We’re Alive, Luthier Bob (again), Army Tofu, Dentist and Insects

March 2^nd Another omission! I forgot to tell you yesterday that we are both still alive! We did our monthly home tests of Blood Oxygen, Blood Pressure, Temperature, Pulse and Blood Sugar. Looking at the results we decided monthly checks are not necessary, we will go to three monthly checks, synchronised with my PSA tests.

Two of us may have been alive yesterday, this morning it was only one and a half! Yet again I was stricken with some bug or other, affecting my head, sinuses and chest. It could have something to do with being cold in bed last night but being too lazy to get up and do anything about it! No long walks were planned for this morning though, all we had to do was to escort Huan to the OAP school so that she could sign on for Hulusi classes and Chinese Calligraphy classes. Yes, she has found even more to keep herself occupied.

On our way we had to stop and pick up some plants. Remember how lovely our traffic islands were at the beginning of the New Year. Today was clear up day and all the plants were being removed unless people could get in there quick enough to grab some. You can see all three traffic islands in the first photo, all under siege, and you can see Huan in the second photo, if you look carefully, choosing her five ‘takeaways’.

After lunch my weary bones took me to bed where I promptly fell asleep and dreamt of Covid tests. I have no idea what the test really feels like but in my dream, where I wearily lay my head on a very high reception desk after saying I needed a test, the next think I knew was the nurse was round the front in a flash, forced my head back and shoved a long cotton bud up my nose. I remember telling her that as she forced the swab to the back I saw a flash of blue light behind my eyes. Dreams eh? In this case I can identify all the parts and where they came from. The hospital with me nearly fainting came from me being absolutely worn out and a FB chat about my father stopping me from falling when I fainted stirring the morning porridge. The long walk up to the hospital and the swinging around a corner to get my feet on the floor came from our last countryside walk where we had to swing around a blocked bridge. The Covid test probably came from a FB friend, Randy, who seems to have to have many, one of which was mentioned on my feed this morning. I’ll have to ask him why. I am puzzled by the blue flash behind my eyes though; I can’t find the source for that. Do you think Huan bopped me while I was snoozing. Addendum – from Randy – “Day call on set , if I take a day call I have to have Covid test 2 days before, a Covid test on the day of and a Covid test on my last day. Most shows require 3 tests a week. If I’m hopping from show to show I end up getting tested more.” I feel for him!

Life is returning to normal now that the holidays are over so Huan was off to our little square tonight for some dancing, hulusi and maybe even some taodi, who knows. As for me, nothing except this post, my Chinese practice and some Youtube movies.

March 3^rd There was some life back in the old dog this morning! Some people decry Chinese medicine as being all quackery, not me. I don’t believe everything I’m told, but some of it is pretty good. What’s more the pharmacies, (chemist’s shops for us Brits), know what to give you most of the time so no doctors required. Additionally, because Chinese medicine is usually made from all natural ingredients, there are no worrying side effects although some can take longer to ‘fix’ your problem. This is what we have for head and chest colds; you can either chew the contents of the sachet or mix it as I’ve done here.  The dosage is three times a day and after taking it three times yesterday I’m feeling much better, by tomorrow I’ll be 100% again.

Huan was happy that I was well enough for us to do our weekly shop, and also well enough to cook today’s dinner. For a change it was a Western meal, steak with black pepper, garlic and mushroom sauce. I was a little worried about the steaks, they weren’t bought as steaks, I just bought a large piece of beef and chopped some off. The remainder I cut up into cubes for a future curry and a future stew. Huan was impressed with the presentation, hers is first. With mine, I tried to do something different; I must admit I prefer the way Huan’s looked.

No dancing for Huan tonight, no walking for me either, the rain appeared. Huan’s guitar bits and pieces also appeared but I told her I’d start on that tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully, the rain will have disappeared by the morning and we can have a walk, even if it’s just around the river.

