Give us this day our daily bread.

As a kid, this was one of the phrases that used to roll glibly off the tongue as part of the Lords Prayer. You know, one of those things that you glibly say without thinking too much about it. I have come to realise that there is a deep profundity & a heartfelt plea involved in those seven words, especially for someone resident in that particular era. I mean, the whole growing thing, the harvesting, the winnowing & the grinding, all things that had to happen before one could even consider producing something that you could spread a bit of butter & jam on.

The easy way for me now is to wander the half a block down to our local store & buy a loaf of pre cut, presliced, pre packaged stuff. This is as much a social event as anything, as there are always neighbors to talk to & Jen at the store, if she doesnt serve you herself, always has this inexhaustible supply of young tourists working there who love to practice their English. All in all, you can kill a good hour sometimes just getting your daily bread.

Other factors, however have intervened. The price of said daily loaf has inexorably been crawling its way upwards. Also, Herself doesn't/can't eat bread any more. So after about half a loaf, it starts getting stale & inevitably ends up feeding the birds. Yeah, yeah, I can hear you all chorusing now. "Freeze it, you silly man !" But the plain fact is, I don't like frozen bread. So, other measures must inevitably come into play.

Have you ever noticed that just when you think that you have all the flash shiny appliances that you ever need, along comes a new one that you just have to have. One of these was the trusty bread maker & I must admit that they are a handy device. No more hand kneading dough, or waiting for it to prove in the hot water cupboard or on the drying rack over the coal range, just chuck the ingredients in , push the button & hey Presto. 3 hours later the perfect loaf of bread. As someone who used to make bread for a living, I think that they remove a certain mystique from the process, but never mind.

My Mum gave us a breadmaker quite some time ago & mostly it has sat gathering dust & looking forlorn on the shelf as we didn't feel that it was actually economic to bake your own, but now it is. After a couple of truly disastrous efforts involving not enough water & yeast that was probably past its use by date when the Lords Prayer was written, I have finally turned out a reasonably acceptable loaf of bread. It cost $20.00 for a 10kg bag of premix from Bin Inn, so I figure that after about 6 loaves I will be on the winning side financially. Not to mention the satisfaction of doing it yourself.

So this is Christmas

I'm not really sure how we got here, but here indeed we are. Those of you who follow, will know that it has certainly been one of those years for us. I don't think I would like a replay of it somehow. If I was in a pessimistic mood, I could say that it has been a year of crushed dreams, unfulfilled ambitions & personal tragedy. But I'm not like that. Well, not all the time anyway. Okay, maybe some nights at three in the morning when I'm laying awake looking at Herself sleeping peacefully & wondering how much longer I have Her for. Things do look a touch bleak occasionally then.

But we have had good times too & its easier to remember those things rather than dwell on unhappiness. Well, mostly it is anyway. One of the things that has stood out for us both is the quality of friendship that we have been both blessed to receive since Jude has been ill. There have been the inevitable few that have fallen by the wayside because they can't seem to get their head around what is happening, but by & large, we have both been cared for & nurtured in the nicest possible ways.

When someone in a relationship is terminally ill, it is very easy to focus on the ill person & not consider the care giver. I have been very pleasantly surprised at the number of friends who ask how I am holding up as well. One thing I cant deal with is the well intentioned ones who say to me, "I don't know how you are coping with this." Inevitably, this results in me going away & thinking very seriously about how I DO cope. That invariably leads me back to the disturbing realisation that even I am not sure how I do. All I know is that I get out of bed every morning, get dressed & deal with what happens when it happens. One thing I have learnt is not to worry about a bridge unless you are standing on it getting ready to cross it.

In years past, Christmas has always been a very busy time for me workwise. This is the first year ever in a very long time that I haven't been working. This has given me more time to think about Christmas & what it actually means to me. Sadly, I have come to the conclusion that a lot of very sad things have happened to me over the years around Christmas. I wont bore you with the list. suffice it to say that its quite long & very sad. Also, it has no religious connotations for me. Neither did my folks ever make a big thing of it. hanging up christmas cards & a few rudimentary decorations on a pine branch coupled with the chance to present me with next years clothes all nicely wrapped was generally about all. The fondest memory I have is coming home from morning church to the aroma of a roast of mutton permeating the house.

Jude on the other hand loves Christmas. She prepares for it all year, buying little knickknacks as presents & squirreling them away until the time is right to produce them with a flourish & wrap them for whoever they are intended. Normally as well, there is the cooking as well. She does love a big family Christmas dinner, usually cooking enough to feed everyone about three times. We have done the decoration thing & the presents this year, but instead of a whole leg of ham we have just opted for the end of a roll. She hasn't been well enough to do the big Christmas thing & I don't feel like doing it. This year, instead of travelling, we are going to stay home for Christmas Day & go see my Mum on Christmas morning, instead of the week before as we have done in the past. The neighbors have invited us for a BBQ, but we will see how we feel. Boxing Day, we go to Auckland to see the kids.

On the whole, I have found Christmas this year a bit depressing, due I think to a combination of circumstance & having enough time on hand to have a really serious think about the significance of the whole thing. I have done my best, however, to put on a good face & help Jude celebrate it as fully as she wants to. She has gone all out. Even the driveway is decorated this year. As we don't know how many Christmasses we have left together, I wont hold her back.

