A Surplus Of Snowbirds!

December 10^th “And a new day, has begun.” Name that song. No prizes though, in fact by the time you answer I will probably have forgotten just which one it was. We had a plan this morning, to go around Feicui Park, the normal way. With all the gossip and dog stops on the way out of our place we lost too much time so stuck to the town. A few photos were taken that were not good enough for the ‘opener’ so we hung on a while. Huan thought we should look where we saw a snake recently so off up there we went and got this lovely scene. I rather like it but I’m not sure how I did it, maybe by playing with the white balance.

No snakes were found, just a couple more views, here’s one of them.

One reason for the lack of snakes was the abundance of snowbirds. There were probably a dozen of them farming various bits of land up here. In this photo I was asking why they come all the way down here for the winter and then don’t rest and relax. They told me they had to farm or they wouldn’t have enough to eat. They seemed to think that being British, and because of the exchange rate for the pound, I was rich and need not worry like them. Cue more questions from me as to how many properties they owned up north and how many down here. I followed this by telling them how not all my siblings even own a house and that my pension is less than that of many Chinese people. They probably didn’t believe a word I said!

The market was our next stop. I know, we went shopping yesterday but the onions and the carrots were not up to scratch. Today’s were.

By now it was time to make our way home. For a change we went on the bottom path near the Little Island Park where we found this.

It’s a little campervan, a motor home if you will, except for one minor difference. Look closely, it has no motor or engine of any sort, it doesn’t even have pedals.

It turns out that it is powered by walking only. The younger man here is the son, the one behind him is his father and they are travelling.

Are they Hainanese? How far are they travelling? Well this is the sign on the side enlarged for your perusal. “本车途经：辽宁， 河北， 天津， 山东 / 河南，安徽，湖北，重庆， 四川 / 贵州， 云南，广西， 广东， 海南”. They are not from Hainan, other answers below.

Translated to English “This bus passes through: Liaoning, Hebei, Tianjin, Shandong / Henan, Anhui, Hubei, Chongqing, Sichuan / Guizhou, Yunnan, Guangxi, Guangdong, Hainan” It takes them three months down and three months back. Obviously they are not allowed on the highways, I wonder how they cope on the hilly bits!

Huan had almost given up hope of sighting any wildlife and then suddenly, “Look over there Bob, on that piece of long grass.” I did as I was told, I looked, I tried, took a few photos but only one was worth saving. We hope you like it.

And that was it; all that was required to finish the day was naps and cooking. My nap was disturbed by my leg; I wonder how long I can abstain from visiting the doctors. Cooking was me again too, simple food today, mashed carrot and potato, tinned peas, and minced beef with onion garlic and mushrooms. I did add some parmesan cheese to mine, yummy.

December 11^th Sometimes I wish I woke up early because I was fully rested and ready to go, most times it's because one of us has not slept well. Anyway, early it was and my initial thought was to do another video today. Sat in front of the computer and feeling like ‘Felix Unger’ with his sinus troubles I soon changed my mind and we stayed local. Before long we will know what they plan to do with our little island. Sometimes I preferred it how it was nine years ago!

Just over the island Huan found squirrels, two of them in fact, frolicking all around the trees. I tried my best but the results were 0/many I’m afraid. I did find a bird though!

These two are characters that you may well have seen before. I liked this one, there they are ‘reflecting’ on their lives and being stuck on the outside of a car, albeit a nice car. What do you think Huan and I should have on the outside of our car?

Repairs to the school landslide are coming on very well. It’s not obvious from this picture but deep holes were created and filled with rebar and concrete to support the new wall. It should now be fine and will probably last much longer than the school itself.

Further down on Riverside Street, where all the ‘closed’ restaurants are, someone has opened up a new one. It is a beef hot pot restaurant, looks like it could be good.

As usual we have a weekly progress report on the sluice gates, work on the dam and basin continues apace, they should be able to begin construction soon. The rainy season is over now so although we may get the occasional showers the river should not become a raging torrent again, at least not before next April.

Instead of continuing along Tea Street I suggested to Huan that we go around the library. She was very pleased I said that as within seconds she found me a subject!

Huan bumped into a neighbour so I shot on ahead and then turned to snap a few photos of them. Huan decided that only this one made the ‘sharing’ grade.

While I was out in front I found birds again. However, they were just a little bit out of reach so no photo was good enough to put here on its own. Instead I give you two collages from two different spots on the last stretch home.

December 12^th We did it! I woke up early enough and we managed a video, another ‘no through road’ one. First though, the beautification of our road continues.

And just down the road construction is ongoing on a complex that will house people who have had to move from rural places for one reason or another. It looks like a nice place.

Our video started on the way up towards the landfill. We could not remember exactly how far we would have to walk but as you can see, the weather was good for it today.

At this stage we knew exactly where we were. Nothing had really changed over the years.

By the time we reached here, things had changed considerably. Here we were asking the farmer how far it was to the top and she told us that there was another way down the other side now. To our surprise, she said it was not a new track.

We left her to it and continued upwards and onwards. She had told us to go through the betel nut orchard and look for motorcycle tracks. Here is the farm entrance.

