Donner und Blitzen

Nature has been putting on quite a show tonight. As the heading implies, lots of thunder & lightning, interspersed with torrential showers of rain. I suppose it really matches my mood at the moment rather well. I've had better days. You see, we have been rather busy lately, but you know about that & don't really need me to tell you.

Today has been the first day at home for a while with no visitors & no trips planned, apart from maybe a trip or two to Waikato Hospital for Herself. She has been having problems with the Micki Button causing pain. It seems that the opening is too close to the outlet to the intestine & the intestine keeps trying to swallow it. (Too much information I know) The bottom line is that it hurts & something has to be done about it. If she want's to carry on using a button, they will have to put a new hole in. My personal view is that it would be a lot kinder to reinsert a fitting like she had. Certainly better than going back to square one with it.

Meantime, we are both busting our asses with the need to get some salt water under us. Although thunder & lightning is very spectacular, particularly at night, it doesn't make for good boating weather.

Well, we weren't expecting THAT

We went & saw District 9 at the movies tonight. I'm not really certain what I expected, but I don't think it was what We got. I know it certainly wasn't what Herself expected. Mind you, with Peter Jackson involved, I guess that one should expect the unexpected anyway. What we DID get was a very gritty movie with some extremely sharp teeth in it along with large quantities of blood, explosions, aliens, alien machines & the kickingest ass space ship you ever saw. We both enjoyed it. One of the previews was for an end of the world movie called 2012. I want to see it but Herself isn't so sure. I think that after District 9 she can handle it.

My eldest son, his wife & our 20 month old grand daughter came to stay for a week. Aside from him & little Anna getting a really nasty 24 hour tummy bug, we had a wonderful time. She is as cute as a bug, even though she is a bit of a handful. We all went to the Auckland Zoo & had a lovely time. I think Herself & I enjoyed nearly as much as Anna did. It's not cheap though, but worth it I think.

This is us just before they left. I don't think that I have ever been so upset seeing someone leave ever. Sean & I covered a lot of ground emotionally between us & we have set a solid foundation for a good relationship I think. Just a shame that the weather was crap. I would have really liked to have got the 3 of them out in the boat for a look round up Coromandel way. Top Dog is now in A1 condition & all ready for sea, including a near new 5hp Yamaha motor as an auxiliary. Roll oon the good weather..........

Spring has sprung

I'm sitting here typing with the smell of fresh rosemary on my hands. I love the smell of rosemary. It is possibly one of the most fragrant herbs that i know of. I use it a lot too. Both herself & I enjoy roast lamb, but things being what they are, the only time we lash out on a roast leg is when we have visitors. Its not cheap either, which I find ironic seeing as we grow the blasted stuff in profusion here. No, if it's just Herself & me, we usually invest in 3 or 4 lamb hocks. That way I don't end up eating cold meat for about 3 months. My favourite way of cooking them is to put them in a lidded roasting dish with a generous sprinkling of finely chopped fresh Rosemary, with a little salt for seasoning & red wine vinegar drizzled over them. Cook on a nice low heat,(about 140 in our oven) until tender. Remove from pan, drain off the fat, chuck in some garlic to brown, a slosh of red wine just because you can, then the water from the veges. In our case, silver beet. Swiss Chard by any other name OK ? Let it all simmer until all the brown bits are dissolved, season, thicken with cornflour & hey presto, a tasty gravy that really compliments lamb & mint sauce.

Anyway, spring has sort of snuck up on me unawares a bit. I should have realised. I was out back yesterday & Mr Blackbird was revelling in the birdbath. It didnt take much imagination to picture soap & a towel balanced on the edge of the bath. There were also about 4 cock sparrows competing rather noisily for the affection of what was obviously a very seductive & becoming young hen sparrow. Anyway, all this made me look with fresh eyes at my rockery & yea verily I was ashamed. Time has passed us by a bit & OK, as you know, we have been away a bit, but the plants had geared up & gone into overgrow mode while we weren't looking, so I just about had a Rosemary tree instead of a nice tidy little bush. So I gave it a haircut. Thats how come My hands smell of Rosemary.

