January 13th Welcome back! Sticking to our ‘winter’ routine we headed out for an afternoon walk. A nice surprise greeted us on our landing, the lift was working! Still trying to keep our distances manageable we headed off down the road to somewhere.
Before the next bit of wonderful scenery let’s have a couple of birds.
We skirted the countryside before turning for home.
Back in the little village we had some more wildlife, well at least the first two fit that label, fish and a dragonfly. The third photo is a cat which, from a distance I thought had a Chinese character above its head. Anybody could have made the same mistake, really!
I’m sure English speakers will understand why I took this photo. For those who don’t, it was the word ‘binge’ (indulge in an activity, especially eating, drinking, or taking drugs, to excess). Huan told me that宾歌 (pinyin Bīn gē) was the name of the rental company, the couple had rented the motor-home for a year. To make thing even funnier, 宾歌 translates as ‘bingo’.
On the final stretch for home I found an egret and Huan found a kingfisher. Luckily I managed to snap both of them thus gaining the director’s admiration.
Back in our building disappointment struck, hard! At the gate we had seen one of the lift installation guys who had said that we could now use the lift. Unfortunately by the time we had walked those few hundred metres we found out that he was wrong. Up the stairs we plodded.
Huan was the chef for today, home
made fish cakes, potato and
January 14th Someone was very late up again this morning, nine thirty in fact. It was me of course. I also had a very swollen uvula, no idea why, snoring maybe. Anyway, after lunch there was still no light on the landing, the lift is not yet operational. Hopefully the inspectors will arrive before the Chinese Spring Festival holiday. Because stairs were involved at the beginning and end of the walk I insisted that we didn’t go too far. My legs really feel it when we come home; I usually need a couple of rests on the way up. I am a little worried that when I have my next heart test they will recommend another, or more stents! Anyway, off we went and the first subject was two little ducks.
What Huan wanted to see of course was a lizard and she found one.
This group of people thought I was Russian, and of course said so
amongst themselves not thinking that just maybe I could understand. Here I am
doing the usual and explaining that Huan has no property in
Along the river we were very surprised to see a couple of egrets hanging around on the electricity cables. I got as near as I could without frightening them away.
Huan’s day had been interrupted by a phone call from Ledong this morning so she spent a lot of the day on Wechat doing landlady duties. This time the instantaneous water heater in the shower had packed up. At least repairs can be paid for over the phone too.
Here’s another bunch of people talking about the ‘foreigner’. I told them that they were more foreign than me and pointed to the number plates on their motor homes. They were all snowbirds. Once again the story was told about where Huan and I both live!
Back home it was straight into the kitchen for me to preheat the oven.
I was really looking forward to this, especially as I thought it would taste of aniseed or liquorice. In that way I was a little disappointed but it was still a great dish and worth the time spent making it. Our chicken bits were quite large so Huan saved some for her breakfast tomorrow.
I did ask the Minister if I should change anything for next time and the answer was ‘no need’. In fact Huan is going to try and find fennel leaves to try cooking something else!
January 15th ‘Oops I did it again’ and slept for far too long. Never mind, lazy mornings are not a bad thing if you remember to go out in the afternoon which we did. Our route took us along the riverside behind our place.
It was then my turn to find egrets before Huan did and she didn’t spot the second little bird at all. How about you, did you spot it?
I was definitely on a winning streak today; here are two more that Huan missed.
Needless to say this one was both seen by Huan and taken by her.
She found this one too and I couldn’t decide which one to share with you so you have both.
Our last one from outside was another car sticker. 你看你又急, Nǐ kàn nǐ yòu jí which somehow translates as “Look how anxious you are.”
Back home chef Bob was on duty again this time with no recipe. Here is the photo.
Curious? The large bowl contains a mixture of mung beans, garlic, onion, tomato, some left over fennel from yesterday and a dollop of something Chinese from a jar. The left bowl is white rice for me, the right bowl is three coloured rice for the boss. The small bowl is fried dried fish for both of us. There was too much in the big bowl, we will be having the same again tomorrow. I suppose it’s a good job that we both enjoy this dish!
January 16th We were in luck again this morning, the lift was working. I still reined Huan in from a long walk though, we still haven’t been told that testing has been completed and that it is safe for us to use it.
Anyone know who this is?
We walked down to the last bridge and then came back on the other side of the river. Huan walked by the riverside path, looking for lizards.
