101 Uses For a Dead Bath Tub

For a while now, there has been basically a brand new bathtub doing nothing at our depot. It was in saleable condition right up to the point that some numpty dropped a stack of pallets on it & did a lot of damage to the enamel on it. Exit stage left to the Flatcattery, where the fishpond that I made about 4 years ago has sprung a leak. Getting the connection yet ? I finally got around to asking the Boss what they were going to do with the bath at work & she said , "Take it." So I did. After some TLC with a tube of white silicone sealer & a mornings hard work hauling the old pool out, this is what I ended up with..

Its not fully finished yet. The tub is a little shorter than the original hole & needs filling in & covering with weed mat, but that will happen when I dig out some more dirt from mowing strips. That will cover up the raw end that you see. Meanwhile, no job is complete until the resident Clerk of Works issues a certificate of Approval.


Here is our resident Engineer checking the underpinnings of the bridge. It met with Fattum's approval, so she passed on my application to the Clerk of Works, TiggerPuss who is seen here taking care of the paper work..



So, pending infil of the two ends, which constitutes a hazard to small furry felines & suitable donations of tasty treats, I think I have approval.

Meanwhile, it's been Labour Weekend. For those of you that live outside of NZ, we have the monday off to commemorate the introduction of the 40 hour week. Remember the 40 hour week? I think I vaguely remember it. The main significance of it now is that its the first long weekend of summer. Well, usually anyway. Well, maybe not usually Labour Weekend is renowned as being the final tantrum of capricious Spring before the weather settles for Summer. This weekend was no exception. Herself's two sons came down on Saturday & went home Sunday. We had hoped to take the boat over to Cooks beach & give them a look round Mercury Bay. Winds of 50 knots or so put paid to that. Sunday afternoon, we went to the 60th birthday party celebrating the birthday of a lady that I grew up with. Her Dad & mine were in business together. We had a lovely time. Her & her husband have this beautiful old house that looks out over the local golf course, & round across the Hauraki Plains. Add to this, beautiful well established raised Rose gardens beautifully laid out & you have the idea. The most surprising thing of the whole afternoon aside from a rather intense hailstorm, was meeting an elderly lady that not only knew my Grandmother, but also knew Jude's as well. She came from Taumaranui originally, & her husband was the first man that my Dad worked for in Thames.

So today we put in a good morning redoing the fish pond,(see above) back to the grindstone tomorrow I suppose.

Oh by the way, I think I have a reasonable idea of the lesson that I'm up for this time round. I think its got something to do with humility. You would never guess that I have a problem accepting help from others. All my life I have been used to doing for myself. My Dad brought me up with the principle of cutting my own track, & I have always done that. Now I'm faced with a situation that I just can't cope with on my own. All of a sudden I am having to say "thankyou" to a lot of people. Some that I don't know, & some that are very dear friends that I guess I have helped out in the past, & now I guess the circle has turned full turn. I must say that its a hell of a lot easier to give than receive, but it's wonderful & very comforting to know that there are people out there who will help. I guess its been a pretty good weekend all round.

Values

Its funny how values can change over the years. When I was at High School, the most priceless things anyone could have given me would have been a self winding watch with a calendar function & a 10 speed bike. Aaah, the naivety of youth. My values have I guess, changed a lot over the years. I have had a lot of experiences, good & bad in my life, & some have said I should write a book, but this is, I think, about as close to that as its going to get, but two days ago my sense of values changed dramatically.

At the head of the list is still the outside hope that whatever Herself has is going to be treatable. Two days ago my dear old Mum had her operation to remove a cancerous growth from her foot. I had an absolute crap day at work caused mainly, I guess, by me worrying about being so far away if anything went wrong. Herself, as usual, carried the brunt of things signing all the forms & seeing her off to theatre. I shot straight up to the hospital after work & ended up having about 5 minutes of lucid conversation with my Mum. The first time in about 3 years. She told me she loved me, & also took on board the fact that she has a great grand daughter & another one on the way. later on when rang my sons to tell them about all this, my eldest son called me "Dad" & told me he loved me. You can't buy moments like that with any amount of money.

Ya Gotta have Faith..

George Michael said a lot more than he realized here. Firstly, let it be known that I am NOT.. repeat NOT a George Michael fan. I would rather see myself off by repeatedly dragging my throat across an extremely blunt & rusty saw blade than be stuck on a desert island with only him &/or his music for company. But you do. You have to have faith in something, from the Atheist's blackness to the holy rolling Godbothering full choir of angels with accompanying St Pete soloing on Pearly Gates or hell fire & damnation if you've been naughty.

