May 19th It was my turn to work this morning, I had to fit the new shower unit on our bathroom. Here’s a view of the rain through the shower, not that you can actually see it, and the unit itself. I’m not impressed at all, in fact I hate buying things online!
Just as I finished the tile team arrived. Their first job was to finish off the bedroom balcony and I have to say, that despite my initial misgivings, they did a grand job indeed.
The boss, Window Man not SWMBO, then gave the tile husband some extra jobs.
Soon he was back on tiling work, the kitchen balcony, where Huan took far fewer photos. I am not so impressed with the edging but I can’t complain as it was my idea. Once again the panorama has some defects that are not actually real.
Window Man and I then discussed the sizing and buying of new bedroom and bathroom doors. Why do houses get old? Mind you, the interior decoration was done cheaply in the beginning and without our direct supervision.
I felt like an old Grandfather by the time all the worker bees left so I sent Huan out to buy dinner while I revelled in our new shower. She had to wait for mine so she popped to the buffet café next door where she enjoyed this plate.
I had ‘ordered’ a wrap but the Chinese burger place doesn’t do those. Huan brought me a nice bacon and egg burger instead, along with popcorn chicken and chips. I relished every bite.
May 20th And once again we were back to the waiting game! The preparation work for our new dining room arches would now not be started today but would commence tomorrow. Our missing window panel would be delivered this afternoon instead of this morning. Window Man appears to have a successful business but I fail to see how. Anyway, I had shopping to do so we went out after our morning coffee where Huan found a lizard. I didn’t have my camera. He has been rotated for those of you with nice big computer monitors.
At the home of the ‘old dog’ Huan went to pet him while I said hello to a blue eyed beauty.
Lunch was taken in the bakery, Huan had a sweet pizza and I had a very soft wrap. Only at home did I notice the writing on the tray paper, I will check it out next time we are there.
Almost back home Huan found two caterpillars, she used her phone and did better than I did.
While we were out Window Man called, there is a problem with the bathroom doors we ordered. He said he would come later so we had a nap for a change. After that and after my afternoon coffee it was time to use my shopping from this morning. A new internal fitting was needed for the washing machine socket on the kitchen balcony, 10A was required and not 16A. I had to attach three wires and two screws so Huan took one hundred and four photos of the process. I don’t think you need all of them!
She couldn’t quite get the correct angle when I was snapping the front plate into place.
In the evening we decided to try the new BBQ place. Now I am not a big fan of Chinese BBQs, except for way up north where the pieces of meat, Russian style, are enormous! Still, I had promised that we would go once it was open. This ‘panorama’ was created online because I could not get it right at all. https://headshotmaster.io/ai-image-combiner
Here are a few views of the restaurant and what’s on offer.
Huan’s view out of the window was blocked.
Our food choices were rather different, mine is the bottom tray.
You get the option here of one of the waitresses helping you. We decided that was a good idea, we could concentrate on scoffing. We did pretend though.
Huan tried to take a photo of her plate and me with a worm. Actually it is part of a squid.
Finally, wife, being bored with husband and playing on her phone, husband paying the bill. I must say the price was very reasonable, ¥125.00 and the experience was very worthwhile. I have never enjoyed a BBQ as much since we moved down south, no gristle and almost no bones. Accepting the offer of help also adds to the experience.
May 21st Good morning world, here is the man of the house, doing what he is told and working before the workers or Window Man arrive. On this side of the house, below us, there is a large balcony on the third floor. The owner complains every time we use our bedroom air-conditioner because the drain water drips on their heads! The solution was a longer hose which we used on our plants. With the balcony now being enclosed, a mop sink provides a better way. When we do use the A/C Huan can use the drain water for plants in the house and if it gets too full then we also have a new drain built in.
Just in case you missed it, Window Man didn’t turn up at all yesterday. Huan chased him on her phone again this morning and he eventually turned up around nine. I told him that I was not happy with always waiting around for him but I’m sure that fell on deaf ears. Huan had already agreed yesterday that the bathroom doors would have to be widened, something I had wanted to talk to him about first. This morning I asked that the ‘destruction’ take place as soon as possible so that we are not living with dust again when the doors eventually arrive. He said that the workers would come to knock everything down this afternoon. He also told us that our missing window pane would arrive this afternoon too, definitely this time!