March 4^th Our plans were dashed again, by the weather this time, rain stopped play. Huan made sure I wasn’t bored though, after NAAFI break she put me to work. With all the parts that arrived yesterday for Huan’s guitar I was a luthier again. Here I am putting it back together.

I was successful so here’s Huan after lunch with a big smile.

Her smile didn’t actually disappear as the afternoon went on but it did become a little more subdued. At one stage she even looked rather serious, I’m not allowed to use that photo! She started to realise that learning the guitar is not quite as easy as it looks, even more so as this guitar is a big one and she only has little arms and hands. However, never put anything past Huan, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s playing better than me in a matter of weeks! I did have a go this afternoon, after my long break, it wasn’t easy. Barring that pesky ‘F’ chord is going to take me quite some more practice again.

After dinner we forced ourselves to go out, partly because we needed it and partly because the Post Office had called. We stopped there first and found a birthday card from one of my brothers, only two weeks late. It was posted on 22^nd January but apart from the travelling time Huan tells me that all incoming ‘stuff’ from overseas has to go into quarantine for a month where it is sprayed just in case! Our next stop was to pick up some good old Xinjiang naan bread, or as they call it here, 新疆馕 Xīnjiāng náng. Since we are doing some translating, here’s a bit more. On our way back along the riverside I told Huan the ‘army tofu’ crowd were back, that’s what I call them. It’s a big crowd, much bigger than you see in the photo; they were also across the road by the riverside. They are all exercising and chanting and when I first heard it I thought it sounded like army tofu. The chant in Chinese is actually, 南无阿弥陀佛 Ná mó ēmítuófó but the ‘ēmí’ sounds like ami with a long a. One day we’ll stand with the people at the back and join in, it will be very relaxing. There will be no photos on that day though. Why don’t you Check the chant out on Youtube, you can relax too.

March 5th Bang went our plans yet again! One of us, i.e. me, slept very badly last night with toothache keeping me awake most of the night. Anyone who knows me knows that despite being 71, I have, like many people, an irrational fear of dentists. I decided to go in the morning but then woke up with a throat full of phlegm so decided I should go back on the medicine and wait a couple of days. Lunch forced me to change my mind! After a top up of medicine around half past one we set off to the dentist to arrive around two thirty, after their lunch break.

We were early and had to phone the dentist, this was our view whilst waiting. Being straight after their lunch break, nobody was hanging around on drips today though.

British people, turn away here! It’s OK, there are no photos, I did give my phone to Huan but she was too busy grilling the dentist and talking to the next customer. The pain in the upper right rear of my mouth is probably just a minor abscess, so that only needed a little medicine forcing under my gums. The lower right rear was a different matter, every time the dentist asked if it hurt I almost shot out of the chair. He had to remove an old filling so that he could check to see what was wrong. That required drilling of course, more pain. Did I tell you that Chinese dentists don’t really like to use anaesthesia? Apart from drilling he was also using tiny needles to get to the nerve endings and by golly, did I know when he got there. He probably thinks all British people are big babies now. When he’d finished rooting around he gave me something to kill the nerve endings and some temporary packing with instructions to go back on Sunday afternoon. “Do I have to?|” is what I was thinking but within an hour or so I was definitely feeling better. The other thing you would notice about Chinese dentists is that there is no private surgery. This means that apart from the dentist observing the depths of your oral orifice, there’s also the wife, Huan of course, and one of the next customers. She was a student from a mainland university, I forget which, who spoke exceptionally good English and was also having a good ogle at the dentist’s work. More people to see that I’m really just a big baby at heart!

The walk home did me a world of good and we arrived just in time for me to finish cooking dinner. I had started in the morning and cooked the thick mung bean soup, comprising of mung beans, (obviously), onions, garlic, mushroom, ginger, tomato, and a couple of small chillies. That needed heating through while Huan’s rice was in the microwave. Her rice was a mix of four, white, black, red and brown, (I think). All that remained to do then was a quick fry in hot oil of the dried fish, here’s the result on the table, ready to eat. PS We cheated and used spoons instead of the chopsticks.

