk had been nine kilometres and had we been earlier I would have pushed on to twelve or so. However, the delay at the beginning with Huan’s medical, and the delay with the bus meant a longer walk would have not left any time for my nap. I needed one, Huan didn’t. At least with the walks between the bus and home my target is still safe. That’s just as well because after dinner the heaven’s opened!
August 30th It was me M’Lud, I confess! For some reason I slept until nine this morning so any long walks went straight out of the window. Instead we had what we call a town and river walk. As for photos, well there was only one opportunity but we think he deserves two chances. One because of his tail and two just because.
After lunch it was me alone, Huan stayed home to cook, and also because she didn’t really want to go out again. I was pushing for the distance! Three bugs near the house, the first time we have seen a millipede on a tree although why that should surprise us I don’t really know.
I almost caught a pretty bird in the tree again but I wasn’t quite quick enough off the mark. By the time I pressed the button he had showed me his rear!
Next I thought I would try some artistic flair. Now now, no muttering to each other or sniggering under your breath in the cheap seats!
I did take a few more just to show the commander where I had been but I think I will leave it at that for today for the Blog. No doubt I will be dragged out again this week and directed to take hundreds, nay thousands, more photos!
August 31st Here we are, at the last day of the month again, and off out for a long walk with abus ride home. The route was to be upriver looking for an old fish farm. Let’s start with another lizard, not too clear because of its colour against the stone, and a bee, not too clear because I was having to zoom from a distance and it wouldn’t keep still!
The weather stayed overcast for most of the morning so the walk was pleasant. The path is slowly disappearing at the moment although the final plan calls for walkways all the way from Wuzhishan to Nansheng.
Sods law strikes again. Nearly all these little midges were settled on just one or two leaves until I pointed the camera at them!
Huan took far too many photos of me, mostly from behind, so I think we will skip them. This one is of a young lady trying to pull a branch of a tree up the hill. Her husband is a little further down on the left with another branch.
We’ll allow two of Huan’s photos to be used here, I was going up the hill past a little incense burning kiln. It was on the plan for today, I had seen this before but Huan hadn’t and neither of us had walked up the steps to see what lay beyond.
The top of the path turned out to be a gap in the perimeter of the site of a couple of our desirable residences, empty years ago and still empty today. Anyway, the view this side is fine and we found the owners of the incense kiln.
The first day back at school in
Before long, we were down by the riverside again where we both spotted lizards. Huan eventually saw both, I only ever saw mine.
Ants may not be something you want to see too much of when you are walking in the countryside, especially while wearing shorts, but they can take a good photograph too.
Paths and bridges will need to be built before we can walk all the way to Nansheng on the banks of the river. Here Nansheng is straight ahead and there is a tributary feeding in from the right.
We took the tributary because that is where we needed to climb back up to the road.
This lane has changed considerably since we last walked here, you can now see the highway.
Our last trip up this lane was in August 2018 and what we remembered as a fish pond was now a home and farm. They did not want us to go inside.
We turned and headed back towards town looking for a water stop. Having found one we wandered behind the tourist information centre on the road into town from Sanya. The centre still has someone working inside; but the rear is now completely overgrown.
We’ll finish the day with a grubby motor scooter. You may recognise
a couple of the characters, especially if you watched TV in the
After lunch there seemed to be an unspoken agreement that there would be no naps today. I had slept well enough last night; hopefully today’s walk would see me sleep well tonight. Today’s walk also covered me for this month’s kilometres target.
Dinner was on me, rice pudding for a change, this time cooked on the hob. I used this recipe as a guideline but didn’t follow it too closely. For us, half a cup of rice was enough; I also substituted half a cup of creamy coconut milk for half a cup of dairy milk. I skipped the salt because I was using salted butter. I skipped the sugar, for Huan, and just put some brown sugar in my dish. We both also had dried fruits in our dishes and I had desiccated coconut too. Huan had a tin of dried fruit and nuts that she dipped into, I declined. Both of us enjoyed our versions very much. If you do make it, the most important thing is to keep stirring.
September 1st “A pinch and a punch for the first of the month!” Both of us were
gazing out of the window this morning wondering just what the weather was going
to do. There is typhoon lurking, on its way to Hong Kong and possibly the north
of
Discretion being the better part of valour we stayed close to town and buildings, only exploring locally. Down these steps we went, being very careful not to touch the handrails which were crawling with ants.
I thought I would walk out into the middle of the stream, Huan thought she would photo me on the way back. Here’s her photo first, my two second.
Our next bit of exploration was up the hill from the top road. We knew one road went off to an apartment complex behind the bus station but we didn’t know where the turn-off led to.
We met cows on the way up, one anti-social, the other not so.