I took advantage of the lack of workers to get on with some of my own. First it was replacing the light switches in the office. The reason for all this is that some of the outlets and switches in the apartment are twenty years old and yellowed with age. The office was an easy job.
Next for the record is Huan’s side of the bed, although it wasn’t actually next in real time.
What I had actually tried to do first was my side of the bed and the wall switches. This is the pair that has linked switches for the bedroom light and this has not worked for a couple of years. I thought I would give it a go.
Eventually, with all the wires being unmarked and the same colour and with my brain becoming more and more scrambled I asked Huan to ask the man from the downstairs hardware shop to come and help us out again. He did it easily, what a star!
Left to my own devices again it was time to replace the bedroom A/C socket.
My last job before the workers came to measure for our arches and to start destroying the bathroom door frames was to replace the wall sockets in the bedroom behind the wardrobes. Huan took no photos of that work at all so here’s just the result. The blank plate covers up a TV cable that is of no use to us at all. The socket levels are not caused by me but by the original installers twenty years ago.
The destroyer made a lot of dust, far more than you can see in these photos.
Once the larger pieces or rubble had been taken away we had to try and get some semblance of order back again. Lots of sweeping, mopping, wiping down furniture etc, and I know we will have to keep doing that for the foreseeable future. I just wish Huan would take a rest. She is a superstar but I worry about her doing too much and me doing too little. People will say I should do more; the truth is I am exhausted at the end of every day. I will also be glad when it’s all over. At least we can use the bathrooms tonight, although we’ll have to be extra careful when we step over the threshold. There will be no middle of the night loo trips without slippers!
I think we will both sleep well tonight! Tomorrow someone is coming to prepare the formers for our archways; at least I think that’s what he will be doing. He left a few bits and pieces when he went home after measuring today.
May 22nd Good news this morning, or at least we thought so. The missing pane of glass turned up and was fitted by one of the workers.
A closer look by Huan though showed that the replacement was not quite what we had been waiting for. Not only did it look different but it was made by a different company. Spot the difference, the top two photos are the existing frames and the bottom two the replacement they sent.
We didn’t worry too much; Window Man said that the problem would be resolved. Also, someone had turned up to prepare the archway formers. Here is his morning work.
I feel Huan took far more photos in the afternoon.
Here is a preview of what it will look like when it is all done. I took far more photos but as the plastering still needs to be done this will do for now. Thankfully both Huan and Window Man are now able to see what I was going for.
Dinner was taken outside the KFC at a little noodle stall. I chose what I saw someone else having, seashells and prawns, Huan chose mussels. I don’t often order rice noodles but this was a rice noodle stall. I have to say that I really enjoyed it and didn’t even spill any on my shirt.
After dinner we went for a walk around the road to somewhere, we needed to go into town to buy more soft drinks for the workers. On the way we grabbed another picture.
May 23rd Today was almost back to normality. No workers were expected in the morning, they would arrive in the afternoon. Huan believed that, I didn’t, and as it turned out I was right. Still, it allowed us to go to the Saturday market which made a nice change. Being up early, and with Huan putting the washing machine on, I set out before her to walk to the #2 bus terminal. I thought I might find some lizards for her on the way. I didn’t.
This was the view from my seat as I waited for Huan to catch a bus and join me.
Soon enough the boss bounded off the bus and we set off along the riverside looking for birds. Unfortunately, we didn’t find any.
The market was busy but despite what it looks like very walkable today.
Most of the accents and dialects
were local and southern Chinese today with just the occasional resident
northerners. Now unlike the
I had a chat with a few new friends, three to be exact. In fact there was a fourth one but it was in the bottom of the pushchair enjoying the battery operated fan in there. I couldn’t get over how well behaved they all were.
Since we were early, an ice cream break was called for!
After rather a long nap Huan took the washing machine for a walk around the second bathroom while I brought the ‘words’ up to date. Once our renovations are complete I will be buying us a new machine. Does anyone know if top loaders walk less than front loaders do?
