Christmas Time

December 19^th I’m definitely on the up, Huan is still struggling a bit. No walks today, I did the cooking, we stayed in and relaxed. Mostly I was just providing moral support. On the plus side I finished binge watching Edward Woodward’s Equaliser and started watching Queen Latifah’s.

December 20^th Her Majesty was still under the weather today but I did manage a solo walk after lunch. Fresh air was sorely needed! As we’ve had no photos yet I thought you needed to see something this week. Here’s an unusual view of the front of the library.

Down by the riverside the road works on the market side appear to be progressing very well, it may not be too long before things are back to normal. Something is different though, check the roofs on the stores, all the fronts have been cut off. Will they put them back on when all the work is finished? Huan thinks not but they haven’t actually disposed of the removed parts yet.

Making up the numbers I found another of those tourist posters for you.

Finding a way through the fences I went right down to the riverside, not much to see though.

No lizards or wild birds were anywhere to be seen, but I did stop and have a chat with the snowbirds that hang around outside the hotel, the lovebirds and their pals.

My last one of the day was searching for a squirrel, not my idea, just a seed planted by SWMBO. I failed, but showed her the proof of my search anyway.

Huan was on the mend when I got home. All that remained for me was to retreat to the kitchen and play duty chef again. Today’s dish was chicken noodle soup made with drumsticks, lots of vegetables, and the obligatory garlic. No complaints from either of us!

December 21^st We might both be on the up and up but the weather is on the down and down! The temperature has plummeted; at least to our tender tropical butts it feels like it has. 12⁰C is not very warm at all and for our afternoon walk today both of us had long trousers and coats on. Unfortunately photo opps were even rarer than yesterday. All I got was this 向前一小步, 文明一大步 (Xiàng qián yī xiǎo bù wénmíng yī dà bù) the translation of which was nice and obvious - take a small step forward, a big step forward for civilization

December 22^nd Today we are even colder, down to 10⁰C, not too cold for most of you, we know that. However, being here for over eight years now, and away from the cold of the North, we feel it! Still, exercise and fresh air was needed.

We, or should I say the boss, was looking for lizards, none were forthcoming. Do they hibernate? We did find birds and cows though.

Fame stuck for me, fleetingly of course. We happened to be walking past the school as the pupils were going back after their afternoon siesta. I was interrogated as to which country I was from, needless to say they didn’t believe I was a local. Not many of them could practice their English, which is a shame really. Some understood more than they let on but were too shy to speak.

December 23^rd Shopping for the makings of a stew again, it’s not really salad dinner weather yet. On the way home we spotted a little bit of Christmas.

Struggling to find subjects we found this, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinnamoroll. Where would you be without us to give you some culture?

The last one of the day was to try and give you an idea about the weather. To us the tops of the mountains just appeared to ooze cold.

Our stew went down well, only to be expected as I was ‘Le Chef’!

December 24^th More shopping today, this time for Christmas dinner. Huan decided that as she was still unable to find lizards I should take a photo of a snail. Normally that would be a definite ‘no’; I guess she gets bored easier than I do.

On our way towards town we spotted something going on around the town square. I should say something had been going on, it was all over when we got there.

So what was it? It was the “Wuzhishan Rainforest Paradise Cycling Challenge”, with some big name sponsors too. Yet again we missed something because it wasn’t advertised!

One of the camera people, with a security pass, was busy taking as many photos of me as he could so I decided I should reciprocate. Mind you, his was bigger than mine!

Huan decided that she had to go to one of her banks to put some money in for Pinduoduo, that meant I had to give her an early Christmas present!

A car with decals was our next photo, I rather liked the wolf. 半生已过, Bànshēng yǐguò - Half life passed, 学会沉默, xuéhuì chénmò - Learn to be silent, 凡事讨好自己 至于别人, Fánshì tǎohǎo zìjǐ zhìyú biérén - Please do everything to please yourself and others, 分心情看交情, Fēn xīnqíng kàn jiāoqing - Divide mood into friendship, 加油, jiāyóu – Come on!

The happy lady was then at it again, another bank this time but making a withdrawal and not a deposit. Surprisingly enough she is still smiling!

December 25^th Christmas arrived, strange how it always comes the same time every year! Where we are though you could quite easily miss it completely; there is no such thing as the spirit of Christmas here. I do quite miss it. Would you believe we had duck again, I think that’s the third time this week! Still, we didn’t have to cook this one, we put all the vegetables in the oven and then added the pre-cooked duck before finishing it all off.

