The Evil Eye.

May 14^th I was out before quarter to eight this morning, taking out the garbage waiting for Huan to join me. We had woken up to no electricity so coffee was not on the cards. It also meant we had no lift; at least I was going down and not up. When Huan joined me we decided we should go to Nansheng and take the bus home. After waiting for half an hour and not seeing any bus we changed our plan and headed off to the ‘end of Wuzhishan’ on San Yue San Avenue. There used to be a lot of shade here, I suppose there will be again in three or four years.

How about this one? Huan found him and I was able to get close enough for him to drop his lower jaw in sheer amazement. What strange teeth they have.

Here’s one that was a complete surprise to me. I saw this skink dart across the path and did my best to point the camera in the right general direction. With no rear display it is not so easy, and as you can see it was fairly shifting. I’m happy that I caught it though.

Our first car of the week is basketball players, I presume. Knowing nothing about basketball in China, or anywhere else for that matter, I could be completely wrong.

Huan suddenly darted off into a shop at the side of the road; she wanted to take photos of a local craftsperson. I always feel that we shouldn’t impose on people and tend to veer clear. Afterwards I told Huan that she should at least have bought a shopping basket from the lady!

Taking a detour through a small village not far from the edge of town we spotted a panda.

The other side of the village marked the edge of the town, the road to the left doesn’t go anywhere, the one in the middle goes on to Nansheng and the one almost visible on the right heads back into town. Sorry about the sun flares in the middle.

We crossed the bridge to walk back on the other side, at least as far as the bus stop we were aiming for. Here are the views upriver and downriver.

I have no idea how Huan’s eyes work, she never really knows where we are but she is absolutely amazing at spotting lizards, even in the trees.

This place definitely counts as des res, don’t you agree?

The boss found one more before the bus stop.

After the bus, on our walk back home via the bakers, another car was seen.

After our usual nap chef Bob was back on duty for a vegetarian dish today, (not vegan), well at least for Huan it was. Here’s recipe.

Would I recommend this one? Of course I would. If you want a little extra protein with it then add some sliced sausage as I did. Huan had it as per the recipe.

You can see why the baker’s visit was necessary, French bread. At times like these I miss the good old fashioned eye-level grills we used to have back in the sixties. That would have made crisping up the bread much easier. Although the recipe does not say this I feel that this soup would also be quite nice chilled.

May 15^th Yesterday I woke up with a red eye which was slightly painful. This led to Huan fussing all day long. This morning it was less painful bat more bloodshot. Huan thought I should go to the doctor so I agreed and went to Dr. Google. It seems I do not have to worry for at least a week or two. https://www.healthline.com/health/eye-redness My ‘diagnosis’, based on the illustration on that page, is a subconjunctival Haemorrhage but I have agreed to let Nurse Huan check my BP and blood sugar tomorrow morning, before coffee.

Today is a cooking day for Huan so I thought I would be able to sneak out alone. I thought wrong! She decided to accompany me half way and then stayed for the full walk. At least we still enjoy each other’s company. Our first find was quite mysterious; we couldn’t make out what it was with our eyes. Only when I looked through the viewfinder could I tell it was a slug. By the way, a piece of useless information for you, snails are born with their shells already formed.

It didn’t take long for Huan to find her favourites, well, second to squirrels and snakes that is!

And then it was my turn to find a ‘magic mushroom (?) Google couldn’t narrow it down for me at all so all I could say was that it is an orange mushroom.

And then I was back to car decals, not bad this one. 呼吁成立, Hūyù chénglì - call for establishment, 动物保护法, dòngwù bǎohù fǎ - animal protection law.

My Queen then found me another lizard to take a portrait of. She is convinced that this one is looking at me and comparing my red eyes to his.

Last night it rained a lot, nearly all night in fact. It wasn’t very heavy rain but the sheer amount over the hours was enough to damage a lot of the temporary construction roads in the river. I guess they will have to take another six months off again now.

Soon Huan found me another subject and took up her position to snap me snapping him. She caught me before he opened his mouth, possibly to get me with his tongue? It’s strange that we have seen two in two days with their mouths open.