So anyway, a very Merry Christmas to you all. I hope you all find at least a modicum of happiness & comfort. For me personally, New Year has more significance. There is a bottle of Black Douglas whisky & a supply of soda water & I intend to hoist a few on New Years Eve. For Auld Lang Syne, if nothing else. So, merry Christmas to you all. Thank you for your support, your comments & for the knowing that you do care for us both. We love you all..

Christmas Dinner on the wing

The night before last, just as I was contemplating hauling my weary old carcass out of the spa pool, I heard this whirring sound. I looked up in time to see this rather obese native pigeon come in through the archway like a fully loaded Hercules trying to take off on one engine.

Tonight after a lovely day with one of my cousins coming to visit for lunch, Herself went outside to puddle in the garden as is her wont. She had been out there about 20 minutes when she came in making be quiet & follow me signs. We went out the back & she pointed up into the plum tree at the back. Its a Christmas plum & the plums are just starting to come ripe now. In the branches I saw this....



Two beautiful Kereru, native pigeons, just absolutely gorging themselves on plums. Needless to say, I went in & got my camera & took these pictures.. aren't they a beautiful bird ? I'm sorry, but I can't help but see them on a plate with a do it yourself plumstuffing & roast potatoes &... &... &.....

Friends like this... Priceless...

Jude & I were sitting at home late yesterday morning. Well, she was sitting. I was lying on my back out by the spa pool fitting some new O rings to the pool pump when there was a knock on the front door. "Hullo," I thought, "somebody's at the door. " Real quick on the uptake me. Turns out it was one of my old workmates & his wife & daughter. One of the few that actually bother to keep in touch with me. He is a really nice guy & its nice to have someone to sit & have a beer & a natter with occasionally.

But they were here on a mission. They hadn't been here 5 minutes when he had the vacuum out doing the floors & she was giving Jude a foot massage & manicuring her nails for her. Friends like that are indeed hard to find & very precious, especially when you know that he is working very long hours driving & has given up precious down time to do a good deed for a friend. I feel very humble to have friends like that. Thank you Tony & Jen.. We love you dearly.

Peaceful Days

As those of you who follow my blog will no doubt know, we have had some rough times lately. Go & recap if you want to, I'll wait.... Back now ? Good. We had one of those absolutely wonderful days today. lately, we have been launching our boat at Waikawau as opposed to Te Puru. There are two reasons for this. One is that the ramp at Waikawau is more sheltered, being up a river & the ramp is accessible at all stages of the tide. Being in a river also makes it a lot easier for Jude to get in & out of the boat. The second reason is that the last time I used Te Puru I ripped a hole in the stern (since repaired) trying to get off the ramp in what wasn't really that much of a swell. Jude hasn't really got the strength in her arms to hold the boat steady in anything much past a flat calm these days.So we now use the Waikawau ramp.

The only problem is that its unfamiliar waters to us & we have burned a lot of fuel trying to find the fish. Today, we struck it lucky. We went out fishing today & took young Daniel from next door with us. He's a likeable young lad, very pleasant & polite, well brought up & very eager to be of whatever help he can, which today was quite substantial. having thought about the fish thing for a while, we decided that instead of heading towards Coromandel & trying to find fish among the mussel farms & the myriad of islands, we would head slightly back towards Thames & try the same deep water channel that we have so much success in from Te Puru.

It was a good call. The fish were biting 5 minutes after we dropped the anchor & never really stopped untill we had our limit, 27 fish, some of them a fairly respectable size. this is our days catch in a standard fish bin..

Not a bad haul huh ? By the time we had given one or two away & saved the two biggest ones for the smoker in the morning, we finished up with 5.5 kg's of boneless fillets. That sort of fish currently retails at round $30.00 a kilo in the shops here.

Aside from a superb catch, we had the thrill of seeing about a 10 foot long Hammerhead shark cruise past the boat about 2 foot under the water. It really is quite a thrill to see a prehistoric beast like that glide past nearly close enough to touch. it looked for all the world like a cross between a nuclear submarine & the Star Ship Enterprise. Awesome. The other nice thing was Jude getting the fish of the day. here she is, bless her, straining like anything to hold up a 5 & a half pound snapper that she caught..

A day like today ???????? Priceless.... Totally & utterly priceless.....

RIP THE NOODLE POOCH

This was Misty. He started out 12 years ago as my Mum's first & only dog. As he was supposedly Bichon Friese, Poodle, Australian Terrier cross, he was going to be a cute cuddly lap dog for my Mum to spoil rotten in her old age. Sadly this didn't happen. He grew too big for her lap, & Mum eventually got that bad with senile dementia that she had to be institutionalised. So that left Misty to Herself & I. He really wasnt my sort of dog. He was too high maintanance for me. Always needing clipping, or brushing, or trips to the vet or something.

For all that, we grew to love him. We figured out ways round his habit of chewing himself red raw & trying to eat his paw. We even learned to tolerate his finicky ways with food. If he was sick of what you put in front of him, he wouldn't eat. Some times for up to 2 days, which was generally where I gave in & fed him. In the 12 years that we have known Misty, I cant recall him ever even growling at anyone, let alone try to bite them. he loved to play with Mac, of the long legs next door, contenting himself with one lap of the lawn to Mac's 4 & also enjoyed putting the neighbourhood pups, Woofy & Shadow in their respective places, trying to instill a little doggy dignity to them. I know he will be missed by Nushy the Whirly Dog & her family in Tauranga. Visits in either direction were greatly anticipated by them both.

