Legal Again, Rain Again (Less)

October 29^th We started the new week with more of the same. It had rained all night long and was still raining as we set off to Haikou.

I don’t know about you but I find driving on the highway (motorway for us Brits) in the pouring rain to be quite tiring. Our car is not normally too noisy but the sound of the rain pounding on the windscreen can be heard above all else. Add to that the dash-cam reminding me about traffic cameras every five minutes and you have a recipe for a headache. Not to worry though, we got to Haikou without any delays or incidents.

After a quick trip to the little boy’s, and little girl’s rooms, we handed over my receipt and the copies of our Wuzhishan apartment title deeds. Seconds later I had my new visa in hand, I am now legal until May 2027 when my passport needs renewing.

From the visa office we drove to the ‘Grocery’, bought a couple of things there and bumped into a proud new Dad, Jake. Leaving him to his shopping we paid our bill and went off to ‘Corners Deli’ where we bought just a few more odds and sods. While we there it was time for lunch, here is Huan’s, without Huan in the picture.

There wasn’t a great deal to tickle my fancy today but I did find a supposed German pork filled roll. I never ate anything like it when I was in Germany but it did the job. I forgot to take a picture of it but I did take a picture of what I didn’t eat. This was a chocolate something or other and could have made for a nice dessert. The only problem was that it was rock hard!

Visa in hand, shopping done, we headed home, the usual way. No strange routes were planned for today. Someone else must have had such plans though. Perhaps there had been an accident on the highway while we were in Haikou, perhaps parts had become flooded, who knows. All we know is that once again we were diverted off. Lucky for us this diversion, while not signposted once we left the highway, was fairly easy for us to find with the Sat-Nav and following the other drivers. Donald was lucky; he went swimming three times today. This was the first one where I tried to show Huan how it’s done. PS I succeeded.

Huan was very busy with her phone trying to take photos and videos of what was going on outside the car. Fields were full of water, small rivers were overflowing and trees were down. She was in the car, naturally, with the windows closed and struggling with her dodgy arm but I think the results will give you the right idea.

Most of the other drivers were fine; some were short on patience and kept giving me the horn. They wanted me to pass guys like this. Now I’m sure you will agree that some truck drivers can be a real proverbial pain in the backside. This fellow drew my utmost admiration. He drove safely for himself, for the other drivers on the road, and also for the people in the local farms and villages. He took a lot of care with all the overhead power cables and communication cables. In country lanes they are not as high as other roads because large trucks do not normally travel on these routes. Obviously when he had to manoeuvre slowly, I did not ‘push’ him. However, those impatient drivers behind me had no such worries.

Back home, with the weather still being bad, we skipped going out for dinner and had German bread, with sandwich meat and salad, topped off for me with pickled red cabbage. At least we got out of the house today!

I finished the day by watching the final episode of Hawaii Five-0. Like a lot of TV series, although it was a tear jerker, it was a bit of let down.

October 30^th Another day with no sign of the yellow orb in the sky, just bucketfuls of water falling down from it. This was the river before we went out this morning. We’ve lived here for nine years now and this is the first year that we have seen the riverside paths being flooded.

Huan even put on her (baby) wellies to go shopping.

We took the roundabout route to the supermarket so that we could give you an update on the ‘sluice gate lido’. They will have to do a lot of work before they can start work again! The work area has just about vanished completely beneath the ongoing torrent.

Needless to say we had no walkies today. Huan stayed on her phone and her TV and I found something new to binge watch, ‘The Chelsea Detective’. Maybe it’s because I am old, maybe it’s because I’m a Brit, maybe it’s because I was born there, I have a feeling of longing at times for London. Quite strange really, as I have never lived there. Of course I have the same feelings for Yorkshire, for Pwllheli, for Lincolnshire, for South Wales, for the UAE and for almost every place I have ever lived even the frozen north of China, Harbin. No doubt if we weren’t here I would have those same feelings for Wuzhishan.

