New Year, Dama Dancing, Pre-op Worries, Birthday

February 1st “If you don't believe me, If you don't like my plans, You mustn't tell me”, another song to start the month, this one called ‘February Air’ from the band ‘Lights’. It wasn’t my first choice but ‘Xmas in February’ by ‘Lou Reed’ didn’t have the right sort of lyrics. Anyway, a new month begins, the one I haven’t been looking forward to. The nearer my operation gets the more I seem to worry about it. I know I shouldn’t but those of you who know me will know that, despite outward appearances, I am a worrier.

So what did we do today? Well, we went for a walk of course. We’re sticking to easy walks until later in the year so we went around the river again. I was hoping to make a video about the firework stalls but they aren’t open yet. They’ve also changed a lot since last year, all in small steel containers now. There was however a new, temporary, market along the riverside, a farmer’s market. You’ve seen pictures of various birds in cages before so I’ll skip them. I was a bit surprised to see this though, a porcupine. Whether it’s native to Hainan or not I couldn’t tell you but it sure seems a shame that he will end his life as a New Year dish.

February 2^nd Yet another ‘blue sky’ day, lovely for walking. We were following this woman for a while, carrying her shopping. I guess it’s fair to say that Chinese people, or more broadly speaking, Asian people, always know where their food is coming from. Yes, that’s a live chicken in the bag on the left. I wonder if it knows where it’s going?

The town is definitely looking good for the Spring Festival holidays, here’s the centrepiece of the town square. When I see these, and there are a lot of them in Hainan, I always wonder about the cross migration of peoples between continents all those years ago. This ‘totem pole’ is concrete but we have a lot of wooden ones too.

Also in the town square were lots of small orange trees. I believe that these oranges are not for eating, just for display. You can see them in pairs outside many businesses during the holiday season. Here’s a peach among the oranges.

February 3^rd More walking of course! We thought we would take a stroll past the ‘Golden Mermaid’ and see how she is getting on these days. We passed through the apartment complex that she shares her space with and a resident told us that there will be a ‘seven star hotel’ in front of said mermaid. That would be to the right in this picture.

Now I don’t remember what her face was like on our last visit but it seems to me as if someone has tried to give her some make up. She also seems to have been damaged on her neck. Either you get vandals everywhere or she wasn’t made very well to start with!

Somebody else who seems to have a problem is this little duck. I couldn’t get close enough to get a good shot but have a look at its wings. Those white feathers wouldn’t go back inside. We watched for a while in case it was some kind of mating ritual or perhaps a way to dry the feathers but each time it flapped its wings those white bits ended up sticking out again.

February 4^th Up at ten to six this morning, must be old age setting in. Good that I was though, we were at the supermarket before quarter past eight. Today is a ‘busy’ shopping day in China, New Year’s Eve. We were fine but when we got out after forty five minutes, the car park was chock a block!

Being New Year’s Eve and because Huan will have a busy three weeks at the end of the month looking after me, I said I would be the cook today. It would be a little difficult for Huan to cook her normal New Year’s spread anyway with only one electric hob. Yes, the gas is still off! Today we had Western instead, here’s a roast lamb with herbs.

The menu said three to three and a half hours so I took it out after three. I’ll know better next time. It was still tasty enough though and what’s left will give us a good stew for tomorrow and maybe even another day. So as New Year’s Day will be tomorrow, Huan and I would like to wish you all 过年好 (Guònián hǎo), which in case you didn’t know, is yet another way of saying Happy New Year!

February 5th Not a bad night’s sleep for a Chinese New Year’s Eve! It’s usually like a war zone for at least a couple of hours but we weren’t disturbed much at all. We think maybe it’s something to do with a sign we saw on the wall of a fireworks stall where lots of areas are now restricted in the use of them. Here’s one of the stalls, #2 of 6, with the container behind, which we assume is supposed to ‘contain’ any untoward explosions. Looking at how much stock is outside the container I reckon they must take a lot home with them at night time!

Today was a great day. We were very lazy this morning although Huan did make some dumplings for freezing. We were both so happy with how quiet everything was. Standing on the bedroom balcony, all we could hear were birds. Even on our afternoon walk it was still remarkably quiet, on our street all the shops were closed with the exception of a ‘convenience’ store. It reminded me of how Boxing Day used to be in the UK. “Why is it so noisy the rest of the time?” I hear you ask. Well, it’s all to do with excavator mounted hydraulic jack hammers; they are going from early morning to evening, probably nearly twelve hours a day. We have them in front of our house, behind our house, up the road from our house, in fact all over Wuzhishan. I guess it’s not so easy knocking mountains down! Behind our house, it’s not a mountain they are knocking down, but the ‘tips’ of mountains sticking up through the riverbed. We think they are going to put a pedestrian bridge where they are making this hole. It has given a lovely hue to the water though!

