Dead Garden, Dead End, Finding the Way

December 1st “December will be magic again, Take a husky to the ice, While Bing Crosby sings White Christmas, He makes you feel nice, December will be magic again, Old Saint Nicholas up the chimney, Just a-popping up in my memory.” (December Will Be Magic Again by Kate Bush)”

Well it won’t quite be like that here although we will have the decorations up and Christmas music in the office and the car. There won’t even be any Christmas cake or Christmas pudding this year! Not only have the prices increased drastically on Taobao, the delivery dates are not until after Christmas, hardly worth it then. We have two boxes of Bendick’s mints coming though so all is not completely lost.

Our first photo this morning, and this month, is our old garden centre. I don’t think we’ll be going there any more, they seem to have a shortage of green things, i.e. plants.

We had a plan today, go down the main road, take the fourth turn off and look for the route over the hills back to the third turn off. I abandoned it a couple of hundred metres up the fourth turn off. There were too many large trucks kicking up a lot of dust so we will have to plan this for another time and make sure Huan is fully prepared with a face mask.

Instead, we walked a little further then crossed the road to come back into town via the riverside. We passed the usual fishermen and today we also saw quite a lot of pretty birds. Unfortunately, in the photos, the subjects are still too small, sorry about that. We didn’t turn up to the road where we usually do, we kept going along the path behind the old army barracks until we came to this.

Huan was almost going to through the barracks, there is no fence on the riverside, but I told her, politely of course, that I was not going that way. Yes, there is no fence on the back side, but there is on the road side and there is still a skeleton crew of soldiers there. I would not have fancied explaining what I was doing in the middle of an army camp with a camera!

This next subject was easy to get in the frame. We dropped a couple of small stones nearby and he didn’t move an inch. In fact, I wasn’t sure whether he was actually alive or not.

More birds were seen on the way home, it was a good day for them today. Perhaps I’ll get a nice Christmas present of a better zoom lens after all. Mind you, we did say “no pressies” this year. Never mind, the lens I have was good enough to show you a couple of photos of us for a change, under the main bridge in the town.

The rest of the day, after our Sunday brunch, was taken up with me trying to upload last month’s Blog. I had tried for a few hours yesterday, without success. Unfortunately, I ended today with no success either.

December 2^nd It’s a good job I changed Mondays to no walkies days. I needed all morning and part of the afternoon, when we returned from shopping, to finish the Blog upload. In the end, I had to upload it in two halves. Maybe I should consider weekly uploads instead of monthly ones. Perhaps I’ll try that from the first of January.

Huan was out in the evening but I didn’t go with them. I needed to stay in and do my Chinese lesson and review, plus keep trying the ‘C’ to ‘F’ change on the guitar.

Bad news from Taobao, no Bendisk’s mints for Christmas either, they’re out of stock. We’ll have to see if Haikou has anything next week.

December 3^rd Sometimes I wonder how we lived in Harbin for nearly eight years. Yesterday evening I was wearing my full track suit in the house as well as socks. Some of Huan’s dancing ladies were wearing long underwear and we even went on to Taobao and ordered some warm slippers! I guess that way up North we were prepared for the cold, here if the temperature drops just a little, we freeze our cotton socks off.

This morning when I went out in my shorts and shirt, everyone thought I was the crazy old foreigner again. I was asked a few times if I was cold or not. What they don’t seem to be able to understand is that if you’re moving, and briskly at that, you’ll be fine. The weather in fact was pretty good as evidenced by this photo.

There’s a woman on the right of this photo that was trying to give me a dog. I had stopped, as I always do, to chat to a four legged friend. If I had said yes, she would have given me the pooch there and then. I had to say no of course, Huan is not a big fan of animals in the house, with one exception!

