A Panoply of Piccies!

January 16^th First I forgot to tell you yesterday what the new ‘binge’ is. Something called “The Little Drummer Girl”. I am actually going through Bill Nighy’s filmography, in the Wikipedia page for this series; he is not mentioned at all although he does have a part.

This morning I was awake at the crack of dawn! Actually I had cheated, I took my phone to the bedroom with an alarm set to make sure I was up early enough if wanted a long walk. As it was, the nurse’s school PA system woke me up. A ‘kindergarten side’ country walk was decided on coming home by bus if necessary. On the way we passed hordes of snowbirds, this is one group.

Off to the river we went and over the bridge where I found another tourist poster.

“Have we been down here before?” “Don’t think so.” “Off we go then!”

The path ended at a field with no visible way of getting to the other side.

We found a way to go down where I went first. Huan took fifty, yes exactly fifty, photos of me going down. Unfortunately I was too far away and not centre frame enough so it wasn’t possible to make a gif. These were the only photos where my face was visible or almost so.

For Huan’s descent I took a short video of the last part of it. Lara Croft she isn’t but she probably did far better than I had. https://youtu.be/1AqTsNxBLrI Eventually, by following an irrigation canal, we found a chicken farm.

The farm turned out to have piglets as well although how the farmer would get them to market I have no idea. There was no sign of any access route for any wheeled vehicles at all.

One way after the farm we ran into problems again.

Huan took too many photos of me returning from another dead end.

The other side of the farm I ran into more ‘no through ways’.

We found that the irrigation channel went in another direction so we followed than and found our way out. Just before getting out we found some string beans. As a child I never knew the difference between string beans and runner beans, not so sure I do now either!

We passed, as we always do, the flower houses full of plants, here’s a panorama of one for you. Huan thinks that they may be growing plants for Chinese medicine inside. I have no idea.

This was one of the sunnier parts of the walk, giving me a nice glowing forehead.

We saw no lizards today but along this little stretch we found all these insects. Full marks if you know what they all are; we don’t. Obviously the first is a grasshopper, or maybe a cricket or even a locust. The second one seems to be some kind of beetle. The third one is a spider that weaves great big “X marks the spot” in the middle of his web. The fourth one is a rusty dragonfly.

Something was going on in the village; on the way out we found out that someone had died I have deleted my photos of the cooking pots and hanging beef. Here the locals are telling me that jackfruit tastes good and I am disagreeing with them. Mind you, I am agreeing with them that coconuts taste good.

The little village shop was still open. Don’t you sometimes wish you were a cat?

There was also a bird which I took some terrible photos of. Huan took more so I made a collage of hers for you. This one didn’t want to perch on any fingers although I suspect if we had stayed there long enough that might have changed.

Far too many photos were taken today so collages keep coming I’m afraid. This one is after the village heading towards Nansheng.

We weren’t going to Nansheng of course; it was too near lunch time. Instead we turned right and went over the bridge back towards Wuzhishan.

Drat! She found me. I had taken a right turn before the end of the bridge, down into the little village that’s there. Huan often asks to walk through this village, I usually refuse. Today I thought it was time I gave in to those requests.

Going into the village we found our only car decal of the day.

Part of the village reminded me a little of the UK. At home I had to Google UK allotments to show Huan what I meant. The village bosses, be they government or party, do a grand job.

Back on the main road, right in front of the village, was a place to have lunch. Taking the bus home at that time would have meant we would have been too late. Here are our lunches, can you do the usual and tell whose is whose.

On our way home, walking to start with, we spotted one of our old desirable residences. After all these years it is still empty, such a shame.

When we had completed twelve kilometres we found a bus stop and waited, not too long. Mind you, Huan always think that we have to wait far too long. Back home we got off at Baijiahui and walked another kilometre and a bit home. Fit aren’t we? On the way we stopped for a chat with this little dog which seemed very pleased to see me. It didn’t belong to the people where we sat, they were hoping that the owners would come and get it. The lady suggested we take it home with us. Even if Huan was amenable to pets I still wouldn’t do that.

Just before the house we found a squirrel. Most of the photos were terrible; squirrels are so small and they move so fast. He is there if you look closely. Remember, click to enlarge.

We were home in time for some nice ‘cool clear water’, (can you sing that song) and then our usual afternoon nap. I was out in no time! Once I dragged myself out of bed, and away from all the editing needed on the computer, it was into the kitchen for me. Today’s menu was changed at the last minute while we were shopping yesterday. It became just a simple sausage casserole. There is no recipe for that really; it can be whatever you want. We had garlic and onion sautéed with Chinese sweet sausage, then added a red capsicum pepper and one small potato very finely diced. Once they had been going a while I added some shimeji mushrooms, 白玉 菇 bái yù gū. Next in was a can of Heinz baked beans and once that was hot a diced red Harbin sausage was thrown into the mix. Simmer and serve. Having already had rice once today, that part of the plan was also changed and we had Xinjiang bread instead.