February 6^th My feet are swelling up again, probably because I’m staying off the Aspirin until I’ve had my operation, so walking is a must this month, as often as possible. Today, I decided a Fujifilm walk was called for, mostly because I wanted to enter the weekly competition on Facebook, the theme of which was reflections. I made a mistake. There was just a little too much wind ruffling the surface of the river and no decent shop windows as most places were still closed. I did find the toilet though and after all, that is where many people go to sit and ‘reflect’!

I am still learning, (or trying to), how to use the Fujifilm so most pictures were sent straight to the bin today. There are a couple of wildlife ones for you though. The first is my friend who is kept chained up outside the local restaurant, poor chap, Don’t worry, he is not on the menu, he is for breeding. The owners have a problem though, his mate ran away! As you can probably see, he is always pleased to see me.

The previous pic was a four legged friend, this one is eight. However, if you look closely he seems to be missing one leg. He ‘fell out’ of his web right in front of us and I think he was trying to find a way back. I didn’t fancy giving him a helping hand, just in case!

February 7^th Another lazy morning with an walk after lunch. The adult vocational college down in the middle of town has changed the use of its sports track. It is now a facility free for the public to use. Parents can exercise here –

Children can join in of course, or play here –

And ‘seniors’ are not left out, they can play here –

As you can see, the kids have been playing here too! What about me? Did I exercise or play while we were there? After all, as well as what you see, there is a small football pitch, a tennis court and some basketball courts. Well, I went through the motions even if after many years I may have forgotten the correct starting position.

Evening time saw us finish off the lamb, another nice stew! It also brought us a visitor from ‘oop north’ young Jake Canning. I do like to see other foreigners from time to time and we spent a few merry hours on the balcony lubricating our engines. No evidence though, I forgot to take any photos!

February 8^th Jake was off cycling this morning so Huan and I went for a San Yue San Da Dao walk. For those who have forgotten, that is the main street through town. On the way the Shangri La complex has had new advertising posters put up. I thought you might like this one. Great advertising and would have been almost true until they knocked almost all the mountain down around the complex.

Evening time brought more visitors, Patrick, Flora and Podraig. That meant another evening on the balcony for Jake and I, along with Patrick to help us empty the bottles. It was an evening I really enjoyed, haven’t been to bed so late for a long time! However, future invites may be not so forthcoming if my little friend Dodo is not brought along!

February 9^th Another morning walk for Huan and I. The cobwebs certainly needed blowing away after yesterday evening! Very lazy with the camera but I did take a short video for uploading on the YouTube channel. This was the accordionist and his resident choir. Both he and the singers are of course snowbirds. Here’s a screenshot.

February 10^th Relaxing day today, well for me anyway, all I had to do was go and buy the makings for a salad. Huan was busy making pizzas for our lunchtime guests. We had them all round for lunch because Jake was on his way back to Haikou in the afternoon. As usual Huan excelled herself!

February 11^th Another Monday, another shopping day. For some strange reason the supermarket was quite empty today, when we arrived and when we left. Afternoon sleeps required all round, I guess we must be getting old!

My evening plan was to have drinks with Patrick. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. Patrick, Jake and Podraig all had what appeared to be food poisoning. That of course got Huan worrying! However, she, myself and Flora were all fine so I tried to reassure her that it was not her cooking! Flora did pop round in the evening, to print something, and, she brought Dodo with her this time. I guess we can invite them again after all!

February 12^th A lazy morning, waiting to cook a lunch time fry-up for the visitors. In the end, I cooked just for Huan and I, Patrick still had an upset tummy. An afternoon walk was our only other activity, another ‘stroll’ around the riverside. I have decided there will be no ‘strenuous’ walks until I’ve been ‘seen to’!

February 13th A fry-up for me for breakfast, we have to try and empty the fridge and freezer before we trek off to Haikou. No breakfast for Huan though, she has been struck down with a dicky tummy, just like the others. As it is more than 48 hours after the pizza this would imply that perhaps it isn’t food poisoning but more likely a stomach bug. For the rest of the day I was Dr Bob, not that I could do much apart from making sure Huan’s ‘hot water’ cup was regularly refilled. More Bill binge watching in-between.

February 14^th Valentine’s Day but Dr. Bob was still in the house! Huan was still feeling a little fragile so we had a fairly lazy day although Huan did go out for her D². (Have you forgotten what that is? Check back to refresh your memory!)

February 15^th Huan located a ‘Bank of China’ for me, in Ledong, so that’s where we went this morning. I wanted to confirm my pension payments, to change a few more pounds and to make sure we have enough money for the upcoming hospital trip. The bank branch is so new that the Sat-Nav didn’t show it at all but a friendly chappie from the fuel station led us to it. It’s actually on the same street we often eat in, very useful for future visits. It’s a lot quicker to go to Ledong and back than it is to Sanya.

Huan was dancing again in the evening so I decided to walk down with her and then have a short riverside walk on my own. Passing the local college, whose walls have just been painted, I thought I would show you these two photos. This one is fairly normal, we have seen people wearing clothes like this.

However, we haven’t seen anyone like this. I’ll be keeping my eyes open from now on!

