December 17th Good morning world it’s a brand new day! I was going to write the next line but I am not packing my bags and I am not going away, probably ever again! Looking at the computer this morning I suggested an afternoon walk again and SWMBO agreed with me. It did mean that when we went out I was back in shorts and a short sleeved shirt. Madame wore too much and was therefore too hot. Serves her right!
Because I was cooking today we had a nearby countryside amble, starting off by going across the island park where all the lizards were hiding. I did find an arachnid though.
And of course we should try and show you an alternate view of the little island park too.
Remember the goat house? Well this view is a stitch from behind the goat house looking out over the village and the mountains. There is no sun, but it was plenty warm enough!
Unusually, it was me who spotted the egrets. As usual though, they were far away.
This scene was just one that took my fancy, the small mountain, flanked by two trees, with a nicely shaped cloud in the background. I’m sure experts could make an absolutely marvellous photo out of it but for me it is there just to remind me of what we saw.
Going down a track we have not used for some time, more than a couple of years in fact, we found a barricade. Are they trying to fence us in? Oh no, “don’t fence me in”, name that singer. It was fairly easy to pass as it happens; all we had to do was duck and bend. Mind you, that is much easier said than done these days. Huan had to clean ants off my back and head afterwards!
For Huan it wasn’t ants, it was a nice hairy caterpillar. She doesn’t like them much when they get near her so I had to play the hero, after taking the photo of course!
More birds up next. If you can tell me how many are in the first photograph you are a better man than me, Gunga Din. In the second, a cropped photo, I think there are ten and in the third, even more heavily cropped photo, there are five.
Only the oldies will know what I
am attempting to do here, and not succeeding very well because of the shape of
the wall. I am trying to be ‘
In Luobote village we found a puppy, one that was not yet scared of big horrible humans.
We also found the farmer trying to get her family of cows to go home without stopping for snacks on the way. At least they don’t keep asking for the loo!
Would you like another ‘view’ before the day is out? Don’t say no, because you will get one anyway. I think it’s pretty good.
Now then, what’s going on here? I stood for a while and could not make out if the caterpillar was moving or not. As for the ant, well I didn’t see that until I got home and uploaded the files to the computer. It could be waiting for the caterpillar’s last gasp I suppose.
Finally Huan had me going with birds again. The first one was away in the distance in the fields, “look, it’s on the cow’s back” she said. Of course the bird had flown by the time I got the shot off. There is another on the ground though, can you see it? The second photo was not quite so far away but when I got the call there were trees in the way and I couldn’t see anything at all resembling a bird. Eventually I got the required result for the director, she was pleased.
Back home and the first thing on the agenda was something very British, a nice cup of tea. I needed a bit of relaxation before starting dinner. Dinner was not British at all, it was Hearty Meatball Soup, you can find the recipe here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psTbkC5mLlo Huan had prepared the meatballs yesterday, if we have it again I will try as they are done in the video. Other than that I followed the instructions almost perfectly. All I did differently was to add some noodles before the green vegetables were added at the end. Both of us enjoyed it and no doubt we will eat it again in the future, whichever one of us makes it.
December 18th Today was a service day; I
was to be the taxi driver for the day. One does not argue with the boss, one
just does as one is told! Off to Ledong we went where the Minister of Finance
needed to pay next year’s maintenance fees for our apartment there. Actually,
she didn’t need to go; she went early because most years the early payers get a
nice discount or a bonus gift of sorts. This year however, she was out of luck.
The maintenance company had incurred a lot of additional expenses in
Not to worry, a change is as good as a rest they say. Driving through Ledong we had both been surprised by the increase in traffic. Sat in the car, blocking the office exit while Huan was inside, I could see the same with our apartments, not a single parking space to be found anywhere.
Once Huan had finished her business we found a spot down by the river to leave Donald and went off for a walk before lunch. Here’s a ‘stitch-up’ of where we started from. Remember to click to enlarge!
You can see that the weather is much different to ours in Wuzhishan. One thing that you can’t see however is what they have in Ledong that we very rarely have, wind! Luckily we were both wearing our woolly pullys! One of the things that both places share is muriels, here’s one from there. Can you identify the mountain in the background?
Next we have another stitch-up for you followed by a view downstream and a view upstream from the bridge where we crossed the river.
Huan spotted a man down on the bank and said he was camping there. I said he’s more than likely just fishing. Huan was right; he was actually keeping an eye on his riverside farm.
Before we crossed completely I thought the view back from the bridge merited another stitch-up, so here you are. No signs of a city in there!
Walking down the other side of the river was just as pleasant, maybe even more so as there was less traffic on this side.
I have a question for you. Have you ever heard of ‘beam wash’? No? Well me neither until today. This is a row of searchlights for display purposes; the lights themselves have the name ‘beam wash’ on the side. Google it and you will find many results.
Very close to the beam wash installation, and probably used at the same time, is a set of army installations. In the collage you can only see the gun and the plane because everything else was behind a green fence. That is in the second photo, with me. What am I doing? Just checking to see that the tank is really metal, it is by the way.