Huan, bless her little cotton socks, bought me a Christmas jumper this year. I’m not quite sure when she expects me to wear it! It is also just a little on the small side so we both ended up trying it on. She looks better than me, don’t you agree?

I’ll finish off with the message I put on my Facebook page today “Christmas is a celebration, a time for giving and not simply a day we exchange gifts. The spirit of Christmas is in the 'togetherness', it's in the thought to which you put into thinking about others, it's a selfless time, where we forgive, take stock of what's important and become 'better' versions of ourselves.” I truly believe this and I miss the ‘feeling’ more than anything else at this time of the year. Of course, I do miss all my family and friends too, that goes without saying. Huan and I wish you all a very wonderful Christmas.

New Router, Dead Computer, It Even Rhymes!

May 17^th “Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain.” Do I have to; I did that almost all night. This morning the birds were all flying very low which Huan assures me they do when the weather is bad. I tried to take a picture with them in it; maybe I need even stronger glasses.

With the weather not so good Huan decided that we should visit China Telecom to pay our annual bill. While we were there Huan complained that our internet was slow, I didn’t ask her to but who am I to complain? On our way there we took a photo of a moth using the phone on macro, it wasn’t anything special and definitely not worth sharing.

Huan also took quite a lot of photos of me with a canine companion, one that for a change decided to jump up for a tickle and a chat. Unfortunately, some dummy, who shall remain nameless, had left the phone on macro so nothing came out in focus!

This next one came out though, we spotted a young boy with his Mum and Grandma playing with a phone and possibly trying to capture a snap of this butterfly. It was possibly on its last legs because neither we nor the young boy disturbed it enough to fly off.

In the evening we had a visit from the China Telecom technician who took one look at our router and said we would have to buy a new one because ours was so old. More money, from Huan’s purse though, I need a trip to Sanya or Haikou to top up my wallet! When he came back with the new router, that he just happened to have downstairs, I have to say I didn’t see any noticeable difference on my PC. Not long after he left though my PC went into a continuously rotating blue screen of death. Each time it tried to restart it gave me different error messages so in the end I gave and went to bed.

May 18^th My computer was still dead this morning, all I could think was that I needed a new disk or some new memory. Off to the PC repair shop we went. Sometimes I think I should just try and do everything myself but you get a bit worried with all the data that’s there. They disagreed with my ideas and said it was more than likely a software problem. I had taken my ‘real’ Windows 10 Pro USB with me so we began the process of trying to repair and/or reinstall Windows. Rapidly losing patience with them we went home for lunch and asked them to call us when they had news. They called us after lunch and told us that the memory was faulty and we would have to wait two days for a replacement part to arrive!

That call came while we were out trying for a walk while warily looking at the clouds. We were lucky and stayed mostly dry. Not many photos were taken again today, the river of course. What causes big circles like this?

Scientists were out and about today, they were testing the water that runs into the river from the mountains and the storm drains under the city. It doesn’t look too bad.

Nature has its way of succeeding whatever man tries to do, something that I rather like in my dotage. Not sure if I would say the same living in a house in the UK and trying to keep the weeds out of the back garden though.

Huan had me taking too far many photos of this machine being put on a truck prior to being taken elsewhere. I was interested to watch it being guided but not enough for so many photos. In the end I just made a small collage for you.

From one collage to another, Bigfoot. There was a chair for the old man today and when I sat in it a big hairy paw was offered. She does need a bath!

How about another electric car, one that likes to display its green credentials on its bonnet. Huan thought it was a row of coconut trees, I hope you can see better.

Here is the whole car, not bad but a bit small for me.

May 19^th We managed to get out for a walk in the countryside today, not until after lunch though. Mornings are not so easy due to having to wait an hour after the first pills before having breakfast and then the second pills followed by morning coffee. When we set out today the sun was strong, both of us were feeling it in our eyes although these two photos don’t show it.

Exploration was on the cards again today, not very far, just a small side detour. It turned out that the path led to some farm buildings beside the river.

For some reason there was also an old public convenience, although who it was convenient for we have no idea. It is not near a road or a path, not these days anyway, perhaps it was in the past. This is the gents’ side; notice the lack of doors and the lack of height on the cubicles. This used to be perfectly normal, nowadays conveniences are much more refined.

Going back the way we came, I had no wish to climb the steps along the river, the view was nice and I didn’t argue with the director.

Passing the mansions on the hill and the irrigation canal where we had a quick game of pooh sticks, we decided not to visit my bovine buddies but to head towards the river. We now know that we can turn off before the river, just as well as I didn’t want to have to struggle back up the long hill. That’s what we had to do way back in 2015 or 2016. Here’s a panorama taken from the turn off, behind us is a hill but a passable one.