Now Chinese people have some habits that we may consider just a little bit strange. One of them is walking on a cobbled pavement in bare feet. It’s supposed to be good for you. I’m not so sure myself!

The ladies were going to dance in the town square tonight and as luck would have it, there was another group rehearsing. They were a much larger group, much more organised and I think they may have been getting ready for 元宵节 – Yuán xiāo jié - Lantern Festival. They look like local costumes but it's a bit early for 三月三 - Sān yuè sān (3rd day of 3rd month), a local Hainan festival. I managed to get a video for Facebook, not one of my better efforts though. Here’s a couple of screenshots.

February 16^th Back to a semblance of normality with a morning walk around the river. We had to stop on the way to ‘charge’ our phones with money, just in case. Huan found that for some reason she had been using data which meant she had used a lot more. She was not a very happy bunny! On our way round, we passed some more billboards where we spotted the following gem. If anyone has any idea what they are trying to say feel free to let us know. It does make me wonder, yet again, why are the people who make these signs too proud to ask for help with the English language. It used to be the same in the UAE.

February 17^th Oh dear, Huan’s new monitor has decided to ‘underline’ the top portion of the screen with quite a broad green line. Checked it on my PC, same results so took it off to the shop this morning. Thankfully the problem still showed up there. I was dreading what used to happen in Hong Kong, the other way around, when the ‘girls’ would complain about the equipment in the communications centre which would miraculously be fine when I turned up to check it out. I used to blame it on their nylon underwear! Anyway, they agreed to replace it but then couldn’t find another one in the shop, not even from another manufacturer, of the same size and configuration. Maybe it will be sorted this week. . .

February 18^th “Listen to the pouring rain, listen to it pour”, (Jose Feliciano). Well at least it wasn’t a walking day, only a ‘small’ shopping one. Yes, not much needed this week as we’ll be off on Thursday, up North to the chop shop, otherwise known as the hospital. We started preparing early instead, charging Huan’s pad, checking my laptop etc.

February 19^th ‘SWMBO’ (She who must be obeyed) told me that I am not allowed to walk, I have to rest before we go up to Haikou. Of course there are always exceptions to every rule, in this case I was allowed a three kilometre round trip to take Huan’s monitor back to the shop and collect a new one. I have to say that I am suitably impressed with the service we received on this occasion. No questions, no protestations, just a straight swap, a new one for the faulty one. The original was a Lenovo, 23.6 inch, the replacement is a Philips 24 inch so no complaints on our side. Here’s a happy bunny surfing the web once we got home.

Lo and behold, the ‘rules’ were bent again and I was allowed out in the evening to make a video of today’s D², which just in case you still can’t remember is ‘Dama Dancing’. Our neighbourhood group only had four members tonight, probably because today is Lantern Festival, the last day of the New Year celebrations. Fireworks are going off outside as I write this. If you want to see the ladies dancing you’ll have to follow this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzCTuUAXZBU&t=0s&index=40&list=PLrm74YBD3qG5hMSefKtpaGIH2okgNoBLN

In the meantime, here are three of the group walking up to Sany Yue San Square, the fourth member joined them there.

February 20^th Happy Birthday to me! Sentiment stolen from the internet.

So, “What’s the recipe today Jim?” (You may just have to google that, especially if you’re a youngster.) Well, breakfast was the usual Chinese birthday one, long noodles and egg, with a few extras such as meat and vegetables. The long noodles symbolise a long life, not sure about the egg, rebirth perhaps? Lazy day after, tomorrow being D-Day! We did our packing in the morning, following the prepared list, worse than going on holiday! Nap time in the afternoon. For me at least, having been woken by Huan taking down all the New Year decorations at what seemed the break of dawn.

On our way out for my birthday dinner we passed two new friends at the gatehouse. One is a little shy and I haven’t had time to get him (or her) to relax yet. The other one is quite a boisterous little chappie, friendly too.

So what was my birthday dinner? Well Huan had all these ideas of where to take me, how to spoil me, maybe even Western food for a change so I think she was quite surprised when I declined. With us travelling up to the hospital tomorrow alcohol is off the menu anyway and I didn’t really feel up to a slap up meal. Instead, it was what we call a ‘choose food’ place, where the choices are laid out buffet style. There’s a set price for two meat and two veg but I went expensive and had two veg, one meat and two chicken legs. It cost Huan the princely sum of ¥35.00, (less than four pounds). Here’s our dishes, Huan’s is the top one, mine the bottom.

A bottle of Nescafe Smoovlatte when I got home and I was fine. I sent Huan off dancing again so I could finish this tonight and get it posted.

As you can see, it’s not the end of the month yet. That is because the next missive will be a special one, dedicated to one subject. From Nurse Huan and myself, TTFN, see you then!

Burn, Banking, Pension, Lots of Walking

Here we go then, let’s hope for some better weather and some more beasties and plant life.

