September 23rd It rained a lot last night again so real roads were a necessity today. Our route was through the countryside and maybe Shibao village. Neither of us can remember the name! It may even be more than one village; here are some views, all the way around.
Here we are in the village trying to chat to a grumpy dog.
Where would I be without my spotter?
At times the going could be quite slippery, worse than what you see here. When it was neither of us was taking photos!
Last week you saw the mother helping her chicks, well this week I was the helper.
A little further on the chickens hadn’t been fed so were following me up the hill. We ended up finding a turkey and two chickens that just couldn’t be bothered.
Most villages now have these roofs; they have solar panels on the top. I guess the power is fed back into the grid or at least into the village.
I walked straight past these two, siblings I believe. Huan wondered why they were acting like birds until I pointed out that their dinner plate was up there with them.
This was somebody else who hadn’t been fed yet. There is a gap there where I stuck my finger and almost got it pecked.
Here you are, we haven’t had a dragonfly for a while have we. In fact this is the second one today; the first one didn’t come out so well.
Looking for more turkeys we found another, very skittish, kitten. Even though we were behind the fence she was as nervous as a deer caught in the headlights. Of course, it could be a he.
Soon we were back on the road to somewhere and taking the longer way home. Yes, we had actually got out early today! We found a friend, albeit he was brown and not green.
Soon he wanted to join me. Maybe it was the colour of my shirt!
We found a new way home, well not exactly new. It used to be a country road / path, now it is a big new road.
At the other end you can see where we can’t go anymore; they have closed it off for the big middle school, and also where we still can go, downhill and home.
And our last two ‘walk’ photos are in fact just that, the way home.
This morning I had carried one sliding kitchen door downstairs, we never really use them. Reaching home this time I took the second one down. Huan forgot all about taking photographs of me working again so here is the doorway now. When we get around to replacing all our windows the frame and remaining glass will be removed too.
I was the cook again today, here’s the recipe and the ingredients I used.
You may notice some dissimilarity between the recipe and the ingredients. Well, we like to add some vegetables so there is an onion, a potato and an egg plant. Everything else is the same. We did find it not quite salty enough, maybe I added a touch too much (brown) sugar or maybe I didn’t use enough soy sauce. Anyway, here are our plates. There was an extra drumstick for Huan’s breakfast in the morning and we both enjoyed it, bigly!
September 24th Last night we had received our new under-bed storage boxes. After ten years we have decided to try and make space in the second bedroom and also hide away some stuff that never gets used. They came in one box.
Of course some assembly was required; it was not very difficult. Huan still managed to take too many photos of me working though.
Here is the first assembled box and the remaining five awaiting my tender touch.
Finally here are four of them under my side of the bed. Don’t worry, we have ordered two more so that Huan’s side is equally balanced.
Because we would be going out after our naps I started dinner early today. There is no recipe but here are the ingredients, minus a red jalapeno pepper, they didn’t have any in the supermarket on Monday. The second photo is cooking in progress.
Many people would not put extra vegetables in their chilli con carne but I do. All you have to do is chop them small enough. The celery leaves were left on top for effect before doing a stir and simmer. The tomato wotsit was tasty enough so no paprika was used. Of course we would not be eating this until later, first we had to go to the hospital again. This time the visit was to the heart doctor for a top up of me heart medication. Oh I just love getting old sometimes.
Huan decided that you didn’t need the usual photographs of me paying, standing in line, seeing the doctor, collecting the medicines etc. I did get a photo on the way though.
On our way home we picked up two more express deliveries. One will entail some light work in the morning, assuming that it works. Huan will record that. The other was a new shirt. The verdict will be given once it has been washed. Huan recorded it now anyway.
It was then back into the kitchen for me, cook the noodles and heat up the prepared food. Huan’s has no parmesan, mine has a lot. As usual, there was enough left over for her brekkie.
September 25th This morning was a work at home morning. Yesterday we had received some of those vacuum compression storage bags along with the requisite pump to do the work. Our job was first to make enough space in the second bedroom for our visitors arriving in November. This is something we really should have considered doing a long time ago. It also allowed us to do some drawer and wardrobe de-cluttering in our bedroom too. Many bags of ‘stuff’ were carried down to the rubbish area when we were done. You may be wondering where the photos of ‘Bob working again’ are. Well, Huan was working too and neither of us even thought about getting snaps of the other one.
When all was done we did try napping but our brains were too busy. Instead I took Huan for a round the town walk with an ulterior motive. New parks were found.
On our way we checked out new baths, way too expensive for us. Then we looked at round tables with the thought that we may change the dining room a little. On that point we remain undecided. Finally my ulterior motive, we went and bought a new fridge. For some time now ours has been looking very say and grubby. We used the same shop and the government discount scheme. When they deliver our new fridge they will take the old one away and I guess refurbish it or recycle it. Once the financial side was all sorted out back home we went to prepare the ground. Here is the old fridge in its little space in the kitchen.
The grubbiness doesn’t show very much in that photo does it. You can see it clearer here along with all our fridge magnets. We are not going to use any of those on our new fridge but we won’t throw them away yet. They are all in a plastic bag on the balcony just in case our visitors fancy taking any of them away when they leave.
To make things easier we moved the fridge out of the kitchen, with some difficulty, and into a temporary spot in the dining room. The old spot is now ready to receive the new fridge which should be either tomorrow or the day after.
Because they will take the old fridge the same day the contents will have to be transferred from the old to the new. That’s why we did all this preparation.
Exhausted from all the work today we had a short rest before we were off out again. Neither of us was cooking today, it was the Queen’s Royal Birthday! As we have no fish‘n’chip shops here I had to treat Huan to just fish!
