Well , OK it's a refuse transfer station actually, but that really doesn't go terribly well with the William Tell Overture somehow. Anyway, we had a trailor load of green waste thats been sitting around for a week or so nicely drying out. Add to that the current lot of lawn clippings & herself's final mad frenzy of weeding & you sorta get the idea. So, there we were unloading next to this guy with a tandem axle trailor & considerably more stuff than we had, & we got to talking to him as you do under such conditions. Our dump is a very social place to go to pass the time of day.
Turns out this guy is an Aucklander. Among other things he told us, it turns out that he has worked for the same company up there for 32 years. He is a supervisor. What he actually supervises is a bloody great machine that puts foil covering on packets of food product. Personally, I can't imagine ANYONE doing a job that mind numbingly boring for that length of time. I've had jobs that were similar, but they were part time jobs when I was in the Fire Service & i didn't last much more than a week at them.
It turns out that with the advent of Kiwi Saver, they all cashed in their company super & started up with Kiwi. not a move that I think that I would like to make, but its not my choice anyway. He & his wife have bought an old house about 20 minutes drive down the coast. Its a bit run down. The previous owner had it rented out for the last 5 years & hasn't done anything to it, so you get the idea. So here he is with his 4th trailor load of green waste. His good lady wife (bless her) is more concerned about clearing the section, while he has been trying to rejuvenate the bathroom.. A lot of rotten timber that necessitated stripping the weatherboard from the exterior to replace timbers. The house is the original farm house for the area & still has the original kauri plank, scrim & wallpaper interior that was common in that era. His plan is to completely reline with gib, tidy everything up & retire down here . By the time he has done all that, he'll bloody well need to retire. At least he has family that can help him. I suppose that all this work during the holidays makes a pleasant change from watching foil covered packages spew out of a machine.
Anyway, our dump has now put in a weighbridge. This is a much fairer system than the old one. That used to involve some fairly complex calculations involving an eyecrometer. It also involved knowing the guy in the office or not, with resultant wild variations in charges. Now you get weighed coming in & weighed going out & pay accordingly. Thats how I know that Sherman towing my little trailor weighs 2100 kg's. Also, my modest little load was only 56kg & only cost me $2.00. Under the old system, it would probably have cost me nearer $10.00.
New Year , all in all was better than Xmas. I caught up with an old mate that I haven't seen for about 12 years. He used to be a mechanic, which is good, because he sorted out a couple of issues with the motor on my boat which were a little worrying. The highlight of his days fishing was catching a small hammerhead shark. There are heaps of em about at the moment, & weight for weight they are bloody good little fighters & I always carefully let them go. In my opinion, anything with optical problems like that need all the help they can get.
It was Jeff's birthday New Years Eve & his brother in Auckland had made arrangements for him, so we reluctantly bid him farewell. Alison & the kids came up & stayed a couple of nights. Its always good to see them & we saw the occasion in with all the flair, aplomb & dignity that one could reasonably expect. In other words, we ate too much, drank too much, talked a lot of crap, & generally enjoyed ourselves.
Well, thats about it. I am hopeful that I will get some proper holidays a bit later on. I have a Grandchild due mid February, & my baby boy turns 30 on the 28th of Feb. Both events are happening in Dunedin. God, I wish that they were a little bit closer than that. Still, a holiday is a holiday I guess.
This is the view from where herself & I had a picnic lunch in our boat today. A lovely little bay on the seaward side of Whanganui Island. As you can see it was lovely & sheltered. We had a wonderful day. came home with 10 nice pan sized snapper, & I had a real adrenaline rush when I hooked up on a Thresher Shark about 6 ft. long. This is what they look like although this pic doesnt do the colour of the beast justice.
It was the most amazing shade of violet on top. It was making huge leaps out of the water & stripping line off the reel with the most amazing ease. I tightened the drag in the hope that it would either bust off or chew through the line but no. When I finally got him close enough, I could see that he was hooked in the corner of his mouth & no way was he chewing through. In the end, after about 6 runs away from the boat, I finally got him close enough for herself to cut the trace down by the hook. He sat & rested for a second or two before quietly swimming off. I suppose I could have gaffed it & got my hook back, but he really was too beautiful to hurt any more. Herself managed to get a shot with my camera of it, so when the film is developed & if it turns out OK, will post it here .