While today’s walk was brisk, ten kilometres in two hours, it wasn’t long. It was a planned ‘shopping walk’. More baps and sausages were needed for our lunches this week and getting to the outdoor market too late would mean either or both could be sold out. My luck was in and our pantry is replenished. The apartment complex with the market also has a lily pond, a not very well looked after one, but I did take some photos of it this morning. Here’s one.

The evening for me brought a nice Skype call from the family, I do like it when that happens, and of course Chinese and guitar. That was not so easy today, I had a ‘cramped up feeling’ in my left hand. I’m not sure if it was due to ‘bad practice’ last night, or carrying the shopping bags upstairs yesterday.

December 4^th Last night we were two old fogeys when we went to bed, Huan with her nightdress T-shirt and me with my pyjamas, (George, from ASDA). It seems our sudden snap of cold, (for us), weather was caused by a typhoon that was much further south. At least we each have our teddy bears, Huan is mine and I am hers!

This morning on my walk, I spotted a little lane that we had been down a fair while ago so I decided to go that way again today. It used to be quite pleasant, especially on a sunny day, and there was a fairly easy way out at the other end. It’s not sunny any more!

Yes, building doesn’t stop despite all the new rules here about just who is allowed to buy. The way out wasn’t so easy anymore, I had to go through a building site. No problems for me though, I had my boots on! Photos of a plane, a bird in the river and another crab followed, all far too small to share with you. I did find a wonderful beach though, if you imagine you are up on a hill looking down a long way that is. In reality, it’s only about a metre wide.

I came home along the riverside again, I wanted to check on the frog we had seen on the first of December. It was almost in the same exact spot. I’m not sure if the water had moved it just a little bit further out. One of its legs appeared to be at a different angle and its head was inclined a little higher. Huan wondered if it wasn’t moving because it was laying eggs, a quick Google check reminded me of my biology lessons and hence that wasn’t the reason. Perhaps the cold weather has affected the frog too and it’s hibernating! I’ll try and remember to check next time we walk that way.

Huan had her, hopefully, last visit to the dentist this afternoon. I didn’t do much except watch another episode of ‘Taskmaster’, lazy boy. I read a lot of complaints about the state of TV in the UK, but I think it’s still better than most around the world.

December 5^th I was a lucky boy this morning, Huan had no singing and so was coming with me for my walk. We decided to try and find the mountain route from the fourth turn off back to the third and we had a plan. Not only did we have a plan, we had a print out of Google maps satellite view. The plan may have been good but the execution was not. I thought we had to pass the highway tunnel construction site which is what we did. A few kilometres later we arrived at a spot we had been to before which Huan remembered. By now I was almost convinced we were in the wrong place but not quite. Going further up the hill, through the forest, we met a woman coming down so Huan had a chat with her. She told us that when they went on this route from their village they were usually away all day and on top of that, I would not be able to trek the route with my shorts on! We called quits on today’s plan and made our way back home. Endomondo said we did 15.8 kilometres but as I forgot to start it until we were two kilometres from home and we did another kilometres from the bus stop at the end, we walked a total of 18.8 today. Not bad eh?

Once home and on the computer I did some checking and found out where I had gone wrong. What I had thought was the tunnel entrance on the map, wasn’t. Next time we’ll get it right. There is a video of today’s trek, you can find it here - https://youtu.be/MtPLVCpb6fo Not many photos were taken on the way, just some chickens and ducks along with a lady washing clothes in a mountain stream. You might like this one though.

While we were out Huan told me that my eyes were bloodshot and that I was catching a cold. Of course I laughed it off, but I had to admit that the centre of my back was very cold. Although it had been an overcast day I had still been sweating, but the coolness of the mountain breezes meant it didn’t dry. When we got home, I dug out the hot water bottle and sat with it down my shirt until I was warm enough to go and take a nice hot shower. A little bit of #1 son’s Black Label and some coffee may well have helped!

I spent the rest of the day joining all the short videos into one long one to upload to YouTube, very difficult, especially as my access to foreign parts was pretty hopeless today. Dinner was unusual in that we had steak; red meat is something we hardly ever have. It was lovely, so much so that I had no time to take a picture of it!

