Our own Jiaojiehe House:

Jiaojiehe environs:

It is a matter of public record that the President of China has promised to make his people rich beyond their dreams (and not much else). If you want to see what happens when you let loose people who think wealth is a substitute for a proper education you don't have to look very far from our houses in Jiaojiehe.

That 'house' behind is a monstrosity, I won't sully these pages by showing a close up (yet), they are clearly totally ignorant of Feng Shui... Nestling behind the trees below is our modest #3 house whose Feng Shui (like those for our other two houses) is near perfect according to local experts.

The small lower wall was erected last year when the new village water system was put in, Yuehong and I spent 3 days rearranging the rubbish our builders had dumped behind it and covering it with soil to mask it.

The house (our 'Phoenix') is almost complete, the fittings are all in and there's just some small items of furniture, the fridge, washing machine and a mattress on their way. The outside wall and gate are going up and I've dug half the garden to get rid of the rest of the builder's rubbish and two truckloads of real topsoil (and a huge pile of autumnal leaves) are waiting to go on top, most of it will be grassed for low maintenance, there's really no room to grow anything. The tree is a walnut but in the way of things in China, it belongs to someone else.

This will be the view from the bedroom, it's autumn and the leaves are ready to fall. Outside is a millstone which will make a nice drinks table and behind the stream has been dammed to make a large pond. With winter approaching we will have to road test the heating (and more importantly the insulation) soon as we hope to be able to spend part of the winter here without spending a fortune to keep warm.