I know I used to make fun of him by telling people that he was a Pedigree Idiot when they asked his breed. I know I used to get very frustrated with him when he wouldnt eat, or wouldnt stop chewing at himself, especially at 3 in the morning when I was having trouble sleeping, but for all that I did love him. I loved the way that he would come into the office & sit beside me & grunt, louder & louder until I gave in & put a hand down to scratch his ear. I loved the way that he would curl up on the floor as close as he could get to Herself when she went to bed not feeling well.

Sadly, yesterday as I was backing out of our driveway he walked in behind Sherman & went under one of the back wheels. We took him to the vet, but sadly because of his age & the absolute & utter mess I made of his pelvic , hip & leg bones. There was only one kind thing to do. I'm gonna miss you , you silly old bastard. Go chase some cats & enjoy fresh chicken at every meal.

Late night thoughts on computer games

We have been playing a lot of computer games lately, Herself & I. this is thanks to Morty , who has a seemingly inexhaustible supply of them. We dont go for the sophisticated fast action type games. Thats far to complex & demands better reflex times that a couple of old farts like us can manage. We are quite happy with point & click games. You know the ones. There is a common theme binding a series of scenes together. You get given a list of objects hidden in each scene with the odd brain teaser thrown in for good measure.

I have decided that life is a lot like these games, or they are like life, depending on how you view things & also depending on your grip of reality. You start out with a picture that looks fairly straight forward & along the way you get given a few clues. Well some of us get given more than others I guess, but still... It isn't really until you fully immerse yourself that you find that there is much, much more to the picture than meets the eye. Mostly if you look hard enough & long enough you can find what you thought was hidden. Sometimes, it is hidden & quite well too. Other times it is that blatantly obvious that you just dont see it. When it does finally present itself, the usual reaction is, "How the bloody hell did I miss that ?" Every once in a while, you have to ask for help. Sometimes, as the help is happening, the answer becomes obvious & you wonder at the wisdom of using the help. Always, at the end of each scene & at the end of the game, there is the satisfaction of getting there. Some games are harder than others, some appear simple, but are fiendishly difficult. Some look hard, but once you start, become easy. Most of them start out easy to get you thinking, "I can do this!" & get progressively harder & harder. A lot like life really.

Endoscopy number 5

have you ever had one of those revalatory moments when you realise that things have, yet again, gone that pear shaped that they wouldn't look out of place in a pear tree. I have just recently. I'm not sure exactly when it happened. Some time in the last two weeks I think. or maybe the last three, I dunno exactly any more. Jude has been having big problems with her flash new Passport feeding tube. Visits to the doctor & the A& E department at the local hospital, produced the initial diagnosis of infection, changed to fungal infection, then back to infection again. She was very swollen & tender around the stoma with a not very nice looking problem that we found out was called granulation. (Look it up) All this was not helped by our lovely neurology nurse being on leave.

It all came to a head on Monday morning. I took some photos & emailed them through. Tuesday morning saw us yet again at day patients with yet another length of garden hose down her throat. The problem was that the fitting had started to work its way out to the outside. She is now back to the good old mark 1 PEG tube. We are both starting to develop the attitude of "If it aint broke, dont fix it." The surgeon is talking about some flash new fitting for January , but.... We dunno...

Jude is a great one for planting vege's. Even when she could eat them, we always ended up with far too much in the garden. She has cut back a lot this year, but we still cant keep up. It gave me a lot of pleasure tonight to give away a beautiful cauliflower, some second growth broccolli & some rhubarb to a dear friend who is finding things a bit difficult at the moment. I must be going soft in the head I think, because I'm starting to find a simple pleasure in planting something & watching it grow. Got to do something constructive seeing as how fishings out at the moment...

We've had a crap week.

I've lost count of how long its been now since Herself has been herself. basically, I think, since she has had this new feeding tube fitted. We went to the doc initially because the stoma was a bit messy & there was a hard lump to one side of the stoma. We started out with antibiotics switching to an anti fungal following test results, then back to anti bi's when the fungal thing was cleared up, but she was still swollen & tender. We are hopefully seeing the specialist on Tuesday. We both agree that he can take his new fitting & put it where the monkey put the peanuts. We will be quite happy if he puts the old type PEG tube back. At least Jude can operate that on her own, which she cant with the new one. She really doesn't need another reminder of motor skills that she is slowly losing.

On the plus side, Herself's new lazyboy chair has arrived. Its one of those extremely expensive powered jobbys that tilt forward far enough to make standing up a lot easier. I also found this gem on the net.....

It's been a good year for the roses...

