Grumpy Bob, Country Roads, Needle, More Bugs and Exhausted Bob

September 8^th Lazy morning and grumpy Bob. I decided that while Huan was out at her singing class I would cook this evening’s dinner, no problems there. When her ladyship returned home we decided on an afternoon or evening walk. “Singing” didn’t stop all afternoon so an evening walk it was to be. Ten minutes before our planned start time Huan had a call from Yu, ‘Dama’ dancing on again this evening. That’s when I became grumpy Bob!

In the end I decided on a solo walk to clear my head, planning to go across the bridge to nowhere and then around the river. That plan also failed, access to the bridge to nowhere was blocked so I had to go further downstream and join the riverside path after the paint shop. By then I was feeling a lot less grumpy, this was my view just after I joined the path.

Going back upstream I decided to cross where some of the local farmers do. Once I was down the ladder I noticed the sign, but the view was nice half way across.

I thought I would have a look at the other end of the bridge to nowhere and see if access was also blocked there. It wasn’t. In fact it looks like they are actually going to start work on making it a bridge to somewhere. The rubble behind the cars used to be some village houses.

A detour via the bank and I was feeling much better.

September 9^th We weren’t too sure what to do today, surrounded by clouds and this was the forecast, check out ‘precipitation’ in the bottom left.

We took the risk and decided on the Changhao village countryside route, I’ve been recently but it’s been a while since Huan went that way, too dusty. Road works have nearly all been completed so there was not much dust at all today. There weren’t any ducks either! All the fishponds we passed had fish but no ducks which is unusual. I wonder if the local government is trying to stop fresh markets, I hope not. We did spot cows though, coming down the exit road from the highway, I wonder they had been.

Before too long we were off the main road and onto the country lanes. I guess you can see why we like these kinds of walking routes.

Last time I came this way I walked across the weir to the other side and came home instead of going all the way to Changhao. We couldn’t do that today, I would have been able to cross but Huan’s shoes are not waterproof and barefoot would be quite risky. We carried on and were pleasantly surprised to find that the route we had taken before, fighting through the undergrowth, has now been made into a road for the farmers. It took us all the way to the head of the little valley and down the other side again.

As you can imagine we saw a lot of butterflies on this route but not many new ones. Most of the ones we saw were also very difficult to capture but right after I caught this dragonfly I also caught the butterfly. I don’t think you saw one like this last week.

Not much else to report, we did see ducks in farms and in the fields, I managed another photo or two of SWMBO, and then we came home, by electric bus.

PS The promised rain did turn up, from mid afternoon to around seven thirty. I can cope with rain like that, I just wish it wouldn’t keep us on the hop all the time.

September 10^th It’s that time of the month again, another trip to Haikou to have an enormous needle stuck in my belly. Well I think it’s enormous! For a change, the ‘Time Lord allowed me to sleep until quarter to six instead of being up sometime before five so we were on the road before half past. Looking at the fog/clouds it’s just as well we weren’t up so early today, and we’re also lucky that our highway is not busy, like the M62 in UK would be, full of maniacs who don’t know how to drive in low visibility.

Our drive was uneventful; as far as I’m concerned anyway, let’s hope I didn’t upset any of the average speed cameras! Huan went in to the cashier while I joined the queue to park the car. By the time I got in she had already managed to see the doctor, told him I was parking the car, he had given her the prescription and she was back in the cashier’s queue again. She also told me that the doctor had asked how I was doing as some of the other patients are having side effects of vomiting and heart problems! Huan told him I was fine apart from what appear to mild hot flushes from time to time. Before too long I was flat on my back with my thumbs in my ears and my hands over my eyes. I needn’t have worried; this month’s nurse was superb! I don’t know what she did differently, apart from maybe wait a little longer after cleaning the injection area. I hardly felt a thing.

As usual, our next stop was ‘The Grocery’ to collect butter, cheese, sandwich meat and a couple of other odds and ends for the next month. I had to reluctantly stay away from the bratwurst and other specialities due to Huan keeping me on a restricted diet until my next blood tests. I will have them in November with my regular PSA tests. I learned something while I was there, I needed a drink before we started the return journey and there was nobody at the café counter so I checked the fridge and found ‘Coca Cola Coffee’. I won’t be trying it again!