December 6^th Under orders from SWMBO, when she went singing this morning, I stayed in. It was a bit cool outside so I just surfed the interwebs. However, I escaped in the afternoon, much against the advice of the boss, but the sun was shining so out I went. You should have seen me go, the first kilometres only took one minute and fifty three seconds! Usain Bolt has nothing on me. You guessed it, the GPS started in the wrong place again. Anyway, I tried to stay in the sun as much as possible and started off on the other side of the river where I met an unexpected change. The nice naturalistic path had become a bomb site!

Next, a bit of bum shuffling was required, I had to get from the upper to the lower walkway before I could continue and this is what it looked like, not safe for an OAP to walk on!

On my way round I passed a few gentlemen fishing so took a photo of them with the dam in the background that the authorities may or may not repair by the time the island park is done.

Next up we have a close up of the sluice gates which I’ve never shown you from this side. I only had my phone with me but the photo’s still not bad.

As we’re off to Haikou shortly I passed by the bank to draw some money out, yes, people do still use money in China, sometimes. The ATM took my card and then nothing happened. Luckily Chinese banks nearly always have someone on hand to assist you, the young lady even knew some English. “It’s stuck” she said. While

we were watching, it came back to life and asked for my PIN after which it stopped again to which the young lady responded “It’s stuck”. I gave up with that machine and went to the next one and of course, the young lady followed me and even told me, because she could obviously see over my shoulder, how much money I had in the bank. She sounded disappointed!

Home again to what is fast becoming this year a very cold house, butter no longer has to be kept in the fridge! As I write this the dining room clock, which has weather details, says it is 21^oC, it tells lies. Windows 10 weather says it is 11^oC and will go down to 9^oC. For me, it feels like it’s already less than 10^oC! I am wearing my dressing gown and these two items. I bought my half gloves in 2017, didn’t need them last year, and I got the “Sport” slippers from Taobao, they were delivered today!

Huan of course was out dancing in the square tonight, but, just like the other ladies, she was wearing long underwear and lots on the top so she wasn’t cold. I wish my circulation was more like hers!

December 7^th We got up this morning to a wonderful blue sky.

Being a Saturday meant I had the pleasure of Huan’s company for our walk. We decided that today wasn’t the day to resume our search for the ‘mountain pass’, instead we would do just enough to make sure we got ten kilometres in and then head back via the river to check up on the Wuzhishan food festival. We were also interested to see if the usual Saturday farmer’s market would be there. When we arrived at the riverside we discovered that both events were taking place at the same time, busy or what?

The food festival was a bit of a let down, there didn’t seem to be much there that we can’t see in any other street market. We will visit again though, in the week, when only the festival will be taking place, when we can have a better look and show you some of the offerings. That also means I will be able to get a closer look at the cars, yes there was a mini car show going on there too. Being so crowded I couldn’t get the right sort of photos to show off the cars but I did get this brochure. Check out the specs, it’s electric and will do 520 kilometres on a charge. The recharge times look pretty good too.

And the last picture from our walk? Well, it’s more like from my ‘falling over’ and not from a walk. These things are all over the pavements in Wuzhishan where the authorities have removed a rubbish bin or some such like. I’ve lost count of how many times my feet manage to find them and send me flying!

Saturday fry-up was the order of the day, Bob cooking, tasty as always. I spent the afternoon “dans le conservatoire”, I’ve renamed the kitchen balcony. I took my Hammond Innes book out there and read it in the lovely warm sun. Huan had a rest from singing and keyboard and watched the TV. Of course, her rest was over after our evening meal, which should be called ‘tea’ because we had a cooked lunch; she was off out dancing again.

