July 22nd The computer lied to us again and we had no opportunity for making videos today. The rain stopped a little later though so we had a very English walk, around the town and carrying our umbrellas just in case.
Even with bad weather we still like our little town.
And I like my little friends. This shop used to have a cat for many years but it disappeared. I think the lady said it was run over. She now has two little kittens and was doing her very best to try and give me this one! Huan was not impressed.
I tried to take a selfie with us both holding our brollies up, unfurled. It didn’t work so well. You can see that Huan is holding an umbrella, not so much me.
That was it for our morning. All I had to do was start this week’s post, not very difficult. Huan had to get into her role of temptress and cook loads of dumplings for me. It’s all I can do to restrict myself to single figures even if I have just eaten! FYI there are more than forty here!
July 23rd No rain today! However, the skies were still overcast and some lazy bugger slept too late for a video walk. We had a bus‘n’walk instead taking the #5 to Camelot where we got off and walked back along Lizard Alley. There’s a new footbridge there.
Never fear, we will be showing you more of the new bridge and footpath when we get around to making the video. I guess we may have to resort to alarm calls. On with today. Looking at the photos you might think the weather is not hot, until that is, you look at my photo!
Huan was beginning to think that Lizard Alley would have to be renamed. Before beautification of the walkways took place there used to be many of the wee beasties, now they are much more difficult to find. Just after I found a flying creature though, Huan’s finger did it again.
We parted ways for a short while, Huan stayed on the path and I went up to the road. Sometimes those reclusive reptiles can be found there. I found nothing at all; Huan found a butterfly, a very mobile one. From my viewpoint my snaps were garbage, Huan did quite well.
Approaching the bridge that tells us we are back in town we could see some lifting work in progress. Our feet were not fast enough though.
Huan was there first, she just missed the last pontoon of the tourist dragon boat being lowered into the water. I arrived moments later to snap the whole thing.
As we continued homewards the ‘granny finger’ got busy again, pointing out birds. Here they are; three different birds for you.
Nearer to home I made a new friend.
Looking across the river this scene took my fancy. How many of you played in the countryside and made dens or forts in the bushes?
We’ll leave it there for our walk and go on with some more food photos for you. Yes, after lunch and an exceptionally long nap, (2½ hours for me), I was back in the kitchen. Here are my ingredients. Just in case you need the words, they are spring onions, a little parsley, a whole garlic, a carrot, a red pepper, some oyster mushrooms and a bag of liver. It was in fact chicken livers which I had cut up last night and then marinated in some cooking alcohol, some light soy sauce and some cumin powder with just a little corn flour too.
My method – chop up the garlic and carrot extremely small and then start the frying process. After a short while add the chopped up spring onions. When you think the time is ripe throw in the chicken livers. When the livers have been cooking long enough add the chopped red pepper and finally the chopped mushrooms. I gave Huan a choice, plate or bowl. She chose plate, I chose bowl, either way works fine. Liver can be something delicious to eat!
July 24th Another day and another excuse. This time it wasn’t the weather or the weather forecast. When we got up and went through our morning rituals on the phone (Huan) and on the computer (me) nothing worked. Our wifi was dead! Panic, what to do? Easy, ask these three questions - Is it plugged in? Is it on? Did you restart it? In other words, time for a master reset, switch off router and modem, leave for a few minutes and then switch on again. That worked for Huan so she was happy. However, although I now had an internet connection I had no access to all my required sites. Help was needed, in this case from my own personal support man, my good friend in the north, he of the Irish persuasion. Within minutes he had me sorted out and I was off!
The plan then was to go out after lunch for a wee bit of exercise. This time it wasn’t our fault, the weather changed and rain came after lunch. What’s more it stayed all afternoon and evening.
July 25th Yahoo! Good weather, an early start, let’s go and do the next video in the upriver series. It involved taking a #2 bus to the start and a #5 bus back from the finish. My little video of Huan waiting for the #2 bus would not give me a good screen shot so our first snap is opposite the local government offices, when we got off the bus.
Next up is the first selfie of the day, taken at
Minutes later we were on our way, heading towards Nansheng, and feeling quite happy that, due to circumstances beyond our control, this video had been delayed. If there had been no delay then we might not have seen all this lush foliage at the side of the walkway.
Apart from the lizard at the beginning of our walk, wildlife was very sparse. I tried!
Still, the scenery made up for it.
This caused a minor hiccough in our plans. We were going to use the stepping stones to walk to the middle of the river and take a couple of videos from there. Last week we had seen people walking across here, today it was not possible.
And what had someone been doing in the middle?
Lucky me, I managed to find another birdie!
This was our planned destination but checking time, kilometres done and how far away the next bridge was we decided to keep going.
“What is this?” I hear you ask.
It is Dà tuóluó, translated as ‘big top’, not as in the circus tent
but as in a spinning top. Down here in
Soon our amended destination appeared not too far in front of us.