August 1^st Not new beasties today. Do you remember the insect I thought was dead? That one may have been but on the other side of the house I found these two this morning. Cue ‘David Attenborough’ with some correct scientific stuff which I don’t know, or cue ‘Bernard Cribbins’ with “They were making mad passionate love!” These two were not dead although they only moved a little every now and then. You can see the gold bands easier here. How you tell which is male and which is female though I have no idea.

The weather stayed good for us today, we walked 9.4 km with no really fast spurts but I still ended up with a blister on the end of one of my toes. One thing I like about living here is that it is possible to ‘get away’. We live in a country of over 1.3 billion people, a city with (supposedly) 150,000 people but despite that, within just a few minutes we can be in the countryside listening to birds and insects. Of course, it doesn’t matter how far we go, someone will have decided to farm there!

August 2^nd Lovely day for a walk today and we were off before 8 o’clock. I had to include this picture so I could get a very old joke in. He’s a handsome duck isn’t he, standing there on one leg. How is it birds can do it for hours yet we fall over after a few minutes or even seconds? Anyway, what was the joke? Some say it’s an ‘absurd’ joke, others say it’s an ‘anti’ joke. I’ll leave you to make your minds up; you can always do a Google search for it. There is a gent who claims he wrote it in 1969, he may be telling the truth, who knows. All I know is that I heard it on the radio, many, many moons age. “What’s the difference between a duck?” (Insert your response here.) “One leg’s both the same!”

And here’s me pointing out one of the village signs along today’s 10 kilometre route. Note how I am ‘nearly’ standing on one leg!

August 3^rd My plan was usurped by Huan today. I had decided we would walk out and then when we had had enough we would get the bus back. Well off we went, towards Nanshengzhen, which was my plan. On the way we thought we might try and look inside some of the villas on a compound at Shishu. The security guards were having none of it so we decided to walk around the outside instead. Unfortunately, that road ended up here.

Now I can hear you all saying “Why didn’t you use a map?” Well the truth is, we enjoy just ‘rambling’ wherever our feet take us. Anyway, we had to walk back then to the main road where I felt it was time to start on our way home. Around the 11.5 kilometre mark we bought some drinks, quite necessary by then, and I suggested to Huan that we take a bus home. In her infinite wisdom she decided we should walk. To be honest, I don’t really think she knew that we had a fair bit more to go. So, the final distance was just over 18 kilometres, here’s the proof!

Once home, instead of a ‘real’ lunch I made us two chocolate milkshakes and then it was time for a quick kip! Us old folks you know . . .

August 4^th Aaarrrggh!! Another blister. Now I know what you’re thinking, but this one isn’t on my foot. It’s on my ‘giving the bird’ finger on my right hand, right on the end too. (Of course those of you who know me will know I am not the ‘giving the finger type’.) “How?” you may ask. Well, it’s Saturday and we always have a good old English breakfast at weekends, or as near as we can make it anyway. Sometimes, for a change, instead of China’s excuse for bacon and sausages we use a tin of meat instead and that’s what I was doing this morning. Now this particular tin was circular so I decided to cut out the middle of two slices and fry the eggs in the middle, in my mind it looked perfect. Of course I hadn’t reckoned on breaking the eggs into the resulting holes. One went fairly well, the other ended with my finger in the lard. I’m now typing this while trying not to use the middle finger on my right hand! Must remember, use a cup or jug next time I want to surprise Huan with a ‘pretty’ breakfast.

August 5^th Not a bad ramble today, ten kilometres starting over the bridge to nowhere and finishing down our local walk through the woods. It would appear that the farmers have given up harvesting their rubber trees. This is what happens when they don’t empty their little cups often enough.

The reason it’s one of our favourite walks is that there are hills, but nothing too strenuous, it is shaded coming down the hill, and the scenery is pretty nice to look at. Here’s a spot that would be great to take the picnic box and a couple of glasses of wine. You’d have to ignore the bugs of course but then you’d have to do that in the UK too!

August 6^th Shopping day so lazy, no morning exercises and no walks. Perturbing phone call from the Bank of China though. There is some problem with money coming into my account. “Which company is it from?” I have no idea of course. Whichever pension it is, state or private, it is usually sent via some clearing bank or other. The last time we had a problem we were in Harbin and it was the intermediary bank that had used a different name to that on my passbook. Chinese software means my passbook can’t show the last two letters of my surname. Ah well, a trip to Sanya tomorrow and see if we can sort it out.