March 6th Rain stopped play this morning which was just as well as we were both up late. By the time breakfast was finished, a fry up for me, (to use the leftover beans), and noodle soup for Huan, to use the leftover dried fish, it was NAAFI break. A lazy morning followed.

The weather cleared up after lunch and we were able to have a round the river walk. We were lucky today and saw signs of life, no lizards though. First was this little pooch who didn’t stop barking until we were well away, he even barked when we gave other dogs attention.

Pigeons were next, I thought I was going to get close enough to touch the first one, I was wrong. This was the only grey one, the rest were all white.

Next up was a Praying Mantis, just sitting on one of the wall pillars, not scared at all. I decided to lend a hand.

While I was busy with it and with my camera, Huan was busy with her phone. Here’s her photo of me and my photo of the mantis.

Whether it was happy or not I have no idea but I took it across the path and put it in the trees. It did seem a little unsteady on its legs, not sure why, but we left it making its way up the branches. Another audience were busy with their phones by then.

Next, much nearer to home, came a spider and a seed. It was very difficult to get a good shot of the spider, it was all over the place, but I think you can see enough.

Huan soon found another two, what they are I will leave up to you and Google for a change.

As if that wasn’t enough, Huan also managed to find one in my favourite colour, yellow. As a child Huan was always warned not to touch caterpillars, especially hairy ones, so I made sure I kept my distance too.

We saw that work had started on the dam again but as yet we can’t tell what they are doing. We’ll let you know when we can. Huan then thought that she saw mushrooms growing on cables. I just hope that our internet line doesn’t go through this box, or should I say ‘half a box’.

And that was it, our walk for the day was over, just in time too, the rain started just before we got in. Mind you it wasn’t heavy so we could have stayed out, but I had to cook dinner. As usual, it was a two day stew for the weekend, this time duck. You can see the duck at the back, I boiled half a duck last night then removed the skin and fat. Don’t you just hate cholesterol and doctors! The broth was left in the fridge overnight and was added to the stew after the fat had been skimmed off the top. No picture of the finished product I’m afraid, it’s just stew after all.

My day was finished off with a nice long Skype session with #1 son, something I really enjoy and look forward to. As usual, we put the world to rights!

March 7^th The weather was on our side today so we took another riverside walk, starting over the bridge to nowhere so that we could look down on the dam from the other side and give you a progress report. Well we looked down, and there’s no progress report! After all the bugs we saw yesterday, we saw none today. Even one of my favourite pooch pals didn’t want to come out from under his chair. I did manage to get him to raise his head though.

We passed another big hole in the road on the way home where a lady on a motorbike, who didn’t exactly look very rich, was asking when she would be able to buy business premises. The gate guard told us it would be finished by the end of the year. I laughed that off and told him I didn’t believe there was any chance. Huan told me after who was building it; they’ve done some good work in Wuzhishan so the gate guard may well be right.

Next we saw people cutting trees that were getting a little too close to the overhead electricity lines, you’ve seen the ‘lumberjacks’ in action before so no photo here. Instead, here’s another kind of climber. For some reason food cannot be delivered to the nurses’ college front gate and it’s delivered via the back gate instead.

After lunch it was torture time for me again, another visit to the dentist. Just like last time we were a little early, so I took a photo through the window, yes, people can look in and watch while you are blubbering like a baby! The dentist arrived shortly thereafter so I tried to make myself as comfortable as possible.

Huan excelled herself today and took over forty photographs, I’m fairly sure you don’t need to see all them, even I don’t need to keep that many. I’ll just show you one of the dentist at work and then one of the two of us together. I had been going to ask for one when the work is all done, but he asked if he could have a photo with me today. He also asked Huan to send a few of the ones where he’s working on me.

Today’s visit was over very quickly, just more nerve medicine, I have to go back next Friday. Our short walk after was much needed and much enjoyed. All that was left for me was to warm up today’s stew and then sort out today’s Blog Post.

March 8^th We had a plan, but I changed it, I didn’t feel like walking today, I felt like being lazy instead. There was work to do though, sticking things on Huan’s guitar. I had found on Taobao a set of stickers that supposedly help you remember where the notes are on the fretboard. It only works if your guitar is tuned to EADGBE which ours are. The job was difficult to start with until I worked out that using the sound hole to get the stickers underneath the strings was a good idea.

I doubt if the stickers will stay on a long time but if they help Huan a little they’ll be fine. Here’s the finished project, it only goes up to the 12^th fret because after that the sequence repeats itself. The second photo is me of course, just testing!

If you check my photo carefully you may be able to see which chord I’m playing. I chose a photo without the barred F chord, after so long without practicing that, it’s not so easy. I went through a few of my songs this morning, in between helping Huan now and then and explaining that she really can’t practice more than five or ten minutes a day yet.

No walkies after lunch either, Huan had to go out and make a noise. She was off to the Yefeng housing complex where lessons have started again after the holidays, Monday is drum day. In fact she’s tapping away in the living room while I’m typing this. I had to go out this afternoon as well, the car needed filling up before we go to Haikou tomorrow. Because we are leaving early in the morning I also decided to not park in our usual place and leave it somewhere where I knew I would have no problems getting out.

So, a lazy(ish) day comes to an end, another week comes to an end, unfortunately, visits to the dentist have not come to an end and will continue next week. See you then!

Bad Dreams, Dogs and a Four Minute Mile

January 7^th SD card for music finished last night, we now have Chinese, Movie Soundtracks, Brass & Military, and some Gilbert & Sullivan. I can see some high volumes, especially if I am alone in the car. Dash cam work is still in progress.

As for me, I woke up like a zombie this morning, having been awake on and off since about half past one. “Why couldn’t you sleep?” you may ask. Well, I had killed a pussy cat, in my dreams I hasten to add. It was a very strange dream; the vet was stitching up the cat’s middle after carrying out a post mortem, no gore, just fur. The cat was supposed to be dead. Lying on my knee, it began to plaintively mew. Knowing that half its insides were missing I knew what I had to do. Floods of tears followed, mine, because I felt so sad. I found a small, cat’s head sized plastic bag and did the dastardly deed. Almost instantly, or at least it felt like that, I was wide awake. My first reaction was to make sure Huan was still breathing! For some reason, I could hardly sleep for the rest of the night. Usually, I can work out where my dreams have come from, something I’ve seen on TV, something I’ve read, something someone has said etc. In this case, I have absolutely no idea, and no idea why it stayed so clear in my mind either.

Huan wasn’t up so early, maybe I disturbed her a lot, so a long walk was out of the question this morning. Instead we walked up to the street market and managed to get a load of baps and a couple of sausages. We passed a little scenic spot on the way so that I could take a photo of Huan.

Not to be outdone, she also insisted on taking one of me. I think you’d agree that she looks much better than I do!

Next up on the photo agenda was a couple of my four legged friends. We have seen these two before but never taken any photos of them. One was a Miniature Schnauzer and the other I think some kind of poodle. I was quite taken with how intelligent the Schnauzer looked, so much so that I did a Google search when I got home. “"alert and spirited, yet obedient to command ... friendly, intelligent and willing to please... never overaggressive or timid”. Huan said it was almost as if he was trying to talk to me.

Although it wasn’t a long hard walk we still managed over eight kilometres which, according to Huan, is more than enough. I on the other hand, will need to pop out this evening to make sure I make the ‘ten’. Other wildlife spotted today, a rat, which unfortunately we failed to get a photo of. I asked Huan to go round one side of the bush and make lots of rustling noises so that it would come out on my side where the camera was primed and ready. The clever little monster scooted out her side and into some denser bushes!

The afternoon was taken up with more dash cam work. After dinner, a lovely dish of soft pork and cabbage, Huan had to go and collect a USB with dance music as ‘Teacher’ is going back up North. With all the problems in her life we don’t know if she’ll be back next winter or not. I took the time to make up my missing kilometres. Arriving back home I spotted our amphibian friend, we haven’t seen him for a while. I took dozens of photos, some with flash, some without, none of them turned out brilliantly. And ‘Froggy’ himself didn’t move a muscle through all the photography, just totally ignored me.

Once home the dash cam work was done but then Huan arrived home and I had to sort out her dance music for her. Quite a long day was had by both, should sleep well tonight!

January 8^th Today’s plan was almost kept to. Huan had choral practice so I was going the landfill route and then a little longer to join the main road further up. Just before leaving I was informed that we are invited out to dinner this evening, or should I say late afternoon, four o’clock. I changed the plan, just a little, and kept to the landfill route but with no extras. What I was looking for was highway progress and I found it. They seem to have accelerated their work recently. Half the carriageway now goes over the road and quite a few more supports have been completed.

Carrying on a little further you can see the big machine they use to move the road segments into place, the actual road was out of my view I’m afraid.

And then it becomes all dusty and horrible.

Now a Bob Blog would not be complete without some four legged friends so here are two that are trying to camouflage themselves.

They were still in a dusty area, before I had passed the landfills. Once the landfills were behind me the walk improved tremendously.

And then of course I was over the crest of the hill and on my way back into town, quieter and cleaner all round.

All that remained was a water stop in the village at the end and a chat to another friend.

Today’s target was achieved, ten and a half kilometres in two and a half hours. With the hills at the beginning I actually felt I could have continued today for fifteen or twenty but, that was not to be; another time maybe.

Our dinner date was fine, I avoided more than just a little báijiǔ, only had one bottle of beer, but probably ate far too much. I have to say it was a good spread for only eight of us. This is what it looked like before another four or five dishes were added!

It was a sad and happy occasion, sad because Hé huā and her husband are leaving, happy because we were all enjoying the food, drink and company. After dinner, the ladies went to the town square for some photos to mark the occasion, I stayed home, feeling bloated! We have received some of the photos, but none of a good enough quality to include here. Who know, we may receive more tomorrow.

January 9^th Not an early start today, which is what I had initially planned. Instead, as we were taking Hé huā and her husband to the airport, we were set to leave around nine o’clock. We were only a few minutes late and of course there were tears, mostly from Hé huā. Huan told me that she has been very emotional for a few weeks, bursting into tears for all kinds of reasons. Not least of these is that she has a dicky heart, her husband has some form of diabetes, he’s already had something fitted in his heart, something else fitted in his leg, and now he’s beginning to have trouble with his eyes too. In fact, he doesn’t expect to be around if or when Hé huā comes back to Wuzhishan. Having been there myself, I suspect she is in the throes of depression but I doubt very much if anyone else will see that or if she’ll get any help for it. I was able to explain to Huan once we were alone in the car and I think she understood. She knew where I was in my mind when I met her! Anyway, we had an uneventful trip to the airport and here am I, as you can more than likely see, parked in the wrong place for ‘drop-offs’. I think I may have been in the lane marked for buses but it was only written on the road, in Chinese. My ‘navigator’ was a bit too busy to navigate today.

I then had to drive round and round in circles waiting for Huan, she had gone to help Hé huā use the e-ticket machine and to make sure they were both OK. I only had to drive round the airport twice, hair raising at a couple of the roundabouts due to all the construction work going on, they are upgrading all the roads. I thought you might like this next one, something I have never seen before. Can you spot anything strange in this picture? Huan didn’t see it.

Perhaps I needed to be a bit closer. I’m sure you’ll see it here. Maybe the driver is not allowed pets in the cab! I know it’s not exactly safe; the dog is on a short leash on that little platform. He did look very happy though.

Once our friends had been seen off it was time for shopping, with the first stop being the bank. I wanted to check my pension ‘incomings’ were up to date, change some of it to RMB and draw some out for my other bank in Wuzhishan. The rate of exchange was good today, £1.00 got me ¥9.05, that’s almost a whole ¥1 more than last time. Next job was to find some new casual shoes for me. Of course, we had to argue about the price again. Most of the time in Wuzhishan I wear shorts and sandals, if we’re walking a fair distance I wear my boots. Casual shoes are worn once in a blue moon with my jeans so cheap and cheerful is good enough. At least Haikou has shoes in my size, and we were successful. No photos of my shoes for you, instead I managed, with great difficulty, to capture this amazing photo of a UFO just before it disappeared!

The next stop was the hospital for the needle. I was not looking forward to it, especially after last month when the nurse bruised me quite badly. Despite it being later in the afternoon the cashier queues were not bad and we were in to see the doctor in no time. The prescription queue was a lot longer but patience is a virtue, and I got used to having to have a lot of it in the Middle East. Thankfully there wasn’t much pain this week. I wonder what the various nurses think of this foreigner who has to cover his ears and his eyes whenever he has a needle. He also has to make a quick exit when the next in line is having a needle in his arm and thus is not behind the curtain.

And our last call of the day, before dinner and the hotel, was the opticians to collect my glasses. I was a little disappointed to find that despite costing a small fortune, the lenses are still made of plastic!

January 10^th Our trip was shorter than I would have liked, Huan had to attend a meeting for the residents New Year show. Still, we got our bread, butter, cheese, whipping cream and a fair bit of frozen stuff for Chinese New Year. Waiting in the car for Huan to sort out the parking fee on her phone, I tried taking some selfies to show you my new glasses. I failed miserably, obviously far too dark in the underground car park and I didn’t think to turn the courtesy light on. Dummy! If you’re wondering why Huan has to sort out the parking, it’s because cash is not really the done thing, you have to use your phone. My phone, being a Windows phone, will allow me to install WeChat, but not its associated banking app. Aren’t I the lucky one? No doubt I’ll be forced into buying a new phone soon. I’d much rather have a new telephoto lens for my camera.

What are the new glasses like for driving? I can certainly focus further away but I think it is going to take some time for me to get used to them, especially being graded lenses.

So Huan came back from her meeting with a request. Would I like to play the guitar and sing a song? I think she thinks I’m much better than I am. I said no, but who knows, I may reconsider nearer the time. Other than I had a lazy evening uploading all the dash cam videos.

January 11^th Yet another not so early morning and for me, one with achy bones again. Huan is convinced I am getting another cold and that I should be taking medicine to cure it. I’m just as convinced that I’m feeling just a little run-down and that even if it is a cold, I don’t nneed medicines to put me right.

Saturday again so no hills or mountains or very long range walks, just around the town and the farmer’s market. Within, I would guess five hundred metres, my phone told us that we had just walked a kilometre in five minutes! It’s been a few years since I could move that fast. Arriving at the market, after the first few metres I abandoned ship, I didn’t fancy the fight through the crowds.

We did go to the market of course, but after walking up and down the river and then approaching from the other end. Being a little later, it was still crowded but a little less so. What have we got to show you from there today? A couple of identical machines, one working a little faster than the other supposedly making something out of coconut powder and wheat, with ‘no added sugar’. Well, we had a taste and there was certainly no sugar. In fact it almost tasted like solidified talcum powder to me! Here are some screen shots from the video.

We were on the wrong side of the river for this next shot, it shows a lot of photographers, I guess it could be a club; China is quite big on clubs of people with similar interests. Had we been closer I would have been able to get Huan to have a look through their lenses. I think they were shooting birds in the reeds on the other side of the river, our side in fact. They will probably have done far better than we would have, despite them being much further away.

A motorbike for you next, one which a quick Google search tells me is from a Chinese owned Italian manufacturer. It’s a Benelli TRK 502 and surprisingly, as the size of motorbikes in Hainan are reputed to be limited to 125cc, this one is 500cc. That means there is zero chance of me ever risking my life on it.

So the company is Italian, but Chinese owned, I wonder who created the warning sticker on the fuel tank. They obviously couldn’t find an English speaker in Italy or China. It seems they are talking about a crash helmet and high visibility clothing.