On our way back, which was another uneventful journey, we hope, I spotted some beautiful clouds. I was wearing my driving glasses which I believe are polarised as well as helping me see further and the clouds looked more like a piece of art than real clouds should. At one stage I told Huan I could see a dog, which she could also see, and that it was eating a fish, she could see that too. I took a note of the time and found the spot on the video where we both saw and talked about what we saw, but it’s impossible to see it on the video. Never mind eh?

We also stopped for lunch at one of the two working rest stops, I must say they are improving. Prices are a little higher than town but the difference is not as pronounced as it is in the UK. If it was, they would have no customers at all! The food is pretty good too.

With starting a little later, I managed to keep my eyes open without too much difficulty, something to remember for future trips. We can manage the dreaded needle and the shopping even if we don’t get up in the middle of the night!

I had just started the routine dashcam work when Huan told me we had to go to court along with our community charge receipts for last year, no peace for the wicked. While we were there the court clerk, or whoever he was, got Huan to sign a couple of papers and then hander her rather a large file. Naturally my curiosity was piqued and my worry machine went into overdrive. It seems that the old company has decided to take every single resident to court!

After we’d had dinner out, returned home and Huan had started reading the file, she disappeared for a while to talk to members of the committee. She came home without the file and told me that Yu had taken it to practice her brush stroke calligraphy on the pages! A swift reprimand from me had Huan going round to Yu’s to get the papers back again. She wonders why I worry!

September 11^th Not sure what’s wrong with me today. I thought I slept quite well last night but I spent all morning and afternoon struggling to keep my eyes open while being on the internet. Huan was singing most of the morning in the living room but even she struggled in the afternoon. Either it’s the weather or we’re getting too old for long car journeys!

Balcony musings with my afternoon coffee. Remember the shared bikes we showed you on August 30^th? They all seem to have disappeared plus which, we saw some being taken away to the pound by police pick-ups. I wonder what went wrong. Huan hasn’t heard anything on the WeChat grapevine yet. Tourism seems to be on the up again, I spotted three coaches coming into and three going out of Wuzhishan, all were quite full as well. Final musing, where are all the typhoons this year? We have had rain, lots of it, but even that has been less than normal. As for typhoons, this year’s so far, can be counted on one hand with fingers left over!

After dinner I forced myself to go out, much better than rotting away indoors, and as Yu had gone swimming I had the pleasure of Huan’s company too. Our walk was not going to be far, just around the river, enough to stretch our legs. It ended up being nearly nine kilometres! Marvin was the duty photographer today; here is his view of the river, through his night lens.

And then just to prove that we were both there and that Marvin hadn’t escaped…

September 12^th Senility progressing well! Today I walked the ladies to school and then gave myself two jobs, buy more baps and take a photo of the bap man, probably a selfie so that he could have a copy. The baps I remembered, bought twenty for the freezer, the photo I forgot. Does 50% still count as a pass mark these days? I did take a couple of photos on the way there, this is what I shall, from now onwards, call the ‘Hall of Fame’. Huan tells me that all the people shown on all these plaques have done something good for Wuzhishan, and as you can see, that’s a lot of people! What I don’t understand is why they are displayed here and not in the town square which is right in front of the government offices.

Huan was out after dinner, dancing or singing I’m not too sure, so I spent an hour bashing away at the guitar. I’ve got quite a long list of songs I can play now, badly of course!

September 13th Boy, did I feel my age today! I suggested to Huan that we try a new walk, one that would take us down the other side of the river and then back to this side via the mountains. It started off well, with roads that we knew and an old irrigation aqueduct. I guess they still have their purpose when it rains a lot but water is available via pipes much more these days.

About four kilometres in, after an hour, we spotted this spider. There are two photos, one to show you its body in glorious detail and the other to show you just how long its legs are. Needless to say, with those beautiful colours we didn’t dare touch it!