Did you know that a group of snails can be referred to as a rout, walk or escargatoire of snails? At least that was one of the answers I got from Google. I needed to know because I found a few of then having a conference, although it looks like they are sharing the same WC.

Huan’s last lizard seemed to be in the process of losing its tail. Maybe it got it caught somewhere because it appears to be hanging on by just a thread.

Our last picture of the day was taken in our foyer. I thought it was on its last legs, Huan disagreed. Possibly it was about to metamorphose into something different?

After lunch and sandwiching our nap we watched a movie in the living room. That was a change for me! Huan had found an English one, Will Smith in ‘The Gemini Man’. It made a change.

May 16^th As promised Nurse Huan got busy this morning. She is very healthy, BP 120/75 although her blood sugar is slightly high at 6.6. I am not so healthy with a BP of 180/84 and blood sugar of 7.2. However, despite my eye looking much worse this morning, I don’t think we need to worry too much yet.

Our second job of the day was to phone Panasonic’s repair centre for an approximate cost to fix our camera rear display. All details confirmed, except for an approximate cost, as expected, we set off to deliver the camera to the express delivery company. At least that was the plan.

Huan decided she needed to visit her bank and then go and pay our annual internet bill. Money in hand I sent her off on one street while I took another to waste a little time. That was a mistake! What should have been a few minute job turned into a very long one. The sales lady convinced Huan that she should change suppliers for her mobile at the same time as renewing our internet contract. Huan can be very naive and trusting at times, so she agreed. By the time I reached the shop the changeover was well in hand and I was left to wait around. While doing so I had a few walks up and down outside. Those walks ended up being at least a kilometre and in the end I told Huan that I was giving up and going home to make our lunch!

After lunch and a nap our trip was postponed until tomorrow. I needed time for cooking today, using the oven. It was to be a Jamie Oliver dinner.

The best laid plans of mice and men, and sometimes me, don’t always go to plan. The oven side was perfect but I had also planned baked potato and broccoli to be done in the microwave. This is not the first time I have done this and in the past I have never encountered any problems. What would normally take eleven or twelve minutes took well over thirty and even then the top of the potato and the stalk of the broccoli were not quite right. It tasted good enough for me but it’s safe to say that the Prime Minister was not overly impressed!

May 17^th We were out early today to try once more to send the camera. On the way I happened to look up. Fancy seeing these little mouths with only my phone to take pictures with.

Soon we were at the delivery company. Over my many years as an expat I have sent numerous packages, official and personal, through numerous courier companies, to many different countries and never have I had as much trouble as we did today. I think this modern world is beginning to pass us by! No longer can you turn up, fill in the address label, pay the bill and that’s it. That would have been easy. This morning, instead of a form to fill in, they gave Huan a QR code to scan thus installing an app on her phone which she then had to use to fill in all the details. Huan is not used to all of that, I was of no help because I can’t read Chinese. To make matters worse Huan’s glasses were at home under the coffee table. Initially we were not getting any help from the counter staff at all, perhaps she was too busy, perhaps she’s not a fan of foreigners, I don’t really know. Eventually a second lady came to help out and she was much better, guiding Huan through all the steps. Of course we still fell at the final hurdle. All express deliveries within China require proof of identity. My phone, and Huan’s, both have copies of my passport and Huan’s hukou card. Unfortunately copies were not enough so home I went to get the original while Huan waited patiently.

I walked home, collected all the necessary items and then drove back. From then onwards at least the process was easy and fairly cheap. The total cost was ¥48.00 but that included insurance to the value of ¥5,000.00 just to make sure. Now we wait for the repair company to contact us.

Once I had dropped Huan off at home I went out for a second walk, to calm my shattered nerves. Huan probably needed a short break from my ranting too. My route was mostly around the town where I also found a bench to sit on and have a nice cold coffee and my second fag of the month. On the way home, sans camera, I still looked for subjects but they were very sparse.

That was it really, no lizards, no birds, nothing that would have needed the camera. I did take these three though to show Huan that the food and beverage areas of the little island have magically disappeared. No wonder we haven’t heard any singing for the last few nights.

Back home Huan was up to her elbows in flour making quiche for this weekend and pizza to put in the freezer for another weekend. She had been a busy bee.