I have, for a long time now, leaned towards the idea of self determination; that life is a progression of lessons through stages beyond this earthly plane, eventually becoming one with the Godhead. The lessons we choose to learn on each incarnation are up to ourselves, that we set our learning to experience what we need to know in order to progress. The reason that we don't remember our past incarnations is so that we don't just accelerate the learning process so that we can get our lesson over & done with in the shortest possible time & check out, a bit like the difference between walking around in the dark at home where you know where everything is & blundering about in a dark strange hotel room.

Well, it's like this. Lately , my life has become a very dark & very strange hotel room. If you have been following my blog, you will know what I mean. I find it extremely difficult to believe that those that I love are choosing to experience the sufferings that they seem to be undergoing at the moment just so that I can find out what it is like to lose loved ones by particularly nasty methods. I hope that I'm not really that selfish. The fickle finger of fate seems to be following me right on my heels at present. At the moment, I'm leaning more towards either the Insh'Allah precept as followed by the Arabs or a God with a particularly mean streak of boredom at the moment. For some reason, I keep thinking of the story of Job in the Old Testament, & Gods bet with the devil regarding his faith. Well, I'm not Job & I'm not interested in boils on my arse as a means of testing my faith. OK, good things happen as well, & I really do savour them a lot more at the moment as a means of escape, but it would be nice for those around me to have something nice happen. Like my dear old Mum just die peacefully in her sleep rather than go through having bits cut off her & the black beast eat her from the inside out. It's all the more unjust for her, because her mind is mostly gone & she really doesnt understand.

It would be even better if Herselfs condition was non terminal & treatable, as much for herself as much as any selfish reasons that I can come up with. My Dad had Alzheimers & died of pneumonia after he fell & broke his hip. The only one that has had a dignified death so far is my big sister, Karen. I think that as much as anything, she was just worn out, & died in her sleep. If any of you that read my blog are into prayer, I think we could all use a leg up in that department.

Reading this, it all looks very black & self pitying, but its not really intended to be. I'm just trying to sort out at this point if I really believe what I have so glibly eschewed to myself & anyone else who ever cared to listen. Maybe all this is designed to sort out what I really do believe. I believe at this point, that a good nights sleep is probably the best thing that can happen to me, so I believe I'll go snuggle up to Herself in bed until she gently tells me to roll over & stop snoring, so God bless & good night.

Livin Next Door to Alice..

We had an out doorsy sort of afternoon today. Conscience got the better of me & I dragged out the old Mk1 grass smasher & decapitated the lawn. Then I made up a brew of weed killer, did round the edges & killed off the bit of lawn that Herself wants to add to the vege garden. Less lawn for me to mow. Then I planted the grape vine that Morty so kindly grew for us. Then I saw silly old Fattums basking in her favourite spot in the rock garden. You remember my Alice in Wonderland rock garden?

Being of that frame of mind to piss about with the camera a bit, I activated a function called "solarise" This is what it does. Makes your photo's look like paint by numbers. I think it looks cool. Really Alice in Wonderlandish.

Where wild things grow

I went there yesterday. It was scary. Herself went to stay with her daughter, which was absolutely great for her. She had a great time. I didn't. It was as well that she went though, because things got pretty scary for me, & I don't think that it would have been a good thing for Herself to witness.

Once again my old mate Hawkeye came up trumps. You see, he's met the wild things. His wife died of a fairly obscure crap take no prisoners, give no remittance sort of disease. It cut him that deeply that he couldn't stay & watch her die. You know when you are talking to someone that has been down that track that you aren't going to be served any helpings of hearts & flowers or optimism. Its cut him that deeply that it has destroyed any faith in any sort of God that he has ever had. Still, a healthy dose of hard arse realism served up by someone that has been there done that is definitely better than anything else on the menu.

A long long time ago, in another galaxy, when my first marriage was spiralling rapidly down the toilet, my then wife pressed me into going to a councellor. I grudgingly agreed, if only as a means to try & keep my marriage together. Councelling isn't easy for me, as I am normally a private sort of person who doesn't easily share his innermost feelings. So I sat across the table from this kid about half my age who blandly assured me, "I know what you're going through." needless to say, it was a case of "Exit stage left." I'm happy for anyone who has done the yards to sharetheir knocks & how they dealt with them, but "I know what you're going through ?" No thankyou.