Through the first couple of villages but still on the main road we came upon this building, which we’ve seen before and others of the same ilk. We always thought they were like a mini-fish market for all the various ponds, today we were able to ask questions. It is in fact where they store the rubber from the trees until they have enough for someone to come and collect it. It looked so nice, I thought I could bath in it. Mind you, when you get your nose too close it’s a bit on the ‘high’ side.

Up to now we had been following one of our normal routes and this is the spot where we would have turned round in the past. Now though, there is a new bridge leading to somewhere on the other side of the river, our side. I thought it would take us to somewhere on the Changhao road, although exactly where was not clear on satellite view and the maps are not great. The ‘small hill’ ahead doesn’t look so bad but we knew there would be much worse to come.

The road upwards started fairly quickly but it wasn’t too bad, we were both managing well enough. At the first village, where we couldn’t find a shop, we did meet a little friend, albeit a slightly nervous one.

After the eight kilometre mark the going got a bit rougher, or steeper anyway. Here’s a selfie of both of us where you can see that even Huan is sweating. I had just wiped my fevered brow!

Explorer Huan was still on form though and managed to spot a dung beetle. I took a fair few photos of it; some better than this one, but this is the only one where you can see what look like a pair of orange hands. They are in fact the tips of the antennae.

Still on form she found a couple of butterflies, or should I say, they found her. We’re not exactly sure what they were doing on her sleeve, perhaps making babies? Google seems to agree so we’ll go with that answer.

At nine kilometres the going got even rougher and from there to the ten kilometre mark I was really struggling. At one stage I felt as though I would have to vomit, perhaps the early stages of heat exhaustion, so I had to take it easier and rest a lot.

After eleven kilometres relief, downhill all the way, imagine our joy when we spotted the whole of Wuzhishan laid out below us.

Within minutes we spotted a familiar bridge, at the other end of which was another rubber storage place, and we knew there was a village right around the corner.

Having had no water on our way round, better planning needed if we ever go that way again, we were very happy that this village had a shop, and fridges to boot. They didn’t have any cold water though so we had to settle for some kind of sports drink along with room temperature water. One bottle of water went straight over my head, in the process soaking all my clothes even more than they already were. This village is almost on the road to Changhao so even though Huan may have been able to carry on walking home, I decided a bus trip was in order. Here I am waiting at the bus stop, having a much needed rest.

We had quite a long wait and eventually got off the bus near our back gate at nearly two o’clock. Our timing could have been marginally better, the rain started as we stepped down. There was no way I was going to try running home though, I just got a little bit wetter. Lunchtime having passed and coffee time having arrived, we had neither, instead we had milk shakes. After that walk we deserved them and we had both drunk enough water before we got on the bus.

That was me for the day, all I had to do was sort out nearly two hundred photos while Huan had an OAP snooze on the sofa. I managed to whittle them down to sixty six in the end, not too bad. Huan did go out in the evening though while I stayed in and wrote these words

September 14^th Monday again but no shopping! We have to go to Sanya this week to see if our tenants are going to renew or not. You’d think they could tell us by phone but that seems to be impossible. The husband will always answer his phone but he say we have to call his wife. Like many families, here and elsewhere, she controls the purse strings. However, she will never answer her phone. Both of us would be happy if they would move out, they give us far too much trouble. Last year, we took ¥9,600.00 in rent, spent nearly ¥3,000.00 on a new door and then gave them a month’s free rent because of Covid-19. They are still not happy and still keep trying to get us to bring the rent down even further. We’ve checked around and they already have a bargain so that’s a no-no.

Anyway, Huan was out this morning, getting fitted for a dress for her next show, so I relaxed in the bath and finished my latest book. I suppose I should have had a nice long soak yesterday but after the walk we had I was too exhausted to even do that.

I did however have an afternoon walk today, unusual for a Monday, but welcome all the same. The weather forecast was rain all day, it managed to hold off until a few minutes after I got home. Do I have any photos from today? Well of course I do. First of all let me show you the amazing electrical engineering skills of our maintenance company. I’ve seen some sloppy work in my time but even I could do better, nay, much better than this.