August 7^th Well, where to start. The bank had my wrong telephone number on file despite being informed in 2015 and even calling me since then! They managed to get the right one by calling the UK. At least they had the nouse to think thought of that. Next it was the UK’s problem. My Friends Life payment for July was sent with a five year old account number and a three year old address! We eventually got the bank to accept the payment but I had to prove a few things first. 1) The company sending the payment (the paperwork gave the company name as ‘FLP Electronic Annuity’) Elsewhere on the paperwork Friends Life was mentioned and in one of my letters from them they refer to themselves as Friends Life and Pensions. I assumed FLP referred to this and luckily for me, the bank agreed. 2) Next I had to prove when I started paying in for this pension! How many people would have that recorded. Luckily for me, I keep everything! 3) I had to prove my identity of course, with my passport. 4) They wanted an ID Card, or as the Americans have, a Social Security card (obviously I couldn’t supply this). 5) I had to show them that I had been receiving payments into the correct account for the last five years. 6) I had to give both my old and new addresses as further confirmation. 7) Why does the bank paperwork have ‘Friends Life PLC’ where my letters have ‘Friends Life Limited’? (Quick explanation of ‘Public Limited Company’ and hoping I was right) 8) I had to have my photograph taken. 9) I will have to go to Sanya every month to sign for both incoming pensions, state and private. All of this kerfuffle by the way involved three bank staff, the teller dealing with me, who at least spoke English, his immediate supervisor now and then and occasionally the department supervisor! And they say they are making things easier for foreigners! A lot of this has to do with China’s latest money laundering laws, and I’m assured that it won’t take three hours next time. Still, July’s payment was successfully deposited.

June’s payment however had not been received at all. Back home then and on the phone to Friends Life, using the phone number that’s stored on my mobile and is the one I’ve always used before. “Sorry Mr. Myerscough, I can find no record of your account on this system, I think you have called the wrong number”! She eventually put me through to someone else who was able to find my details but could not explain why my account number and address were wrong this month. In fact, they may have been wrong before because it seems June’s payment was ‘returned to sender’ and re-sent on 3^rd August. I wonder how that will turn up. I was then told that the lady I was speaking to was working from the ‘call centre’ and that there was no longer an international line to contact the ‘back office’ on. She would pass my details on and they would phone me between eight and ten this evening. The back office got back to me sometime after half past nine but with no further progress to speak of. How can things go wrong so badly after receiving these payments for eight years now? I guess it may have something to do with the transition from Friends Life PLC to Aviva. The upshot was this lady, after some discussion not really leading anywhere asked for my email and said she would try and get back to me tomorrow. Of course they should already have had my email in their records as we have communicated that way in the past! She also promised to give me a phone number in the email for future reference. Let’s hope it works. Now we wait!

August 8^th Empty brain, forget pension worries and walk. Sometimes I’m amazed at just what we see when we wander around. Today we spotted trees growing out of people’s houses, or out of their walls anyway. These are not climbing ivies but actual trees.

And then just a few metres further on, someone was farming in a very strange place. Look carefully and you’ll see some crops in the middle right of the photo. Unfortunately my high resolution copy wasn’t good enough to crop today. (Play on words there, did you notice?)

Evening time and a pension update. I received an email ‘thanking me for telling them my account number had changed’! They also wanted confirmation of my address and telephone number again. As this email came from an unknown address, in other words not the same address as previously used by Friends Life, another phone call was called for. At least this one was short and sweet as all I wanted to do was confirm the email address. Now in holding mode again waiting for replies and/or money!

August 9^th Confined to barracks due to the sheer number of cats and dogs coming down from the heavens! We did get out to the bank though, ICBC. Because my pension is paid to BOC in Sanya, (there isn’t one here) we draw out a lump sum and then deposit it in ICBC here in Wuzhishan. Well we did that on Tuesday and then went to update the passbook. One of the bank staff insisted on helping me and I ended up with a page in the wrong order and another page double printed. When we got up this morning I went into a little more detail and found out the book was missing transaction numbers 37 to 56 so a visit to the bank was called for. We got a printed statement for the missing dates but it still didn’t help my brain understand the difference between book and statement. Once home it was on to the PC and refresh my excel skills. It took some time but eventually I had it all done. The book balance is equal to the statement balance. The statement shows the correct transactions where the book was not only missing some but had somehow combined others! I’m sure these problems didn’t exist in the days of double entry bookkeeping!

August 10^th Still raining! Email from Friends Life in the UK, “Please ignore the letter we sent you on the 8^th August, we sent it in error instead of to the clearing bank.” They did thank me for giving them my change of details though. I wonder if they read the bit that says letters can take anything from three weeks to ‘never’ to get here. As for incoming payments, we wait and see.

The rest of the day I spent inputting Pinyin on the bank files, Huan thinks this may help me learn. (Hahahahaha!) Lightworks was the next job, combining and exporting the dashcam video backlog. One day I will learn how to do more with that software. (Maybe!)

Peaceful end to the day, a reasonably slow five kilometre walk, to make sure we got our (winning) lottery tickets for the weekend, just in case it’s tipping it down again tomorrow. Managed to see nearly all my four legged friends on the way!

August 11^th The weather forecast said ‘raining’ all day but we thought we would risk a walk anyway. Once again we went wandering off the main roads eventually reaching a village where a little old Grandma told us there was no way out, only back the way we had come. If we carried on there were two smaller villages. We decided at just over five kilometres it was time to turn back. These were the views at the end of that village.

I wonder if there are any antique treasure cars just waiting to be found somewhere. After all, there were rich people in China pre the 1950s!

