September 16th Yesterday evening we got the phone call to tell us that our little Donald was ready to come home. Here he is relaxing under the trees at the exit/entry police office.
Why were we there? Well Huan couldn’t finish everything yesterday; the machine was out of order. We parted ways and I headed off for one of those breaks that I am not supposed to have. Huan headed to the office, on her way she did find a subject.
I didn’t get my proposed break; the shop had no cold coffee! That made Huan happy, no cold coffee = no fag! I was going to fill this space with a photo of Huan’s new Hainan card but as it is not really new, just last year’s modified, I won’t bother.
After dinner we had to go for a little walk, the computer told us that we had an express delivery at the gate and that it had been there two days. Cue phone calls in the house and then even more at the gate. While Huan phoned I took a photo behind the delivery cabinet.
We crossed the bridge to our little island and then crossed again further up to go into the shopping street. My office chair “let me down” this afternoon, it ran out of gas!
The chairs we saw were no better than those we could find in the Taobao marketplace and they were also much more expensive. That’s what happens when you live in out of the way places. All that was left was to walk home, saying good night to the old boy on the way.
When we got home I unpacked our express delivery and I was glued to the PC from then on!
September 17th Last night we made plans for the next upriver video, Upriver Four B, but this morning I doubted that we would be able to do it. Checking the skies and the computer I really thought we wouldn’t have time before the rain got us. However, the Minister of the Environment, being much smarter than me, convinced me other wise. Having had my thoughts realigned to the wishes of the Prime Minister I put on my nice new boots!
Wouldn’t you know it, as soon as we got outside some blue sky appeared!
And here we are sat in the (almost) back row of the #5 bus.
There were quite a lot of clouds over the mountains when we alighted from the bus. However, the air was fresh and clean and seemed almost perfect for walking.
Here we are already on the path back to the start and you have Huan grubbing about in the bushes. Actually she is trying to coax a kitten out but having walked all the way across the car park returning our meows it decided it was going to go back the other way!
I must say that I was very pleased that Huan had changed my mind, just look at the views.
We even managed to find lizards, to see more of them though you will have to watch the video.
Huan kept trying to surreptitiously film me from behind so I sent her on ahead to do a better job of it. I then took one of her as I approached her.
Excitement all around when we spotted our first egret of the season. As usual it was too far away but these two shots didn’t turn out too badly. It also appears on the video!
More views and a bird, a very elusive bird.
After what turned out to be an excellent walk and one that no doubt we will do many times more in the future it was time to get the bus back home.
Fancy a party? I wonder if this one includes those infamous egg banjos!
Two very happy teddy bears today, if you want to see the walk then the Youtube link is just here, as it always is – https://youtu.be/vm2CvpHGEqo
No naps today, at least for me, Huan did ‘drop off’ on the sofa. I spent hours dithering about which new chair to buy for my office. Sometimes the internet gives you far too much choice. It is of course much cheaper that buying locally!
Later on, we didn’t have a party but I did cook, this one below.
What did we change? Well because there are only two of us we used only one heart. I don’t know if it was organic or not but most pigs here lead an outdoor life and get fed well. We don’t have ‘small’ carrots so I used one big one. We don’t have teriyaki sauce either so I just used oyster sauce. Finally, how can one clove of garlic be enough for two people (the recipe says four people)? I used six, which was unusual for me; normally I would just use a whole one. You can see ours here, enough for two days!
Would I give you any advice? Make sure you read the recipe and then if you do want to reduce it to two servings instead of four, then adjust everything else too and not just the hearts!
September 18th Today was a very lazy day, well for my legs anyway. We stayed home so that I could check, edit and merge forty six videos into one before uploading it to Youtube. If I use the Microsoft software, Clipchamp, it tells me that I have no connection to the internet. This may be something to do with Astrill. This means I have to fall back on Lightworks ‘Free’ which has a maximum export resolution of 720p. 1080p is so much better! Luckily, the internet was in a good mood today and after my editing it took no time at all to upload the file. You will have already seen the link in yesterday’s post. That’s called retrospective document editing.
Later I researched other free video editing software programs but eventually gave up. Most of them are far too complex for my needs. I am not trying to earn money from my videos!
Finally, I sent another email off to my pension provider, maybe they will answer this time.
September 19th I needed a trip to the bank today, or at least sometime before renewing the prescription for my heart medicine next week. My idea was that we would walk the wrong way to the bank, via lizard alley, and Huan was in agreement.
She found a skink as we crossed the ford onto Little Island, a good start albeit not such a good snap. I do try and get things in focus, honest!
At least this shrine is a little clearer.
Another butterfly, there seem to be quite a few these days, followed by what we were hoping to find today and this was long before the last bridge.
What about yet another butterfly? I quite like this one but it is sandwiched between two views.
Here Huan is being a little fruity!
The refurbished outdoor gym and the children’s area that replaced the second half of the gym have been completed very well. Only one guy was using the gym but there were a few children in the play area. One was a rather big child!
And then we came to the last bridge where Lizard Alley was laid out in front of us in all its glory. I must say that it looks very good now, just look at all the greenery.
It wasn’t long before I found another skink and Huan found a little lizard.
We both liked these ‘fingers’ growing out of the forest, we hope you do too.
Luck was with us and we soon found another two lizards.
Soon we found another one which I thought needed to be rotated. How else could appreciate that magnificent tail? I also liked the way the edit turned out.
We turned off before the home of the three legged dog and headed up towards the bank. Can you guess what Huan asked me when I was taking the second photograph?
By now we were encroaching on our lunchtime so I proposed that we ate out today. Huan agreed. We found a place just after I had done the deed at the bank, here it is and also our dishes.
I had left home with a sneaky plan for a coffee and fag break so, lunch over, I went ahead with the plan! No nagging please, that is the first for September. Huan insisted that she also take a photo of me tidying away the chairs.
Having had lunch we didn’t need to rush home so we could continue our walk instead of taking the bus. I walked in the road while Huan walked on the path, double chance of finding lizards.
However, we were both unsuccessful until much further up the road where I was no longer in the road but looking upwards for skinks. Do you ever wonder what these creatures think when they spot crazy humans with a big glass eye moving in on them?
Just before we reached home, I
heard someone call “Bob”. It turned out to be
Finally, a little view between the trees.
Naps were an absolute necessity today, for the first time in many walks we had covered ten kilometres. Is it good for me? I have no idea but it certainly wore me out. I didn’t even fancy cooking today so Huan had a sandwich and I drank water.
September 20th Market day, and nothing to buy! So how come I still returned home laden like a pack mule? We took the #2 bus to look for lizards at the edge of the market and to check the sausage shop. We were lucky with lizards, not so with sausages. Maybe next week they said.
Passing our tea shop where the dogs like to say hello I saw that Dòuhuā was sitting outside, alone. No sooner had I sat with him when Dòubǐng came running out for a little jealous howl. We all joined in then, oh what fun we had!
It was a busy market today; even
the police were at the road entrance trying to sort out the traffic. It still
appeared as though it was mostly
This is just a dog. Huan had
actually taken a photo of me and a Chinese fellow who was asking me all about
Huan took another snap when I was
explaining “
How about two ducklings in a bag? No doubt they will have a good life, although I very much doubt that they will die of natural causes.
Even these guys, despite being in
cages here, will more than likely run free in a village before they become
someone’s dinner.
That was our morning done with. Our afternoon was ‘the usual’, and then for a change I was back in the kitchen again this evening. Vegetables needed finishing off, and here they are along with some seafood and some not so good vegetable balls. The chicken stock and the tomato wotsit are both homemade. Sorry about the blur at the rear top of the photo, I think it was my protective case causing the problem. I have now cut a piece out!
And here are all those ingredients bubbling away in the pot and then Huan’s bowl. It was “tasty, tasty, so very tasty” but I doubt if I could repeat the exact same dish again. It did what is was supposed to do, fill our bellies and please the Minister!
P.S. While the vegetable balls were not up to Huan’s standard, I can eat hers as a snack, they did work well as dumplings. In fact, if you don’t fancy making suet dumplings make some vegetable balls instead. I think you’ll find they work very well as a substitute.
September 21st “How do you fancy a bus out and a walk back for the Kindergarten walk dear?” “OK” she said. Here’s our first pic having just got off the bus.
Next up we have Mum teaching her children how to fend for themselves.
There are lots of photos today, some chosen by me and some ordered by the director.