I know, because I've been out pruning them lately. We have a guarded relationship roses & I. They tear big lumps out of me while I'm mowing the lawns & I wear a pair of welding gauntlets when I prune them. I dont know a lot about pruning roses. I probably do it all at the wrong time. I take off the dead head heads & cut back fairly hard on the low growing suckers that threaten to take all the skin off my ankles when I go to cut silverbeet to eat. They never get sprayed, or treated with the special stuff that you are supposed to anoint them with when you prune them, but they still grow & grow lustily. I've always liked that word & wanted to use it, now I have. I will admit though, that there is something that soothes the soul with puddling about in the garden. Pruning is a fairly low effort job for me & is about as close to nature as I care to get. The beech tree is in full leaf & the Starlings that come to the nesting boxes high in the branches are in full song & look absolutely beautiful. Throw in the dulcet tones of a tui & its just about as good as it gets.

If you are wondering, the rose pictured above is one of ours & is called Anna's Love. Jude planted it when our darling grand daughter Anna was born. Aside from the look, it has a most beatiful scent as well.

So yes, it HAS been a good year for the roses, which I guess is some consolation for Jude, because it's been a tough year in other respects. Not just for us either. A dear friend, Peter, otherwise known as Cwnda lost his wife Jean on Friday morning. Pete, we love you & mourn your loss along side you. Our prayers & thoughts are with you. Jude has had a couple of visits to the doctor this week because of an infection in her stoma. Apparently, its a yeast infection & tonight it was that tender & swollen I elected to take her to the hospital to get it checked. Hopefully, the medication will do its thing in the next 2 or 3 days, but we will be watching it closely I assure you.

Our medical practice, or the board running it, have bought the Brian Boru Hotel, one of the older watering holes in town.


They are going to keep the upstairs as accomodation & turn downstairs into a licensed restaurant & art gallery. its going to need some quite extensive renovation & repair, as nothing has been done to it for 10 years or so. We have been invited to the blessing ceremony, which is going to happen at 7.00 AM on Monday. Nice to see the old "Briney" stay in local hands. Just looking at the calendar is scary. damn we have had a lot of places to go & people to see & be seen by this month. To think we naively hoped to be in the South Island by now.........

We had a party today

Herself decided that it was time all our new neighbors got to know each other, so we had a BBQ at our place today. We had a blast. Everyone really enjoyed themselves. the kids were like little seals in the spa pool & all us grownups had a ball getting to know each other. one of our new neighbors sings professionally. She grew up in the States. She has seen Grateful Dead play live. She knew John Lee Hooker & recorded with him, including the last track he ever recorded. And she wants to learn songs from me. And she loves my old 12 string & plays it beautifully. Sings like a bird too. So after she went home & got her guitar, we had a jam session. Everybody really enjoyed it.

We all had a great time & made a heap of new friends. Made a wonderful change from all our trials & tribulations of late.

The Passport

Jude had her new plumbing fitted on Friday. Its called a Passport. This is a photo of what it looks like from the sharp end of an endoscope. It was all quite a big deal, with the company rep there to observe & all. You see, its the first one to be fitted in New Zealand, so it was all a bit of a fuss. Its a lot lower maintenance than a MIC KEY button. Now that its in, it should be good for at least 12 months. a mic key, you have to check the water in the bubble once a week.

I do hope that this is alright, because every time she has an anaesthetic, she loses a little more of her mobility. Her diet is getting more restricted all the time & its getting harder to find her things that she can eat. I feel mean every time I sit down for a meal of something like steak, that we have both enjoyed in the past, but, bless her, she is very understanding. It's just that at the moment its very hard to find the incentive to cook for one.

She has organised a get together for all our neighbors in & immediately around our right of way. Its just a sort of bring your own stuff & chuck it on the barby sort of get to know your new neighbours sort of thing & should go relatively well I hope. We can all sit down & discuss what an asshole the new animal control ranger is. He ponces round in military style overalls tucked into high top boots & has a serious attitude. I saw him eying up poor old Misty as he was hobbling home down the drive the other day.

We should feel special I guess, with all the attention that we get from Waikato Hospital. They really do look after us very well, with all the help that one could possibly ask for. Somehow though, it would be much nicer if our biggest worry was paying the rates.

Oh yes! on that subject, our local council has passed a new bylaw. It would appear that we now have to pay $65.00 a year for the privilege of parking our boat trailors on council property while we go fishing on the peninsular now. What a rip off ! It would be nice if ratepayers who are resident here got at least some form of discount... Retires to basement muttering about mixes of fertiliser & diesel & appropriate months of the year.....

P.S. I was gonna upload a pic of Jude's new fitting but for some reason I cant upload any pics at the moment, so you'll just have to wait until I can OK ?

Thoughts on strength

We were supposed to go fishing today, but we didn't. Herself didn't have a good night last night. I think that was partly due to me having a good night. Some nights I actually manage to sleep right through, but there is always a penalty. I snore. On those nights Herself moves out to the spare room. In itself, not going fishing isn't a big thing. It's what it represents more that has reduced me to tears at this point. It's another lot of good memories that have been denied me by this disease she has.

I'm being very selfish here, but also I hope, very honest. You see, what is happening with Herself, aside from the fact that it is killing her is affecting me very badly at this point. There are so many things that I miss. The sound of her voice saying "I love you." Talking to her plants. Singing along to the radio in Sherman with her. She had such a sweet voice as those of you that know her will attest. We have lost so much already & days like this just accentuate it badly.