Before
getting there though I had to take a photo of ‘
And then we were on the bus, the #5, and headed for home. Our timing was too perfect; there was no time to buy some cool, clear water. Never mind, the fridge always has some in.
Our video was successful, albeit not very short. You can speed it up and skip the narration if you like. This is the link - https://youtu.be/an1TmOzFZDo
Back
home, early, we had to stop at the gate. We ended up being late! Taobao is
generally pretty good but now and then you can run into problems. I had ordered
two jars of Russian marmalade, having previously tried a small jar. The box was
damaged, both jars were open and ants had got inside. After half an hour
arguing at the gate we went home where I made lunch and Huan kept up the good
fight. She eventually got her money back in the evening, after lunch, naps and
dinner. The trader was quite angry and said he wouldn’t send any more. On these
occasions I wish they would talk to each other and not just use text messages.
Had the mistake been on our part I would either have paid to send the goods
back or just kept them anyway. In this case, this was absolutely not our fault;
it was either the trader’s or the shipper’s. I’ll just have to buy (more
expensive) marmalade when we go to
July 26th What a view out of the bedroom window this morning, an absolutely drop dead gorgeous day. I didn’t take a photo only because I have taken so many of the same view before. Today of course was market day so off we went. It seems to be getting busier. As the snowbirds are not on their southerly migration yet we wondered if it was just because of the school holidays. We did see rather more kids than we usually do, although they are not pictured.
Huan was not busy with her phone this week so you only have me. That means scenery, cars etc. Here’s one with a message although it may not be what you think it is.
And here’s some of the scenery for you, you can see where we started yesterday.
And then we are back to cars and their extras. I wonder what you will make of this pair? It took me a while but I found them on e-bay – “CPXX Studio Fist of Fury Stephen Chow Resin Model Ng Man Tat Statue” for only US$ 242.00. Some people must have more money than sense!
On our way through the last market we saw this little bird. It obviously had problems of some sort. Despite not looking so small it appeared to be looking upwards, perhaps to a nest, but it also seemed unable to fly there.
Huan’s last port of call was this vegetable store, it was a last resort. We could not find any cherry tomatoes anywhere today so she was buying normal ones here for our salad. This week we didn’t need any duck, chicken or pork, we were having eggs instead.
Our last photo is our way home, the #2 bus. Doctor Lià ng will be happy, only 4.5 kms today!
After lunch the weather turned again. There are three typhoons in the Pacific, Krosa, Francisco and Co-May, but they are too far away to have any real effect on our weather here. We don’t mind the change though, good morning weather and poor afternoon weather suits us quite well!
July 27th “Where shall we go today Boss?” “The countryside.” She answered. Our plans went awry yet again! First it was chatting to a guy in building #1 where they had a leaky pipe making their entranceway all wet. Second it was friends of Huan who were asking me why I wasn’t covering my arms to protect me from the sun. I of course gave them my ‘vitamin D’ answer. Third we bumped into Zhà o dé who had just returned from up north where his last remaining sibling had just passed away. After giving our condolences time was no longer on our side so we stuck to the town and riverside. That turned out well for Huan’s finger!
Our route was obstructed a little by road works, so we crossed to the other side.
Back on the original side we found one that we thought would not make it to the page. It turned out to be a damsel fly rather than a dragon fly and we did get one good shot.
Bridge maintenance in progress, the first time we have seen them using one of these trucks.
For a change, we walked under the bridge.
Someone, who was not there to explain, had caught a fish, a very small fish.
And next was something you would be well advised not to get too close to!
This was a very difficult one
indeed. Huan found it on the shaded side of a tree and it was almost the same
colour as the tree. Out of four snaps that I thought may have made the grade
only this one was good enough to share.
Staying with beasties we found a young girl at the pet shop who was being allowed, by one of the birds, to pet it. I must say it looked quite happy.
Of course I had to have a go too!
And then Huan found one more lizard and I had to give Dodo some love. Day over!
July 28th Monday is shopping day. Today we almost had a last minute change of plan. There was no electricity when we woke up and I didn’t fancy carrying all the shopping up seven flights of stairs. Consequently I suggested something else. Luckily the power came back on and normal service could be resumed.
Shopping over, after lunch I began the preparations for dinner before we went for a nap. Dinner was one I found on the internet. The list of ingredients is as it was written; the directions had to be transcribed from a Youtube video. Consequently they are fine for me but should also work for you. If you want to be sure go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq0CuqBzOpk
Later on, after coffee and cake, I got down to it. The results were very good indeed. Huan was suitably impressed. Her plate has the rice, mine has the bread. I would normally have rice too but I found only one bag of pre-prepared rice in the fridge. I decided there was no need to put the rice cooker on and I would just have bread. Both of us enjoyed every last morsel.
This week there will be one more new dish from the internet and one old one from good old Blighty. If you want to see more then don’t forget to click to subscribe, click to enlarge, click to comment etc. We will still be here and hopefully you will too, bye for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment