October 7th “Wakey-Wake-aaaay!” If you remember hearing those words on a Sunday lunchtime then you are like me, officially very old! At least we didn’t oversleep so much today. Huan wondered if we would take a bus somewhere but I had other plans. My wallet was down to ¥42 only which while it may be the answer to life, the universe and everything is not really enough. A visit to the bank was called for. We walked up there via the other side of the river taking in the sights and perhaps finding more beasties than we thought we would.
This next one has more than appearance, first full on and then seeming to be ready for takeoff after a little gentle prodding from me.
As we neared the final bridge we had more beasties and some autumn festival flowers.
Our first car decal of the week is a filler cap, fortune, prosperity, prosperity. I’m not sure why it would be where it is.
We interrupt the car art to bring you two more lizards, I particularly like the first one.
And so back to the car art, in this case it says “add me, 95#, #26, 98#, Moutai, Diesel”, all on a petrol powered car! I hope there are no dummies working in the fuel stations!
While I was looking for our favourite skink I told Huan that she would have to take photos of lizards if she found them. She did find one and did a fairly good job of snapping it. I didn’t find a skink but I did also find a lizard.
Huan insisted that we have a bird before we went home!
Our walk was over eight and a half kilometres, naps were needed today! It was also me in the kitchen again. Here are the ingredients, minus two. Can you guess what it will be?
The missing two ingredients were two eggs and one ‘bunch’ of noodles. The dish was chicken noodle soup. The lettuce was what I forgot to eat on my lunchtime sandwich so it was added to this dish just as a decoration. Huan liked it.
October 8th Today we went back to the hospital for a follow-up for Huan’s problems. On the way, to my total surprise, I managed a wee birdy.
Fifteen minutes later Huan found another lizard, seems to be a good week for them.
Instead of another photograph of the front of the hospital which is quite difficult to take anyway, this week I have made you two collages of the brochure. One is the original, for all my Chinese friends, and the other is a WeChat translation for the English speakers.
We left the hospital with another bag full of medicine for Huan. The doctor was however, pleased with her progress and told her that she should not have to go back when this lot is finished. And now, another two birds for you, one very big one, and one not so big!
No naps today although I could have done with one. I was in the kitchen again making another stew, this time a beef one. It was yummy of course, and we had enough left over for yet another whizzed up soup. The one from Monday will be eaten tomorrow; this one will be eaten Friday. Here it is before we ‘made leftovers’.
October 9th Sleepyheads were at it again! Ah well, never mind, a walk around the town will be good enough. I actually found a squirrel in the town but it was a bit quick for me.
Huan then found four lizards in the same bush. One even seemed to come out especially to see what all the kerfuffle was about! In order not to bore you with too many lizards I decided that maybe a collage would be in order. It won’t be the only one today.
Huan thought that the mid-level walk may lead to some birds. I wondered why there was a big H in the sky. Was it a signpost for heaven? If it was then it probably wasn’t for me!!
Down by the riverside where the Saturday market is held we each took one side of the road. I have found lizards here before, but not today.
Huan was no more successful on the other side but she did find a spider.
When we reunited though we had a treat in store, squirrels galore. The first tree had a whole family scampering around; the second tree had at least one.
It was my turn again then, to be lucky enough to snap a couple of birds.
Huan then found me another lizard just before we took different routes around Xiaodao. On the way she managed to find one for herself too.
On my way across the ford I tried for a flying dragonfly and Huan tried for an old man!
After our much needed nap, (what will we do when our visitors arrive), it was back into the kitchen for me. Remember the pork rib soup leftovers from Monday that was whizzed up and kept. Well this is what we mixed it with, bought at a buffet restaurant yesterday. The second photo is the dish, some lettuce leaves were also added for decoration and colour. Needless to say there were no leftovers this time!
October 10th It was my turn to be the decision maker today and I decided on a sort of admin day. We have another electrical problem in the kitchen, yet another switch gone on our extension block. I decided that we would make our lives easier in the future by having a pluggable extension block plugged into one surface mounted socket. Around and around we went, trying to remember where all the electrical shops were and why some of them are not there anymore. Along the way Huan was busy being a director.
An old friend stopped me and asked for a chat.
I even managed to snap some birdies!
Finally, with my supplies in hand, Huan still managed to find one more very small lizard.
At home, after coffee I got down to it. Huan went snap happy with her phone again, as usual. As well as the new socket, I replaced the switchable plug in the cupboard for a normal one, meaning one less thing to go wrong. I will use a switchable plug on the extender block.
Here is the socket, yes I know it is sideways; there is a reason for that. I can’t show you the plug, the cameraman forgot about that part.
Was my work finished for the day? Don’t be silly, I was back in the kitchen again later. Mind you, it was an easy one. First shallow fry some boneless fish with chopped mushrooms and chopped celery then add it to the whizzed up beef stew leftovers for another yummy soup. Because there was not quite enough I added some cream. The plan had been to add some coconut milk but unfortunately that had gone off.
October 11th It’s the weekend! Strange how that doesn’t seem to have quite the same meaning after you have retired. Mind you, most of my working life excluded normal weekends anyway. Not much was needed in the market but we enjoy our Saturday walks there.
Out the other side with our meagre purchases you have the obligatory river scene.
And on that side, as we had hoped, there were a couple of birds. They were not quite as near as we would have liked so here are two photos of each one!
As we reached home Huan was happy that I found a skink, right next to our building.
After our nap I was back in the kitchen to make use of Huan’s left over onion, garlic, parsley and 莴笋, Wōsǔn, translates as ‘lettuce’. More info here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtuce I added cooked meatballs, a tomato and a carrot bought today. Here are all the ingredients plus noodles. The second photo is Huan’s bowl; the meatballs are hiding under the noodles.
October 12th OK, time to get down to it, mini-me’s are arriving soon and house needs a clean, in fact it needs a great deal more than an annual spring clean. We are bad people! Today was the start of the office clean.
First half complete.
We started the second half and did quite a lot.
We couldn’t finish though because we had to go out for dinner. Yú and Zhào dé have moved from Maoan back into their apartment and Zōu decided to hold a welcome back dinner for them. Yuè was also there as was Yú and Zhào dé’s daughter. It made a very pleasant change; it has been ages since we went out to dinner with the neighbours.
I was enjoying myself so much that I almost forgot to take any photos at all. This first one is something that I didn’t think I even wanted to taste. The centre is durian and it’s wrapped in what almost seems to be shredded wheat. To my surprise it was delicious.
We did manage one or two not very good photos.
Of course Huan had to have proof of me being a bad boy!
Needless to say, I had a very good night’s sleep!
October 13th Another OAP shopping day, Donald is
back in the hospital with water in his insides. Hopefully this will not cost another
arm and a leg. Waiting in line to weigh our fruit and vegetables I spotted
these in the cooler. Huan said it is called snakeskin fruit. Google led me to
this for our
The adjacent freezer had rather a pungent odour, not at all sure that I would try this one!
Back home, it was time for me to get back to work and finish the office clean-up. What do you think; did we do a good job?
During the clean-up we have also been busy de-cluttering. Consequently once dinner was done, which was down to me again, but with no photos, we took a stroll in the rain to the dustbins. At the same time we collected three more tins of furniture polish from the gatehouse. (PS Pledge is found on Taobao as geledg, not quite the same spelling. More trips to the dustbins are still needed. Oh what a busy life we lead!
That busy life is over for this week but never fear, we’ll be back! Au reservoir for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment