Lots of Rain and No Doors

August 25^th Please forgive me for this week’s thumbnail! Today we set off for a very British walk, umbrellas in hand. Here I had paused to look behind me and try to find out why the lovely lady was not at my side. She was plotting this terrible photo!

This one was suggested, and posed by me. Gene Kelly I am not!

Did you know that Wuzhishan is in the rainforest part of Hainan? Did you know that rainforests also produce rain? What you see here is water being drawn up through the trees and then released as water vapour. Those clouds are being formed by the trees!

Huan had to visit her bank to rearrange her long term finances; I took a slow walk home.

You may be wondering why our tropical island paradise is so wet recently. It appears that we have a typhoon, Narra, that doesn’t know what to do with itself. It is not strong at all, in fact it never has been. It was born in the sea between Hainan and the mainland and is still hovering around. There may be some strong winds in the next day or two but nothing to worry about.

Lunch was an egg sandwich for Huan and a cheese sandwich for me. That was followed by a nap that really did not want to let me go. How do they do that?

In the evening, with all the rain we decided to stay in for dinner. I had bought some mixed vegetables the other day so Huan put that in the rice cooker with some white rice. The veggies made the colour change. When that was done I fried up one onion, a whole garlic, a little red pepper and then added some chopped meat and two boiled eggs that we had boiled for lunch and not used. Huan’s precooked rice was then added to the wok to make fried rice, probably not up to Uncle Roger’s standard though. The end result was tasty, tasty, very very tasty, so very tasty!!

August 26^th Narra is still hanging around, somewhere to the east of Haikou, so weather remains variable. Huan went out to the maintenance office and came back two minutes later for her umbrella. When she was done with her admin it was time for mine. It’s that time of the year again; time to renew Donald’s insurance, ¥2,395.00 this year. When everything was done photographs were asked for. I tried to find out why but they did not seem to have a good answer. Once they started we realised that the photos were for publicity. In the first photo I am just downloading the three PDF files in my WeChat, in the second I am being a good customer.

From there it was a walk to the bus stop, a bus journey to the bank, and then a walk back home buying a couple of steamed dumplings on the way. Money would be needed next week for hotels, hospitals and fuel for our Haikou trip.

In the evening Huan chose Eighteen Bowls for dinner. Here are a few bowls.

She chose some kind of rice porridge and a rice noodle dish of sorts.

As for me, it was a bowl of rice and chicken with chestnuts.

I surprised Huan with a trip upstairs to the supermarket after dinner. Apart from fruit, walnuts and a couple of jars I also bought some small bottles of coke, orange and seven up. Why? Well, this afternoon, against all expectations, nine boxes appeared outside our front door. Work should start tomorrow on removing all the old stuff and installing the new doors. Huan is hopeful but in the back of my mind I am remembering how long the shower doors sat out there!

August 27^th I was half right. Our morning was wasted, waiting for the workman to arrive. Huan, knowing which workman he was, eventually phoned him herself and knowing it was our house he agreed to come in the afternoon. He arrived sometime around three. His first job was removing the old door frames, I helped a little and Huan cleaned up the mess.

Next he had to remove the existing tile dividers between rooms so that when the doors are fitted we will have the same colour dividers throughout the house.

While he was doing that I popped out for a coffee and a fag and delighted in the amount of green growth that has happened over the last nineteen years.

Back upstairs I assisted with removing the debris. The doors were too heavy for me though.

Doorways are now all ready for tomorrow.

Huan had another job for the destroyer, and that was to remove the kitchen window frame.

By the time the work was done and Huan had cleaned up even more it was a bit late to go too far so buffet restaurant it was, again. I stole a little of Huan’s rice.

On the way out the boss was performing the hungry ghost rites and her son was assisting her. This year’s festival falls on today’s date. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Festival

August 28^th Today’s plan was for someone to deliver the required tiles and necessary materials in the morning and then the work would be completed in the afternoon. Out we went where Huan got bored enough to photograph the road sweeper.

Ten minutes later on the riverside road her granny finger was at it again, so I dutifully obliged. I do rather like the second lizard.

The bird that she then found was rather a long way off and whatever the second subject was it was quite well hidden within the leaves.