December 8^th Today we set off again to find the route through the mountains and this time we had a different satellite print out, one that I was convinced was right. There was a part of the print out where there was no obvious place to walk but logic said there should be a way. We had wonderful weather for hiking today, the sun was shining but there was just a little chill in the air. It was enough to stop us overheating but not enough for us to feel cold. Success! We found the way without too much fighting through the woods and what's more, it didn't take us as long as we thought it would. Here’s our first photo, on the way up.

And here is the one where I realised we had found the way!

And finally, the wonderful view of the mountains when we returned home.

If you want to see more of where we went, follow this link - https://youtu.be/DSIyHYN0oIM

Sunday meant another fry-up, cooked again by ‘moi’ and enjoyed by both of us. Being Sunday, it also meant another soak in a salty bath but this time with the fan heater on in the bathroom. It is still chilly in the house especially as evening approaches. Huan hasn’t needed the hot water bottle yet though!

Proof of Life, Scorpions, Money Tree, Cows, Insects

November 21^st Sometimes when I go out in the morning I have no idea which way I’m going to go. Living where we do, there are a limited number of options for getting off the beaten track. Once you are in the forests you have no idea where you are and there are no Ordnance Survey maps to help. Also, I miss Huan walking with me these days, she is singing five days a week in the mornings. She did suggest stopping the three mornings that aren’t “school” but she enjoys it so much, it would be wrong for me to agree.

Anyway, today I decided to take the ‘first turn right’ off the main road towards Sanya, just to remind myself where it goes. First it passes a fish farm cum restaurant which we think we’ve seen advertised recently but it looks as if the business is not yet off the ground. It’s a pretty place though and should be OK once it’s open. This is the fish pond, the restaurant buildings are mostly out of the picture to the right.

There is a nice new concrete road up to the farm so I followed that. A couple of workmen told me that there was no way for me to walk through so in my not so good Chinese I assured them that there was and that I had been there before. What I had forgotten of course was that when Huan and I last came through the farm, we came down the hill. I was faced with this.

I soon realised where I was going though and was even able to guide a couple of snowbirds walking in the reverse direction to me. The track gives way to a road which then brings us back onto what shall from now onwards be called ‘the first turn off’. Today’s will henceforth be known as ‘the second turn off’.

Today’s wildlife includes the first pig I’ve seen for ages and some fish, from another small fish farm. The pig looked to be quite old and I couldn’t get it move at all. The fish on the other hand, were very young.

All in all it was a very pleasant walk and it was over the daily ten. I must remember to take Huan that way again, she’ll enjoy it. No afternoon sleeps for either of us today although I must admit I came dangerously close to it. Huan was doing her homework. This time they had a piece of music to listen to and then they had to sing it ‘for teacher’. I get to listen to all their responses of course and I pointed out to Huan, that without exception, they were all singing it wrong, well the last couple of bars anyway. She could hear what I meant but I’m not sure if that’s what she sent, she listens too much to the others.

This week I found a ‘packet curry’ in the cupboards, it had been there while so I said I would cook today. Remembering back to the days of ‘Vesta’ curries in the UK I did wonder what it would be like. The first surprise was opening the packet, it’s like an enormous ‘oxo’ cube, segmented like a bar of chocolate. The instructions showed a segment being added at a time so that’s what I did. The residue from the packet tried very hard to stick to the bottom of the pan, so, if we buy it again, I will ignore the instructions and use boiling water and a jug before adding it to the rest of our chosen ingredients. The second surprise was that it was very tasty. I would have preferred it a little spicier but Huan was happy with it as it was. If you are in China, or see this packet elsewhere, give it a go!

November 22^nd We were surrounded by clouds this morning so I was a very lazy boy. First I did a little guitar practice. Then, because I felt a little cold, I put my dressing gown on and proceeded to do nothing at all! After lunch I wasn’t quite so bad, I did some Chinese review and a little more guitar practice. Oh, I also had to take Huan’s proof of life photo, the one we have to do twice a year for her pension. Previously, she’s always had to hold up “today’s newspaper”, which makes sense. This time however, she just had to hold a calendar with today’s date marked, which to me, doesn’t make much sense at all!

