A Landlord’s Respite (Admin Week).

August 20^th It’s nice to be home even if Sanya is hotter with the sea on its doorstep. The first part of the week’s admin started today with a shopping trip to replenish supplies in our almost empty fridge. We had done a small trip yesterday so today’s was easy enough.

After lunch admin continued with me removing all the data from the laptop prior to taking it to the repair shop. Apart from having become very slow it also seems to be pregnant!

The repair boss was out of the office so we will not know until tomorrow whether it is worth repairing the laptop or whether I should just buy a new one. We left it there for his perusal. The real boss then went and put money into her long term bank, you may just be able to see the smile. Sorry about the quality, I was across the road.

I left the Minister of Finance inside the bank while I took a walk back through town towards home. The first thing I spotted was an excavator trying to empty a hole in the river. Yes, you read that right, he seems to be filling the shovel with water from the hole and transferring it to the river, again and again.

Another sports car for you following last week’s Lamborghini. Would I buy this one? If you had asked me a few years ago I would probably have said no but in recent years I’ve changed my mind. It could be noisy inside though!

Today is all about the workmen, this time it is tree clearing. It is not the municipality doing the work but the electricity company.

That was it for today, Huan cooked dinner, fish of course, and we had a restful evening.

August 21^st Admin called again and we set off to re-insure Donald for the forthcoming year. Isn’t he a lucky boy? Other boys appeared on a car we passed, you may know them, I don’t.

All around the world insurance companies seem to do well for themselves; that includes here.

We usually have to sit for what seems like ages when we do our annual renewal. Today, because we had already told them we would be renewing, everything was ready for us. Mind you there was no electricity while we were there. No problems, the agent had everything she needed on her phone and she transferred the necessary documents to Huan’s phone. The bank card reader also didn’t need the electricity so my money supply was considerably lessened!

Passing by the computer repair shop another payout was required. This was only a small one though, labour charges only. They had not repaired the laptop; they said that batteries for this model were no longer available.

After lunch a lot of time was spent on Taobao trying to locate a new, cheap enough for us, laptop. Eventually I ordered an Acer, around three hundred pounds. The store said they would install an English version for me; we’ll have to see how that turns out.

After dinner it was time to get down to repairs in the kitchen. Here’s the damage.

Here’s the work in progress, over my shoulder, through the window and then over my shoulder again. The Minister of Labour does like to keep records of her worker’s activities.

Finally everything was completed and tested.

August 22^nd Today was a quiet day, an easy round the river walk and some minor admin. Huan had suggested a countryside walk but I decided that neither of us was ready for that yet. As we were ‘back to normal’ the camera was in use with Huan scouring the route!

This one is from me, to fool you into thinking we are somewhere else!

Work progresses in the river but I can’t make out sluice gates yet.

The ongoing work along the footpath has been explained for us. New water pipes are being put in, perhaps for irrigation purposes, and the trench is being shared with new internet lines.

This set is called, “searching, finding and running away”!

From one flyer to another.

This one is a picture of me being considerate and taking Huan down shady paths.

We often see these little cartoon figures on cars, especially the fuel filler versions. Usually we understand them but today we are not so sure. Could it be “Angel number 257” or does it mean “I like you” in code language? You can Google either or both if you like. FYI the Chinese 加油嘴呢Jiāyóu zuǐ ne translates as “Where's the gas nozzle?”

And finally, here she is, a bundle of smiles coming down the steps from her Taobao bank. Well I did mention a minor bit of admin earlier; that was me providing a top-up after using nearly all the account yesterday on my new laptop.

August 23^rd A trip to the countryside was the plan but not a long one, the laptop was expected today. We just got to the nearest tree before Huan found a lizard, she was so happy! She liked this one for its colour, a bit green around the gills.

We do like walking in Sanya but there are advantages here. It only takes a few minutes for us to leave the city behind us. This is squirrel lane, unfortunately sans squirrels today though.

Because we walk a lot here we also try and find you different views now and then.

Today we were off on what we now call snake road!

There were no snakes today; in fact we have only ever seen a snake here once. There was some fruit though, which took us some touching and Googling to sort out. We actually found them in the order you see here.

They may not look like it but they are coconuts. They come from the Gold dwarf coconut tree. At least that is what Google tells me. They are called ‘dwarf’ because the trees start bearing fruits while they are still very small.

Huan was at it again but I had no time to make a gif today.

Soon we left the shade of the trees and entered the sunny area again.

Baby green beans are next; you can see in the second photo that one has started his journey.

Soon we were back on the homeward trail.

Having seen a lot of green here’s a spot of red for you, a dragonfly and then red (green?) beans.

Of course it doesn’t take long before we are back to green again!

On this road we even found some bovine buddies, I think they were hungry.

We were ten minutes too late arriving home for the computer but not to worry, they left it in the express delivery boxes for us. Here’s the whole story.

