The Joys of Travel (or Not Being Able To).

It's Friday evening.  The Family has left The Cottage having been fed and watered.  The decks have been cleared.  The dishwasher is on.  The place is tidy.  

Martin and David are on their way to Wellington accompanied by Wendy who will share the driving and drive the car back tomorrow.  Martin and David are supposed to be setting foot in Scotland sometime on Friday UK time.  As it is they will be leaving Wellington around 0700 tomorrow for a 7 hour stopover in Sydney airport.  They will all get about 4 hours sleep tonight.

Over the last few days I've started half a dozen posts.  Then something has happened that has altered everything.  Of course if you haven't got internet then you can't publish the post immediately and other things can come along and make that which you said irrelevant or completely out of date.  This week has been very much like that.  I had no internet (other than a weak signal on my iPhone insufficient to be of use for tethering the laptop) from Wednesday afternoon until this afternoon.

Yesterday the storm raged:  the continuation of Tropical Cyclone Ida which wreaked havoc up the north coast of New South Wales before wandering out to sea again and making a nuisance of itself over here.  We got away lightly with no damage although the wind and rain was the worst I've experienced here.  Some have had severe damage and the West Coast of the South Island has had lots of damage and Christchurch has had more flooding to add to its woes.   However Martin and David’s flight to Auckland was cancelled last night because of the weather.  The knock on effect was that they were still at home when they should have been on the flight from Auckland to Scotland.  There isn’t another with the same airline until Wednesday.

However after a full evening and a full day today negotiating with the airlines and the insurance company and with the help of their travel agent, they have booked seats on another airline in the morning.  The downside is a 5 hour drive this evening in the dark down to Wellington and a return journey for Wendy tomorrow.

It made all my irritations look unimportant just as the disaster in Korea put their travel disruptions into perspective.

On the plus side yesterday I managed to get a replacement small plastic lever for the recliner chair and fit it.  

An Rather Extraordinary Day

For most of this year, which is now into its second month would you believe, here in Hawkes Bay we have been having temperatures into the late 20s and 30s.  Yesterday it was a fairly moderate 27℃ and I was a very happy bunny.  So imagine my discombobulation (gosh the spillchucker allowed that) when today the rain has set in overnight (cancelling our doubles croquet match this morning) and the temperature is, wait for it.....12℃ (yes, really, that's 53℉).  Last night I went to bed with the air conditioning taking the edge off the heat of the night and this evening I could justify putting it on to provide some warmth.

This morning I woke up to an email from Pat on Lewis.  The central heating in my house on Lewis is playing up yet again.  Mind you with winds gusting up to 127 mph a short while ago and more storms forecast anything could happen.  This map shows that the heaviest seas on the planet will be hitting the Outer Hebrides in the next day or two.

 

Do you ever get misled by the constant phone and cellphone beeps and rings from the television or is it just me who seems constantly to be looking to see what's happening when the television is on?  Today someone in the background of a new programme had a phone which beeped and I spent a few puzzled moments before I realised that it wasn't my phone.

The highlight of my day was solving the start of the hardest Codecracker that I've ever done.  I've been at it since last Wednesday.  Pitiful it's been.

Night night.

How Things Can Change

After a cold, miserable week of constant rain and greyness, yesterday dawned clear and the temperature shot up during the day from 9℃ (48℉) to 32℃ (90℉) on the deck in the shade.

This morning I woke before 6am and dawn and made myself a cup of tea and went back to bed with Zoe.  By 7am the sun was up and the view from my bed was:

So now, nearly an hour later, watching the morning news and weather forecast I am astonished to see that by this afternoon we are supposed to be having full rain again.  I'm hoping it won't because I've still got croquet matches to play and time is running out.

The Front Passes Through

This morning the weather front passed through with a very marked delineation between the heavy cloud of the past few days and the promise of sun and warmth coming in from the West.

A Journey to Northland

Yesterday I left on the 1255 flight from Napire to Auckland to connect with the flight to Whangerei.  That was the idea.  It was a hot and reasonably good day in Napier with gale-force Northelies.  The plane was late.  On board we were told the flight time would take longer than normal (but the eta would still give me 10 minutes to catch the connection).  We landed 10 minutes after my onward flight should have left.  Luck was on my side and that, too, was running late.  So I arrived in Whangerie only about 50 minutes late despite being held over the airport whilst a severe squall went through.

The Northland break looked doomed to be spent in wetness as promised by the weather forecasts as we drove West:

Soon the skies grew slightly less heavy:

And as evening came we arrived at our temporary accommodation in Kohukohu overlooking the Hokianga Harbour.  The view from the deck was, well I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions:

This morning, though, the forecast rains didn't materialise and we woke to:

I was delighted because although we could still have done out pilgrimage around the churches of the South-West of Northland the photography would not have been the same in the the murk of a rainy day.  I like the sun!

On Rain, Poetry and The Law.

This has, by common agreement, been the most miserable summer here in Hawkes Bay that most people seem to be able to recall.  Of course these statements are often made when the weather is miserable but there is absolutely no doubt that this is the most miserable summer since I first came here to New Zealand in 2005.

It has always been one of our family sayings that:

“The rain it raineth on the just
And also on the unjust fella;
But chiefly on the just, because
The unjust steals the just’s umbrella.”

I wondered this evening whether that saying was just a family one or whether it had wider provenance.  Lo and behold I discovered that it was attributed to the English Judge, Lord Bowen (Charles Synge Christopher Bowen, Baron Bowen QC, PC (1 January 1835 – 10 April 1894)).

Now I wouldn't expect any of my readers to have heard of this august member of the judiciary however, as it so happens, the name was known to me.  Why?  Well when I read law one of the most famous and basic tests was that of the "man on the back of the Clapham omnibus".  (The man on the Clapham omnibus is a hypothetical reasonable person, used by the courts in English law where it is necessary to decide whether a party has acted in the way that a reasonable person should.)

Who had originated this test?  You guessed it: Charles Bowen as he then was as Counsel in the famous Tichborne Case.

As an aside Lord Bowen was no literary slouch either and amongst many other things translated Virgil's Eclogues, and Aeneid, books i.-vi.  

More interestingly, for me at least, was another of his quotes:  “When I hear of an 'equity' in a case like this, I am reminded of a blind man in a dark room - looking for a black hat - which isn't there”  I just love that.

Having said all that, despite the dreary day and the rain, I played a game of Association Croquet this afternoon and played much to my personal satisfaction.   Then I played a hugely enjoyable game of one-ball with my original AC mentor and at the end he won by the narrowest margin possible.  We finished, wet and very happy. 

I had originally intended to quote Longfellow's poem The Rainy Day but felt that it's tenor, though very apt in some ways, in no way reflected the joy and lightness of my mood.  Nevertheless as I'd looked the words up to remind myself of them I shall quote them anyway:

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

Tomorrow the forecast is for showers; Wednesday it's rain; Thursday and Friday showers.  In fact the weather map is almost totally devoid of sun this week.  The vignerons are getting worried.

Me?  Tonight I couldn't be happier.