October 31^st Yahoo! We awoke to clear skies today and a forecast of no rain. That meant we could have a walk around the river stopping on the way home to buy milk. “Hang on” I hear you say, “you went shopping yesterday, why didn’t you buy milk then?” Well, after having no milk for two weeks, Baijiahui had restocked its shelves, quite a few varieties too. Unfortunately we couldn’t buy any yesterday because they had not updated their computers or put any prices on the cartons. Talking to the office was no help whatsoever hence the shopping today.

That was for the way home however, first we had a walk for the fresh air and the exercise. Huan has missed looking for squirrels so I took her on a slight detour. There were no squirrels but the fish pond had been cleaned, either by people or by the rain, who knows.

Huan spotted a bird on the walkway roof, she like the picture where you can see its eyes; I liked the one where it turned to look at me so you get to see both.

The weather seemed to be pleasing to the statues outside the old hotel too.

The sausage shop was our next port of call but we were out of luck. Leaving the shop, I was stopped by this young man who spoke English very well. He wanted to know where we were from etc, probably because he wanted to practice his English. Here I am giving him my usual lecture on how to make sure his daughter grows up bilingual without having to be taught either language. The three fingers relate to friends of mine whose children grew up speaking Tagalog, German and English, all without having to take lessons. In fact they have a fourth language, Arabic, that they learned at school. Children are like sponges, they will absorb everything!

From there we headed down to the river, the nice day continued.

The trees were noisy but we were struggling to see the birds to take any photographs of them. Suddenly, right in front of us, the opportunity arose!

Of course we had to check to see how the lido was faring. It looks as if the retaining walls will have to be completely rebuilt. The good thing is that November starts tomorrow which normally spells the end of the rainy season.

Did you look closely at the first picture of the lido? Did you spot the egret? I did and despite the huge amount of cropping of my zoom photos the results are not too bad.

Who is Totoro? Well, there is every chance that you will know better than me. It was recently released as a movie in the UK and will be a West End show early next year. This was the movie trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1L80AtQ0Zg&ab_channel=ElysianFilmGroup and this is the show one - https://totoroshow.com/ (scroll down to see the trailer).

November 1st A new month and our first countryside walk for a while. For a change our first subject, right outside the house, was not a lizard but a stingy thingy. (You need to pronounce stingy wrong for that to work!)

Of course it didn’t take Huan long to find a couple of lizards.

The countryside was beautiful, inviting as well. It even had ‘long distance’ white birds!

We would sometimes go up this first turn-off but the paved surface gives way to tracks and wild terrain which would be very wet today. We stayed on the roads, the second photo shows them.

Soon we were back to wildlife with Huan finding another lizard and a different butterfly, followed by two more lizards. She was on a roll as they say.

It was my turn then to try and capture some scenery, how about very deep irrigation canals.

In fact they had been working on the smaller canals, in the direction we had just come from. They were building small new side walls for the field irrigation canals. Well a few metres further on we found out why, when we passed them, they weren’t very busy. They were waiting for these trucks to provide more cement. I have never seen trucks like these before; they actually mix the cement from basic materials and then deliver it to site.

Of course it didn’t take long for Huan to find even more leaping lizards. For some reason this one reminds me of the ‘worms’ in the movie ‘Men in Black’.

And then this one is lord of all he surveys.

Back to me again and a couple of scenery posts followed by a couple of bugs!

And then, miracle of miracles, I spotted an egret that the director didn’t. To be fair I saw which tree it flew into and then used the TV mast to locate it. It was very far away!

And then Huan spotted a kingfisher. When she pointed it out to me it was blue, by the time I got into a position to take a photo, it had dived in and out of the water and was now brown. I had to do some Googling when I got home and then I found out why. There are many pages, but I liked this one - https://www.gwct.org.uk/wildlife/species-of-the-month/2020/kingfisher/

Despite my trying to urge Huan home so that we could have lunch, she still managed to find another lizard on the way.