Going up the hill, back towards the village, we felt the first ominous drops of rain which was not forecast until evening time. Once in the village we sheltered under the communal area cum basketball pitch in the vain hope of the rain stopping or at least easing a bit. Many villages have these sheltered areas and they all have solar panels on the roof feeding into the village power grid. I guess there wasn’t a great deal of electricity today!

The rain fooled us, it eased off a little, and I was even able to take a photo of a sunny mountain.

Within minutes Huan was taking a photo of me with a camera up my shirt again.

All that was left was for me to take one final photo, with my phone and not the camera, to show you the home stretch back over the bridge to somewhere.

As you can probably guess from that photo when we arrived home we were two absolutely sodden teddy bears in need of hot showers followed by coffee and a sneaky piece of lovely chocolate cake. I gave Huan the biggest piece, honest!

May 20^th We woke up to the sound of the river this morning but despite being noisy it wasn’t very ‘full’. One day they will finish with the dam modifications.

Because Huan had woken me early this morning, (meanie), we decided a walk in the sunny weather would be nice, for a change. You may remember photos of our bedroom balcony before; it’s covered in plants of one kind or another. Sometimes Huan gets cheesed off and either bins the odd one or two or finds them a new home. This is one of hers in the communal garden.

On the river we spotted someone messing about in boats, then we realised that the boat was too small for people. When we got nearer we found surveyors, one with a hand held GPS survey instrument, it looked like he was controlling the boat with his cell phone. The boat also had a GPS survey instrument. The other chap, not in the photo had either a laptop or a tablet. What exactly they were measuring is anybody’s guess.

Within minutes of leaving the river we had a call from the computer shop, my PC was ready. To make sure we had a decent walk, we took a roundabout route to get there, passing a little pink(ish) electric car on the way. Huan would fit in it, I probably wouldn’t.

Huan failed to get any snaps of me today; I succeeded in getting two of her though. Here she is coming out of the Ladies’ loo; I thought the attendant was giving me some funny looks.

And here she is again collecting the results of her recent medical. No doubt, once my computer is OK, I will be visiting Dr. Google a fair bit.

At the computer shop my PC was working, after a fashion. They told me that the Windows 10 Pro install was mine, even though it looked nothing like it had before I took the PC there. At least it wasn’t giving me recycling blue screens now. Once home I found that there was quite a bit of additional software installed.

It seems that my ‘C’ drive must have been formatted because I lost of all of my programmes. Luckily I have most of the exe files stored on my ‘D’ drive which they were expressly warned not to touch. By the end of the day most things are back how I like them but as is always the case with Windows there are still problems. Some Windows 10 apps are not working, telling me that there is no internet, when there is. My Windows account has also disappeared. At least my other software is all reinstalled and seems to be working well. Slowly slowly I suppose.

May 21^st Market day came around again so after buying the weekend’s lottery tickets off we went. Why can’t we win £184,000,000.00 pounds? There’s no chance of such a big sum here but then again we wouldn’t need, or want that much anyway! In the market Huan asked me take a photo of red bananas so that we could check the internet when we got home. She thought they were plantains and needed cooking. (They’re not; they are very similar to yellow bananas, just a little different in size, creamier and according to Youtube, with a hint of a raspberry taste. We’ll find out next week, if we remember to buy some that is.

We hadn’t planned on any bug photographs today but fate had other plans. We had never seen this before, are they mating do you think?

And then there was this one which we initially thought, from a distance was another mantis so we were going to ignore it. We were wrong, it is a flying something.

Fishing is up next, we found a gent fairly reeling them in with just a normal, small fishing rod. Here is the bait he was using and his catch so far. We commented on the fish being small but he told us that this species doesn’t grow much bigger.

The boss had me chasing birds again, unfortunately not the type I used to like chasing!

I decided that today would be a good day to change my Facebook cover picture so took a nice view of the river just for that. This image is stitched using cylindrical formatting where the one for my FB was stitched using perspective formatting. MS ICE is an excellent tool.

Huan found a car that she said she would buy when she gets her licence, she liked the colour. “When will that be?” I asked innocently knowing that there’s not a great deal of chance in the remote future never mind the near one. PS There’s nothing wrong in buying a car based on colour, I’ve done it more than once.

Arriving home Huan informed me that she doesn’t only have one plant in the communal garden, she pointed out another two. The smaller one is an orange tree.

Our final photo of the day is yet another bug; it was all over my left hand so trying to take a photo with my right hand only was not so easy. This was probably the clearest one.

