November 19th This morning was one of those mornings where everything is right with the world. Even our house, for all its faults, looked good to me as we went out for a sedate saunter. Our first port of call was the hospital just to check on the doctors’ rosters this week; I am due another visit to top up my medication. Once we had the info we headed riverside, where we found that the powers that be have filled an empty space by replanting a big tree. Take a close look and you will see an intravenous drip to keep it healthy.
It may not be obvious from that photo, the weather was overcast today. I had already decided not to take the camera so we only had our phones. It did make a pleasant change though and luckily we didn’t see any birds to make me regret my decision. This is how the riverside market street looked, a little different to Saturdays.
Just to emphasise the weather, here’s an upriver photo for you.
Because we could, we took a little walk underneath the ‘last’ bridge for a look-see. We couldn’t go too far though as there was still construction in progress.
As we were going that way we heard someone calling Huan so we checked on our way back to see who it was. It was one of our neighbours, Zōushūxián. In the photo, having demonstrated that I still know the valve fingering, I was explaining that my lips never got used to such a small mouthpiece. I was happy with the euphonium.
In this photo you can see them doing a pretty good job of playing together while Huan was making a video to send to them via WeChat.
Back in town I found a little pussy cat, who didn’t mind a bit of love.
Huan did her usual and found a lizard, when I least expected her too. I could not crop this any more, the quality was already beginning to suffer. Our camera zooms are not up to much.
And we’ll finish off today’s mediocre muddle with another moped mix. This owner had decals on both sides, too many for me to Google I’m afraid. If you wish to know the story then you will have to do your own searching on this occasion.
After naps it was kitchen time for me and I decided to try cooking a good old British favourite, fish, chips and peas. I had never tried doing fish in batter before and that was the only part that failed. Because of that, I did not take any photos for you.
November 20th Well today’s walk took an unexpected turn. Our plan had been to walk to the last bridge on the river and then perhaps do the kindergarten walk. As we walked out of the gate a bus was stopping so we hopped on that instead. We still headed in the kindergarten direction though, taking a photo or two on the way. Construction is moving on apace, soon we’ll be able to use both the riverside pathway and the raised walkways over the water.
“There’s a white bird over there” said Huan. To be honest I couldn’t recognise a bird at all, in fact I thought it might have been a piece of garbage. Even through the viewfinder on maximum zoom I couldn’t tell it was a bird. Only at home, once I had cropped the photo by a huge amount, did I see that she was right, this one is a very young egret, although he has changed colour.
As we were quite early we thought a bit of exploration was called for. This was a road we had never ventured up previously; we thought it was just a back way to a building site.
It went further than we expected.
Huan found a small outhouse where someone was soon to be cooking, probably food for piggies.
To our surprise the road bypassed the initial building site and led to another one but with rear access to the last residential complex on the road out of town.
Inside the surroundings were good, much better than our complex by far.
Can you spot the deliberate error in the villa that is uppermost in collage? Well I consider it an error. The owners may well think otherwise. Let me know in the comments.
Huan only went and did it again! How does she do it? Here I am taking a photo of yet another lizard and he is having a good look at me too.
I did get a fairly good portrait of him. We haven’t seen any red-chested ones for a while but this one appears to be going that way. Perhaps it’s an age thing.
A workman had told us that it was possible to access the old road we used to traverse on our way to the kindergarten area. To do that we had to access the upper walkways.
It turned out that the workman was misinformed but we did find another way, under the walkway and across the stream. To get there though we had to do a turn through one of the buildings. Not bad at all, I think I could quite easily live here.
Outside, in front of another villa, we found this combo. The driver had come all the way from 内蒙古自治区, nèiménggǔ zìzhìqū - Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. That’s a long drive!
Back on course, we headed into the woods.
Coming out of the woods we spotted, as expected, a familiar landmark.
Below us was the old road, we could go up from here but definitely not down.
By now the commander was ahead of me but she did find me a butterfly!
The road appeared longer than we remembered, OAP memories you know, but we soon reached the junction at the top.
I tried with this next one but, pretty though it is, I didn’t really succeed.
Further on, across the valley, we could see the complex that we had just been in.
Yet another bird, this one down to me and of course, just a little too far!
On our route we had heard fireworks through the trees, as we approached the second village after the kindergarten we found out why. Fools, they know not what they do!
Huan stopped to chat with the weaver as she often does. The old ladies were just keeping her company and enjoying a nice gossip. They told Huan that weddings were only for young people so they were not going.
While Huan was chatting to the old birds I was chatting to these two young ones, through the bars of their cage. Very sociable they seemed to be too.
Back on the main road we caught
another bus home. As we were getting off a foreign man had a quick chat with
me. Hopefully we will bump into him again, he is teaching at
And that was it; back home naps were the order of the day.
November 21st Falling off to sleep last night I pondered about another ‘No Through Road’ video this morning. Unfortunately, for some reason unbeknownst to us, neither of us slept very well. If Huan had suggested a morning in I would have accepted without a second thought. Instead we had a leisurely walk around the river. My first eight photos, an attempt to capture a bee flitting between flowers, failed completely. It was just too fast for me. Going towards Little Island we decided to take the new ‘temporary’ road, see if we could fathom out the reasons for it.
Our new potential lizard haunt came up trumps again, this time I was the spotter.
And now here’s a different, new view, of
Crossing the main road, from the bridge, here is the latest view of the new sluice gates.
This is followed by a close up of what looks to be the future workings.
We then finish with a view from the other side and the foundations of the possible control building. It may be smaller than the existing downriver one. PS The pictures on the hoarding in the lower photo do not show the future sluice gates at all.
Past the Fodelai bridge our riverside walk is just about completed now, just finishing touches to the edges are needed. The walkway in the river is coming on well too.