May 18^th Did you know that there are over forty songs about Saturday? I couldn’t find an apt one though so we’ll just say today was the usual market day. Having no camera I tried a couple of test shots from my phone pro camera app before we left, one ultra wide and one zoom.

I wasn’t too impressed. The results are fine for phone screens but not so good on large monitors especially when you want to zoom in for details. I switched back to the standard app.

Huan then found a tiny little green friend for us to snap. My photos were awful! Most of Huan’s were not up to much either but this one is not too bad.

To say that most of the migratory snowbirds have all flown north the market is still busy. Progress today was quite slow. I have to say though that the problems you see in other countries, pushing, shoving, pick-pocketing, handbag snatching are seldom seen here. In fact we not seen a single incident in the nine years we have lived here.

The road that the market is on leads into another riverside road that does carry traffic. It has been closed off for sometime no while they replace storm drains, water and electricity supplies etc. I always thought they were using the ‘cut and cover’ method although I did know they used drills for very small pipes. Today though I found out that they are using a boring machine!

At the second market it was chicken time.

Huan’s daily dose of happiness was ensured when she found two lizards. I am already missing the camera but I tried my best, even getting stung by ants to catch the first one!

Today’s moped decal has us both rather puzzled. You can read the English, the Chinese means ‘speed’ and the dog is angry. Put them all together and we have no idea!

Today was also a bonus for you dear readers, it was a two video day. The first one is a little bird that we always stop and chat too. He always chats back! https://youtu.be/u6uPldp47d8

The second was a rarity for us, a lion dance. https://youtu.be/gH4aktUWGWU If you want to know more go here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_dance

May 19^th New insoles in my boots, too small even though they are supposed to be the right size, we set off on a countryside walk. No hills were included just in case the insoles were terrible. Not far from home Huan found the first lizard. Remember we still have no camera.

It was my turn next, the first millipede of the year.

How Huan saw this one I have no idea and even less idea as to how I was supposed to capture it.

Ducks galore were next followed by a ginormous snail. I wonder if it one of those non-native African snails that I read about recently.

Rice had been the subject of our conversation for some stretches of today’s walk so we thought we’d give you the story too. The fist photo is a ‘before’ shot, the middle two are ‘during’ shots and the last one is the ‘after’ shot.

Taking a back road that we sometimes use I took a shot of another of my desirable residences. Huan would not be keen on this one as it is a bit far away from anything else. The ‘guard’ was in residence and as always pleased to see me. The third photo is the view outwards from the house.

After lunch Huan’s decision to change phone service providers came back to haunt her. Our tenant called from Sanya to say that her internet had stopped working. It took Huan a long time on the phone to various people and a visit to her old service provider to find out what we have to do next. Her phone number has ‘disappeared’ from the old provider’s computer and as the Sanya internet is the same provider it has stopped working too. It seems that we now have to visit Sanya, remove all the old internet equipment and return it to the old service provider. We will then have to contact her new service provider to install a new connection. When she went out I accompanied her as far as the gate where I was to collect my new shorts from the express delivery boxes. Before we parted ways Huan found another lizard!

When Her Maj was on the way home she found a bird in the road having difficulty getting airborne again. Perhaps it had bumped into a passing car or something. Anyway, she rescued it and put in some bushes in the hope that if would fly again. We’ll check tomorrow.

May 20^th Here we are again, the last day of the Blog week, with only shopping on the schedule. As a special treat for me I was allowed to wear my new shorts for the day.

After lunch we were both on admin. Huan did a little ironing first before she set off on her rounds to the two internet service providers. My admin was eventually scanning all the stuff I had been piling up since our last printer failed. I had been too lazy since we received the new one. Huan came home with some good news, Sanya internet can be sorted out without us having to travel down there. That means I’m cooking tomorrow.

We also had a message from Panasonic in Guangzhou, the rear display of our camera needs to be replaced. At least it’s not the mother board. It will cost us roughly ¥700.00 including shipment. That seems a fair price, leaving me some left over to buy a lens or two!

On that bright note, with a smile on my face, I will say auf wiedersehen, for now!