At 7:00, Mark and I went to buy breakfast and then to the garden. We worked there hard for 2 hours and the difference was not stunning, but the long grass and herbs had made such a tight tracery that it took time and strength to loosen it.
Then I had a digital working unit before we again went out for lunch, eating Hakka noodles. For me, it is quite convenient eating with Mark, because he is Vegetarian and so he knows where and how to get appropriate food.
After another digital work unit, we left for chocolate research to the Cocosun Cacao Farm, one of 10 places in the bigger area of Pingdong related to chocolate.
left upper corner: organically grown
We took a coffee and a chocolate ice cream (guess who took what) and the ice cream was sobering from to high expectations. But we tried three tiny 75% chocolate cuboids for 50T$ and I don’t know what the price of 100g would be. The taste was hm….good. Maybe excellent, but I am not used to eating chocolate in homeopathic doses. There were some cocoa trees, but the real farm would be another 4km from the store and no one around to show or explain, so we went back.
On the way back, Mark found a shoemaker to fix my normal shoes. Maybe the problem had started earlier, and I just didn’t notice, but today I saw that the soles became loose.
Mark thought we could eat dinner during the repair, but the cobbler said that the shoes must stay there overnight. I was not prepared for that, but it seemed better to ride home barefoot and have the shoes for tomorrow than waiting until they completely fall apart. It was a challenge for me, I feel unprotected und exposed without shoes and the pedals have sharp spikes for better grip.
That reminds me on something I wanted to tell yesterday and as often had forgotten when I sat in front of my PC: Yesterday, I was going down fast one of those hills when I got a stich from an insect. It had crashed on my body and was caught in my t-shirt and it soon was clear that not the crash, but some bites were hurting. I had to initiate an emergency brake and free that animal that was big enough that I didn’t even think of slaying it and just was relieved when it flew away. It burned for a while but less than from a wasp.
And this story reminds me on an experience of today that I would have forgotten to tell:
In the garden, I touched the sugar cane with my arm, and it burned. It looked as if many small thorns would stick into my skin but it most probably my skin itself, because I didn’t read anything about thorns thin as hair one sugar cane and after a while, I didn’t find anymore thorns, only burning skin.
Marks mother had prepared food and she and his father came up the stairs to the rood several times to bring something additional. And that reminds me again on something to tell: When Mark and I were in the garden, a man on a bike approached and I was very surprised when I saw that it was his father, aged 84! He brought toast bread for the two dogs which live in the garden. I am not sure how good toast bread is as staple food for dogs but at least Mark had told me, that one of them catches mice but they don’t eat them. Most probably they would if they needed something apart from bread.