The turn-off only led to an electricity sub-station with no “through road”. It did give us a new view of our town though; we had never seen Wuzhishan from this angle.
On our way back along the riverside, we stopped to pass the time of day with a little kitty cat. Huan went crazy with her phone and took far too many photos, but unfortunately, she didn’t get any of the kitty savaging my hair. She said she was too worried and busy trying to get the cat off.
That’s all folks! (For today anyway.)
September 2nd Today was another of those alarming starts, Huan was back to being a learner driver again this morning. I only had an hour to while away, and I was wearing shoes as my boots fell apart this week, so my route was confined to the road.
Back in town we dropped off Donald and went straight for our normal Saturday market wander. For some reason Hun wanted bamboo shoot photos.
Unusually, today was a lucky looking out for leaping lizards day. We found four, all in places where we haven’t seen them before.
I needed a nap after lunch, the learner fought on through the day. Being a weekend, no cooking was involved; we were having the pizza Huan made earlier this week. She does a mean pizza!
September 3rd There I was all prepared to get up at the crack of dawn again when Huan told me that today’s lesson was scheduled for the afternoon. Instead we had a town walk while I looked for some saffron and some white wine. I need both for cooking this week.
So here is a scene from my point of view, hatless and in the sun with no shade. Where is the commander and artistic director? Well she is behind the building you see on the left, walking along a shaded road and with her hat on
I was making a beeline for the trees in the centre of that scene, where I found what I was looking for. Huan did appear out of the shade so she was happy too.
Next it was my turn to walk in the shade, behind the hoarding on the bridge. Huan refused to follow me so she was on the other side of the hoarding, in the sun!
No wine was found but we were lucky for saffron, or were we? We have to buy it from Chinese medicine shops, and quite a few of them said they didn’t have it. The last one, near our house, said they did and so out came our wallets. I thought it was rather cheap, ¥3.50 for 10g. Once home I checked further and think perhaps we bought safflower and not saffron. As far as Chinese medicine goes, they are very similar but saffron is stronger so I think we’ll be fine.
No naps today, we had to be at the training ground for two o’clock. I dropped Huan off and had a short walk to Caoban village. For some reason my camera was showing an info screen after each shot so I spent a while trying to find out why.
Let’s finish off today's photos with a ______ of ducks. The blank is for you to fill in with your own choice, and there are many! https://birdfact.com/articles/what-is-a-group-of-ducks-called These little ones all came to the gate to see me. A couple of them escaped under the gate so I had to run away in the end just in case more made a run for it.
In the afternoon I discovered that we had no curry ‘paste’ in the house so we came back from learning to drive and went shopping. Nothing special was needed for tomorrow so all that was needed was mayonnaise, cheap vin blanc, curry cubes and fruit. Job done with success although we are still missing one ingredient for my Tuesday dish.
September 4th Today’s driving lesson involved the dreadful
alarm again. Still, I suppose music on a phone sounds better than two clanging
bells on top of a clock. Since we moved to
My plan this morning had been to while away an hour but when we got to the training ground Yú changed the plan. I ended up with two hours to waster so I headed down towards Wuzhishan and then came back via the back road through Caoban.
Back on the main road I still had time to waste so I headed towards Changhao. On the way I passed this little track, always closed off before by the big pole you can see on the left. Being open today, I had to go and explore.
The short walk was well worth it, the view at the river was great. Unfortunately, there was still no way to cross here so I had to backtrack to the main road.
Those two hours and my speed, rocket-man today, meant that I covered nine kilometres before Huan’s lesson was over. I did sneak in a quick coffee break too!
Back in town I dragged Huan to the market to buy the missing ingredient for tomorrow’s dinner. I had forgotten to buy an onion yesterday. All we saw on out travels was a little caterpillar, not good enough to share with you wonderful people though.
Much as I wanted a nap after lunch, I had to force myself to stay awake. A nice shower and shave helped. Why did we stay awake? I needed to visit the hospital this afternoon for a repeat prescription; I was due to run out of some medication before Huan comes back from up north this week. Huan tried to get a photo of me paying the bill, all she got was the cashier’s window, my hands and no money. She did however take a snap of me with my spoils. That's me good for another three months.
Back home we popped into the office to tell them that our lift is making peculiar noises. I doubt whether they will manage to sort it out. On the wall outside the office there is a suggestion box, note the condition of the lock!
And so we come to the end of another week in (our) paradise. On Wednesday Huan will be off up north again for another attempt at #2 driving test. On this occasion I think the best thing I can do and/or say is absolutely nothing. I will of course provide the test fee and good luck wishes.
If you want to know how she got on, stay tuned for next week’s episode. Keep your fingers crossed and think positive thoughts for Huan. Until then, au reservoir!
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