I have a rare chance this weekend to escape the city's hubbub and spend a couple of days in the country. This may be the restorative to the spirits that I so badly need. I just hope the weather improves by tomorrow. And that my flaky health bears up.
So, no blogging for a few days. Sorry.
7 comments:
Enjoy your long over-due outing and hope you feel better. Did you notice that book "Blindness" is being turned into a movie? How cool is that?
Tulsa, you're back????
Where have you been?
No, I hadn't heard 'Blindness' was being filmed - but I'm pretty sure it will be a travesty. It occurred to me when first reading it that just about the only country I could think of where the immediate government reaction would be that callous and that extreme and that inept would be.... China. And I don't suppose it's being made in China.
So where do you stay when you 'go country'? Surely China has not ascended to the great heights of having B&B's? Or even H&N's (Hammock and Noodles)?
My god, what is this? All of my old commenters suddenly reappearing after their long aestivation!
'Hammock & Noodles' would be a great idea! I may have to start a chain. We were all fondly discussing the possibility of getting some hammocks over the weekend.
Actually, B&Bs are becoming quite the thing here these days - especially in the countryside around Beijing. The village we stayed in has quite a few of them. In fact, though, we were self-sufficient: my friend DD has rented a rundown courtyard for the year - so we're likely to be headed out there pretty often.
Courtyard? Sounds pretty cool - can you e-mail me some photos?
I didn't really take any photos of the place itself, Mothman. It's difficult. The outside is just bare grey walls (and hemmed in by trees, other houses); the inside is scarcely more imposing, though at least it is a nice open space, and very private. Maybe next time.
I'll probably provide a description in a post soon.
I did take quite a few pics of the surrounding countryside (it's barely a mile away from a very striking stretch of the 'Wild Wall' - one of the original, unreconstructed bits), but I have issues with my computers at the moment (so old and slow and knackered that they're pretty much out of working memory and can't cope with Photoshop, or even with downloading any more picture files) - so you'll have to be patient.
Do you have any pics you could show me of your Bulgarian properties?
It's at times like this that I wish I were a bit less temporally challenged for vast chunks of the year - I'd love to see rural China before both it and you disappear! However, some photos would be nice in the meantime when/if you have time to take/upload them. The vegetation and wildlife in the far eastern Eurasian landmass would be particularly fascinating for me, of course - a bit like going to Cambridge for the weekend when we were undergraduates...everything looks so familiar: but on closer investigation isn't!
Who would have thought when we were young people at school that one day we would both be doing capitalist-type thingys behind the erstwhile Iron/Bamboo Curtains? It all happened so fast...
If you are really interested you can check out the first of the Bulgarian rental houses on the Greek border at http://www.ruralrentalsbulgaria.com I've got three more houses there to do in similar style, but the Bulgarian workforce only work three days out of four - and when they ARE there we are lucky to get three hours' work a day out of them. Old Communist habits die hard - or, as they say in Bulgaria "They pretend to pay me so I pretend to work". Quite. For six quid a day I am not complaining TOO much...
I suspect that you would feel RIGHT at home in Bulgaria for the obvious reasons :-) After two months this summer of dealing with surly administrators; crooked policemen; indifferent shop owners and incompetent bureaucrats I was close to hitting someone. So God knows how you have survived The Yellow Peril this long :-) Respect, man.
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