Yet she shows such strength. When we go shopping, even if its just for groceries, she still finds the time to write, "Thank you" on her talking board. She has the most amazing inner strength that is helping her cope with life. I know it is affecting her though. Especially when I get up at 2.00 AM & find her here on the computer playing games to numb her mind. We both read a lot these days. Thats good anesthesia as well.

I'm pretty much sticking to my resolution to do something constructive every day. Some days its easier than others to do stuff. Today I don't know if anything will get done, although it's only ten & already I feel like its afternoon. A Chinese philosopher once said that the longest journey begins with the first step. He had nothing, I don't think to say about the strength of character needed to take the one after that , and the next. Then the one following that & all the subsequent ones. I don't like digging the vegetable garden all that much, so I just look at the bit that I'm digging & try not to look at the unturned bit. Human nature is a terrible thing though & it's next to nigh impossible not to raise your head to look at what is to come.

On a journey, its that steep climb, or the rickety suspension bridge with only a few boards between you & a screaming drop to the rocks below. In the garden, there is that difficult corner where one of Herself's roses lie in wait for an unwary arm, or the stubborn patch of Couch grass at the end under the trellis. But there are compensations. After the climb, or the nerve shattering creep across the bridge, there is the satisfaction of arriving at your destination, meeting friends or relatives, or seeing new sights. With the garden, there is the gentle joy of seeing newly turned rich dark earth, where there was once only weeds & puggy clay & the anticipation of eating warm fresh tomatoes straight from the vine.

With my life at the moment, I am trying very hard not to look beyond the next step, or the next spadeful of earth. Most days I succeed, but every once in a while, human nature dictates that I rear my ugly head & look at what the future holds. Materially & financially things look OK. It's only when I start looking at the things that really matter that I start seeing the steep & rocky hill, the missing bridge planks, the weeds that are next to impossible to eradicate & most of all, the thorns that cut deep & bleed the soul. I'm not a quitter. This isn't a fight that I will walk away from. This is my life & its the only one I have. I will care for Jude with all that I have while I have her to care for. This I will do because I love her, not because I feel any sense of duty , or any sort of obligation, but love.

It's only when I lift my head & try to picture what lies ahead in my life that things really get shaky for me. When I was 12, I used to imagine what it would be like to be 21 & paint pictures in my head of what my life would be, now that I was "A MAN" It came as a major revelation that nothing changed. I was still me. My next mental milestone was turning 5o in the year 2000. That milestone came & went too. My life was nothing at all like I had envisaged in younger years. I really have stopped looking ahead now. My 20 odd years with Jude have indeed been my days of wine & roses. OK, there have been a few thorns & a bit of couch grass & the odd rocky bit along the way, but they have been & still are, the best years of my life. Thats why when things don't happen when they should now I find it upsetting. Its a bit like getting close to the bottom of a really good bottle of wine I guess. You really savour the last few mouthfuls because you know there aren't going to be any more.

I haven't really been avoiding you

I've just had a lot happening inside my head lately. Things have been getting more than a little on top of me one way & another. The weather hasn't helped. When I quit work, one of the guys in Auckland that I know gave me a whole heap of stuff. Among it was one of his company work shirts, with the remark that it was my new fishing shirt, because it's UV resistant. We went fishing a week or two back. I hauled it out of the wardrobe & came to the realisation that I hadn't actually used it or been out fishing since i quit work. Not good. We have now been out a couple of times. Not much in the way of fish, but we enjoyed ourselves.

Another problem is lack of social contact for me. We have come to a bit of a hiatus in our travels & I miss socialising. To remedy that, I have started volunteer driving to take patients from our medical center to Waikato Hospital. have done two trips for them so far.

Meantime, I'm getting back into actually achieving something every day at home. So far so good. Pretty soon, I'm gonna have to bite the bullet & actually start concreting. Herself goes to waikato hospital on Friday for hopefully what will be the last in the series of feeding tubes for a good 12 months or so. now all we got to do is get her wonky knee sorted out..

Old Dan's Records.

I recently did a bit of what for me was a very clever little bit of horse trading. The details aren't important, but for me, its a win win situation. I have ended up with a lot more space in my garage & a kickass stereo system. I've been busy the last couple of days sorting it all out & installing it to my satisfaction. Its absolutely fantastic. I wont bore you with all the details, but I now have Wharfedale speakers at one end of the lounge & my good old trusty Fishers at the other end. TV & DVD all run back through it as well..

One of the things I had to do to run extra speaker wiring was shift one of the stacks of LP's that I have on the shelves. Its fatal to do that with me. It wasn't long before I was siting there thinking, "Hey, I haven't heard that one in a long time... Or this one. " See , these days I have such a good collection of CD's & they are so easy to play that I haven't given my vinyl much though. So there was "Gord's Gold" sitting there. Gordon Lightfoot. So me being a glutton for punishment I HAD to put it on. Herself is away at patchwork, so I can play it how I like... LOUD.

The only problem with playing Lightfoot is the memories he brings back. Some of the tracks bring back memories going right back to when my first marriage broke up. Good memories of a friend that I now have no idea where he is. he was a good friend at a tough time & he used to know Gordon. We used to sit in the cabin of his yacht & I would play & sing & he would sit there with a far away look on his face. He would tell me how much I reminded him of Gordon & how well we would get on.

One of the tracks on this album herself & I had played at our wedding. Its a very appropriate song for us now. We had no idea of the implications in it at the time. The track is Rainy Day People. Here it is..