There was no way through the farm so we skirted around it and met a guy on a motor scooter. He explained that there was another way down but that it was very narrow. It was also very wet and full of leeches! Neither of us was really dressed for a leech safari so we gave it a miss. Here is the ‘end of the road’ and a glimpse of the beginning of the narrow track going down.

At the spot which we had previously thought was the end of the road, (see the video for more details), I found a lizard and Huan found some lemons.

Unusually, Huan asked me to take a photo of her underneath this large plant. Because she asked, I took many, she chose this one.

She then found a butterfly on its last legs and put it on a leaf for me to photograph and for it to metamorphose into its next stage. I doubt if it will have done that though.

Now it was about time to get our ducks in a row as they say, so we did just that!

Our walk to the top was five kilometres and then of course we had to come down five kilometres as well. You can see everything here - https://youtu.be/W2YcV6mmZX0

With all those videos to peruse and edit, along with seventy six photos, no nap could be taken by me this afternoon. Huan decided to skip hers too. I still had time to cook though, won-ton soup with store bought dumplings and the rest cooked by me. I was quite impressed with the result. In fact the only complaint I had is that there was too much!

December 13th I’m a day late filling in this post again! It was Friday the thirteenth so I convinced Huan to stay in and rest while I went out for a stroll around the town. I may have had an ulterior coffee and fag break motive. Going down the road I heard the dulcet tones of a Snowbird Orchestra so I decided to make a video for the director for a change. You can see the video here - https://youtu.be/rnfhsAokufo

I did manage to take a few photos on my way round.

Now here is one subject that did not make it into the video. The topic of the video was how our visiting snowbirds spend their winter migrations here in Wuzhishan. This particular bird, a long tailed shrike, may or may not be migratory but I like to think it likes the climate here.

What do you think of supplements? I am the eternal cynic so cast a doubting eye over any of them. I certainly would not buy any of them, most definitely not from the side of the road.

My last photo from the video is intriguing, is it a bench perhaps. With all those grooves I don’t think sitting on it for any length of time would leave you feeling the right kind of groovy! The shape however is rather attractive.

Having uploaded the video and just getting ready to reply to a comment on it we lost our power. It turned out that there was a fire downstairs! Although the photos don’t show too much we could not actually take any more, whenever we opened the balcony windows our eyes began hurting from the smoke in the air.

December 14^th Market day came around again, we decided to go the front way to have a look at the front of our building, and on the way downstairs we stopped off at the second floor. The owner was there and allowed us to take a couple of photos. I would have preferred to spend a bit longer and used the flash but it seemed wrong somehow.

The owner, who was not at home at the time, thought that the fire began in the ceiling light in the living room. From my vantage point, every switch and socket that I could see looked to be burnt out. However, the consumer unit, also referred to as a fuse box, was mostly undamaged. I believe that the lack of earth connections and earth leakage protection were the more likely causes. At the front of the building there is not much evidence of there having been a fire there at all so no point in showing you a photograph.

How about a law enforcing teddy bear just down the road instead? This one must be quite newly installed; he looks cleaner than the ones in our apartment.

I tried again with the birds today but as usual they were a bit far away. The first photo of each trio shows the original, the second two show the crops.

December 15^th Last night the two teddy bears were rather cold, Madame even waking the ‘boy’ up to have a warm-up cuddle sometime in the middle of the dark. Checking the forecast for today any morning walk was quickly shelved. It would appear that last night the temperatures were down to 10⁰C at least 11⁰C is tonight’s forecast low and last night was colder. Listen to me, you’re all having real winters and I’m having a grumble about not so low temperatures.

Anyway, we got out after lunch and for the first time this year I am not wearing shorts!

Huan had missed the birds I saw four days ago and the ones I saw yesterday so I suggested we walked along the downside path to Little Island and see if we could find any. We did find one.

Huan was then as pleased as punch when she found two more possible subjects. Just like the first they were really too far away but they will have to suffice for now.

A lot further on, after we had passed the courts area, I spotted a local climate monitor(?). They show the dB levels of ambient noise, the temperature, the humidity, the PM concentrations, etc. Seeing the ambient noise level hovering in the green at about 48dB I gave it a test shout. It shot up into the red and hit 76dB, not bad for a very short sharp shout. We sneaked off quickly.

Not long after, I almost fell over this one sitting on a wall. His buddy disappeared too quickly; however, he was gracious enough to allow me two shots so here they both are. PS Isn’t it strange that we talk about birds sitting on walls? After all, they don’t sit, they haven’t exactly got fat bums like we have, they just perch!

Just in case you were curious, here’s the scenery, no blue sky today.

Sometimes Chinese children can be quite shy, like children everywhere I suppose. At other times they can be quite happy to chat. Today we had the latter although we are still not sure exactly what was said. The older girl said they were all siblings but they all had different family names. Perhaps they were terms of endearment.

And that’s it for today I’m afraid.

December 16^th Well, what a boring day we had today. All we did was shopping and wear extra clothes in the house! That means that another week has come to a close, this one with not enough photos, at least as far as I am concerned. Never mind, you do have two videos this week so that should keep you busy for a few minutes at least. Bye for now, see you next time.