This is another picture of Bob in denial mode; or at least once again telling the workers that I am not Russian and that I do, in fact, actually live here.
From here we walked up towards lizard market and the sausage shop but I stopped on the way. While we were out I had come up with an ulterior motive to walk this way, a visit to the bathroom shop. Our bath now bends in the middle, its handles are corroded and out toilet bowl has ominous cracks in it. A lot of work is needed and I have neither the tools nor the skills to do a good job. A lot of time was spent browsing!
Almost back home, on the main street, where we have never seen a lizard before, Huan found one. I’m not sure why the focus is not so good but at least you can see he’s looking at me.
Huan finished off our day’s snaps with a not very flattering one of me trying, unsuccessfully, to find another lizard for her.
All that was left was a much needed nap, for each of us!
November 22nd Today was an important day, a hospital day. Actually it was just a ‘please can I have a top up of all my medication’ day. This week’s schedule, for today, had our young English speaking doctor so that’s who we went to see. We had to be escorted in because I needed to be given yet another patient number; I now have three on this card. In retrospect though, the escort may well have been because the receptionist wanted some ‘advertising photographs’ for their ‘International Clinic’. She got busy with her phone and Huan got busy with hers. I hope the official versions came out better than these two!
Soon I was in the cashier’s line, getting ready to empty my wallet.
From there it was off to the pharmacy where we thought that after a brief wait we would be on our way. ‘Luó Bó Tè’ came over the speaker and off I stepped with a big smile. That smile soon turned to a frown. We could not be given the amount that the doctor had written so we had to do the whole thing all over again. Zoom down to the doctor’s office, explain the problems, get a new prescription, go back to the cashier, give them the receipt, the old prescription, the new prescription and some other paper from the doctor. Refund in hand I could then return to the pharmacy for another short wait. At least this time it was short and off we went with three months worth of medication. That was our day really, apart from a little bit of shopping.
November 23rd Saturday is market day which means another easy day. Mind you, walking through the market is getting a little more difficult each week.
Would you buy from this fellow? We couldn’t see what the tradesman was selling so we asked him. It was something for painful legs and backs, for us old people. We gave it a miss!
This could be the same salesman you’ve seen before, I’m not sure. However, these are definitely not the same chickens, these two were enormous. I told them to run away!
This morning the market even had an overflow.
Today’s last offering is one of Huan’s again, a gaggle or two of geese. The seller was having a bit of a hard time trying to sell them. Country people will but them because they have a garden. If you live in an apartment it is not quite so easy.
November 24th I’m sure one of
us wet the bed this morning because we were up and about very early and in fact
out and about before eight thirty. I decided we should have a bus‘n’walk so
that I could get another video in this month. Off we went towards the
After some time going up, we went up a bit more.
As we were almost at the top, I had to stop the video and take a photo for the director.
Soon enough we came to the end of the road, no further progress could be taken in this direction. Well, we could have kept going and blundered around in the forest before hopefully coming out in the right place but we decided that was not such a good idea.
There was less video on the way down so I took more scenery shots, just to remind you that we live in a beautiful part of the world. I ended up taking too many so created another panorama for you. It even includes the famous ‘pointy mountain’.
These two shots would not fit into the previous one!
Back in the village we stopped for to talk with some little girls. One told us that she could speak English but didn’t get much further than “My name is xxx”. Still, we had a good chat.
Back on the road, just before the bridge, we bade our audience a fond farewell.
Over the other side Huan had me chasing squirrels through the trees. Well actually I wasn’t chasing them, they were chasing each other and all I was doing was trying to see them through the viewfinder. The results were abysmal, hence the collage!
She did at least find me something I could take a picture of.
And then I found something to snap and also to call for Huan to come and have a look. Just like me she doesn’t always like to be called back but she was happy enough when she saw this scene. This poor Mum has twelve little puppies, too many for her to feed successfully so they have a ‘real’ Mum to help out with powdered milk. The pups were not quite two weeks old yet so most of them had still not opened their eyes. I so wanted to give the Mum a hug but I thought it best not to, not just for her reaction but also in case the human Mum didn’t like it.
Soon we were back on the bus and on the way home. No naps today, Huan was still busy doing the upholstery in the living room and I had to put the video together. You can see that, if you want to, which we hope you do, here - https://youtu.be/vr-pc6fjn5c
November 25th Last day of the week, for this publishing house anyway. This morning, instead of heading off to the supermarket we went first to the sausage and bap market. It was much busier than we expected; maybe we’ll have to try doing our veggie shop there next week.
We were not there for sausages or baps today; instead we were there for spit roasted fish.
Our normal shop was still done in the usual place; we’ll see what happens next week. After lunch the Minister of Health decided we needed to go out for fresh air and exercise. Most unusual for a Monday, I had to forego my sneaky fag walk. For a change she was the one with the dogs, quite a surprising change at that. The one lying down can be quite haughty and often seems to just put up with us mere humans. Today, as soon as Huan stroked him he flopped over onto his back. I got her to call the other one so that I could have the evidence.
Two scenic views for you next, just to keep rubbing in that we live in a beautiful place.
Suddenly Huan was going crazy, shouting about something on her hat but appearing too worried to touch her hat. It took me a while to see it but it was one of those hairy caterpillars. Those are the ones that it is best not to touch, hence Huan’s weirdness.
With all that kerfuffle she still managed to find another lizard before we got home, albeit a very small one. I did my best, again!
We did have one other achievement today; we managed to find some
foam cleaner for the car interior. Taobao does have it but we couldn’t find a
supplier willing to ship it to
With that bit of good news, for us at least, I will sign off on behalf of the Government of this particular location, SWMBO sends her most royal regards to one and all. Bye for now!