Meanwhile I was on the other side of the road going behind some hoardings where we don’t normally walk, and also looking for lizards.
Neither of us was successful in our quests! Huan did find birds for me to snap though.
January 17th Market day and luck was with us, the lift was still working. On the way I wondered what was going on here, in the bushes. Getting a little closer after I took the picture it appears to be a Chinese medicine transaction of some sort.
The road down past the Fodelai hotel had been almost completely taken over by the overflow of market traders who could not use the normal areas. The normal areas were full!
Here’s an interesting one. Someone appears to have made this article of clothing from an advert for a clothing front company. What do you think?
It was then time to walk to the indoor market, to buy some fish for Huan to cook this week and to buy just a little dried mixed veg for me to use today. We passed a little family on the way.
Indoors there were far fewer people; I guess they were all outdoors!
On our way home Huan was very happy to see that two of what she calls ‘my friends’, not ‘hers’ had come out to see me. Maybe spring is in the air. They make look the same but they are not, there are a few minutes between the sightings in fact.
Arriving back home we found that we were lucky yet again today, the lift was still working. I was very relieved, I was feeling very tired for some reason. In fact after lunch we both needed naps today. Afternoon walks have bee depriving us of naps, maybe that is not a good thing!
Chef Bob was on duty again this evening with this recipe.
I can heartily recommend it. I made just a small change. As well as peas, I added a small handful of dried mixed vegetables. I thought it might make the dish a little more photogenic. My photo may not show that, but you can blame the photographer. It did look a little more photogenic and the small amount of mixed veg gave it just that little extra. Try it, you’ll like it.
January 18th
Are we free at last? The lift was still available and operational today so I granted Huan her wish of a walk through a part of the countryside. The route was to be ‘Longcut 1 to2/3. You’ll have to do a lot of searching to find out what that means. Just outside the gate we were ambushed by a man who said that he often sees us going walkies. He followed up by asking what we could possibly see in this “屁大点地方”, (Pì dà diǎn dìfāng). It translates as all kinds of different things depending how you try to do it, mostly tiny place. Huan tried to explain it as the guy saying that Wuzhishan is so small if you have a bottom burp everyone hears it. I guess he got his meaning across though. The next ambush was the two little white dogs.
Longcut one to three starts off though this village just off the main road.
Within minutes we were in the countryside. I have to say that my legs felt far less tired today even as we reached the summit of the small hill we had to go over. Not having to cope with those stairs at home made a huge difference. Huan noticed it too.
As usual Huan tried to snap me chatting.
This is one of our favourite walks, not too long, not too steep, quite well shaded and, as you can see, very scenic. We’ve missed it!
As were approaching then end of the wooded part, between these next two photos in fact, I stopped to let a couple pass us. I told then that they were walking faster than we were and that we didn’t want to hold them up. It turned out that they didn’t want to pass us; they were following us because they had never been this way before!
This is the view that awaits us at the end of the countryside part of the walk.
Snowbirds were out in force today, begging the question, why is nobody selling refreshments and snacks? Huan said it was because Chinese (old) people will not spend the money.
We took one last look back across the water and then went back to the city.
We still had another little village to go through though. There we heard numerous different birds but we didn’t see any of them. All we found was domesticated poultry.
Once we had passed the last little bit of rurality, (it is a word), we passed ‘deer cottage’ and got back on to the main road.
Our ‘oasis’ was a bus stop; take the #2 back home to complete a normal day. Bliss!
January 19th Well we had our first ‘normal’ shopping day for a while today. The lift was working so we took Donald and a pile of shopping bags to do a week’s worth, first time for a while. Huan managed to snap me on the way in. A lady was having trouble with her old Mum and the escalator so I volunteered to help.
Did we enjoy today’s shop? Actually yes we did. It was quite busy upstairs but once we had raced through our list and reached the cash desks there was hardly anybody there. We were home nice and early, time enough for lunch and naps all round.
It was my turn in the kitchen again, cooking Chinese today.
Did I change anything? Not really. I had to skip the sesame oil, we didn’t have any, I should have checked before making the shopping list! Instead of chilli flakes I used a little hot sauce. It did the job and both our plates were licked clean!
And that’s it for this week. We may not be snowbirds but we are once again free birds! Let’s see if we have any news about our new windows next week. See you then!
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