January 17^th Just a short walk around town this morning to see if we could find a new stomach for the frog. Huan wanted me to take this, four varieties of dinner in one place!

Just look at our main street! It was nearly twenty years ago that we found ourselves in Wuzhishan and bought our apartment here. I never cease to think how beautiful it is every time we pass this way.

We went to check on ‘riverside walk’, it is still fenced off. Mind you, there is a sign saying all the work will be completed by 26^th January. Somehow I doubt the sign’s veracity.

Going down the hill a little when we got home, just to make sure we managed to get six kilometres, this view rather took our fancy. Maybe I should say it took my fancy.

After lunch I let Huan have a solo nap, she seems to do it better without me! I also wanted another walk today to try and get those numbers up again. At least ten a day is needed. Crossing Little Island I noticed that the steel barrier to stop us walking along the irrigation canal had disappeared so I decided to do some reconnaissance.

Looking towards the road to somewhere bridge I saw a way down to the river so I headed in that direction. First of course I had to go back towards our apartments.

Once on the upper level path I headed away from the apartments towards my destination.

As expected, the route on this level was now completely blocked, but backtracking a few metres took me to the steps I had seen from afar. Look carefully.

I didn’t have my boots on today; just my cheapo trainers and I almost came a cropper at the bottom of the steps. There were two patches to cross so I laid a piece of wood across the first one and set off. I was using another piece as a walking stick but still I almost fell off the log. Another piece was required so that I could use one foot on each, that piece was then transferred to the second patch and success was achieved.

Once under the bridge and after confirming that all our previous routes are now unusable, I came across some cows doing a river crossing.

Back on the road again, the one back into town, I almost passed the time of day with “someone” I caught out of the corner of my eye.

Shortly after that I found another missing mountain!

Following the ‘new’ track I was rewarded with a view I hadn’t seen before.

The track ended at an old landfill so I had to retrace my steps. As I was approaching the rear of the school that is beside the road back into town I saw some large new gates. Oh No! Oh yes, the road is now closed, for how long I can’t tell. Telling the workers that I only wanted to go home they let me in, “turn left up there and follow the road out” they said. Turning left actually led to another set of gates inside which was a construction site. Still, it was the way home.

I think we’ll leave it there for today, especially as I did a ‘Huan’ and took far too many pictures.

PS for today. Our famous frog now has a repaired stomach. Google helped me with the battery contact cleaning although how long it will last I hesitate to guess. With the contacts cleaned there was still a problem, the negative lead had developed a high resistance, possibly the corrosion had wandered a bit. Once I put a new wire in we were back in working order!

January 18^th Today we went off into the countryside again, passing Jerry on the way. Does anyone know why he is a different colour, the colour of Tom in fact, and why he is wearing what seems to be a nappy? (Diaper for those of you who speak the wrong English.)

Next up, here is one that surprised me. It was so small that I didn’t think I would be able to get a decent photograph. I thought wrong!

Our route today very rarely has anyone else on it, just the occasional farm workers. Today though there were two snowbirds, from the mansions on the hill.

The two ladies are both from Beijing. The one on my right, your left, was a teacher and she spoke very good English. She told Huan that she used flashcards every day so Huan insisted that I hold said cards while she took a photo. To see the content, click to enlarge.

Further on we crossed the main road and headed off into the fields again. People were busy.

Someone else was busy too, at least until I clapped my hands!

Babies are always welcome in photos aren’t they? Here’s a baby squash, a Nanjing melon.

This photo shows where I decided to go right and clamber up to the road rather than have to follow the ‘clover leaf’ of the lane we were on. In the right of the photo you can see a farmer, he told us that there was no way to clamber up, it was too dangerous. Back to my childhood days I went, when, if I was dared to something I would invariably do it. In this case I had to show the farmer that “of course it’s possible, I’ve done it before!”

It was much more difficult today than it had been the last time we had gone this way. In fact it was so much more difficult that once I was over the crash barrier and on the road I told Huan not to follow me. She went round the clover leaf.

Where we would usually turn left to get back to the main road and the way home we decided to explore further. It is possible that we had been on this route once before, way back in the distant past, but neither of us could really remember it.

We were rewarded with the elusive white birds.

Banana trees have flowers underneath the ‘stems’ of bananas. They sell them in the market sometimes but neither Huan nor I know how to cook them. Squirrels on the other hand don’t know how to cook anything!

As expected the road we were on came to an end, a dead end in fact. However, there was a village, complete with the obligatory guard dogs.