Finally, for this morning, here is Bob being a kind old gentleman, helping a young gentleman carry his bike up the steps.

By around half past eight nearly everything was as it should be on the new laptop. As I had asked they had pre-installed the English version of Windows 11 before delivery. It is different to Windows 10 but I’ll get used to it. I removed quite a few of the apps and then installed what I wanted and/or needed. No Edge for me, I prefer Chrome but apart from that there wasn’t too much, for now anyway. I installed a media player, VLC and a photo editor, Picasa. Yes that is still available at least if you can get hold of the exe file. Send me a message if you need it. Progress so far is shown by Alex, presently riding through the mountains on the mainland!

I spent the next two hours and more trying to sort other things out like sharing and using the camera. Imagine my feeling of being a right dummy when I eventually found that there is a cover that you slide over the camera for privacy. In my defence you can barely see it anywhere and there is no English user manual, (or Chinese one come to that), to help you out. As for sharing, well I can see the laptop on my PC now but I can’t access anything. That’s not too important; it will not prevent me doing what I need when we travel.

August 24^th Market day today, we’re on salads again this weekend. We have an old feta cheese that needs eating before we get started on any of the new stuff we bought last week. We strolled around the wrong way, Huan chatting to one of her friends, me looking for dogs and cats.

The scenery was still good even though we were in town.

Now here are two views for you, one towards the market and one away from it.

And for the last time for a fortnight, we think, here are some views of the market itself.

The rest of today was spent sorting out both yesterday’s and today’s photographs followed by bringing the Blog up to date. That was enough for me!

August 25^th The end of the month is approaching, Huan needs to use her bus pass, and a ‘bus and walk’ day is required. It would have been better had I not slept in again! Here’s the queue at the bus stop and our bus arriving. We managed to get a seat, just.

We got off when we reached the Mediterranean, (well it sort of looks like it, don’t you think?)

Because we were late I made an executive decision that we would have lunch out today, Huan was very quick to agree for some reason. My only stipulation was that we would not go through the old army base today; that would be a very long walk. Not only was I feeling a little tired, the Prime Minister was too. We headed down the highway access road, back towards the main road.

Looking for some pretty flowers, having already failed with a couple previously, and a small butterfly, Huan found a tiny ladybird for me.

Reaching Nansheng the time was right for lunch. This one is mine, with two tea eggs because I didn’t fancy the meat on offer. Huan’s was the same but with fish instead of eggs.

Usually, in the local restaurants, I stay away from the condiments because they are far too fiery. Today though, I tried a mix of these two, very nice indeed. For my friends in China I can heartily recommend you trying it too. Use the red sauce to adjust the spice level.

Someone at the same little restaurant told us that everyone knows me, despite him not knowing I was a Brit, and asked if he could have a photo taken with me.

Leaving Nansheng to begin our walk back, or part of the way anyway, we met those famous cows again. Why are they famous? I have no idea but over two thousand eight hundred people have viewed the video we made of them on 14^th November last year. On that occasion they were on a side road, today they were on the main road. Check the last photo, even the car drivers were patiently crawling along at the rear.

Continuing on we had to pass the now closed Cardio psychology clinic. I quite like the way they’ve done the pedestrian access to the front door.

Are you looking at me?

And you too?

That last one did do his job and have a few barks when I took pictures of his charges.

When we reached Nongken Middle School we decided it was time to get the bus home. It took ages to arrive and when it did I ended up standing for quite some time. Being a gentleman I made sure the ‘old lady’ had a seat though. I have no idea what was being said here.

At home we just about succeeded in staying awake, long enough to have dinner and for Huan to watch a little TV before bed. I did the usual, photos, Blog post and movies.

August 26^th As you know, normally on a Monday we would be telling you all about our shopping day and maybe my sneaky walk in the afternoon. Well not today dear reader! Yesterday we had a call from our friends up north; they were travelling through on their way home and wondered if we fancied lunch with them. Ergo, no shopping trip today. Our lunch date was to be at the Beijing Hotpot Restaurant.

We were a little early so Huan got on to nodding terms with her phone.

The rest of our photos were pretty awful, mine and Huan’s, both using our phones. However, you can see the food here and most of the people.

Some of us partook of the free ice cream on the way out, another reason to like this particular restaurant. Even Huan had some; perhaps she didn’t eat enough at the table! After waving our guests a fond farewell we set off home, the streets were very quiet.

We had to stop at our gate to collect the fruit basket our friends had given us; it was far too heavy to carry all the way home. I could manage it from the gate though. The first photo is a posed one, (obviously) and the second is just to give you a better look at the fruit.

And so ends the landlord’s respite, the week of admin. Tomorrow we will be back to work, slaving away in sunny Sanya, hopefully doing nothing except waiting for the phone to ring! You can find out in next week’s post, bye for now.