If we could buy a house out in the sticks anywhere this could be one of the choices. This would be the view from our balcony, although I took this from road level.

Well we got home without seeing the forecast rain, just a spot now and then. In fact it didn’t rain for the rest of the day. That was just as well as we were out for a walk again after dinner, we had no electricity. Buying the UPS was a great idea; we have had quite a few power failures since 1^st July when it was switched on.

August 12^th We got it half right today. My weather forecast said cloudy, Huan’s said maybe a little rain. Looking outside we both agreed that rain was definitely on the cards, not maybe! We decided on walking anyway and planned it so we could get under cover if necessary. The map is shown below. Well we got it right the first time. It rained between kilometre 1 and 2 and we were able to shelter under the shop fronts in town. (Forgot to take any pics for you there.) Unfortunately the next downpour occurred between kilometre eight and nine. We could run, which we didn’t of course, but we couldn’t hide. Never mind, last walk of the week, everything into the washing machine.

August 13^th Monday! No exercises, no walking, only shopping. Some bad news though, the upstairs balcony appears to be giving us problems. That apartment is empty for most of the year and has given us problems before. Remember the water coming through the kitchen cupboards? We also had problems from their back balcony when we were still in Harbin, resulting in our bedroom wall being soaked. You can see from the photo that this appears to be a water problem again. The worst part is that we can’t repair it until the occupants return. Nobody else has a key and nobody has a phone number for them either. Come on lottery, we’re waiting for you!

August 14^th Another rain forecast but we managed a walk before the rain today. Nothing much to report home about. We passed the hotel built by the same guy, or company, that built our apartments. As you can see by the empty fountain and the generally unkempt flower beds no maintenance seems to be done here either.

The rest of the day was spent surfing the internet. Sometimes I wish we had shops to go to, the internet provides just too much information. You may remember the problems of my phone in the rain so I’ve been looking for something else such as a GoPro alternative. As we live in China you can imagine just how much choice we have!

August 15^th Confined to barracks all day long, rain, rain and more rain. We had to go out after dinner though, it was buy tickets day! Luckily the rain eased off. We found another supposed pub. It seems the Chinese name is “Little House”. I wish these places opened in the daytime or at least earlier in the evening.

A little further down we met a little friend although by the expression on its face I’m not so sure about ‘Friend’. A little petting was allowed but only reluctantly.

August 16^th Yet another day of rain and today it didn’t stop. Well it gave me even more time to search the web. Bits of paper were all over my desk comparing ‘point and shoot’ cameras for zoom, picture quality etc. Still undecided.

Huan went up stairs and found that the neighbours to our upstairs neighbours were in so she asked if we could go and look through their window. They agreed. The balcony above ours is full of water; it’s just not going anywhere, except down! A couple of phone calls resulted in three members of the apartment complex coming to see our ‘problem’. Of course for them it didn’t seem too much of a problem at all. Still they agreed their boss should visit. Eventually he came and initially I think he also thought it was ‘much ado about nothing’. However, he looked above the ceiling in the kitchen and agreed that we did have something to complain about. He found out that the apartment has in fact been sold so he agreed to go to the housing department of the government tomorrow and try and find out who it’s been sold to.

After an eventful afternoon it was back to cooking dinner for us both and then even more ‘surfing’.

August 17th Hanging around waiting to hear from the ‘security’ boss. Nothing heard all morning. After lunch we decided a ‘weekly drive’ was called for so drove up to the reservoir and back. Took a wrong turning somewhere after the reservoir and ended up in a dead end village again.

On the way down we met a bunch of real stubborn cows. Huan was just about to get out and ‘Move 'em on, head 'em up, Head 'em up, move 'em on, Move 'em on, head 'em up Rawhide’ before they snootily let us through.

Not long after reaching home we got the expected call from the security boss; he was going to the government office, at ten to four in the afternoon! I guess he must know somebody because he did get access to the relevant files. Unfortunately there was no phone number for the new occupants. He told Huan to ring 119, the Fire Service. I advised her against it but she rang anyway and their answer was an emphatic “No”. The next number to call was 12345, the ‘government complaints line’. No success there either. The security boss then suggested that we needed at least four of the apartment complex committee to accompany us while we paid a locksmith to get us in and sort the problem out. Guess what? Only two members of the committee are here, Huan is one of them, the rest are ‘ooop North”. So, the next stage is the security man taking himself off to the police station tomorrow to try and get a ‘permission letter’ to get the locksmith to allow us in. At least it’s stopped raining!

August 18^th Not the best of weather today and of course we were waiting for any kind of updates about our ‘upstairs’ problems. None were forthcoming! We had an after dinner walk and spotted a snake in one of the basins near the river. It was very lethargic though. Sorry about the picture. Unusually, I was not able to get a decent crop from the high resolution photo.

In the evening we had visitors! Patrick, Flora and Padraig are in Wuzhishan for a rest after Patrick’s RV escapade. No Dou Dou though, sad. . . Still, Patrick and I managed to down a few beers on the balcony, he blaming me for asking him if he wanted more, and me blaming Huan for bringing us more! A very nice evening.