Huan was taken by this pond and its lilies.

I was quite taken by the village itself, I would quite happily live there, so clean and quiet. It even had a library, probably no English reading material though.

One of the local residents was also quite taken by me!

Back to civilisation and water was needed. Is the sales lady smiling after giving me my change or is she surreptitiously checking my wallet out? More than likely she would have been wondering why it was nearly empty!

Just after that, feeling refreshed, the urge for a panorama took hold of me.

Soon yet another urge took hold of me! I wanted to replicate the ‘Longmen Grottoes’. Huan didn’t know what they were and said it looked as if I was putting myself in a grave!

Because of the road block I talked about yesterday we had to go home the same we had left, over the bridge to somewhere. Of course that meant climbing stairs first. Neither of us enjoyed that part very much. I wonder if the foliage will eventually hide this too.

I was going to title the next photo ‘the end is nigh’ but having done a Google I find it is not really apt. It would be better to say “at last, the end is in sight!”

Almost home and this caught my eye. Is it building #3? People seem to think so. However, nature would seem to disagree and call it building #4.

No lunch for me, just water followed by a much needed nap. Thirteen kilometres is far!

It was my turn in the kitchen today but it was an easy one. I cooked fried pork, boiled potatoes, with an unusual side dish of sauerkraut and cherry tomatoes. I thought it was a brilliant idea and for me it worked. It didn’t work for Huan so I guess it will be off the menu in future.

January 19^th Old age and sleeping don’t seem to go together too well. After strange dreams about my old school in Harbin I woke up late again this morning. Perhaps I really should make an effort to go to bed earlier. Still, a round the river walk is never a bad thing especially when the weather is good and the sky is blue. We also found birds!

Today’s car decal, 会溜车Huì liū chē translates as ‘Will slip away’. However, Huan interprets it as meaning “please keep your distance in case your car slips into mine”.

Strolling along Tea Street we saw this fairly large mushroom. Today it was me wondering if it was edible although I would not be silly enough to try.

Right after the tea shop, just beside the library, Huan was thrilled to bits. She found a lizard where we have never seen one before.

And then, just to finish her day off on a high, as we returned via Little Island she managed to find yet another one. She arrived home happy!

After dinner I had to take a solo walk again, got to get those numbers up you know! I took only one photo, with the phone and not the camera. I like it, how about you?

January 20^th Late father’s birthday today, thinking of you Dad, an amazing man. Meanwhile, back here in Hainan, Saturday has come round again meaning it s market day. Today we only needed spring onions as we had decided to go back to salad for the weekend dinners. Before that though, I had to take Huan to the roof so that she could see the extent of the new construction sites. I told her it was all part of the railway plan. I lied!

While we were up there a multiple shot panorama was taken. This is the ‘perspective’ stitch, the one that the director chose.

After buying the weekend lottery tickets I made my way to the farm shop where Huan was busy queuing up to pay for our onions.

On the way home we passed by one of my favourite spots, a shop that is full of cats. To be honest we are not sure what they sell there, the door is invariably locked. On the odd occasion it hasn’t been, the cats never attempted to jump the gate. You can see the gate in this photo. On this occasion I had a talkative friend to peer through the window with. She told me all about the cats, although neither I nor Huan really understood her.

Our morning walk was not really long enough so another one was needed. Huan decided to go with me and she chose the mansions on the hill and Luobote village. First we went around our own little riverside where we still can’t get down to the pathway.

Having gone past the mansions we took a different route through the village. It is one that we have used before, but not too often. Can you see why from these pictures?

Another panorama was called for at the end of that little lane.

Back in the village and headed for home again we found an unusual sight, a village cat that didn’t run away. That’s the third one this week. Do you think the message is spreading?

Sometimes, just looking between two trees, I will spot a view worth saving. On this occasion, once we got home and uploaded everything, Huan agreed with me.

Still needing additional distance we decided to cross the river below the bridge and then walk home. The river is not in full flow today so the ford is passable. If you click to enlarge you may be able to see a ramshackle ladder on the other side. We sometimes go up there, but that was not the plan for today.

And here are the views from the ford, upriver and downriver.

We found a way from the underneath of the bridge to somewhere and once again ended up coming out of a building site without actually entering it from the correct entrance.

Success was achieved, and the daily total was on target. Back home, after a quick shower, it was back into the kitchen for me. I don’t think you need a photo of a salad though and if you do it’s too late! Quail eggs were the protein portion, the salad included carrots, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, lettuce, sweet corn, spring onions and a handful of raisins. Yummy!

January 21^st Yesterday the lady of the house gave notice that she was going to make bread today and maybe meatballs too. Consequently I suggested that she have a rest and I walk alone, she agreed. By half past eight I was on my way, passing the local fishermen.