A few of my Favourite things

Don't expect all the raindrops on mittens & hound dogs on kittens garbage that Julie andrews sings about in The Sound of Music. For the record, it is my proud boast that I have never actually SEEN that movie. Sorry, but Julie Andrews just don't spin my wheels somehow. Even the picture above isn't actually one of my favourite things. I'm more your basic hunter gatherer type. I'd rather go out & kill something to eat rather than wait for it to grow.

However, the look on Herself's face when she found out that I had installed the above picture as her desktop wallpaper was definitely right up there on my list of favourite things though. So is the taste of fresh snapper. I had almost forgotten that one. We got out fishing on Wednesday. It wasn't till I got back that I realised that we hadn't actually been out since I quit work. Thats way too long. It wasn't the best of days & we only caught 5 snapper, but that was enough for two nice meals for us. Sadly, Herself can't eat battered fish any more, but I had a bright idea & she enjoyed her fish. I pan fried it & served it with a lovely (even though I say it myself) caper sauce. Turned out nice it did.

The picture at the top of the page ? That's Herselfs favourite clematis out the front of our house. It is really looking rather beautiful at the moment even if you can't eat it.

Keerist its CCCCCCold !!!!!

Old man Winter has snuck up & smacked us round the ear for one last (hopefully) time it would seem. Ever since my son arrived from Southern Climes, the weather has been crap. We were intending to be down south by this stage, but I'm glad we're not. Im even glad that our trip to Hastings is out of the way as Jack Frosts icy fingers have insinuated themselves far enough North to close the Napier Taupo Highway as well as the Desert Road & a heap of other alternatives as well.

Once again, we have given in & lit the fire. It IS bloody cold here, as you can see by the attached pics. Both Tigs & Misty burrowed their way under their respective blankets for the afternoon as you can see by the attached photo's.
















Meanwhile, I carry on polishing the boat. Damn its going to look good when it finally gets on the water.....

Progress (I guess)

We had yet another outing to Waikato Hospital today. Its gotten so that the staff at Day patient Clinic know us by name. All we have to do now is show up & the rest happens. Herself had to go & have another endoscopy so that her plumbing could be rearranged & so that the ologist in charge of her case could see why the Micki Button wasn't a howling success. For those of you that don't know, an endoscopy is when you are mildly sedated,(to at least the point of insensibility) a plumbing device not unlike a length of garden hose with a light a little clamp on it is passed down the throat into the stomach. In Jude's case today, the light was turned on so that the ologist could see what the problem was, her current fitting removed from the outside, a wire fed in through the hole which was grabbed by the clamp & pulled back up through the throat. The new bit was then pulled down & through the hole with the mushroom sitting neatly against the wall of the stomach on the inside.

The reason that the Micki was hurting her was that it was protruding through far enough that it was touching the opposite wall of the stomach. The inside wall of the stomach is quite touchy about things like this & was continually trying to get rid of it the only way it knew, ie, swallowing it. Tired & scratchy I think would describe it. Anyway, the new fitting is in & at least there is an improvement in it as the fitting that holds it in place on the outside has a right angle bend in it, which makes it a lot less conspicuous than the original one. The Ologist has also managed to source out a new & improved Micki Button. Instead of having about an inch of tube & a latex balloon on the inside, this one has the same mushroom fitting that she has now. Even better is the fact that she doesnt have to have another endoscopy to fit it. This gubbins is fed into a metal tube which straightens out the mushroom, fed in from the outside & the tube removed leaving the mushroom in place on the inside.. White man's magic to the nth degree.

OTHER NEWS....

We be both busting our asses to get out fishing, but the weather isn't co operating. In fact, we actually gave in & lit the fire last night. Its not only us hanging out. One of the Ginger Ninja's saw me getting the boat out to take it in for a service & thought we were off & decided she was coming as well. This is a water safe cat seen licking its chops in anticipation of a feed of nice fresh fish...


That's her story anyway & I suspect she will stick to it........

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..

Stevie Ray Vaughan & Me

I turned over the vege garden this afternoon. There is something very satisfying about turning over a garden when the soil is rich & friable. Its even more satisfying when you know that the soil id that way because of your own efforts. When we moved in, it wasn't a good garden at all. The soil was all puggy, heavy & a lot of clay. Over the years that we have been here, I have invested a lot of time & effort into that dirt. All the fish gut gets buried there for a start. I have lost track of how many trailor loads of mulch that I have brought back from the dump & dug into it. Also, I have put a lot of compost from our own bins into it as well.

It's paid off. We now have this garden that is nice light black soil. The layer of clay has broken down into a lovely sandy loam, that aerates the soil nicely. It is all absolutely swarming with worms as well. Herself came out & planted some cabbages & tomato plants. Not as many as she has in the past, though I have no doubt that more will follow. It was a nice afternoon to be doing it as well. Sunny, but not opressively hot.

So what part did Stevie Ray play in all this ? Well, him & Double Trouble provided the entertainment. Work like that always goes a lot better with some laid back music to listen to. Its almost as good as the cold beer afterwards...

The next exciting episode....

Sad, but true, there will be a slight hiatus in the continuing saga after this episode. Hawkeye's puter has packed a big sad & is currently in the computer hospital. I did try to tell him not to take the concept of punching information into it QUITE so literally, but...........