Another flying creature was spotted today but not a butterfly this time, a moth instead. Looking at it I wondered if the designers of the Vulcan had seen this before it was built. It certainly bears quite a resemblance to the paper planes I used to make.

For the tail end of the week, how about a tail? I kept trying to get round in front of this bird but each step I took he hopped further up the tree. This is the only picture where you can see a part of its beak as well as its tail.

And that brings us to the end of this week’s tale. (See what I did there?) As always, we’ll be back next Monday, hopefully with good news from Sanya, see you then.

Indiana Bob, The Elusive Butterfly & Other Bugs.

September 1^st “Departing summer hath assumed, An aspect tenderly illumed, The gentlest look of spring; That calls from yonder leafy shade, Unfaded, yet prepared to fade, A timely carolling.” (September by William Wordsworth)

Rain stopped play. Well, that’s not quite the truth, rain didn’t stop play this morning, sheer laziness did. I got up a little too late to walk the ladies to school and then just “Couldn’t be bothered”. I decided to go after lunch, alone if necessary, but then rain did stop play. I thought “never mind, we can both have a little stroll after dinner”, but, the rain didn’t stop. It started just after lunch and carried on until much later in the evening.

Huan went out on the bedroom balcony late afternoon, she had seen a dragonfly and wanted to take a photo of it with the Fuji. She didn’t get it! However, she did get another passion fruit in full bloom, maybe we’ll be luckier with that one. She may also have found out why one of the previous flowers died, check out these insects. In the second photo, which unfortunately is not too clear, you can see a monster up on his bad legs destroying everything he can!

September 2^nd Not so early out today, Huan was making dumplings and steamed bread when I got up so waiting for the flour to rise was first followed by the kneading, filling and steaming. Still we were out in time for a decent walk. Where to go? Well Huan’s phone said rain by eleven, which I didn’t believe, and my PC said rain by one. A village route was decided on, keeping on the hard stuff so that no boots were needed. First off we found that the trees were being pruned on the way into town. If you check the first photo you can see a branch on the way to the floor. The second photo shows where the chopped branches go. I’ve seen a wood chipper in operation before but I’d never realised just how fast they do their work, it’s almost milliseconds from the log being fed in to the sawdust coming out.

As always, Huan keeps asking me to take photos of butterflies, which nine time out of ten don’t work; my lens won’t reach far enough. I got this one today without being prompted though. Can you spot the second insect?

This next photo gives you an idea of why we like our country walks, beautiful views, not many people around, country sounds and fresh air.

Not an insect this time, but, according to Huan, still a pest?

More butterflies today, in fact there were many, far too many for me to photograph them all. I purposely avoided the more bland white and yellow ones and tried to get you some shots of the brightly coloured ones. Sometimes they won’t keep still long enough.

This one, on the other hand, spent ages on the same small flower so I was able to take quite a few fairly decent photos. If I knew what I was doing and took the camera off automatic who knows how good they would be?

I also managed to catch the ‘elusive butterfly’, the one who really hates having her photograph taken. (Who sang that song in 1969 in the UK? Answers on a postcard please, unfortunately no prizes though.)

I’ll finish today with some bad news; Her Majesty was not over keen on today’s dinner! Yesterday we had bratwurst with onions and potato salad American style, went down very well for both of us. Today was pork, beaten to be fairly thin, fried, with the remainder of the potato salad and shop bought sauerkraut. Being lazy today I served the sauerkraut cold, which may not be the best way, it was very vinegary, more so than it should have been. Her Maj scoffed everything else but was forced to leave some of her sauerkraut on the plate. Me, I mixed it with my potato salad, it made it a little more palatable. Ah well, lesson learnt for next time!

September 3^rd No walking the ladies to school today, Huan was running late and she’s first in the bathroom! Instead I checked the weather and decided on an afternoon walk for a change, too lazy for a morning one today. However, I did manage to catch the dragonfly on the balcony, every time we walk out there it flies away, today I got it! It was silhouetted against the white background so I’ve had to turn the lightness way up to see any colours.

