It's Wednesday

Nothing unusual in that.  In fact it's usually Wednesday once week. I've sort have got used to that even though they come much faster than they used to.  

I was expecting to be playing in a tournament today. In fact I will not be playing until Friday. I have, however, spent the last two days and a couple of hours first thing this morning setting out lawns.  I will be doing the same tomorrow morning at crack of dawn.  Assuming, that is, that of the dawn actually does crack.  After five days of fabulous weather at the tournament last week in Dannevirke yesterday evening the heavens opened and they have been open ever since. I am really surprised that our lawns are playable. However I am at The Cottage up in the hills and the lawns are down near the sea where it's often drier even though it's not far away as the metaphorical crow flies. After the warmest November on record so far in New Zealand the temperature has now dropped here at The Cottage to 15°C.  The end of the nice weather was celebrated by a very spectacular thunder and lightning storm last evening.

I was out of Blogland for most of the time during the last week so I thought today I would catch up while I have the opportunity. I have done very little reading and might not get much opportunity because I have a visitor staying for the week playing in the tournament from today until Sunday evening. 

We had five glorious days in Dannevirke.  The Rangatira Croquet Club is a very hospitable place with 6 good lawns.  I managed a third in the Golf Croquet Level Singles.

One of the members has a Triumph 2500 TC vintage 1973.  It's still used as an everyday car and that day was being roped in to pull the trailer of grass cuttings.

On Saturday evening we ate at the RSA and Citizens Club (RSA = Returned Services Association = UK equivalent of the British Legion) and a few of us played snooker.  Judy and I played and one of us won on a black ball game.  It says something (though I'm not sure what) that I can't actually recall which of us it was!  It was a high scoring game though.

 

Dannevirke KFC

I was in Dannevirke last week.  I've blogged about the place before.  I don't think that I've mentioned the KFC there.  I'm told that it's the smallest KFC in the world.  Unless you know otherwise........

Another Tournament

Tonight I am in Dannevirke for the annual Veterans Croquet Tournament.  This year the entries will be reduced because The Croquet Women's Worlds is being held in Tauranga at the same time. 

I drove down (Dannevirke is about 90 minutes South of Napier) on a road made in heaven for The Handbag.  It was a lovely sunny afternoon and the road is winding, hilly and almost completely free of traffic.

I Considered Modesty

but then decided wotthehellarchiewotthehell.   I've just had an excellent tournament and why shouldn't I be proud of the achievement?  I may have told you before about Miss Twomey who was the Headmistress of the Prep School to which CJ and I went and who, when I was 5,  stressed in one lesson that pride was one of the seven deadly sins and then in the next told us that we should have pride in our work. When I queried this (which, as a five year old, seemed to me to be completely incomprehensible) I was told off for being insolent (or whatever it was I was supposed to have been).   After that I always thought that Miss Twomey was logically challenged.

Anyway I played in three events at the Tournament:  Handicap Association Croquet Singles,  Handicap Golf Croquet Doubles and Championship Golf Croquet Singles.  I enjoyed the first two events and learned a few things at the first event.  I won the Championship event beating a few pretty good players along the way (and, in turn, suffering an occasional defeat by players whom I might have been expected to beat).

All in all it was a great time away.  the Rangitira Club in Dannevirke is an absolutely wonderful facility and the players are excellent hosts.  However there are so few of them the Club may not survive another year.  That would be so so sad.

Dannevirke Revisited

Last November when we came to The Vets I wrote a post about Dannevirke where the tournament is held at the excellent Rangatira Croquet Club.  Today I will just add a few photos of the Town.

New Zealand's oldest provincial cinema established in 1918

 

The Public Trust Office which was a brothel briefly last year

 

A Chinese takeaway is pretty much the same the world over

A Tournament Best Forgotten

Well that's two days I'd rather forget.  I lost all 5 games of Association Croquet.  The irony is that I managed to play exceptionally well in part of each game but never managed to put a whole game together sufficiently to win although I only lost one game by more than a couple of hoops which was exceptionally frustrating.  I am, I have to say, rather less than a happy bunny.  But, hey, ho tomorrow is another day and a different game: Golf Croquet doubles.  My partner and I came second last year. 

So I now have the odd situation that I have not lost a game in the club and not won one away from it.  This has got to change!

Destination Motel, Dannevirke

We are staying in Dannevirke's Destination Motel and it is excellent.  Our unit is large and well appointed and spotless.  The shower is almost instant and very strong and there is a spa bath too.  All in all it's been a good choice.  Mind you I've stayed in some excellent motels and hotels in New Zealand where the standard is high and the prices very reasonable when compared with the UK

 

 

 

A Trip To The Vets

We arrived in Dannevirke last night and are staying at the Destinations Motel.  It is one of the best I've stayed in in North Island.  It'll doubtless find it's way into a later posting.

I'm sitting in the Rangatira Croquet Club clubhouse. I'm here for the Vets Tournament. Not a meeting of vetinarians you understand but of veterans ie those of us over 60. I'm playing Association today and tomorrow and then Golf Croquet Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Last year I didn't play Association and then my partner and I came second in the doubles and, if my memory serves me correctly, I came third in the Championship Singles.

The weather is absolutely idyllic: full sun and only a slight breeze. It'll be up in the mid 20s by lunchtime.

An Association game lasts a maximum of 2 1/2 hours in this tournament and I have a bye in the first round so I have 2 1/2 hours to spare. I've used up much of it now chatting as people wander in and out. So I'll end this and go and have a wander and see how people are doing.  The disadvantage is that anyone with a first round bye goes on to the lawns with no feel for them against an opponent who has just played for a while.  Ah well.

It's not a bad way to spend a life.

Dannevirke

At the moment I'm away at a croquet tournament (The Veteran's or Vet's about which I shall blog separately) at Dannevirke (Danish: "Danish creation" or "Danes' work"), which is a rural service town in the Manawatu-Wanganui area of New Zealand about 90 minutes drive South of Napier. The surrounding area has developed into dairy and sheep farming, which now provides the major income for the town's population of 6,000.

The town was founded on 15 October 1872 by Danish, Norwegian and Swedish settlers, who arrived at the port of Napier and moved inland. The settlers, who arrived under the Public Works Act, built their initial settlement in a clearing of the Seventy Mile Bush. The Dannevirke for which the town was named is an extensive Viking-age fortification line which had a strong emotive symbolic role for 19th Century Danes, especially after the site had fallen into German hands in the German-Danish War of 1864 - a recent and very painful event for these settlers.

The settlement quickly earned the nickname of "sleeper town", as the town's purpose was to provide totara sleepers for the Napier - Wellington railway line. At one stage the area had 50 operating sawmills. After the native bush was cleared, the land was turned into pasture for grazing animals. (Information from Wikepedia - is there anything Wikepedia doesn't tell you?)

It is on the main State Highway 50 South from Hawkes Bay to Wellington and is usually just somewhere one pase through and perhaps has coffee and a comfort stop. It has always seemed very run down to me with half the main street (the SH 50) being taken up with second-hand shops. At the moment there are lots of public works being undertaken to spruce it up.

The Motel in Dannevirke where we are staying. Appropriately named the Viking Motel it was, until fairly recently, the only motel in the town.

Yet another example of wall art.

A modern use for an older building

The Bank of New Zealand branch in Dannevirke

The old Court House, now a museum

The café where Steve and I eventually found a coffee when we toured New Zealand a few years ago

Bizarre or what?

Formerly a hotel now a café

Guess what Danevirke is known for?

The Town Hall and a splendid modern set of electronically controlled toilets. As this is set on the A50 main trunk route they are very popular indeed. I still have some difficulty trusting them though.