August 19^th A longer walk today, just over thirteen kilometres. Some good photos taken en route. Only one to share though, ‘rice planting’. I did try and get Huan to join in but she didn’t know how she was going to wash her feet after. I suppose I could have had a go but then who would have held the camera? And what if there were snakes in there?

August 20^th Back to Sanya to check how the incoming pensions are doing. The state pension was fine, no action needed on my part at all. The FLP one on the other hand was a mess again. Despite me calling them and emailing them as well as them confirming they had all the correct details, both missing payments were sent to the wrong account again. Another email sent on returning home to try and get things sorted out, again!

Unexpected visitors in the evening, Flora to borrow some poetry, Padraig, and my best friend Dou Dou. I think he was as excited to see me as I was to see him! (PS Dou Dou, in case you haven’t guessed, is a dog.)

August 21^st Not a good day for going out, weather too wet. However, a good day, or evening was had anyway, we had visitors again. This time it was the whole Quinn family, including Dou Dou and they stayed for our version of Shepherd’s Pie followed of course by the obligatory beers. Sorry, no incriminating photos!

August 22^nd Walkies happened! The weather held off all morning so we had a nice wander around the town, managed to get nearly nine kilometres in two hours. Not much to show you except the Chinese way of controlling rats. It’s the first time we’ve seen this too. This particular one was just outside the local university.

August 23^rd Miserable weather to start the day again so Huan decided we should go to the Traffic Police and see how many fines I had to pay this year. What a palaver that was. You go in, take a number to wait and see how many fines you have. Once you have that information, you take another number for the payment counter. That counter though only accepts payments for Wuzhishan (city/county) fines so once we’d finished there it was time to take another number. That was to pay the fines incurred outside of Wuzhishan. The fines don’t worry me so much, it’s the ‘points’ I’m afraid of. This year I managed to clock up 8! None of them were for anything very bad. Three points were for going straight when the arrow in the road said left only. In my defence, it’s right outside or complex and we always used to be able to go straight there and on the police photographic evidence you could actually see the remnants of the old ‘straight and left’ arrow. The next three points were for ‘dithering’ I would say. Not being sure where we were going, somewhere in Haikou, I ended up slightly straddling two lanes at a junction. The last two points were for exceeding the speed limit, 77 in a 70 zone. I was caught by an average speed camera over a distance of 31 kilometres. They are everywhere here!

There has always been a way of getting round the system here in the past. It’s your car that’s incurred the penalties but if you could find a willing volunteer they could pay the fines and incur the resultant points on their licence thus keeping you in the clear. We’ve just heard, through the Haikou grapevine, that as of 1^st September this will no longer be possible. Not only will they be photographing your car when you ‘break the law’, they will be running facial recognition software on the driver! Now you may not actually be aware but Chinese Facial Recognition software is pretty efficient. I would say it’s way ahead of anything the British police have access to. Even getting Huan a licence won’t help under those circumstances.

At least the evening was better, The Quinns arrived in force again, although minus Dou Dou. They had been fishing but had caught nothing but an old bra! Before long we were all tucking into Huan’s pizza, delicious. What a lucky boy I am to be married to her. Visitors of course means refreshments so once again Patrick and I put the world to rights over a beer or two on the balcony. Another late night, and at my age too!

August 24^th Rain forecast for late so we got a nice long walk in in the morning. Remember the ‘Golden Lady’ from last month? Well today, with a little difficulty, we managed to get round to the front of her. Here she is in all her glory, quite pretty really.

Walking around the lake also brought us to another view we hadn’t seen before. “Bottoms Up!”

As usual of course we were very ill equipped for where we ended up walking.

Something that was unusual was this next photo. We see a lot of water lilies down here and I often take pictures of them. It’s not often though that I can crop part of the high resolution photo and get one as nice as this. Huan thinks it’s almost worth framing.

And our last picture from today’s epic walk, well the last picture for the blog anyway, concerns the ‘birds and the bees’, or in this case ducks. Look closely, it’s not one duck, it’s two and they are making ‘mad passionate love’. Well one is anyway, the other one seems to be nearly completely submerged. They did both paddle away with ‘quackilicious’ grins on their beaks afterwards!

August 25^th The plan for today had been to take our visiting neighbours for a short walk, up to the fairy castle, over the bridge and down the other side of the stream. Plans of course are made to be broken and this one certainly was. It rained nearly all morning.

Afternoon was spent at Patrick and Flora’s. They had invited us for afternoon tea. Lots of biscuits, cream cakes and fruits were on hand. I skipped the healthy part and only had cakes and biscuits. Scrumptious! Despite Patrick reminding me I’m afraid I forgot to take any pictures. Bad boy!