Further along we found a mantis and some other insect. There is no photo of the other one but there is a video of both of them here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtSdilaF_Lw

She did find me an almost perfect posing dragonfly.

Our plan today was to have dinner at lunch time in case the workers arrived too late in the afternoon. We ended up in another buffet place.

When we arrived home, as I had expected, no materials had been delivered. In fact when Huan spoke to Window Man he asked her to take a photo of the tiles he was supposed to deliver this morning. Later on he told her that someone had come at during siesta time but that we had probably been asleep. Huan had in fact gone for a nap but I had stayed awake just in case someone came. Again, as expected by me anyway, nobody came in the afternoon either.

Instead of dinner we had tea, the meal and not the drink. Huan had tuna fish sandwiches and I had sardine ones. My tin of sardines had expired earlier this month! Window Man called to say that the tile work would be done tomorrow. Huan is now debating with herself whether to tell him to hold the door installation until we return from Haikou.

August 29^th Good news, the workers arrived at nine. Bad news, the tiles provided were the wrong ones. This was despite Window Man having seen our tiles, many times, and Huan having sent him photos yesterday, to confirm our requirements. Consequently, the worker boss had to go back to the tile shop and collect the correct tiles. Work started around half past ten.

First was the preparation, all tiles were cut to size.

Next was fine tuning and glue mixing!

Then came the first of the doorways, the front door.

The other five doorways were then finished too.

And here’s a final photo of them all, before the doors are fitted and also before Huan has been around cleaning of course.

When the workers left and after our lunchtime sandwiches if was time for mopping and sweeping, for both of us. There was no time for naps today, no time for walkies either. Come evening, and dinner time, I had bought some pork, mixed vegetables, onion and garlic this week and we already had noodles in the cupboard.

There was no recipe to follow, the pork had been marinated overnight, the garlic and onion chopped up, the mixed vegetables washed and the noodles cooked with some left over sauce from my lunchtime sardine sandwich.

There is no individual photo of the noodles, I must have forgotten. Here are both our dishes though, Huan’s first with a few more noodles than mine. She was suitably impressed as was I. Mine was even better because I used loads of parmesan!

August 30^th Sod’s law struck again, yesterday was good weather for walking but we were housebound for the workers to do their thing. Today we are free, Huan told Window Man to stay away until we return from Haikou. Unfortunately, rain stopped play.

I thought we might get out for dinner but then I found out that Huan had put half the mixed vegetables in the fridge instead of the freezer. That meant I was cooking again today, more of the same as yesterday. Instead of pork I diced up a sausage, instead of an onion and garlic I used four eggs, and instead of ordinary noodles I used ramen noodles. It worked well enough though and Huan even preferred it to yesterday’s. Huan had more soup, I added buckets of parmesan.

August 31^st This weekend was Bank Holiday weekend in the UK and we have Bank Holiday weather here again today. Yes, it was raining again, all day. The only benefit to the rain is my Chinese lessons never get forgotten. We had no baps left in the freezer for lunch but we did have some Xinjiang bread. Huan had hers with egg and olive leaf and a third of a sausage; I had mine with egg mayonnaise, olive leaf and two thirds of a sausage. It sufficed, for both of us.

Evening came and we had no option but to go out for dinner today. Our pantry does have ‘emergency rations’, lots of tinned stuff, but the fridge was out of vegetables. Also I didn’t fancy noodles again or cooking rice especially as we are off up north tomorrow. It has been quite a long while and I really fancied going to a burger place but Huan preferred the little sister spicy place. Who am I to argue? Besides, it is tasty enough and you choose the ingredients, of which there are a lot, and you choose how much fire you want to eat. Huan tried to get a photo of me returning to our table with my sauce bowl.

Someone was walking past at the same time so it’s not so clear. Our dishes are better, Huan’s is the round one and mine is the rectangular one. We had a communication breakdown and my order was wrong but it was still delicious.

On the way out I spotted this sign and couldn’t remember if I have ever shown you it before. I couldn’t get Huan to oblige, either way!

And there you are my dears, another week over, with lots of rain and still no doors. Wish me luck for my routine trip up north tomorrow, may my blood count be good enough, my PSA levels as they should be and may I not completely turn into a woman before we come back home. Last week we even had a neighbour comment on the size of my boobs! Until the next time, do as we do and, stay happy! TTFN