The saga continues.....

Actually, Hawkeye has now settled down & is being relatively truthful. Read on, gentle reader..........

I publish these with the rider that I make no veracity as to the authenticity or truthfulness of the narrative. If you click on the images, they will expand to a readable size. When you read them, please remember that they are writ by an ex fireman renowned for mendacity & the extension to near breaking point of the truth. In seriousness, its all a bit of fun. Enjoy...

Thus far have I come...

On our way back, we stopped in at Kaiwaka & found the cemetery where my great great grandmother, Ann Leslie, nee Bairnson is buried. A remarkable lady, who came here from the Shetland Islands in the mid 1800's & settled at Kaiwaka. This a picture of her headstone. We did see the grave some 20 years ago at a family reunion, but the new stone hadn't been installed then. We both found it a very poignant experience to be there on our own...

And Herself wonders where the stubborn streak comes from....

We knocked the bugger off

Herself is healing very nicely post op with the gall bladder thing & we were getting somewhat bored sitting around home staring at each other. Its not that we are sick of the sight of each other or anything you understand, its just that we have been doing a fair to middling bit of it lately & felt like a change, so a change we had.

Tuesday, we loaded Sherman with our worldlies, ( well, as much of them as we needed for a week or so anyway,) & headed north. Well, as far as Waipu anyway. A very dear friend of ours has this amazing place that her & her husband have created on 10 acres of beautiful land. THIS is it. No point in me raving on about it. Just go look at the pictures. Grant & Annette spoilt us rotten & we had a lovely time catching up on whats been happening in our respective worlds & exploring the area. Herself added to her experiences by going for a paddle in a kayak. I couldnt get my fat ass into one, so elected to puddle along behind in the little plastic dinghy. We went across the estuary & went for a walk along a totally deserted stretch of beautiful ocean beach. Lovely. Herself & I also got to see our first native Kaka in the wild in some trees on another patch of land that Annette owns.

This is what they look like. One of our few native parrots, & they are beautiful in the wild. There are 4 of them there, & it would be reasonable to assume that they were blown over to the mainland from Little Barrier Island where there is a reasonably large colony of them. They are very inquisitive & will actually come down & talk to you.


From there, we headed yet further North. Kaikohe in fact, to spend a couple of nights there with my old Fire Brigade buddy, Hawkeye. He generously agreed to accompany us to Cape Reinga, the most northerly part of New Zealand accessible to the general public. It's a long drive up there & I really didn't want to put Sherman on the beach, so we went by road. For those that don't know, Te Reinga is where the Tasman & the Pacific oceans meet at the top of NZ & it can be very dramatic. It is also a very important place spiritually to the Maori, as this picture shows.

Their belief is that this is where their spirits come to so that they can start their journey to the underworld. Standing there, it is very easy to believe it. This is the point mentioned in the previous pic Its all very dark & broody.
This is Herself standing in front of the sign that shows how far it is to all sorts of places. Its sort of obligatory to take this pic.



This is what it looks like where two oceans meet. Its very hard to do it justice. It was a relatively calm day up there, but it still looked like a washing machine with about 8 or 9 foot swells running


Cape Maria Van Deiman, named after the wife of an early Dutch explorer is just around the corner on the Tasman side. Its a lovely spot, but the day we were there , the wind was blowing quite steadily into the bay. It would not be a good place to be in a sailing ship. There is no way to get out of it. The end would be quite inevitable.

Anyway, so ends the first part of our travels. As we have already been to New Plymouth & Wellington, that only leaves the East Cape to go & we have covered all 4 extremities of the North Island. All up, we covered just over 1000 km's & enjoyed every inch of them. More later...

Peace Love & Mud

Well rock on.. Today is the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. THE Woodstock. I didn't go to it. I would have liked to though. Don't know if I could have stood it or not. Half a million is a lot of groovy people. To quote Wikipedia...


Woodstock Music & Art Fair (informally, Woodstock or The Woodstock Festival) was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition", held at Max Yasgur's 600 acre (2.4 km²; 240 ha, 0.94 mi²) dairy farm in the rural town of Bethel, New York from August 15 to August 18, 1969. Bethel, in Sullivan County, is 43 miles (69 km) southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, in adjoining Ulster County.

Thirty-two acts performed during the sometimes rainy weekend in front of nearly half a million concertgoers. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest moments in popular music history and was listed on Rolling Stone's 50 Moments That Changed the History of Rock and Roll.

So Sayeth Wikipedia. I'm gonna put this clip in (a) because I like the song, & (b) because the video with it typifies the whole Woodstock thing, (c) because I really dig Arlo Guthry, & (c) I dont remember, so rock on.........

RIP Michael Jackson

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know its a while ago now since he died, but I just found this on Youtube & I HAD to share it with you. Its probably about the funniest 4 minutes that I have watched in a while...


In other news, Herself's youngest son is coming down for the weekend & we are hopeful that her daughter will come as well & bring the grandchildren. Will keep ya posted. Meanwhile, enjoy...