Let’s get back to nature now shall we. I loved these flowers; the petals are very ‘tissue paper’ like in their appearance although they do feel stronger than that. Aren’t they beautiful?
And here is a final look downriver before we headed off for lunch.
On the way to said lunch it was time for me to put Huan in the frame! I think she is now a super duper programmer, or something like that.
For lunch we found a restaurant that was advertising northern food so that was good enough for us. Actually, any other point on the compass would have done just as well really.
For a change we were having shared dishes and not one each. The dishes were of my choosing with a little help from the Minister of Food. Rice of course is just rice, one bowl each. The dish on the right, apart from not having any minced pork in it which is what the picture showed, was nice enough. In fact I ate a great deal of it, carefully avoiding those pesky red chillies you can see. The dish on the left is supposed to be shrimps and vegetables. The shrimps in the picture were far larger than the ones you may just be able to see here. However, it seems that the label was correct, they are river shrimps. Neither of us ate a lot of that dish!
Walking back to Donald we found another Tom and Jerry. Unusually though, they were not on a cheap EV or a moped, they were on a BMW convertible!
Should you visit Ledong? Of course you should, it is a great little town. If we had bought a two bedroom apartment here, instead of a one bedroom, we’d probably spend far more time down here. In fact we would even consider moving!
Getting home took us a lot longer than going to Ledong. For some reason we were all diverted off the highway, again. At least on this part of the island we know where we are, where we have come from and where we have to go. We could not get back on the highway at all, the police told us we would have to ‘use the old road, through Maoyang’ quite an addition to our journey. By the time we did get home we were both worn out, the diversionary roads were all also under repair and improvement. I told Huan to skip cooking and we just had sandwiches, cheese and salad for Huan and good old jam and cheese for me!
December 19th One of the disadvantages of old age is not having the stamina you once used to have. Neither of us fancied anything strenuous today. One of the advantages of getting old is not caring about not having the stamina!
As usual this week, the morning weather was not as good as the afternoon’s so we went out after lunch. Walking along the riverside market street our way was blocked by piles of sand so we hopped down to the riverside and the newly paved walkway. There we found a bird!
Further on, after the Fodelai pedestrian bridge, Huan found two more birds. Didn’t she do well today? I’d be lost without her, and her ‘directions’ of course.
Back on the other side of the river walking towards home, the beautification takes the place of pebbles in some places. On this corner there appears to be a strangely placed pebble, on its side, almost like a fin of sorts. What do you think the landscape gardener was going for? I have included two views to help you with your answer!
Aren’t we the lucky ones today, yet another egret?
Being Thursday and since we haven’t brought you up to date this week yet, here is the latest progress report on the new sluice gates.
And finally for today, yet another caterpillar, the third one this week. Huan thought this was ugly until she saw the photo on the computer screen. We both thought it was big, between 10 and 12 centimetres long, not something you would want to put on your hand.
December 20th Another stroll around the town today, me secretly browsing in plumbing shops on the way. With not having anything special in mind we popped up a little alley to have a look at a fast charging spot for EVs. It turned out to be far bigger than we thought it was and also provides car wash facilities and service facilities for ICE cars as well.
The views within the town can sometimes be almost as good as those outside of it. This is one where we were on opposite sides of the same building unsuccessfully searching for squirrels.
We tried for yet another egret, we seem to be seeing a few this week.
The water testing cabinet for the irrigation canal was open today and Huan asked me to take a photo of it. Don’t ask me why she asked, just know that I did what was necessary!
Being a little low on photos this week we thought we might give you the beginning and end of a Pooh sticks competition. Here is what we started with, Huan’s choice by the way. Unfortunately, at the other side of the bridge, the two sticks came out on either end and so we missed getting a photo to see who won.
This photo could have been better, almost perfect in fact, if the butterfly had not decided to move to the leaves further away. Why can’t God’s creatures pose for the camera?
A closer look at what they are doing to the other side of ‘Little Island’.
“Let’s explore this temporary workmen’s bridge,” said I, “especially as the workmen were elsewhere this afternoon. We never learn do we, it was quite wobbly too. I paused on the way across when I saw different workmen slaving away through the old sluice gates.
Of course getting back on to a path on the other side was not so easy!
It did give us a close up view of what’s going on down this end though. We’ll go and have a look on the other side one of these days.
Dinner was out today, for a change.
December 21st Market day again and we had to buy things this week. Instead of our usual weekly salad we were having stew, to keep us warm. That meant we needed vegetables.
On the way I found a squirrel! By golly, they are zippy little creatures!
We actually thought that the market may have been closed today, there is a lot of work going on with the sidewalks. It seems we were wrong.
Have you ever seen one of these
before? It is the old fashioned way of making popcorn; perhaps that is where
the name comes from. They used to terrify me in
Huan also bought nuts, sweet corn and fish just to make sure I had enough to carry, to balance one arm against the other. Why did I ever tell that I did that? It made life difficult when we saw another egret when we were almost home. I did get the snap though!