Anyway, I survived. Some heavy support from my two dear sons helped a lot when I was slipping a bit. It's not easy telling your sons that their Nana , whom they absolutely worship, is probably riddled with cancer. The only consolation for me, is that at least with her mind gone the way it is, that she is spared the horror of knowing what is wrong with her. I have no idea really how Herself is reconciling things within her head. It's not really something that we have talked about at any great length. I think we are mutually holding our breath till we find out the results of this latest blood test.

She was supposed to go to an MND support group meeting & lunch in Paeroa yesterday. She went to Auckland & took her grandchildren to the movies instead. I think that was a good choice.

Physician heal thyself

Well our family physician has had a complete mental breakdown & his practice is closed indefinitely. I feel for him. His surgery has looked after my family for 3 generations. The bitch of it is that its a really crap time for it to happen. Now we have to find someone else to go to & explain all the shit that is presently happening in our lives. Did I mention that my Mum has a particularly malignant cancer on her foot that has possibly spread throughout her entire body ? No, I guess that one slipped by me a bit. Its a selfish attitude I know, but we are waiting on some very critical blood tests to come through. Herself, among a zillion other things today contacted the Medical Center & got them to inquire on our behalf regarding the results. They have all come back normal except for the one that was sent to Canterbury. I think that is probably the one that will tell us if Herself's condition is treatable or not.

I saw an old work colleague in the street today. When Herself was first diagnosed, him & his wife made a big deal about wanting to be there & to be involved, inviting themselves round for a cuppa & a chat. We stayed home that afternoon specially. They didn't turn up. We did get a phone call 2 days later ; "Sorry, we forgot." Haven't heard from them since either. He bounced up to me all smiles & says,"Gidday mate, hows Jude?" I nearly said, "She's fucking dying. How do you think she fucking well is?" but reason prevailed & I behaved myself.

I did something new today. I took a load up to a place called Whenuakite on the crane truck. I've never operated the crane truck before. I have operated Fire Service aerial appliances & done a course at the waterside training facility in Auckland, but that was all a very long time ago. I did alright too, sliding 2 pallets of floor tiles in through a door with literally only an inch of height to spare. I felt really great, right up to the point where I came home & found out about my Mum.

Herself is off to Auckland tomorrow to take the grand kids to the movies. That will be really nice for her. I've told her that she is not to come home on the same day though. It would be way too tiring. So an overnight stay it is. That will be great for her. The shit of it is, that I don't actually want her to go. Entirely selfish reasons ; I feel very old, tired & worn out at the moment & don't really fancy the thought of spending a night with only my own company. I haven't told my boys about their Nana yet . I don't have the heart to. Especially my youngest son. He has just found out that his wife is pregnant. I don't really want to drop crap like that on his head at the moment. I don't really ever want to drop that sort of stuff on either of them, but I guess if I don't tell them, nobody else will.

Life looks fairly bleak at the moment. It seems like every time we have something nice happen, like Herself's birthday, something even heavier drops on us. Right at this point in time I have just about had enough. I'm not really sure how to cope with this all. Maybe the bloodtests will come back with something positive, but I'm not counting on it.

Happy Birthday

And indeed it was. The party at Sharon & Richards place was a roaring success in more ways than one. Some really nice family stuff happened & Herself had an absolutely fantastic time, which was really the whole point of it all. What was even more touching was the amount of people there that quietly came up to me & inquired how I was dealing with everything, & offered support. That was wonderful, & quite unexpected. Here is a lovely pic of Herself with her three children & two grand children. Sort of says it all really this pic.


This one is Renee after swiping her Poppa's beer. She didn't drink any of it, but its a cute pic what with her Dad looking on in the background. I'm saving this one for her 21st birthday. I think it's beautiful. Just so typically her.

Notice the gap in the front teeth? She is starting to get all grown up with all her new teeth coming through. God time flies. We both love being Grand Parents so much..

Happy Birthday my Love

Its Herself's Birthday today. Its been a hell of a year for her in one way or another. For both of us I guess for that matter. If you've followed my blog you will understand what I mean. Still she has survived with her head still held high. Her big brother came down today & took her out for lunch. Even her ex husband rang & wished her Happy Birthday today. I took her out for tea tonight, nothing flash, just the local Chinese Smorgasbord. We're going to her daughters place tomorrow for the weekend, as her daughter wants to throw her a big party. I'm very proud of her for that.

God, I love that lady