Going With The Flow.

February 25^th The first thing for today was to get Huan to take photos off the balcony with her new phone. They are at x1, x0.6. x2 and x4. I have done some minor editing only.

The next item on the agenda was to go to our phone repair shop and give them a gift, my old phone. On the way I found a new friend whose owner was proud to tell me was an English dog. Huan of course did some more photography practice.

Some views on the way, from the camera.

Huan tried for some birds with her phone but unsurprisingly they didn’t come out well. Maybe in time she will learn more about zooming and actually looking at the screen! Having said that, my results were not that much better!

Back home Huan had a nap, I didn’t, I started preparing dinner. After Huan woke up and we had finished our coffee it was time for a two bank trip using Donald. First it was my bank just to top my wallet up and give Huan some cash. Then it was her bank to deposit some of said cash in her Taobao account. Mirrors are still needed for the bathrooms!

Home once again and I finished today’s cooking. It was a fairly easy one, the only difficulty is having to do it all with one induction hob. The ‘group’ is talking about gas again so perhaps there is hope on the horizon. Anyway, here’s a snap of Huan’s plate. If you don’t know what it is then I guess I will have to tell you. It’s mashed potatoes and carrots, fat green beans, fried liver with onions and garlic. The liver had been cut into strips and marinated in vinegar, soy sauce, barbecue spice and paprika. It was tasty, tasty, very very tasty!

February 26^th Road trip day, it was off to Sanya we went, to meet the guy who did the walls last time. The drive down was uneventful although the central highway was busier than usual. When we arrived I found the maintenance family’s cat, a new one I think, because this one allowed me to pet it. Look carefully, its eye is open and it doesn’t look too happy. In fact it barely moved all the time we were there so perhaps there is something wrong.

While we waited I had a little walk, checking out the scenery.

We had to extend our waiting period through to lunch time!

On the way back up Huan pointed out something to me. This is the sign in the lift, obviously no translation is needed. Mind you, the area of the lift would make it quite difficult to fit ten people inside, even svelte young Chinese ones.

However, there was another note, a typewritten one outside the lift.

That one could be a problem for you to read so here is the translation. “The maximum number of safe passengers in elevators. Four people, start normally. Commuters should be careful to use the elevator correctly, and violators will be held responsible for any situation.” Maybe there is a problem that no one has told us about. At least here we only have to go up to the second floor!

Discussions with the workman completed, to Huan’s satisfaction, we headed back to the car which we had left in the shopping mall basement car park. It’s a good job we decided not to drive in this area today. Can you spot the difficulties we would have encountered attempting to go around the roundabout!

In fact it is not easy to drive around any of the streets in our area.

This next one is all about technology. I spotted these two so shouted out loudly to Huan, so that they could hear, “Look darling, foreigners!” Unfortunately they didn’t speak any English, nor in fact did they speak any Chinese. However, they did have a good translation app on their phones. They turned out to be from Belarus and were here on holiday.

That was the end of our day in Sanya, we headed for home. Instead of going back along the highway, we drove the high way through the mountains. See what I did there? Once we arrived we headed out to buy take away food to eat at home, neither of us fancied a restaurant and neither of us were going to cook either. Huan had a bowl of noodles; I bought chips from the burger shop, chicken breasts from the buffet restaurant and added the bread and salad myself.

February 27^th Both of us slept in this morning, Huan only until just after eight and me until ten past nine. Maybe we can blame it on yesterday’s drive to Sanya. Being so late I got busy preparing today’s dinner, kare kare. It’s well worth trying, better if you actually use oxtails. I used chicken drumsticks today, it works well enough. Also I used our fat Harbin beans instead of the long green ones and I added some tatties. The finishing touches would be done when we got home after an afternoon walk.

Our walk was to include the bathroom cabinet shops, yet again. On the way I passed our first subject, a beautiful bird. Unfortunately it was not a real one.

We ended up in a shop where Huan knows the owner. Just when Huan was about to confirm our choice, which would have to be ordered, I suggested she try the mirror lamp to see if it was OK. The lamp turned out not to be a mirror lamp but lamps above and below the cabinet, probably not very good for shaving or doing your make-up! Back home we headed.

Not much came into our field of view today, just a motor scooter.

For our short walk we will finish off with more birds, but real ones this time.

At home it was straight into the kitchen for me, bring the pot back to a simmer and add the prepared peanut sauce. I would still like it a bit thicker next time but it worked well enough, much better than the last time I tried in fact. Sorry, no photos, we were too hungry!

February 28^th Another shopping reconnoitre was our plan for today, checking out how easy it would be to buy new bedroom and bathroom doors here in Wuzhishan. First we had to pass the little cattery where I popped in to say hello. Now last time we were there this one kept putting its paw out to feel my face. Because Huan wanted a photo it didn’t do it today!

We are both convinced that our next subject recognises us as we approach his home as he always becomes vociferous when we get nearer. Of course he may do that for everyone but as we have only seen him do it for us, we will stay with our dreams.

Just for a change we are also showing you some flora this week.

I may be having trouble with my right ear again, yes I am back to the ear drops twice a day, but I always hear it when Chinese people talk about a foreigner as I pass. Here I am yet again explaining that while they only visit in the winter, Huan and I live here permanently. By the way, why does the sky look fake in Huan’s photo? PS I do like the photo and I think her new phone has much better colours than her old one. That’s Leica Natural if you were wondering.

Having passed many door shops and come to the realisation that we would more than likely have to order from the internet through one of them we gave up for the day and walked back along the riverside. The amenities are being fully utilised by our visiting snowbirds.