Having not walked at all in the morning or afternoon, I decided an evening one was necessary and that I would not start off with the ‘orrible eight’, because they walk so slow.

Surprise, surprise, I was not alone this evening. ‘Water Lily’, a.k.a. the dance teacher, was not well so dancing was cancelled. This meant that Huan was walking with me. I decided to take her the reverse way to my last walk, I knew she would enjoy that. Like me, she likes to get out of the immediate city and onto the tracks through the woods. When we got nearer the fish farm cum restaurant, we could see, from our vantage point higher up, that there were lights on around a pond we hadn’t seen before. We made our way there and found the restaurant, and pond, that are both actually operational. There was a chap fishing and a few people in the restaurant. I did take a few pictures, unfortunately, none of them were any good!

We carried on, heading towards the river, to make our way home. To our surprise, when we got to the main road there was a lot of activity going on. A couple of ladies on one side of the road were waving poles with streamers on. Huan took photos of them; guess what, none turned out well enough. Across the road some dancers, we believe from Xinjiang, were waiting to start. I took a few photos here. The dancers didn’t start while we were waiting but what you can see is just how many snowbirds were also there. PS There were just as many people on the other side of the road with the streamer ladies.

Back home we went, along the river side, and even more snowbirds were seen, all over the place. One group, from Huan’s Monday, Wednesday and Thursday classes, were down at the river’s edge singing. Another much larger group was by the Fodelai hotel, also singing. In fact there were crowds of people every where. I think it’s safe to say that winter has arrived up north! We also found the start / finish line of the amateur triathlon that’s taking place in Wuzhishan tomorrow. It’s a four kilometre run, a four kilometre swim and a sixteen kilometre cycle race. It seems not all participants have to enter the cycle race. I’m not really sure where they will have people swim four kilometres either. It’s not possible in the river unless they go upriver and downriver many times. Just in case you were wondering, no, we are not entering! Actually, I’m not allowed, too old, and we can’t have Huan going alone now, can we? We do have free tickets for the after event party in the town square tomorrow evening though, including one free beer each. I know I’ll be forced to drink Huan’s to make sure she doesn’t get all red and itchy!

November 23^rd What a busy day we had today, and it’s not finished yet. Our walk was almost identical to yesterday’s, except that we turned right after the fish farm thus joining the main road just a little further away from home. The moon was stronger than the sun this morning so it was a very pleasant day for walking. The reason we took the same route was so that we could come back along the riverside and check out the farmer’s market again. First up for you are some cute little chickens, priced at only ¥4.00 each. People will buy them today to take home and fatten up before Chinese New Year, poor little mites.

Next up are some creatures I don’t think you’d like in your camp bed at night time. Now, just for a change, these were not for eating, but to show where the Chinese medicine, that the man was selling, came from. I was reminded of the snake oil salesmen of the old wild west!

And lastly for this morning, something that everyone wants, particularly every mother. I well remember mine telling us “Money doesn’t grow on trees you know!” She was wrong!

Being Saturday we were back to a fried breakfast of course, not quite a full English this week, we’ve run out of bacon until our next trip up north. After a little rest we were then off shopping. Now I know the weekly shop is usually Monday, but it’s the supermarket’s birthday and today was the last day. Spend ¥100.00 and get a voucher for ¥50.00. That’s what they said. When Huan got to the information counter to get our vouchers they only gave her ¥80.00, telling her that they had run out. When she told me I dragged her back to complain further and pointed out that we had spent ¥390.00 and therefore should have received vouchers for 50% of that amount. Someone was visibly losing face and still maintained that “there were no vouchers left, what could she do, it wasn’t her fault”. Someone slightly higher up the ladder then turned up and rooted around in the drawer and topped us up to ¥130.00 which, while still not correct, at least was better than ¥80.00. We’re still not sure whether they did actually run out of vouchers or if they were trying to cheat people.

