A Duo Of Dentists & A Flurry of Faggots!

October 10^th For a change today was a shopping day but I still managed a walk after lunch. Huan went for a nap, I could quite easily have nodded off too, but I decided some exercise was needed. Off I went down the road to somewhere, as you can see it was very busy.

Turning left further down I went behind Luobote village where they are building a new road. As you can see, the views are amazing.

I even managed to find a lizard and a dragonfly to show the director on my return.

Now here’s a covered moped where the owner doesn’t seem quite sure how he wants to decorate it. I suppose the only thing missing is birds.

Birds weren’t missing for me though, today I got four. You may say that I cheated because none of them were actually wild birds.

Arriving home I called Huan to join me and we took Donald to the hospital. His roof lining is falling down. The repair will cost approximately eighty quid, strangely Huan accepted almost immediately. It seems that now she is almost a driver, Donald is worthy of more money being spent on him. I wonder how long it will be before he becomes Huan’s car.

October 11^th Good Day Sunshine! (Name that tune and that band.)

My smile belied my feelings. We were on the way to the dentist when we saw this ‘frame’. Now that Huan’s lessons are over it was time to go back for the next stage of my torture. Here I am after being a baby and asking for anaesthetic and here’s the needle too.

Once my wallet had been drained, ¥1.500.00, we were able to fit in a walk before lunch. We both decided that it was time I went up in the world.

As luck would have it, or lack of luck, we didn’t have the camera with us today because of the dentist visit, and would you believe it, we found two squirrels. They were too small and just a little too far to get any decent snaps with our phones but we probably could have got a decent photo with the camera. Instead we have for you a big cat!

And that was our walk. In the afternoon we had the usual nap, after a couple of painkillers for me, my jaw was killing me. No rest for the wicked though, I was duty chef again and I had decided to do faggots and peas for the boss.

I used the first recipe, halving all the quantities. It still made too much, we will be having half of what I made in our noodles on Thursday. We had no ‘caul’ but that was optional anyway. Our oven sometimes plays up and it decided to do just that today. For some reason it switched itself off before cooking was finished. After restarting it and allowing a few minutes extra the result was not quite as it should have been, it was a little dry on the outside. However, it tasted pretty good, better than the shop bought faggots we have had before. Huan couldn’t even remember them; it has been over sixteen years! I have no idea if the second recipe is better or worse, but we can both vouch for the first one. We had it with rice instead of mashed potatoes, and I added some carrots for a dash of extra colour.

Instead of relaxing after dinner we had to go out and pay the ransom to get Donald back, his new roof lining was all done. We did skip the evening walk though.

October 12^th If Huan had suggested staying in and being couch potatoes this morning, I very much doubt that I would have argued with her. Luckily she didn’t, instead she suggested a walk around the town and river, just in case the overcast skies became something else. First we had a look at a short cut we used to take, not possible anymore.

“Look at those birds” said Huan, which roughly translated means “Please point your camera at those birds that are too far away and take some photos of them”. I tried…

Life wouldn’t be the same without some signs now and then. We like seeing them and hopefully you do too. Some need translating, some don’t. This one is one of the latter. “So why is it here?” you ask. Well, it is a sign reminding you that helmets should be worn when riding motor bikes but it is located in the middle of the grass in a small children’s park.

This one however does need translating; this was on the back of a car. 让让我巴, 女司机, Ràng ràng wǒ bā, nǚ sījī - Let me win, female driver.

Here’s one I showed Huan, a secret garden. You’d never know it was there, not unless like me you had poked your lens through the gate before.

We have a shop that we pass regularly where one of the birds chirps to the tune of ‘Jingle Bells’. Today the owner had a different bird and he offered it my hand to perch on. I couldn’t get Huan to repeat after so that I could use the camera though. This is from her phone, cropped.

Passing by the sausage shop we looked for signs of our local lizard without much success to start with. The trees were quite bare. However, eagle eyes spotted one hiding from us!