Pilgrim's Progress

The last few days have been overwhelming. So many people contacting us with kind wishes. On behalf of Herself & I thank you all. She is improving nicely day to day. The hardest thing I guess, is that she has to further restrict an already restricted diet. We have to get used to a new low fat diet as well now. Still, I had a brainwave yesterday. The freezer cabinets at the supermarket have quite a range of prepackaged weight watcher meals, so we have stocked the freezer with them. I felt for her at lunchtime today though, when I was eating a salad, which she used to really enjoy & now can't. She burst into tears. Not good.

I'm actually trying to lose weight. I have put on quite a bit since I quit work. You dont need to know how much, but its too much. So I have to eat salad & stuff. I have finally realised that I dont need to eat as much as I used to. Putting this in to practise isnt easy though.

Reality is biting a bit for us both in the dietary department I guess. Anyway, she is improving nicely & hopefully it won't be too long before we can start tripping around the place. She has 4 small cuts on her tum that didn't even require stitches, so apart from being a bit tender, she is progressing well. Once again thank you everybody for your love & concern.

Let there be light

Indeed.. The good news is that Herself has come through her op with flying colours. She went up to surgery at Thames Hospital at 1.00 pm this afternoon, was down at the ward by 3.00, sitting up at 3.30, after a coffee by 4.00, eating a meal & changing into her own PJ's by 6.00.

I must admit to being greatly relieved that it's all over. She is still a bit uncomfortable, but the surgeons were able to do the op using keyhole surgery, so all she has is 4 small cuts about an inch long each, so hopefully she will bounce back quickly. I can't thank you all enough for your kind wishes & thoughts. Believe me it means a lot to us both. Hopefully, we will be on the road soon. Once again, thankyou

Coffee & Confessions

I went out for coffee with a very nice young lady last week. Just me & her. We talked for about 3 hours or so. She is the support lady for the Motor Neurone Society. I have never had a lot of time for so called "Support" people. It has been my experience in the past that they are mostly concerned with looking fashionable than helping. This particular lady is a treasure though. I must admit that I wondered to myself at the time about the value of going & talking to her, I thought that I had things fairly well sorted out in my head. Well,without seeming to poke or pry, she managed to get me to talk about all manner of deeply personal things that I haven't even thought about myself for a long time, let alone discussed with anybody.

Its taken me a while to come to terms with this & I don't think that I have sorted out quite yet where it all fits inside my head yet. I've deliberately kept myself busy since, only taking out little bits here & there to think about. Phil came down this weekend to see his mum. That was good for the both of them. I sort of tried to keep out of the way as much as I could to give them time together. They both need that at this point.

Herself goes into Thames Hospital for her gallbladder surgery tomorrow. She is looking forward to it & I don't blame her. It will be so good for her to be free of the nagging constant pain at last. As for me, I'm not sure , but I think for some reason at the moment that I have a mix of hopelessness & quiet desperation. There is so much I want to do for & with her, but every time we try, some obstacle rears its ugly head yet again. Heres hoping that this is the last of it & that there is only the quality time ahead that she so richly deserves.

Well, thats about it. I'll keep you all informed as to how things go. Have a good week OK ?

On Black Humour

I love it especially when its subtle. I was watching a British sitcom called "Not Going Out" with Herself tonight. This episode was centered around one of the actors, Tim, played by Tim Vine's Gran dying. The quip in question occurred at Gran's after funeral gathering. It was so subtle that Herself missed it completely. To appreciate it, you have to know that Tim's sidekick, Lee, has a joke for every occasion. In this particular bit, Tim had just been bought another in a long running gag bits, a glass of Creme de Menthe. About the 10th of his afternoon. Something was said about it & he replied, "No,no. I'm just here to toast Gran." He then turned very quickly to his friend & said,"And NO cremation jokes from YOU either."

I just about soiled myself laughing. Herself sat & looked at me with that look on her face that sort of said,"Hmmmm... Should I get the gun now or later.." When I had calmed down enough to explain it to her, she still didn't find it particularly funny. I guess that under the circumstances I can forgive her. I still think its a very clever , very funny throw away gag though...

Oh yeah !

If you have nothing better to do, go & vote for my entry in the Can has cheese burgers page. Its here. http://cheezburger.com/view.aspx?ciid=4884183 Your vote would be much appreciated. The pic actually is one of my cats, Tiggerpuss, chasing the cursor on the screen. Its her new thing & I couldn't resist the pic. Ta muchly

Thunderbirds are GO

Yep its all systems go for next Tuesday. After an appointment with the anaethistist, (Picture below) & much humming & hahhing & much consultations of notes & files & stuff &
expeditions up & down two flights of stars which left him as out of breath as Herself & a phone call to Waikato Hospital to consult with a colleague there accompanied by more humming & hahhing, he decided that it was a safe bet to go ahead & do Herself's colysistectomy at Thames. (Thats gallbladder taking out to you non latin types) He really didn't have much choice in the matter. Everyone from the surgeon on down to the toilet cleaner probably would have lynched him if he had decided otherwise. He is actually a very nice, caring sort of guy, as are all of the staff up there. The place is a lot less clinical & a lot more friendly than the big hospitals. Even so, its a bit discombobulating sitting there talking to a very hirsute individual clad in jeans tee shirt & steelcap slip on work boots. He looks like he would be more at home up the back paddock fixing a fence or two. But he obviously knows his job or he wouldn't be there. We trust him anyway.