After lunch I kept my promise to myself and went out, alone, Huan didn’t fancy  being one of those ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’. I decided I’d be a ‘hunter’ and went off looking for more butterflies, my turn off from the main road taking me through a little village.

I had hardly got more than a few metres round the bend when I spotted the first two butterflies. You may need to zoom a little.

Not far up the road, yet another one.

Now all three of those butterflies were spotted before I had really started into the countryside. This next photo shows where I was heading, after the yellow and black markers the road bends around to the left thus leaving the city and construction on the right far behind. Within a few hundred metres it becomes peaceful, and, on this route, shady.

After the markers and just around the next bend I came across the workers, it’s amazing how many of them are kept alive by this industry. You may wonder what they are collecting, especially as I purposely made it black and white to keep you guessing. It is in fact, 槟榔 (Bīnláng), or “Areca catechu whose common names in English include areca palm, areca nut palm, betel palm, Indian nut, Pinang palm. In English this palm is called the betel tree because its fruit, the areca nut, is often chewed along with the betel leaf.” Despite the nuts (seeds) being intoxicating, slightly addictive and carcinogenic, (it has a direct link to oral cancers) some local people still like to chew on it for hours on end. You can tell who does this by their red teeth!

As I made my way higher up the hill the butterflies became smaller, faster and rarer. It was nigh on impossible to get decent photos at all. Even this little critter, not a butterfly obviously, took many shots to get one anywhere near in focus.

This next photo shows where Huan and I would usually turn left and head back to the main road, today I thought I would try going right.

Luck was still not really on my side, the butterflies were winning. This one was very difficult to capture, of all the shots I took this is the only one worth keeping. In all the others it looked just like a leaf, whereas in this one, at least you can see its antenna.

A little further on, about four kilometres from home, I decided to turn back. Maybe if I’d had my other boots on I could have continued!

My return walk, while very scenic, gave me no more photo opportunities until I was almost back to where I had got the first couple. Can you spot this one? I couldn’t really crop it anymore, it was already losing whatever detail it had.

And here’s another one, I couldn’t make up my mind whether its markings were out of focus or whether I was!

Nothing like finishing the day on a high though is there, this last butterfly allowed me fairly near and didn’t move too much. Handsome creature isn’t it?

So my day of butterfly hunting didn’t go too badly after all. At least there are a few varieties there to keep students and fans of Lepidopterology happy! As for me, well I had walked just over eight kilometres up and down hills, even better, I arrived home about a quarter of an hour before today’s daily dose of rain showed up.

September 4^th Going out walking today we had to pass the local clinic, which today was carrying out free BP and sugar tests. Yesterday I had convinced Huan that she really doesn’t need to do this again, we were both tested in April. Today, seeing the tables set up outside she changed her mind, maybe because of the free gift of a shopping bag and some fresh eggs!

Huan’s choice today and as she often does she managed to confuse me. “Let’s go up the turning opposite the police station” she said. Well, there’s no turning there so through a process of Q and A I realised she meant the second turning off the main road, alongside, not opposite, the “gun police” as we call them and not the police station. The “gun police” are “The Chinese People's Armed Police Force” but, like the armed police in the UK, they keep a low profile. Anyway, we didn’t go that way either because Huan was looking for a fish pond further away. Instead we decided on the third turn off, which again has no fish pond but is a pleasant enough walk uphill to a village. However, within a few hundred metres the boss had changed her mind, too much dust from passing trucks! Coming back down she suggested we take the back road through someone else’s residential complex; we could go through there because it was open for construction traffic. At the front gate we would have been stopped. To our surprise we found a wall, not quite the Great Wall of China, but a wall nonetheless.

We were trying to work out what it was used for before, with little success, then Huan told me that the name of this apartment complex includes “on the lake”. I would guess that in years gone by the land may well have been a lake, but like many lakes not always full of water hence why they were easily able to build roads and buildings there. When it was a lake, the wall would have made a nice scenic walk around it. We had a good walk around, both ends are in a state of disrepair so we could only explore the middle. Searching down one side I suddenly realised that there was a leech on my leg. It obviously hadn’t found the right place to attach itself because as I screamed “leech” and shook my leg like mad it fell off!