This is one of those places with no written menu, apart from the one at the door. It was enough for to decide though so we went in where Huan and the waitress sorted out the order using Huan’s phone, her Wechat and an app.
I’m not quite sure what this sign is for but at least they didn’t expect us to dance!
And here we both are awaiting our meal.
And here is our grub. I ordered the chicken bits just in case the fish was very hard work. Huan ordered the parsley as extra veggies, there was already potato, onion and cabbage in the fish dish, and some cherry tomatoes on top as you can see. We had rice too but no photo of that.
I needn’t have worried about the fish, it was amazing. There were bones of course, there always are, but they were not that difficult to deal with. I still ate my chicken bits, soaking them in the main dish sauce first. If you do visit Wuzhishan ‘Just Fish’ is well worth a visit and the price is pretty good too. We paid ¥178.00 and Huan had enough in a doggy bag for another dinner next week. Here she is with her prize! I was happy too; they let me pay with real money!
We walked home as pleased as Punch with ourselves, feeling absolutely bloated though. Huan didn’t go to be until after eleven. As for me, well I stayed up until well after midnight to avoid that terrible reflux action when you go to bed with a stomach too full!
September 26th This morning’s photograph is not a pretty so
scroll down quickly if you want to miss it. Huan has been having trouble with a
furry tongue and a bitter taster in her mouth for a while now. Yesterday she
discovered that she can now use her health card here so after all my nagging
she finally decided to take her tongue to the
Huan walked there and took some photos on the way. It took me a while to realise that she had spotted a bird here. Unfortunately, just as I always am, she was just a bit too far away.
She did a lot better with the next two, lizards. I needed to crop much less.
You may wonder why Huan went to the hospital all on her lonesome and why I wasn’t there to provide moral support. I was ordered to stay home just in case the fridge delivery was arranged for today. I kept myself busy. First though; Huan’s scenery pics for your delectation.
And how exactly did I keep myself busy. Huan had put the sheets in the washing machine before she left so my duty, although I hadn’t been informed as such, was to hang the sheets on the line. This done I decided to cook Huan’s choice for this afternoon’s dinner, save a little time later. And here it is later, just prior to serving and just after serving. Mine has the most meat.
I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you how to cook a stew but if you’re interested we started off with a cut of pork shoulder with the bone in. I only removed it after everything was cooked. Other ingredients were black peppercorns, star anise, bay leaves, garlic, onions, Chinese green radish, carrots and potatoes. Some leftovers were put in a bowl for Huan’s breakfast and then I whizzed the rest for a future creamy soup.
After dinner, with no sign of an approaching fridge, I took Huan back to the hospital, or rather Donald and I did. They had boiled up some medicine for here, she has to reheat it at home and drink one sachet twice a day.
What is the medicine for? It is to treat 肝胆湿热, Gāndǎn shīrè otherwise known as “Damp-heat in the liver and gallbladder”. Will this cure her, reduce the symptoms etc. I have no idea but this is the same doctor who cured a weepy growth on my chest which Western Medicine had failed to do. I will keep my fingers crossed for her.
September 27th Market day again and for the first time in aeons we were going to have duck with salad for our weekend dinners. Because we didn’t want to dawdle the camera was left at home and I tried the phone’s ‘pro’ camera instead.
I wouldn’t suggest cropping in or enlarging, from what I can see the quality of the ‘pro’ photos is no better than the ones taking with the ‘normal’ option.
I wasn’t the only one carrying things in the market today.
Market days don’t normally give us many photos so here’s one where my envy shines through. Mind you it does look rather new and unused.
Just to stress how inferior the ‘pro’ version is, here are some scenery pics.
Now let’s have some of that car stuff, dogs on one, and my favourite, frogs on the other.
Being Saturday you have to have the mandatory market pictures too.
After lunch the new fridge arrived. We had not emptied the old fridge, we thought we would just transfer everything one to the other. The delivery guys said we had to wait two hours before we could switch it on and fill it up. We had to empty the old one so they could take it with them!
That meant we had time for a nap! After coffee the fridge was moved into position. I then opened its doors and it demanded to be filled. We dutifully obliged. Looks good eh?
Work wasn’t finished for the day though. We finally received the missing screw for my chair! It’s not the one I am holding, it is the one you can see in the bottom left corner.
September 28th Rain stopped play. The storm that never quite became a typhoon is skirting around the south of the island but the rainy area includes us!
September 29th Good morning world, it’s a brand new day. Well it is Monday and not Sunday but looking out of the window you’d be forgiven for thinking it was Groundhog Day. It rained all night again. In fact after Huan had gone to bed and I was doing my ‘rounds’ I heard water running down the stairs. The first two photos are on our landing, the third is looking up to the eighth floor, which I could walk to. The fourth is looking up towards the ninth floor, the water at this stage was over my flip-flops so I gave up and went back home to bed.
Today was our weekly shopping day, this week we were glad to have Donald back!
I did get a little wet running to
and from the car at the supermarket but I think I’ll survive! Even though we
did nothing yesterday, and only shopped today, those pesky naps were still
calling us. We had nearly three hours this afternoon! Still, no big cooking
session was needed, I was in charge today and I was making soup. It came from
the freezer, the one I whizzed up on Friday and put in the there. I added some
sliced
I can’t take credit for the bread, Huan made that. Today, there were no leftovers!
As I write this the computer tells me that it is not raining outside, the computer tells lies. It has not stopped for hours and hours. The computer also tells me that tomorrow will be fine. We both hope that it is not telling lies in that case!
We hope that the weather, and life in general, is treating you all as you would wish it to. As usual, we will return in a week, we hope you will too. Tatty bye!
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