And that was out Saturday, except for our stew of course. We used ready cooked Wenchang chicken and put it on top of the vegetables for the last few minutes of cooking them. It worked very well, so well that we will no doubt do it again in the future. No photos though.
December 22nd Another stroll today, no long
walks. When we roused our weary bones nice and early, (well eightish), the
temperature was 10⁰C. Someone should tell the weather organisers that this is
The ulterior motive for this route was to show you, as promised, what is going on in front of our house, on the other side of the old sluice gates. There is work going on, but, with these two snaps I have to say that we are none the wiser!
Further on, towards the road to somewhere, more work has been carried out. What is this? Is this the new railway station? Could it be a new VSTOL airport? Probably not, it could however be an extension to the Little Island Park or another housing complex, time will tell.
Although we weren’t going too far at least we had lovely weather for walking.
Have you heard, or read about sawbill ducks? Well I bet you haven’t seen a sawbody bird before. Just look at the first photo, the beak (handle), the eye (hole in the blade) and the serrated teeth (the blade), strong enough to cut down trees!
The plan was to walk through Luobote village. I sent Huan on the normal road which had a bit of shade for her, while I traipsed off through the fields.
It was quite an eventful walk for me, I heard my name being called out from somewhere in the village. It took me a while but I did eventually spot the children. Surprisingly they had spotted me from a long way off; Huan had not pointed me out to them. Also, much to Huan’s chagrin I spotted another wee birdie. There are four snaps here but they are all the same bird.
Huan also spotted me from a long way off when I was chatting to a young girl and her Grandma. Her phone really can’t compete but she does try!
Now then, now then, what’s going on here? With the way all the arms and legs were moving it was difficult to ascertain whether they were making mad passionate love or all out war. No doubt Sir David would be able to tell us!
We then took Huan on her turkey gazing road; the first one was behind a fence. It looks like it could see me pointing the camera, what do you think.
On our way to the second, newly discovered site, we chatted with a puppy that then almost refused to go home, talked to a schoolgirl who was too shy to actually talk to me but then followed us to the end of the village. This view also took my fancy.
The second turkey vantage point lived up to its promise. For a while I thought they were going to come all the way up to the gate. That was not to be but at least they came close enough.
Did you know that when turkeys
were first introduced to
The same pen also had this rather handsome goose. Maybe next year I will plan earlier and we will have goose for dinner on Christmas Day, there’s always some in the market.
On our way home we found this little old lady putting some temporary netting up while she sorted out her fence. I thought it was to keep us out but it turned out that it was to keep the cows in. Didn’t I do well? Also, spot the Christmas colours, red, black and green.
Finally, for today, passing through squirrel alley we actually found a squirrel. There was only one and he, or she, was very agile. However, these photos are not too bad.
There was another sighting, by me, of a snake! By the time I got the camera pointed in the right general direction it had already slithered off though. That was just as well because it was not a pretty one, but a brown, more than likely poisonous one!
December 23rd Huan and I were chatting last night about old age, we do that sometimes you know. It seems that when you start ‘getting older’ you don’t really notice it. There then comes a stage when you realise you are aging but it doesn’t worry you too much, you can still do most things that you used to. And then, out of the blue, comes another stage where you suddenly realise that you can’t do the things you used to do, even the simple things. For example, jumping down a step of half a metre, or even up, was no problem before. Now I have to let Huan go first and then I have to lean on her shoulder. It feels wrong; I am supposed to look after her! Even more confusing is research that shows humans have two rapidly aging ‘ages’, one at 44 and one at 60. I don’t remember either of them!
Anyway, I still had to drag myself out of the house after lunch, my wallet needed filling before Christmas, not that we have any plans. I just prefer to be prepared for any financial emergencies. My solo route took me along the lower villa levels for a quick check. The first thing I found is an ‘Onslow’ style car although this one is not so bad yet and has no large dog hiding inside.
The check was to see the progress on our side of the river.
Walking up to the main road I found out what they are putting in the big holes they are making.
And then walking behind the contractor’s hoardings, the ones to keep us peons away from the work, I used this path. Luckily there was nobody coming the other way!
I was really struggling to find subjects for Huan perusal today, I resorted to car adornments.
There were a few Christmas decorations around so I took them for her too.
Did I enjoy my walk? Not very much today, my leg was playing up something terrible, my belly was calling out for #2 and I had earache in my right ear, even without the boss being present. In the west people with the festive spirit would have raised my spirits and all those extraneous worries would have melted away. Of course with us being in Wuzhishan there is no Christmas spirit to go with those trees and decorations. I’ll have to start on the Sherry tonight instead!
Speaking of celebrations, we will not be back until after your
celebrations are over. We both wish a very Merry Christmas, to you and your
loved ones. Enjoy! And just because we are in
Happy Christmas to you both. Thinking of you and raising a glass 🥂 to you both XX
ReplyDeleteThank you, same to you, we'll have a glass tonight!
DeleteMerry Christmas to you both, hope you and Huan have a happy new year ...
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas to you, Flora and Padraig too. Hopefully you will have a bit more of the Christmas spirit up there than we have down here. Enjoy!
Delete