And finally for today, it has been many years since I have had to put studs in the bottom of my boots. That was back in my army days, Google ‘Ammo boots with studs”. Today my sandals managed to pick up a “Phillips stud”; I couldn’t remove it until I got home to my toolbox.

One thing we both noticed while we were out today was the sheer number of people yawning. Could it be the weather? We needed an afternoon nap after lunch too!

October 13th We woke up to a fairly miserable day today but as we had no plans to go far we weren’t too worried. Instead, the dentist had plans for us, or for me anyway. I had to return to have the nerve killing medicine replaced this morning. Huan took more pictures because my dentist today was a different one; he was the brother of the other one, who was on a day off.

Walking back along the main street we were admiring our versions of Banksy, well not really the same because ours is very official. The scaffolding is down now and the street wasn’t too busy so I thought I would try and create a panorama. I failed, but you can see a couple of the photos. They certainly brighten up a street of closed shops. I prefer the ground floor art where each window is an actual scene; some may prefer the first floor.

At home, while Huan was having a little gossip, I was having a little chat with a pussy cat. I think he was wondering why his tail was moving by itself. I may have to move in with the old lady that lives there, she has quite a lot of cats staying now.

While we were out we bought some new noodle bowls, we had decided that the ones we were using were really too big, too deep and too heavy. Huan complained that we never got a photo of either of us selecting the new bowls, so here you are!

I think the new bowls may still be a trifle on the large side but I have to admit they are more suitable than the old ones. Today it was my turn to make the noodle soup. If you had ever told me in the past that one day I would make noodle soup using left over home made faggots I would not have believed a word. However, that’s what we had, noodles, spring onions, carrots, watermelon radish, green bell pepper, Bob’s special tomato paste, poured over the already cooked faggots. Did you know that watermelon radishes make your noodles go pink? Sorry, no photos, again!

October 14^th Market day, and not a lot of photographs to show for it. We went via the newly named Lizard market to find some Xinjiang bread before deciding what our weekend salad would be. The market entrance had a lizard, not on a tree but hiding in the greenery. We found him though and managed to get a decent snap.

The place we were going to had the right bread so we decided we would have a cheese salad, Greek for Huan and Blue for me. Our new bowls would also suffice as individual salad bowls. Back through the market we went leisurely looking for the salad ingredients. Because we had bread, no potatoes would be needed, even less cooking!

We were so lazy that we took no more photographs, stayed in for the rest of the day, and even ate our wonderful salads without sharing any pics. Everyone knows what a salad looks like!

October 15^th Many days I wake up wondering where my brain digs up its ideas for my dreams, today was no exception. Often, I have no great desire to leave my dreams and wake up, today was again no exception. However, I forced myself awake otherwise we would not have been able to have a nice long walk. I took Huan behind Luobote village, where I had been on Tuesday, but instead of turning back we went straight on. Our first photo was someone who remembers me, even after months of not passing his house.

Carrying on we went through the leafy lanes, a nice place to walk, before coming out into another little village with its associated fields.

As we were walking down that last road I had been wondering out loud, to Huan of course, whether or not Lizards frequented rice paddies. We have never seen one in the fields at all but logic told me they must be there, there are insects after all. As we turned the bend you can see in the road, I almost fell over myself, there in the field was a little lizard!

Soon we turned off the road and headed towards the old medicine factory, somewhere we have not been for quite some time. Would you believe it, Huan found another lizard up in a tree. No, Huan wasn’t up a tree, the lizard was. Pay attention!

The medicine factory was even more abandoned than it had been previously. This time there were no people, no odd smells and not a single piece of factory equipment in sight. Even the old boilers had disappeared.

Out of the factory and on the way to the river, yet another lizard appeared, and froze for a while.

The river looks a lot different these days. Previously there had been a concrete ford downriver to allow vehicular access to local villages across the river. That has been superseded by an actual road bridge and sluice gates have been installed just beyond that. Now the water is much deeper.