Nobody else turned up today, for dinner we visited the frog restaurant.
Last time we visited it was quite new and the service was very impressive. Today it seemed a lot slower. The food was still good though, we had fish instead of frog.
Like many local restaurants they cater for larger parties than just the two of us, which meant doggy bags for Huan to put in the freezer.
Walking home we found another frog, this handsome chappie was happily sitting on the back of a Porsche. I forget which model it was, sorry.
May 24th The plasterers didn’t turn up this morning, why am I not surprised. According to Window Man they will be here this afternoon. Still, it gave me a chance to catch up on my photo work and my Chinese lessons.
Someone did turn up after lunch and the first thing he did was tell Huan why certain things would not be possible. He then left to fetch his materials. When he came back I asked that he try to do the impossible because I wanted the arches to be the same, looking inwards or outwards. I think the problem was caused by the guy who came yesterday doing a job late that should have been done before he built the formers. I guess that is my fault too.
There was not much variety in Huan’s oodles of plastering photos, here’s some archway work, followed by some bedroom work.
He had a late finish so we dined locally.
May 25th I awoke to a list on my desk today, not a list of jobs from the Minister of Labour, but a note from self on what to do this morning. It read, “Wordle, Blog post, Chinese lessons, and Buy lunch”. Wordle was successful, yesterday’s evening words were not too many and Chinese lessons went well. There was another reason for writing “buy lunch” on the list which is that my feet, in particular the left one, have been ballooning when we don’t walk enough. They look like huge clodhoppers, like an old Grandma’s feet who’s been sitting in her chair for many years. Anyway, off I went; camera in hand for a change. The young boy in me, and the old soldier, would quite like to own this car, a Dong Feng M-Hero, https://www.dongfeng-global.com/vehicleModel/mhero On the other hand the old man that is me is asking how on earth he would manage to change a wheel if he needed to! (Memories lurk within my head of me doing just that, on a mountain road, in a typhoon, in our present car while Huan sat inside.) Added to that is the fact that it is just a tad too expensive, starting here at about ¥650,000.000, whether that is EV only or extended range EV I have no idea.
Before leaving our place I found a birdie for Huan.
From the bridge across from or house I took two slightly different views of our new windows, just to give you an idea. Closer views will be forthcoming when all the work is finally complete and perhaps we’ll do a video walkthrough.
It’s also time we had some views other than those of people working in our house.
Lunch was from Swilloo, which may or may not be a Singaporean franchise. It’s a bubble tea type of place; I bought two ‘sort of’ milk drinks. They filled a gap in our tummies although they would perhaps have been better had I not carried them home and stored them in the fridge for nearly two hours. We were both agreed that my simple milkshakes are much better!
Huan had been busy again taking photos of the plasterer, it’s looking better.
Despite lunch being so late we still took afternoon naps. I think our house being upside down for over two months now is beginning to get to both of us. I know that I am truly fed up of not being able to open half the cupboards, wardrobes and doors, and of having everything covered in plastic dust sheets. Huan must be fed up too because she keeps muttering about never doing this again, as long as we both may live!
Our last dinner of the week was in a spicy place again but as we were both already feeling rather warm we opted for just a little bit of spicy. Here’s one of Huan that may look odd, I took it with my 0.6 wide angle lens on the phone and it made both the ladies look dumpy. I had to stretch the photo but I have no idea what the error was that I was trying to correct!
Here are our two dinners, soup for Huan and not soup for me. I didn’t fill my tray too full today so I wasn’t bloated when I finished but I did still manage to spill some on my shirt front!
Now what is going on here? It seems there are two options. One is called a love bite where the male lizard bites the female until she is ‘ready’. This can take an hour or more. The other is that the large lizard is actually trying to eat the smaller one. Yes, they do that, I checked. We have no way of knowing exactly which action is taking place here; let’s hope it’s the first.
We were late home so this week’s post will be uploaded late again not that anyone except my family will notice. Remember, click to enlarge, to comment, to subscribe, whatever. We have a morning off renovations now so we’ll see you next week with another progress report. Here’s hoping you all have a good one!
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