August 26^th Gorgeous weather this morning. First things first though, full English breakfast for our friends from ‘oop norf’ before they head off home again. I say English, but the only English part was me and I’m half Welsh. Eggs, (local), sausages, (Chinese), bacon, (German, made in Haikou), Heinz beans, (made in China), bread, (local) butter, (New Zealand, made in Malaysia) marmalade, (Orange jam, made in China). Still, it was tasty enough!

Once our guests had left we decided that walking in the sun was not we wanted today and instead had a very lazy day sat in the air-conditioning. We’re such ‘cool’ people!

August 27^th Rain stopped play, again!

August 28^th Not bad planning today, we managed to get over ten kilometres in and arrived home about ten minutes before the rain came down. We spotted this rather large spider on the way, it’s as big as Huan’s hand. You can’t quite see that in the picture because her hand is nearer the camera. We did manage to get it moving but my video skills failed me completely today!

Just a few metres past this a motorbike turned up and stopped us to chat to Huan. It seems that there was a letter that they thought was for me in the Post Office and they wanted us to check on the way home. Very nice of them I thought, stopping on their way past us. Imagine my surprise when he turned round and went back the way he had come. He had made a special journey just to give us that information. Only one question, how did he know where we were? Do you think he’d been looking out for us as we passed the Post Office a kilometre and a half before? I know I am the only 外国人 - wàiguó rén or 老外 – lǎowài here but I didn’t know they could find me that easily. Maybe I am in the Chinese version of “The Truman Show”.

August 29^th Bad planning today. We got caught by the rain three times in the first three kilometres. We sheltered the first time in the lottery shop where Huan won ¥10 on a scratch card. She was smiling. The cards cost me ¥20!

We did manage to find shelter each time it rained so not too bad a day in the end. We spotted a couple of old geezers playing Chinese chess in the bushes. I think they may have been waiting a bit too long for the other to make a move though.

And finally, for today, what would life be without a few cows, resting on a traffic island.

August 30^th A great walk today, fifteen kilometres, mostly with overcast weather so not too hot. What’s more the rain held off all day, it’s not even raining now as I write this. We took a ‘different road’ again which about half way though our journey we found only went another six or seven kilometres into the mountains before stopping. We didn’t follow it to the end, instead we stopped here.

As you probably guess, it’s a local reservoir but when we got to the top we found it was more than that, it was a fish farm.

As you can see, it’s not very busy. We found the ‘owners’ who were busy stocking up with new fish and asked them why it was in the state it was. They told us they didn’t have enough money so they were stocking up to try and get people to come and fish, and then have their catch cooked here for them to eat. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that we are surrounded by rivers where the local people can fish for free.

They even had little chalets on the water where you could play 麻将 – májiàng.

On the way back down the ‘gentle’ hill we ran across one of the ‘friends’ we had passed on the way up. It’s amazing how water buffalo always seem to want to keep their ‘eye on you’.

We also passed again the site where the highway from Wuzhishan to Baoting and then on to Haitang Wan to Sanya will be built. I think it may be a while as the two young men we talked to were still surveying the route.

Just before we reached the main road we passed another site, similar to many others, which really makes me sad. A lot of empty villas, in this case around a small lake. Nobody lives in them of course; they have all been bought by those pesky northerners, as an investment. What a shame.

And so ended today’s walk, leaving us both ‘tyred’ out and in need of a good shower, or even a bath. (See what I did there!)

August 31^st Last day of the month, weather looked good, so we decided to do a bit of exploring. In the past we had been able to walk in a big circle past the medicine factory in the woods, along the ‘not yet in use’ highway and back home. We wanted to see if it was still possible. First stop, the local canine studio where this fellow was posing for me. Handsome chap isn’t he?

A little further on we spotted these on the side of the walls adjoining the rice fields. Anyone any idea what they are? They look a bit like fish eggs, but they weren’t in the water.

After the medicine factory we bumped into an old friend, you may remember her? I wonder if she remembered me. I still can’t get over the character in that face!

The road was not in the same state that we remembered from previous walks.

And look what I was wearing. What’s more, it was going to get worse!

The road didn’t circle round the way we had hope and it ended up at the river side. There we could see why it was in such a state on the way down. They are dredging the silt from the river and moving it back up the road to somewhere we don’t know.

I told you it would get worse, this was why. In places there was no track at the side of the river so a little wading was called for.

As if that wasn’t enough, Huan stumbled across a snake half in and half out of the water. She had no trouble allowing me to go first this time! As it turns out it was another dead one, a little bigger than ones we have seen previously and with different markings. I left it to provide dinner for the ants.

What a time we had, here’s Huan putting her shoes on, twice!

Our last picture for today shows that they are still working on the new Qionzhong-Wuzhishan highway. It’s supposed to open for the October holidays. We did see various work vehicles zooming up and down so maybe it will be on time.

I can tell you that we were both very happy to get home today, and in my case extremely knackered. I guess I’m not as young as I used to be!

PS Our balcony is still not sorted and slowly getting worse, we are praying that the ‘new’ upstairs neighbours will visit this winter and not just leave their ‘investment’ empty!

That’s it for this month, take care all, we’ll be back!