Huan then went for another visit to the dentist while I drove home and ‘struggled’ upstairs with all the shopping. The day is still not over, we have to attend the event in the square tonight, I now know it’s the “Closing Ceremony” of the “Wuzhishan Adventure Challenge” and includes, as well as the free beer, a raffle. There will also be a brass jazz performance, a Li fashion show and a DJ, that could be where the ‘foreigner’ comes in. Quite what all the snowbirds will make of a western style DJ I’m not sure. The whole event is due to last only two and a half hours, starting at seven o’clock. We’ll see how it goes.

Well it seems like we had quite a few things wrong. This was an ‘International’ triathlon, probably with only people from Hainan though. Thirteen nations were represented with three hundred competitors, at least according to tonight’s compère. I didn’t see that many but there were a lot. I had a chat to the compère, Frank, before the start to tell him about Tropical Hainan and suggest he sent the completed video to them for publishing. If that happens, I will try and remember to share it for you. One young lady from India, whose name I either didn’t get, or forgot, told me that she is a reader of this blog. Whoever, you are, I’m sorry about your name, you can put me to rights in the comments. It wasn’t a bad evening although it wasn’t quite as we expected it to be. Our tickets were only for beer and sitting ‘outside the fenced off area’. However, Frank invited us in so we got a better view. The show was pretty good, with a break for the prizegiving in the middle. The prizes were for stays in local resorts and were well worth winning. There were even prizes for the children, both rollerblading and cycling. I took a lot of photos as usual and a, not very good, video. I’m not going to put them all here; hopefully, we will get a link for the whole thing for you sometime in the future. I will show just one, the final disco, with DJs Matthew and Matt. They were not bad at all!

November 24^th After a late night last night, not the event, but the video editing afterwards, we both managed to be up early enough for a nice walk this morning. Today’s route was up the main street, take the second turning, and around the back way to the third then into the countryside. Usually we go to a village up there then turn around and come back. Today we were not on the road but on small tracks through the fields so we went a long way past the village. Struggling to the top of a hill we thought we might be able to reach ‘turn off four’ by going over the top. It wasn’t to be, at least not today anyway. This was the view when we got there, with no apparent way forward.

We retraced our steps and then just before we got back to the village I took this photo, it’s Huan’s favourite of the day. I couldn’t get closer without falling in the water.

This one was my favourite, again I couldn’t get closer, not because I would fall in the water but because the cat kept escaping whenever I got nearer.

After a stop in the village for some much needed water, and a chat with a couple of old ladies, we made our way back home. Huan needed to plant the flowers she had nicked from the mountainside and I needed to cook our Sunday brunch.

Afternoon was a salty bath for me and another dentist visit for Huan. The dentist stuck some medicine in her tooth and told her to come back again in a few days. This was met with much displeasure by her Ladyship of course, but I pointed out that it’s not costing her a fortune, she’s not in pain and I’m sure the dentist knows what he’s doing.

No rest for Huan, after our evening sarnies she was off dancing again and then to stand outside the supermarket with all the other ladies to see who’s won the raffle. PS She got home just after ten, left early because the raffle still hadn’t been drawn. It was advertised as half past eight, obviously that was for all the other rubbish first!

November 25th I’m glad I decided Monday’s would be ‘lazy’ days again and today there wasn’t even any shopping to do. Huan went out to school, I had a slow start to a relaxing morning. I did do three practice sessions on the guitar and another eleven Chinese review tests so I wasn’t a complete layabout. In the afternoon even Huan relaxed with some TV, no ‘earworms’ for me to put up with for a change. After some more guitar practice, I got lost down YouTube where I found a UK television programme called ‘Taskmaster’. The first episode had me in fits of laughter and even better; this appears to have been put up legally so I’ll be able to watch more. After dinner, it was a D² evening for Huan, even more guitar for me, the next Chinese lesson in the course and some more YouTube. I also got some reading in today, finished a book by Paul Bishop and started one by David Kagan. All in all it wasn’t a bad day, lazy and busy at the same time. No photos of course!