Here’s the view upriver and some of the ‘new’ fishing boats.

Could you live here? I think I could but I would be a little worried about things that can bite me or eat me, snakes and leeches in particular. There are a couple of prime properties though.

Unfortunately we couldn’t follow the riverbank down any further so we had to make our way back uphill. That did give us this photo-opportunity though, downriver, the new bridge, and in the distance the highway.

Getting back to somewhere that we could safely walk was not so easy. Quite a few times we had to fight our way around steep slopes, ant covered trees and small streams.

Eventually we found our way back to the other side of the medicine factory, the side before the entrance. Having stopped in the little village for water Huan insisted that we have photographs of the rabbit and the cat. We do, but neither of them is very good. SWMBO disturbed me too much when I was trying to photograph one of the rabbits, and I have no idea where my cat picture went. This one is Huan’s. PS The rabbit is not hiding from me!

No sooner had we set off from the little alley with the rabbits and cat than Huan managed yet again to find a lizard. This was another one in a precarious position but I managed a couple of shots, hopefully this one will meet your standards.

On our way back through Luobote village Huan stopped for a chat. This lady was making brooms which she will then sell. She was very happy to have her photograph taken.

Instead of going home by the road to somewhere, we decided to pass the goats. Why they always seem to be in the cage we have no idea. They do all look healthy enough though. Outside the cage the chickens seem to like eating goat poop, inside one seemed to fancy my camera.

‘Squirrel Road’, as we call the shortcut behind the school, is closed off these days. The builders are busy there and we don’t really know if that route will ever reopen. Today we decided to walk of the footpath across the river from our apartment thus approaching ‘Little Island’ from the other direction. It started off well.

Unfortunately it quickly became much more difficult. We kept pushing on thinking that it must be quicker than retracing our steps. Sometimes the path was invisible, sometimes I lost Huan but she always turned up again.

I was leading Huan through the undergrowth making as much noise with my feet as I could, and fairly motoring to avoid any nasties. I may have made it easier for Huan although I somehow doubt it, but the end results were not so good for me, check my left leg.

So why am I standing in the bath to show you my leg, while still fully clothed? To make sure all the ants and other creatures that I had picked up today didn’t take up residence in our humble abode the plan was to have a shower while getting undressed.

Huan was using the camera so you only have photographs, if she had been using her phone you may well have got a stripper video. Think yourselves lucky!

October 16^th Winter arrived early! Of course for you normal mortals, winter is nowhere near but for those of us who like shorts and flip-flops it’s not the same. First of all Huan had to get up in the middle of the night to find a blanket, only for her side I hasten to add. Then, when it was time to go shopping it was long trousers, a long sleeved shirt and a vest for me. The omens are not good, am I going to have to use the fan heaters again this year. PS I won’t mention the actual temperature, because the number says that we should still be feeling warm!

Each week’s shopping starts with a list; usually my part of the list comes from recipe browsing, checking the cupboard or just flashes from my brain cell. My plan was to make ‘Funges’ this week, something I have done before and have more than likely shared with you. Those plans had to be changed because the mushroom stall had none of the right mushrooms. Ah well, the drop in temperatures gave me the idea of a nice stew for tomorrow. Huan said the temperature will go back to normal on Wednesday.

Being such a miserable day we didn’t go walking anywhere, from the supermarket we went to the real market and to our astonishment actually got a parking space. Normally I have to drop Huan off and rive round and round three or four times. I managed to snap these photos with an absence of traffic, as you can see, no spaces anywhere.

Many of these vehicles belong, we assume, to stallholders in the market. That is what makes it so difficult to find a space. Donald was lucky this morning and slid into an empty slot just yards away from the side entrance of the market.

And that dear reader is the end of our week. Huan spent the day on her phone and with the TV while I did some more binge watching. I found an American TV series called Chuck, never heard of it before, but it it’s not bad, good family entertainment.

We’ll see you again next week, hopefully sans vest and back in shorts! Bye for now.