The Hartlepool mail got  in touch with me a while ago saying they had heard about me living in China and being a Buddhist and Photographer and wanted to write an article about me along with a long list of questions.  I did  write a quite lengthy reply detailing different times and aspects of my life, but in the end I didn't send it I thought that it would end up wrong or misunderstood or something, or maybe even unbelievable ha-ha.

 

Well it's been interesting  news recently about Governments tapping into private internet sites  emails etc.We have a whole can of worms opened up now,  the USA is trying very hard to catch the whistleblower at present he is in the airport at Moscow I believe, sounds like a script for a movie what a world we live in eh. I personally have never been inclined to join any of the social network sites I only use Flickr and that's to just publish photos and discuss/comment on them, although even that could probably get you in trouble somewhere these days. There has been a lot of news covering social media sites here in China and how the Gov't feels very threatened by them, as it has been used to great effect to expose corrupt politicians, businessmen and lack of social morals recently. This is in spite of the Govt spending 6,700  million pounds on home security its a bigger budget than spent on the army. They even use people who are called "the 50 cent party" who are paid 50 cents for every positive comment they write on the networks about the Gov't haha.

After all the failed treatments for my shoulder injury Jun found a hospital in the centre that caters for sports injuries so we went last week the doctor said yes to my request for a cortisone injection but said you will still have to have an operation at some time so I ended up getting two straight into my shoulder joint,it hurt as you can imagine but the relief within one day was fantastic its reduced the pain by about 60%.

We were planning on going home to visit next May/June time but have had to bring it forward as my dad has been really ill again, he was found collapsed the other week and had had an heart attack he is in hospital and has had three consecutive seizures. The hospital have been treating him but basically said we are just making him comfortable, then the other morning he sat up removed his oxygen mask and asked for a cup of tea...what a guy 92 years old and full of the Dunkirk spirit. So as we can't cancel our Indonesia holiday as its non refundable and as long as he is still recovering we are planning to go back this November and at the same time have a look at some properties we have our eye on in Northumberland.

A good story we heard the other day about a guy in Henan province north of Beijing who owned a  small quarry so lived just outside of the local town and seven years ago a man gave him a puppy which he brought up as a guard dog and even bred it with Alsatians a couple of times, but some of his neighbors reported to the Environmental dept   that they could hear  howling at night near the quarry and when they checked they found the dog  he had was a pure wolf. Apparently the poor man was really upset and crying when they took it away. I saw photographs of it and you could see straight away what it was.