November 26^th Orders for the day, as given to me by the 2IC, (me), a bit of escape and evasion, just like the good old army days. I was to escape from the house and evade the rain. Well about one and a half kilometres out, I felt I was doing very well, the sun had come out to play, giving me this wonderful view.

However, at the four kilometre mark it became obvious that the sun had gone home and wasn’t going to come out again.

I plotted a new course, and being the fool that I am, made sure it would give me the six kilometres I needed to make ten. The last one was a wet one! As for the ‘escape’ part of the plan, well the good old “bungee cord of love” pulled me right back home again! That was just as well though, it gave me time to prepare the cheese and onion baps for the C-in-C’s lunch, and mine of course.

The afternoon was spent trying to make sense of Huan’s homework. They were given a few bars of notes and then told to write the ‘sonophones’ of these notes in the bars below. Google translated the Chinese to ‘sonophones’, which I understood as ‘sounds the same’. A more accurate description would be enharmonic equivalents. What was making this very difficult, apart from the language differences, was that Huan’s book has answers in it and the answers to the first exercise were wrong! For example, the enharmonic equivalent of the note C was shown as C with two flats, instead of D with two flats. Now obviously ^bbC does not sound the same as C, but ^bbD does. With the aid of Huan’s keyboard I was able to explain what I meant although I wasn’t sure that Huan was quite getting the idea. Having said that, she saw that the answers to the second exercise were correct, in the manner that I had explained. Now she will be able to explain it to her classmates who, also being totally confused, had been sending her WeChat messages all afternoon. As ‘singers’, they should never have to bother with double flats or double sharps so maybe this is just a way of getting them to learn more about music.

The rain eased off enough for Huan’s dama dancing, so I was able to do some guitar and Chinese, not really enough of either though!

November 27^th No ‘real’ walk this morning, I was under orders to meet the ‘class’ for lunch, yet another teacher is leaving. This one is going back up north for a while, something about giving and receiving annual bonuses. Chinese New Year will be in January next year. The ‘Fab Four’ were on their bikes today, three normal and one electric so they were going straight from the class to the restaurant. Muggins was walking! “Get there by eleven” was the command as they would finish class early. I was there, on time, and guess what? The class finished late! Mind you, that gave me a chance to not only have a drink and a rest but also to video them arriving. Here they are, posing!

The class or I suppose you could say, the choir, has grown considerably. The food was great and interspersed throughout the lunch there were quite a few solos. Once everybody had had their fill, the choir all sang together to finish off the occasion. Here’s a not very good screen shot of the video I filmed.

The ladies cycled home together, and I walked home, alone… (sniff, sniff). Actually, I quite enjoyed it, the sun was hiding behind the clouds and I walked down by the riverside. Come evening time and they were off on their bikes again, first to the town square for dancing and then down to the riverside for even more singing. That left me “alone again, naturally”. (Can you remember the song?) I did go out; I needed to make up the distance from this morning. I had used ‘Endomondo’ to and from the restaurant but it was only around six and a half kilometres, not enough! Eight kilometres this evening made it better. I walked back along the riverside, and on the way I heard, coming towards me the dulcet tones of “meow, meow etc”. It was only the Fab Four cycling down to their singing spot and getting some practice in on the way. And they think I’m crazy…

November 28th this morning, I was out by half past seven but I didn’t go for a ‘twenty’ or anything like that, because I wanted some guitar practice before lunch. It was still a long enough walk though, just over thirteen kilometres in just under three hours. That also included photography and video stops as I had the Fuji with me today. The weather did worry me part of the way through, a ‘big wind’ came up, but then it went down again and there was no rain to go with it. Cloud cover also kept me reasonably cool.

So what did I see today? First off, very near the house, I saw a caterpillar that I had never seen before; its legs look like fern leaves.