Boy, did I need a nap after lunch, sometimes getting old sucks! If Huan hadn’t called me to say that the coffee was ready I think I could quite happily have slept through the night! After dinner we had to go out again. This weekend’s salad will be pre-cooked belly pork and that is only available in the evenings. On the way we passed one of my namesakes, although I am not a fan!

And staying with bikes, here’s another one for cheese loving Bob.

November 2^nd Saturday, All Soul’s Day or Day of the Dead. In another place I may well follow the traditions but not here. Instead, for me and her, it was another market day. However, yesterday morning my teeth fell out so a trip to the dentist was needed first. They were not my real teeth of course but caps so some re-gluing was required. Huan asked the dentist how this could have happened; he had previously given me the cap. He told her exactly what I had told her, which was that old people’s gums recede. She didn’t believe me but she believed the dentist! Maybe it was Huan’s asking questions or not, I don’t know, but the dentist would not accept any money for services rendered. A good day!

Resuming our walk we headed down tea street. The buildings are being renovated, perhaps you would say ‘gentrified’. Consequently the tea drinkers had moved to the riverside.

Writing this Blog often has me learning things that I didn’t really know. For example the use of the words ‘pig’s ear’ differs between American English and British English. I will leave you to look up the differences; meanwhile, here is a pair of pig’s ears. PS They are for you Linus!

I had a chat with the chickens again today.

Huan has been hearing that the influx of snowbirds is reduced this year. I think whoever is sharing things on WeChat has no real idea!

Unusually for Huan, she stopped to chat with one of my pooch pals. I couldn’t resist it!

And after this, which I thought would be our last photo of the day; mere metres away from home, just outside the nurse’s school, eagle eyes went and spotted yet another little lizard.

Today’s naps were more normal which was just as well. After yesterday, when I felt really exhausted, I had to do all the Blog writing today.

November 3^rd Today was a day for dithering. Our phones had given us advance warning of heavy rains for this morning and the next two days. When I got up, the computer said rain at 9 o’clock. Before our coffee, it said rain at 10 o’clock. After coffee the start time had gone back to 11 o’clock so we decided to take the risk. Little Island has been in the wars. Is it because they have removed most of the flora from the river I wonder.

On the island, chatting to a man telling us that his ‘sheepdog’ is a mixture of three different pedigrees. I would say that’s a mongrel, but I guess times change.

How about a couple of photos with no birds, no animals, just things I fancied snapping.

Luckily they turned those sprinklers off and I was able to fight my way through the hedges to find a vantage point to take this photo. Huan had not seen this particular bird so when we got home she was most pleased.

I also made her a little video of this lot, you can have the still.

Miracles do happen occasionally, I spotted this fellow before Huan did and she was standing right next to him. I even waited until the ant was on top of his head. Mind you, I think I may have overdone it a little with ‘boost’ whilst editing but Huan liked this one best.

I think that’s a good place to stop for today. No naps were taken; Huan was busy making bread and I watched some more Chelsea Detective. And what about that forecast rain? Well, it turned up around 2 o’clock and hung around for just a few minutes, just a normal English overcast day!

November 4^th Monday is shopping day, which is not what the song says. Today it was my turn to spot a lizard before we got into the car. Of course we were not carrying the camera, only our phones. The result is better than I had expected.

Another shopping trip was needed after dinner to buy some duck legs for tomorrow’s dinner. The supermarket had let us down again this morning. Here we are in the lift.

In the ‘old’ supermarket, while Huan was in the cashier’s queue I was approached by this little lady. She was quite talkative and inquisitive so Huan had to take photos.

I think that is as good a place as any to finish this week’s post. The only other photo I have is a snail, not very interesting. If you are wondering about the weather, which some of you may well be, then today we were warned that there would be heavy rain all day. There was no rain this morning, a brief shower around two this afternoon and as I write this it is bucketing down outside. What will tomorrow bring I wonder? I shan’t worry about it; I’ll just ‘be happy’!