The Typhoon That Passed Us By.

September 3^rd Am I getting old? (Don’t answer that!) I had to get up in the middle of the night and find some pyjamas to put on, I was feeling very cold. It’s only the beginning of September, what’s going on? Huan still insisted that we have a little countryside walk before doing the daily shop. First we checked up on Donald, he doesn’t look too good.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder they say. Well Huan doesn’t find any beauty in these little creatures at all. I think they’re kind of cute, what do you think?

Our route was along the road to somewhere where we passed the old cable towers for the TV tower. They became redundant when the road was built and higher cable towers had to be put in. The old ones are more popular now than they used to be.

Across the other side of the road, the obligatory panorama was taken.

The little bit of road you can see on the right hand side of the photos looks better like this.

Soon we were lucky enough to spot a couple of our feathered friends.

Going along Tea Street we checked out the waterside construction. There is nothing to report there yet; we still can’t make out what the final job will look like. We did find some more birds though, one alone, (the first one) and two together, (the second two). I separated them because I thought it made for two better photos for you.

And finally, for this morning, here is Tea Street, in all its glory with lots of customers.

I had to go out again after lunch; a bank visit was required, to gather up enough loot to pay for Donald’s release from captivity, whenever that may be. I took the camera but didn’t find much for you. There were a couple of rats down by the public toilets; I didn’t think you would fancy them very much. One was quite cute mind you. On the riverside I checked on the progress of the new ‘sluice gates’ and tried my best to take a nice big panorama for you. Don’t look too closely. As before we still can’t see exactly what is coming but they do work fast here, it won’t be long.

No more photos were taken because the rain started shortly after those panorama pictures were taken. I arrived home from the bank cold and wet and handed over the money. Huan was happy!

September 4^th It happened again! The ‘glue monster’ visited last night and did his usual trick of cementing me to the bed. Getting out of it this morning took an enormous amount of effort. That meant that any plans the boss had made were kicked to the sideline. We knew we had to go out and get some exercise though, so off we went. A trip to Huan’s bank was also needed to deposit some of what I took out of mine yesterday. We walked home via the river and the little island. Flora was first, mostly for want of a subject.

Along the route we stopped at the banana lady’s cart.

Not far down the road Huan pointed out quite a large caterpillar. I wonder if you can guess why there are two photos of it here. Well. I’ll tell you. The left photo has a red ant at the tail end of the caterpillar and the right photo has the same ant at the head end a few seconds later. Is the ant trying to attack the caterpillar or is it after some sweet sustenance?

Crossing the irrigation canal we spotted quite a large stink bug. With the bridge’s glass panel behind it I wasn’t sure how the photo would turn out but I think it’s OK.

Nothing was found on ‘Little Island’ but on the other side Huan noticed that trees were now growing out of the river bed and one of them had also been found by a lizard.

Another smaller tree had been occupied by two or three birds. All of them were very adept at hiding their faces behind the leaves but we got one workable shot.

Just like yesterday we had to stop off at the express delivery boxes at the gate, more ‘stuff’ had arrived for me. Well I say it’s for me, in fact it’s for both of us. Our cupboard (larder/pantry) is now set for another couple of months at least.

It seems to have been a long time but I was the cook again today. Noodles were on the menu along with hot-pot strips of beef. Vegetables were carrot, long onion, and zucchini, along with some garlic and ginger of course. The ‘food inspector’ was satisfied. PS You will also be able to spot some of those double yolkers we mentioned last week.

September 5th This morning, as we often do, we had plans for a slightly longer walk than recent ones. However, we were being threatened by Typhoon ‘Yagi’ albeit from a distance. This picture is from this evening when Yagi was still a long way off and heading towards Haikou. So far all we have had is rain, no accompanying storm winds. PS Sorry it’s in Chinese.

The rain had a rest after lunch so we decided to have another shopping walk. We needed some stuff for tomorrow, milk and vegetables, something for me to cook as well. I was not very optimistic but I took the camera just in case. All I got was two photographs; the first was this pair of birds who just would not stay in one place long enough. It made me think of Ray Stevens in ‘The Streak’, shouting at his wife, “Don’t look Ethel!”