To start with, I had no idea where I was going today, but my feet led me to the quiet of the countryside again. Sometimes, we forget which roads we have been on, especially if it’s been a while. One such road took me to this signpost where I remembered we couldn’t go any further last time. Going up one side of the sign brings you down the other side!

Dogs, ducks, chickens and geese were seen aplenty but I decided you don’t need to see them today. Instead, here’s another insect I’ve never seen before, this one looks like it’s dressed up for an officer’s mess dinner.

Next, I found myself in the middle of a herd of cows. I had been taking a video of my walk, stopped to take some photos of them and then went closer to take anther video. They were grazing and just kept coming, some of them even nuzzling me, it was quite an experience. In the past I have had the occasional cow be brave enough to come and ‘say hello’, today I guess I was just ‘in their way’ and lucky enough that they continued on the same path. Here are a couple of screen shots from the video.

I carried on walking, leaving ‘my friends’ to their food, and finished making the video. A few more photos were taken on the way home, I thought you may fancy seeing another ‘many-legged’ creature, this one is a crab. It’s in the water, not so very easy to take a photo of, but you should be able to see it. This was in an irrigation ditch next to the rice paddies.

After that, I still managed to get home by half past ten and do as I’d promised myself, some guitar before lunch. I wonder how many years it takes to get that ‘F’ chord! Being early also gave me some more Chinese review, that’s almost as difficult as the ‘F’ chord. Mind you, I did understand maybe half of what the lady in the lift said this afternoon when I went down to collect Huan’s latest Taobao purchase. What did Huan buy? Shoes, of course!

November 29^th We were surrounded by fog this morning, or as I prefer to think, we were in the clouds. That gave me a chance for a quick guitar practice before going out, but also meant I would have to have two walks today. First, I wasted a lot of time watching an excavator mixing concrete in a large hole at the side of the river. He was then filling up the buckets of two bulldozers, one large and one small. I could see where the large one was taking his load, to make the foundation of the riverside path a bit further down. The smaller one actually left the river and disappeared over the other side somewhere. I don’t know if he was taking a ‘freebie’ somewhere or it was an official delivery. Anyway, here’s the mixing pot.

On the way home, another weird and wonderful beastie was spotted. It was moving incredibly fast but I did manage a couple of photos, here’s one.

Huan had another trip to the dentist this afternoon, complete with whinges about the number of visits she was having to make and how much it was going to eventually cost. For those of you back in the UK, it will cost her about £45.00 this time. That’s for a replacement filling. I think she’d be happier to go to the dentist with no doors to the street, but I’m happier that she goes to this one.

November 30^th The ‘better half’ was a little on the sleepy side this morning. When I got up she was having a good old snore! Consequently, I decided an amble was probably better than a walk today. Our first photo is Huan in the wishing well, I bet you are wondering how I got under the water!

Our route home took us through the Saturday farmer’s market where we took only a few more pictures this week. You’ve seen most of what is on offer but today we have ‘fresh’ peanut oil coming from a factory built in the back of a van.

And I’m not sure if you saw this little creature before. Instead of showing you one squashed into a very small cage, I’ll show you the advert, without the telephone numbers of course. 果子狸 (guǒzi lí) means ‘civet’.

And lastly, in fact the last photo of the day and coincidentally, the last photo of the month is one of me and “Second Brother”. That is his name, in Chinese 二弟, (Èr dì). Whenever he sees me he goes crazy. If his ‘mum’ is holding him, it’s not a problem but if it’s ‘grandma’, like today, she worries far too much. Huan did try and get a photo of him trying to lick me to death but unfortunately that one wasn’t clear.

Walkies for me in the evening and a walk to the square for Huan followed by a limousine ride down to the riverside. She went to watch a show produced by her classmates and I went to make up my ten kilometres.

And that’s it, another month over. Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun? It certainly flies as you get older! Take care all, see you next month.