Suddenly Huan was giving me a shouty whisper and dragging me back to take a look. She was over the moon, she had found a lizard!

More flora and a lovely view, no complaints about the weather today.

It was then my turn to make Huan even more happy by getting fairly close to a bird in the hedge.

Approaching home, remember when we showed you our newly completed open road? Well it is now uncompleted again. They are putting in large storm drains.

For the last image of the day we may need your help. Is this Grommit’s lady friend? Google doesn’t seem to bring me back the correct images when I search for that phrase. I guess it could be Grommit in a dress or maybe he has a sister.

March 1st First of all, a very happy St. David’s Day to one and all. If you don’t know what it is and why, then Google is your friend. It’s also market day and we didn’t need to buy anything so we could just enjoy the stroll. I even managed to get a shot through the trees of a wee birdie.

And for the second day in a row Huan was happy, she found another lizard. I did wonder what she was doing when she kept tugging at my shirt but we were so close that she couldn’t say anything just in case she disturbed him.

Oh, and never let anyone tell you that unicorns aren’t real, we found two.

I have no idea what I had just said here, but it obviously amused me.

On our way through the little park before the riverside market, Huan took the path and I took the less trodden way. I didn’t find anything though.

For the second photo above I tried to ensure that there were no man made objects in the frame. Huan tried the same with me in a bamboo grove.

In the market Huan bought me a Xinjiang pastie. Actually I have no idea what it is really called but it is quite nice albeit a little salty.

We have observed this scene every Saturday for months and I have never been sure whether or not to photograph it. We have free food in the UK but it is usually for the down and outs, the homeless etc. Here it’s available to everyone; all they have to do is a little Buddhist chant first. It is always busy and people often have to find other places to sit once they have their bowl of grub. Going back for seconds seems to be fine as well.

Huan thought that this bird was feeding its young; I thought it was building a nest.

We see a few motor homes now and then but nothing spectacular. They are usually small conversions, like many we see in the UK. I took this one because I thought that maybe you could work out what on earth the graphic design is supposed to be.

It’s been a while since we have showed you any cows so let’s make up for that today. The first one listened to me, the rest were too far away. And that was our end of our market day.

March 2^nd Apart from not fancying any long walks, especially ones that include hills, life appears to be almost back to normal now. Today my plan was a downriver walk but turning around at the end and not going via the highway bridges and Changhao Road. First I was on bin duty, taking the trash to the bins, and then walking back along the front. I did find a bird on my way but he was not very impressive so is not included. Instead we have the view down towards the river, between the villas, Onslow’s car in the distance.

Our second set of stairs is well on the way to completion and was good enough for us to walk down to the path on the downstream site.

Quite a lot more work has been done in the river as well. It looks like they are constructing some kind of multi-level weir; it should look very good once it is done.

We had another beautiful day for it today, gorgeous blue skies.

This route takes us past the local sewage works, looks very good doesn’t it?

This is one that surprised us at home. Taking the photo we could only see two goats, only playing with the lighting showed the third.

Flora anyone?

At the end of our walk, where in the past we may have explored further, we used Huan’s phone to take a selfie at x0.6. It worked well enough although we should perhaps have held the phone a little higher. Of course we are still not looking at the camera(s).

Had we raised the phone more this is what you would have seen behind us.

The views on the way home were just as cheery, smiles for both of us.

Huan wondered what I was doing here. I thought this leaf was rather pretty but I could also see a tiny little insect. That’s all I can tell you, maybe someone out there can fill us in.

Huan was even happier when she found yet another lizard.

We took a diversion on the way home and went along the main road. Now many years ago we told you about the man (we still call him 师傅, Shīfù, it means Master), who supervised the refurbishment of our apartment back in 2015. We see him and his family quite a lot although it has been a few months since we last saw them. Son #5 was the first to spot us today. Mrs Shīfù was still joking about waiting for #6 which she hoped would be a girl!

Finally for today we have some more birds for you. They wouldn’t stay still for very long at all but of all the photos we took Huan thinks this one is the best.

March 3^rd Good day my lovely students, today we have two ‘ing’ verbs, shopping and working. Yes, I did both, along with my leader of course. Shopping was first, easy parking (oh look, another ‘ing’) and inside the supermarket was not too bad either. There were some ‘newly arrived snowbirds’ but we were fairly relaxed. That is apart from manoeuvring (another ‘ing’ for you) around the packing boxes everywhere. I keep telling them that in the UK this job is done in the middle of the night! Of course I could be wrong these days.

Shopping over, supplies stored away, cup of tea finished it was time for work, some plumbing (another ‘ing’). I had done a little yesterday, installing the new shower riser. I know, it is not exactly perpendicular but I used the existing holes to avoid drilling new ones.

Today’s work was to first remove this part of the old installation.

The process was fairly easy.

Next was the installation of the main unit.

And here it is, prior to the fittings being added.

Finally the fittings were added and tested, no worries there.

Et voila! The finished product, don’t look too carefully at the angles and remember I did not drill any new holes. Why did we replace the old one? It is not obvious from the photographs but our new water heater is bigger than the old one and prevented the use of the ‘rain’ shower. We will have visitors this year so we want to make sure they can stay clean!

(Here is a list of famous plumbers, If you like you can now add my name to the list, https://www.tnplumbingsolutions.com/blog/affordable-plumbing-nashville/7-famous-plumbers-you-never-knew-about/)

There you go, another week here in China and as you can see life is much the same as it is in the UK, or anywhere else come to that. Stay tuned to find out what we get up to in the next seven days and thereafter. Love to all!