My afternoon was taken up with more PC work, updating Windows, finding missing apps etc. For some reason my weather app is still not working, not too important though. I also have to try and find the printer again which will involve re-installing the software from a DVD. Guess what, the DVD will not open, even using the microscopic hole in the front.

May 22^nd What did I say about avoiding mountains until after my three month tests and my hopeful all clear to go back to normal? Well today we had an appointment with Dr. Mă, not a clinical one but a social one. He had asked to go walkies with us at weekends, something that was agreeable to us. This morning he turned up with a car and took us to the rest stop on the road to Maoyang, somewhere we haven’t been much since the highway opened.

His plan was to park up there and take us walking along the road in the first photo, which he assured us was not too steep. That road turned out to be out of bounds until next month so we had to take the second one, nearer the rest stop and which looked much steeper.

It not only looked much steeper, it was. Dr. Mă suggested I rest now and then. Just in case you weren’t sure, he is the one on the right. PS I didn’t have a brolly!

Nature lessons were also part of today’s programme. This is an ants’ nest which has fallen out of a tree. There are a lot of ants but I couldn’t get down far enough.

Onwards and upwards we went, always thinking that soon we would be lost in the clouds. However, they stayed tantalisingly just out of reach.

Huan and I both thought that Dr. Mă had been this way before. When we asked how far it was to where we were going he told us that he didn’t know as he hadn’t been this way before. When we got to this fork in the road, I decided to choose the ‘straight ahead’ route.

Soon we could see the TV tower faintly through the clouds, so we knew the end was near.

The building on the right turned out to be a mystery though. Was it the headquarters of a running club, a cycling club or even a motor sports club? There had possibly been toilets and showers inside at some time in the past. Surprisingly, the name was in English, not Chinese or Pinyin. An internet search was no help at all.

Alternatively, seeing the solar panels outside, the rusted wind turbine and the rusted tower, it could well have been an old radio site and the writing just graffiti! At some time in the past there was a university in Wuzhishan with foreign teachers, perhaps they were the authors.

So, how far was it to the top? About two and a half kilometres. At least going down would be easier. Before we started on our way down Huan took lots of photos of Dr. Mă and I, here is one fine specimen for you. PS I obviously mean him and not me!

More nature lessons on the way down, according to Dr. Mă this particular tree fern has been around since the time of the dinosaurs. I did a lot of searching with the Chinese translated into English but the exact name is still unclear. Its longevity as a species is correct but there were too many names for me to give you the correct one.

All the way down I kept trying to find a spot where I could take a photograph looking down on the clouds. I wasn’t successful. Maybe we need to go even earlier in the morning.

Back at the bottom we found a lot of cyclists, stopping to receive awards for their progress I think. Sometimes I consider buying a bicycle but as your legs can’t ever stop when you’re going uphill I’m not so sure it’s a good idea.

Our last two photos of the day are below the cloud cover! That is our little home town in the distance; it’s approximately a ten kilometre walk, uphill all the way, to the rest stop. One day we will walk up, that’s our promise to ourselves. The only problem is, once you have walked up ten kilometres you have to walk down again! There used to be a bus route to Maoyang but that now goes on the highway. If we do walk, lunchboxes will be required!

Before Dr. Mă went on his merry way he told us that my recovery was going well and that I was a strong man! I would disagree with the second part of that.  Strong or not, after a five kilometre up and down the mountain walk we both needed an OAP kip after lunch!

May 23^rd I guess we must have been lucky with the weather yesterday because there were no walks today. It is Monday of course, shopping day. I’m quite enjoying shopping again as I have been allowed to start cooking again from last week. Maybe I should start sharing some food pictures again. Let’s see if I remember tomorrow!

After lunch the rain appeared again, it seems to happen these days with monotonous regularity. I remember when people used to tell us that April and May were colder than February and March and we never believed them. We’re back to wearing jammies again this month, the first year we’ve had to do that. We took the opportunity of the rain to have another OAP nap. Perhaps we were both still feeling the effects of hill walking yesterday!

Right, that’s all for this week, stay tuned for more, maybe even more hills here and there. In the meantime if you feel the urge to eat lots of bananas, don’t worry about it too much. “ooooh ooooh aaaah aaaah eeeeh eeeeh.” For your listening delectation I decided to put a link to song about monkeys here, I never realised there were so many. There are solo artists and bands, many genres too, I chose an oldie from 1961, it’s by Harry Belafonte, I hope you like it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGkLWaOOxEI&ab_channel=Music4Life Now I’m just of to have another banana and Day-O into the sunset, bye bye!