One car decal was found in our place and one on Xiǎo dǎo. The second one was on a car that I wouldn’t trust for camping at all.

With all the road works around we now have to think in advance of which way to approach our various routes. Today it was turn right before the school; take the new road we found about a week ago, go straight across, through the fields and turn left at the fuel station. Just look at those lovely blue skies, it was a lovely day for a walk.

My plan today was to stay on the road towards Yari village, walk for an hour and a half and then turn round and head for home in time to make our lunch. I took far too many photos so that the Minister of Foreign Affairs could see where I had been and that I had been behaving. This one is one of our desirable residences, perfectly located at the entrance to the village with a turn off to the countryside right next to it.

After one hour I had reached the five kilometre mark.

Huan would have enjoyed today’s walk, although I was walking much too fast for her. It’s easy enough to stay cool on this road and the scenery is lovely.

At the one and a half hour mark I had only 160 metres to go to reach eight kilometres so I carried on. This is where I reached the eight and turned back for home.

By now you know that I am not the shy retiring type when we are out walking and I chat to anyone and everyone. Sometimes it gives me problems. Today I spotted a young family on a moped and went to get myself into a position to shout ‘hello’ to the little toddler. In doing that a stray branch from a tree attacked my hat and in defending myself I hurt my arm!

It looked a lot worse than it was. It’s strange how the blood rushes out so quickly, probably because of the aspirin and other meds that I have to take. It originally looked even worse before I wiped it down a bit. I would guess that there is something magic in the other meds that stops the bleeding quickly when the skin is broken, although I know not how. Continuing on along my merry way I did have good Samaritans wanting to ‘fix’ me, more than once, but help really wasn’t needed. Trust me; if I thought I needed it I would have had no hesitation in accepting it!

To make sure I was home for lunch I had decided to take a slightly different route, thinking it would be quite a bit shorter. Here’s where I turned off the main road.

That then led me to the approaches to Zali village and a much needed water stop.

By now my arm had dried considerably so that although it was still a topic of conversation it was not something that worried anyone. Soon home was in sight. How much had my shortcut saved me? Four hundred and fifty metres, hardly worth bothering about.

Arriving home I first had to wind Huan up with my ‘bloody’ arm; she just took it in her stride. She is used to me always ‘being in the wars’. Lastly for today, I don’t often bore you with maps and statistics, but I’m sure you won’t mind me sharing these.

An afternoon nap was definitely needed today!

January 22^nd With our new routine of Monday afternoon shopping we took advantage of the time and went for a town walk this morning. That also gave us a chance to buy the fish from the town market this saving a trip after the shopping. Here’s a macro to start your day.

Walking back into town on the top road we noticed that the Hainan Provincial Institute of Ethnology, (aka Minzu Research Institute of Hainan Province), was open again. Since it had been a long time we popped in for a visit.

There was a lady in the back, the museum part, busy on a loom, weaving by numbers. That’s not really fair; she had a pattern and was weaving the picture into the tapestry. She was not keen on having her photo taken but Huan persevered, so she got up from her seat.

These are some of the dresses they produce, all by hand.

Off to the fish market we headed, finding another fuel decal on the way. Note that this one is for 95 octane, it was a Mercedes!

You may remember that we said work had recommenced in the river recently. Along with the work there are signs everywhere telling people to not swim, or fish. I guess this chap is too fussy to go to the market along with us normal people.

Fish in hand we headed home. After lunch, as planned, it was shopping time. Now I remember in the UK, and in other countries, where re-stocking of shelves would take place either at very slack times or, more often than not, when the stores are closed. My eldest brother used to help out after he retired, my son used to do it while he went through university. This is how they do it here! Many u-turns with the trolley were required.

Shopping over, and all our shelves re-stocked, it was time for another walk for me. A long distance was not needed, just enough to top up today’s kilometres. It was almost a very short distance when I went head over heels over this. The hoardings are down, some fastenings remain!

I’ll finish the week with a car full of decals, mostly blue anime cats doing half a ‘dab dance’. Why they would have swag I don’t know. Tom and Jerry also star and then if you check the filler cap there is one that I really should have noticed at the time and taken one of that alone. Trying to enlarge it for you doesn’t work so well.

And so another week comes to an end, a week of many words, of many kilometres and of many photos, I do hope you enjoy them. Remember to click and enlarge, especially if you are reading this on a computer. Don’t forget you can also comment either here, or over on Facebook,

Tomorrow the weather forecast shows an eleven degree Celsius drop for us, from today. It still doesn’t put us in winter like most of you but it may mean the slippers have to come out again. Hopefully the forecast will be wrong and it won’t rain all day. Until the next time then, we hope life treats you all well. It will if you let it! See you soon.