While I was there I also got stuck in & did some weeding. You see, I need to do the weeding in the rockery so that I can put a mowing strip round the garden in the middle of the lawn. Confused ? Don't be. There are holes around my bathtub pool that need filling & building up. See the light now ? While I was doing it, I looked around as you do under such circumstances, & damn iffen there aint nice fresh buds on our grapevine & actual leaves on our Beech tree. OK, so we planted our vege garden a week or two back & the self sown broad beans are in bloom, but nothing drives spring home to you like the sight of fresh tender young buds optimistically breaking forth into the sunlight.

Muna's Mat

This is not Muna. This is Jess, the dog, & Tojo the cat. They are both like their owner. Quiet, gentle & really anxious to please & make you feel comfortable. Its the third time we have stayed with Muna & her husband Tony & we have enjoyed ourselves immensely every time. There is a warm coziness about staying there. Don't expect any photo's of Muna, because she is notoriously camera shy.

We had some stuff to drop off at a friend's Mum's place & Tony insisted on taking us. It was great being able to sit back & enjoy the ride for a change. After we had finished he took us sight seeing in Napier, culminating in a stop at the top of Bluff Hill. These pics are the view from there.












Pretty neat huh ? The view pretty much runs from Mahia peninsula in the North to the container wharf in the middle to Cape Kidnappers in the South. Tony took us to see a heap of other stuff too but this was certainly the most breath taking bit.

After a couple of days we bid a sad farewell to these wonderful folk & headed home. We were intending to do the trip over a road called The Gentle Annie, but were advised against it as there had been snow down to 700 meters overnight, so we elected to do the Napier Taupo Highway. There had been snow there too, but as it is a main road, they had sanded it so it wasn't a problem. There was still snow at the summit, so we stopped & had a snowball fight just because we could












Sometimes you just gotta let the child within loose & roll with the flow. Its good for you. We stopped for a sorta brunchy lunchy sort of meal at Stag Park Truck Stop. Someone had a really good idea there. A one stop truck stop where you can wash, fix, fuel,unload your truck & change drivers if you need to plus have a damn good feed as well. Big meals for big appetites & reasonable prices. We always stop there for a meal if we are passing through.

From there it was onwards & upwards through Rotorua & Te Puke back to Tauranga & Morty's place for our final night away. We also picked up our puter which Morty had upgraded. Its now running a hard drive of approximately 4 times what it used to have with the old drive as a cache for DVD burning. About all thats left in the box of the original computer now is the motherboard. Its running slicker than a bucket of greased weasel wotsit now.

So thats us home again. a heartfelt thanks to all who made us feel so welcome & comfortable. We both appreciate it more than you know. Well, thats us for a while. In just over a week we have my son & his wife & our darling little grand daughter, Anna coming to stay with us for a few days, so expect to be bored stupid with lots of grand daughter anecdotes & pictures.. catch ya later

East Coast rolling

This is herself gamely plodding onward & upward towards the most easterly lighthouse in the world. Its a hell of a climb, with steps all the way, but she made it. If you enlarge the picture, you will see the lighthouse at the top. It used to be out on an island called, strangely enough, East Island, but it was too difficult to service it with the notoriously fickle East Cape weather, so they dismantled it, moved it to the top of this hill & automated the whole shebuggins







This is Herself standing by said lighthouse. I must at this point, apologise for the quality of the picture, as our poor old, well travelled, much used & abused very second hand digital camera chose this of all times to expire with a shuddering gasp & accompanying wheeze never to function again, so this photo was taken with my phone. Its quite an awesome feeling standing up there. The whole East Cape area has a very moody feel about it & apparently the locals guard the hunting & fishing rights quite jealously.

From there we made our way back along 20 km's of dirt road with an added hazard. In the evening, the cattle come down off the hills on to the flats & that includes the road. Its very picturesque. I'm sorry I have no pictures at the moment, but they are still in my trusty old 35mm SLR camera. If they are OK, I will share them with you at a later date. We had a lovely tea at the motor lodge, sharing it with the Fultom Hogan road crew who were there repairing the road damage from the winter storms. That should have told me something there & then.

The next day saw us head off bright & early for Gisborne. It was also my birthday, so we had reserved for the night at a very upmarket motor lodge called The Senator. All went well till just south of Ruatoria. We came around a corner & the back passenger wheel dropped into a particularly savage bit of washout in the road. before we could blink, both back wheels followed by the two front wheels were off the road & into a patch of greasy muddy grass heading ass backwards into a ditch.