Obviously today was not my best day for taking pictures, this butterfly is not so good either.

And finally here’s another screenshot for you. This is the updated weather forecast. As you can see, it is raining now and is going to continue doing so until sometime tomorrow evening or later. I guess we will not be going walkies before Saturday.

September 6^th Typhoon Yagi stopped play. For us all we had was rain, nearly all day. However, up in Haikou it was a different story altogether.

September 7^th Let’s start the day with Typhoon Yagi’s progress. It passed Haikou in the night where it was a very busy little beaver. There was no major damage though. Now it is hovering around the Gulf of Tonkin preparing to attack Vietnam. For us, in the middle, all we got was slightly more wind and a lot more rain.

As is usual when we have persistent rain, for more than a couple of days, it tries to get into our house through the walls. Believe it or not we have had this ‘problem’ repaired before. Huan was suggesting that I waterproof the outside, pretty easy if you live in a villa, not so easy when you live in a seventh floor apartment!

Walkies was out of the question again today but we did need to go out to sort out the weekend salad. Luckily Donald’s jailers called and said he could be free on bail. I left Huan to go and ‘pay the man’ while I took the rubbish to the bins. I didn’t get very far!

We took the rubbish with us, for a nice drive around. First we had to get Donald something to drink. He had been under so much pressure (aircon testing) the last few days that he was nearly empty. After that we took a trip to the lottery ticket shop. Do you think Donald could have seen what we are doing and will know his days are numbered if we do actually win any money?

From there we had a trip to the market; the pork lady was still not back at work. OK, let’s go and visit the duck man. Off we went and driving along the riverside we couldn’t believe what we were seeing. In nine years we have never seen so much water flowing downriver. The walkways on both sides had been submerged and more than likely the new sluice gate construction too.

After all that, the duck man was not working either. Never mind, after another trip to the supermarket, which was open, everything was sorted. Our salad would be a large tin of fish with broad beans mixed into the salad. Luckily that is something we both like!

September 8^th How can doing nothing for two or three days make you so tired? Answers on a postcard please. Today we felt that we had to ignore the tired feeling and go for a much needed walk. The weather has cleared up, the sun is shining again. Deciding that it was still probably too wet for us to go countryside walking we just went round the river. On a hunch I took the Queen through Little Island first. It worked, she found three lizards!

Tea Street showed that the brief interruption to Wuzhishan life was over.

Once under the bridge however the aftermath of the swollen river became more obvious. The ‘dam’ where they had been building the new sluice gates had become a swimming pool. Part of the construction had collapsed but that looks easy to repair. Cement filling had not yet started.

And this one is just to show you how high the water was yesterday. Where the man is standing was completely under the water.

Some of the only damage we saw on our walkabout was a retaining wall collapsed. I imagine that it will be repaired before too long. They do things quickly here.

These next two photos are for comparison as well. Look at yesterday’s views off the bridge and then at these two and you can clearly see how much more water we had yesterday.

Unfortunately some of the new construction on the walkways disappeared into the murky depths too. It probably won’t have gone too far though.

Huan found me a bird that I just couldn’t get a decent photo of at all. Instead I found a squirrel. In my opinion none of those photos turned out well either but Huan liked them all so here are the three best of the bunch.

Taking Huan down one of her squirrel hunting paths I found our last snap of the day. It wasn’t a squirrel though, it was a dragonfly.

September 9th Well I guess life is now 100% back to normal, I’m on the computer and there are sounds of music emanating from the living room. I’m pretty good at tuning it out now! It’s easier when you’ve just started binge watching Hawaii Five-0 again. And what did the intrepid explorers do today? We went shopping of course. It is Monday, Donald is back and we needed a week’s worth of stuff. After lunch Huan napped and I didn’t go out for a sneaky walk and a fag. Nope, I stayed in and sat on the computer all day. It did make a change.

So that's it from this lucky pair in Hainan; to all of you, wherever you may be, have a good week!