Here’s the Queen, surveying her realm from the ramparts, and her chamber, luckily without a cauldron of boiling oil at hand.

And here’s her knight in shining armour with his lance at the ready. (The lance was used mainly for the dispersal of the myriads of cobwebs on the path.)

Just before we left the path and made our way back out to the main road Huan found a flower that she insisted I take a photo of. Looks like bootlaces to me, do you know what it is?

We were both still on the lookout for wildlife of any sort, especially as Huan thought I had been bitten by something yesterday. The top of my foot was bleeding when I got home, I hadn’t felt anything at all of course. Whatever it was, animal or vegetable, it had gone right through my shoe and my sock and punctured my skin. I suppose it could also have been mineral, something like barbed wire. The first thing we saw today was this bug, Huan had to lift the leaf for me to get the shot so it’s not as clear as I would have liked.

We did find another butterfly too.

There was even another one, but that photo wasn’t worth sharing. Instead, how about something from Madagascar?

This tree always pleases us, something to do with its unusual colouring, and as you can see, we were in luck this time; the tree had an identification plate. What does it say? Well with Huan’s help and Google Translate

 Overlord Brown

Alias: Bismarck Brown

Distribution: Native to Madagascar, well cultivated in South China

(Ecological habits) Overlord palm is tall and magnificent, grows fast, likes a sunny, warm climate and a good drainage environment. Drought-tolerant, Hardy.

And that’s just about it for today, except for this bunch of people doing a good impression of British workmen leaning on their tools. By and large Wuzhishan, like most of China, is kept very clean by hordes of cleaners but every now and then, for some reason, ordinary people get involved too. These people are just waiting for the man with the high pressure hose to move down a bit and then they will continue with their sweeping.

September 5^th School for Huan and lazy morning for me, to start with anyway. I did wake up a little and cook the weekend’s stew again, chicken this week. My plan was another afternoon walk and today I had my travelling companion in tow. Our first stop was the gatehouse where we found Yu on duty. She was covering for her husband while he, along with the other members of the maintenance team were off drinking baijiu somewhere. I had to play with the hats.

Next up is a progress report on our scenic bridge. It looks like the walkway base has now been completed and they have begun the railings, not sure when we’ll be able to walk across though.

Would you believe it, we found more butterflies today, and another bug to boot!

September 6^th “Clinomania” struck this morning! We had both woken at half past five but foolishly gone back to sleep. I woke up at nearly nine with a stinking headache, no walks this morning. The word ‘clinomania’ means ‘an excessive desire to lie down and stay in bed; morbid sleepiness’. It comes from https://www.facebook.com/GrandiloquentWords. In retrospect we should have got up at half past five and had a nice long walk before the sun got too hot.

A lazy day was had by both! Huan needed something new to watch so I suggested she look for something foreign with subtitles. Here they do both Chinese and English subtitles. I ended up sitting with her on the sofa, something we don’t do very often, watching “2 Broke Girls”. I’ve heard of it but have never seen it, almost hooked already!

What to do when you’re stuck in the house all day? Well, watch TV, watch movies on the PC, check FB now and then and sit on the balcony watching the local municipality workmen. Yet again they are marking out motorbike parking spaces, hundreds of them. Perhaps they are going to make Wuzhishan a car free zone?

We did manage an after dinner walk so at least we weren’t complete zombies today. We both even managed a little go on the geriatric exercise equipment but I avoided having the evidence in a photo. Huan didn’t, here she is obviously having fun!

September 7^th End of the week, nothing to report and no photos. Huan did go out Dama dancing but as today was the first day I thought I’d give them a break from the camera. As it happens, nobody turned up anyway so she was back within a few minutes. All you could hear then was the “Sound of Music” with Huan practicing on the keyboard and me murdering the guitar! At least the neighbours aren’t complaining, yet!

Bye for now, see you next week.