Huan was out practicing for the show again this afternoon. What do you think she did when she came back? She asked me yet again to sing for them. The show is going to be on the fifteenth of January, so not a great deal of notice. I tried to get her to understand that the audience, however many of them there may be, will not understand a word of what I sing, and also that any song I did sing would be completely different to anything they sing. It would not be patriotic or nostalgic for times gone by in China!

Dinner was different today. Although it’s a weekend, our planned fry-up failed. I was going to use a tin of meat but the one I opened for a sandwich yesterday was not what I had expected. I didn’t even know I had bought this one. The tin is the same size and shape as the processed meat we occasionally use for sandwiches or breakfast but it’s “Stewed Pork Sliced”. It was tasty enough though.

In the evening I had a fair bit of guitar work to do, having been remiss for two days. Well I don’t take the guitar to Haikou and I was far too exhausted last night. Surprisingly enough I was better than I thought I would be. Maybe I need to have a guitar rest on Mondays as well as a walking rest.

January 12^th “Woke up this mornin’ yeah, felt like I needed a new body, yeah.” Just a bit of blues to start the day. In fact neither of us was top notch today, whatever bug has been doing the rounds is not so easy to get rid of. We both agreed walking would be good for us. What a start we had, according to Endomondo, we did almost four kilometres in about four minutes! For some reason the GPS often plays up when I first start the Endomondo app.

We planned on no hills and some countryside today so that’s what we did. Passing by the end of the irrigation canal, before it hurtles through pipes to make some electricity, they have put a little bridge and a new warning sign. I loved the sign, can you see why?

Cows were on the agenda again, I love this bunch, although only one or two are usually brave enough to come and say hello. Today it was the darker one, the lighter one was a little more nervous. If I’d stayed longer she may eventually have come nearer.

As we are wont to do now and then, we headed off the paved surface and into the woods. After a while we recognised some of the path and carried on that way. I’m sure you can see why we like to ‘get back to nature’ at times.

Our memories were not as good as they should have been. If they had, maybe we would have taken a different route. This one brought us to a place we know quite well.

Unfortunately, it’s also a dead end so we had to retrace our steps which we did without the forest detour and ended up back where we saw the new warning sign earlier! Never mind, we got back to town and with a little detour around the river managed our (my) daily ten.

Huan had more dancing practice this afternoon. When the rain started that was my cue to get on with our Sunday fry-up, this time with the right ‘tin of spam’! She was ‘well pleased’ when she arrived home. I was ‘well pleased’ because the rain didn’t let up which meant she had no evening practice today. I had the pleasure of her company.

January 13th There isn’t a lot to report from today. Being a Monday it was a shopping and rest day. For us that was just as well because the weather started off badly. That gave me a good excuse to pop into the bath for an hour or so, I hate shopping in the early mornings, in winter, too many people. There was still a mob when we got there but thankfully, they had dissipated by the time we reached the cash desk.

When we left the supermarket to do our usual trip to the wet market, we found that overnight a one way system has been implemented on the town’s two main shopping streets. No advance warning was given, or if there was I didn’t see it. Don’t worry, I did see the temporary road signs they had out today. It looks as if it will be a permanent thing as the road markings have all been changed too. We now have parking on the left, cars in the middle and bikes on the right. Bikes here means motor bikes and not cycles. It’s something that has been needed for a while due to the increase in traffic that is now almost logarithmic. There is however, one major problem. While we drivers in our cars are obediently following the rules, the riders of the bikes and mopeds are neither sticking to their lane nor even going one way!

In the afternoon, while Huan was out, I got the amplifier out just to see if I could play anything passable for the ‘show’. When SWMBO returned I asked her to have a listen and she was full of praise. Her mouth tells lies! I have though, agreed to do two songs for the show which I’m betting, you already knew I would.

The plan had been to upload this Blog post at this stage, but the site is down for a day or two. I’ll just have to keep them separate on the computer. Bye for now!