We were very lucky. The only damage was that Herself bruised her calf muscle quite badly. Sherman survived intact. The only real damage was to my ego at having to be dragged out of the ditch by a very friendly power board worker who happened along in his ute. We proceeded on our way like a James Bond martini. Shaken not stirred. From there the road went inland only coming to the coast for brief periods at Tokomaru Bay & Tolaga Bay.



This is the view that we had from our unit at the Senator Motor Inn. The lady there was absolutely wonderful to us, giving us a unit on the ground floor to make life easier for Herself. Very kind of her. I must admit that it was very pleasant to sit out there in the sun drinking coffee & watching the world go by. Oh, we bought a new camera in Gisborne as well.




Later on we went for a walk along the Marina. This is the MV Takitimu, a lovely old wooden launch that thanks to the generosity of local businesses has been fully restored. She now spends her days doing two two hour harbor cruises a day at $15.00 a head.

I caught up with an old Fire Service buddy that I hadn't seen for years. Bernie told me about a reunion there in November. Herself says I should go , but I dunno. It could get messy. In the morning, I took this pic of a couple of outrigger canoes training in the river. I like it a lot.


From there we saddled up & headed for Flaxmere, for a couple of days with Muna & Tony, but that rates another post on its own.

OTHER NEWS

herself went through to Waikato Hospital yesterday. They changed the PEG tube for a MICKY button. This means that instead of having a tube hanging down, she now has this neat little plug like an airbed valve. It all went very well & we managed to catch up with Estelle Our support lady from the Motor Neuron society & had lunch with her. Its always a pleasure to spend time with her as she is incredibly helpful & supportive. Today, Jude's brother & his lovely lady came down for the afternoon. It was good. Trish has made Jude a badge to wear on her chest . It reads, "I am not deaf & I am not stupid. I just have a motor Neuron disorder." A very thoughtful thing to do. Anyway, will do some more later. Bye now

East Coast Cruising

Well, we've been there done that. We hit the road for the coast last week. Our first port of call was Tauranga, to see Morty. You see, Morty in a very weak moment agreed to upgrade my computer for me while we were away, so as I wouldn't be going through withdrawals & she wouldn't feel pressured to do a quick job of it Its always fun to stay the night at Morty's Menagerie. its such a vital & ever interesting place. She seems to have this knack of attracting the unusual. From the never ending, (Or so it seems) stream of teenagers to the eccentric animals that make the place their home. Thomas, the cat deigned to share his bed with us, which made us feel just so special.

We stopped at Opotiki to buy a few bits & pieces that we hadn't thought to pack, turned left & headed out. The Coast is like a whole different world that neither of us had ever experienced.

This is one of the old churches that are dotted along the coast. They all have a charm all of their own, & are that cared for that you could almost feel as though you have stepped back in time.



This is the Ruakokore River. Wide shingle & slow flowing streams as opposed to the narrow, fast flowing & rocky ones that we are used to up here.

It's almost as if the early settlers had an acute sense of the dramatic. This is the historic church at Ruakokore. Founded by the early settlers it is still in use & beautifully maintained with a small cemetery at the rear with some really interesting stories to tell on the headstones.

We stopped at Waihou Bay for lunch. Well, who wouldnt with a view like that to contemplate over your salami & tomato sandwiches. The point that you see in the background is Cape Runaway, the place where the Tainui & Arawa canoes first made landfall in New Zealand.

From there the road made its curvaceous way up & over the hills until we finally reached Hicks Bay round 2 PM & checked in at the Hicks Bay Motor Lodge. We decided from there that we should probably do a run out to the East Cape & make the pilgrimage to the lighthouse, "Only 15 minutes walk" according to our congenial host. From Te Araroa, its something like 20 kilometers to the parking area for the walk up to the lighthouse 20 k's of dirt road with cattle wandering free on a large percentage of it. Herself elected at the motel not to change from her boots to her walking shoes, which in retrospect was probably a bad idea. Its more like a half hour walk too the lighthouse, & all of it up hill & all of it steps.

It looks like I've used up my picture allowance So I'll do some more tomorrow. It's time I went to bed. We off to Waikato Hospital tomorrow to finally get Herself's feeding tube replaced with a Mikki button. She can't wait for it to happen... Later all..