As we entered Zali village it seemed as though there was some kind of meeting going on.
This pooch would not let me anywhere near it but when I petted the cat it came nearer. Now was it being protective or was it just a little jealous.
Across the road Huan found somebody looking at me!
The director then had me scrambling behind a tree to snap these strange long nosed beasties. I am not going to Google them again; I will let you read all our previous posts to find out what they are called. It won’t take you long, honest!
Further up the hill we saw a lot of the village menfolk, they had been clearing the sand and foliage from the irrigation ditches. They were scooping out bowls of water here to wash their hands and feet before moving further downhill, we presume.
There was obviously quite a lot of water up here in the mountains too; you can see that the new bridge has been overwhelmed with debris from the raging river. It looks peaceful enough now and beautiful with it.
Coming up here in the middle of the storm would be quite interesting although maybe not as easy as it looks. We passed quite a few landslide sites on our hike, all the paths have been cleared by now, probably by those same village people you saw earlier.
We saw more creatures today than we usually do on this walk. Here you have a lizard, then a dog who left his farm to go into the mountain to warn his Dad about us, then another (tiny) lizard.
Soon we were approaching the village at the other end of the walk where I had a quick chat to the farmers. Sometimes they are cheerful, sometimes they are maybe a bit too busy.
Huan had been desperate to find a snake today; I wasn’t too fussed about it. She failed, but she did find one of her other loves, turkeys. She even took a better photo than I did.
Something new was at the side of the road, a “Direct-connected smart pump room”. They don’t all have knobbly knees though!
Two heads coming up for you now. Well I should say one head and shoulders, because I thought he was a handsome fellow and then barely one head because Huan spotted it, too small and too far. This photo started out at 10MB, or thereabouts until I cropped it, then it was down to less than 400KB. At least her eyes are in good shape!
More village people here, we are not sure whether they were waiting for their wives in a meeting, or waiting for their kids in kindergarten or waiting to buy some betel nuts. My grin is because I had just been chatting to the little dog in the middle.
The last photo from our walk is a nice big panorama of the view that we see as we start our descent from this little mountain. It looked good today!
Naps were not allowed today, we had an express delivery coming that was too big to fit into one of the boxes at the gate. He actually came as we were about to have dinner! It was my new chair, so lots of work was involved for the labourer; here he is doing his best.
The first job of course was to contact the seller and ask for some instructions. They always do this and then share a video with you of how to assemble the product. A piece of paper would be fine, or just put the video on the market page. We had the usual difficulties of trying to get all the screws and holes lined up, it was mostly OK. We did have one wrong screw though, they have promised to send the right one soon. Here is the assembled chair.
And here’s is the official handover between the old and the new.
And finally, here he is ensconced in his new domain!
September 22nd There must be something in the air, we were both like Three-Toed Sloths this morning. Still, all we had to do was go shopping. I didn’t even have to cook today, we still had vegetables left over in the fridge from last week so Huan was going to utilise them with fish. On our way I took the old chair towards the rubbish area but i was attacked by Zhào dé before I got there. Our old chair now also has a new home, in Zhào dé's workplace.
Shopping over though and she did find a job for me. Because the air-conditioning tape had come loose when I moved the drain hose it needed taping up again. As usual she took far too many photos but I think one will do!
So Donald has been back for nearly a week now and we think he is OK. It’s raining cats and dogs outside at the moment so I’ll ask the commander to check again tomorrow morning. Most of the day I spent on Taobao looking for bits and bobs, trying to spend money. Most of the time the Chancellor of the Exchequer caught me before I was able to press ‘enter’!
We may or may not have long walks this week; there is a big typhoon
on the way, Ragasa. It has been battering the
https://www.windy.com/-Hurricane-tracker/hurricanes/ragasa?rain,19.290,121.685,5,m:dZRajVC
We hope that your weather, wherever you are, is shining down on you with joy as we once again bid you a fond farewell. See you next time!
Thank Bob for a very informative article 👌 thoroughly enjoyed 👍
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure
DeleteYou might like to try "DaVinci Resolve" for an video editing software
ReplyDeleteCheers Curt. I have tried it before but it seems very complicated for my needs. Basically I just join lots of clips together, deleting odd bits here and there, not much 'actual editing'. I might give it another go one of these days.
Delete