Cheeky!

One of the problems of outdoor eating in Napier centre is that you get mugged by sparrows. I was trying to photograph this sparrow take food from someone's hand when he decided that my apple shortbread was a better feed.

Sileni's for Lunch

Anna (one of Wendy and Martin's friend's Mum) returns to Glasgow on Monday and it's also her Birthday today. So June, Anna and I went to Sileni's Winery (half an hour away from the centre of Napier just South of Hastings) for lunch. As with all the prestigous wineries the food and wine were excellent as was the service and the ambience. Sileni is a place where you go for the outside experience. Today was perfect: not too hot.

Impressive drive

Impressive facade

View from one of the seating areas

The return journey

The drive out

Especially for Mark: a corkscrew forest

Trundlers by any Other Name

They is funny things is words.

Here a shopping trolley or a shopping cart is a trundler. In North America it's a buggy. In France it's a chariot but you would expect it to be something different in France. Actually in France the latest ones (which I've never seen anywhere else) are vastly superior to the universal wire version.

Of course as languages develop in separate countries differences appear. As CJ learned from his American colleague 'waste paper basket' which is used in the UK is the modern form and 'trash can' is not a modern Americanism but the old English which, for once, the Americans have not altered.

After all, when speaking of England and America ‘Two nations separated by a common language.’ sometimes the inquirer asks, ‘Was it Wilde or Shaw?’ The answer appears to be: both. In The Canterville Ghost (1887), Wilde wrote: ‘We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language’. However, the 1951 Treasury of Humorous Quotations (Esar & Bentley) quotes Shaw as saying: ‘England and America are two countries separated by the same language’, but without giving a source. The quote had earlier been attributed to Shaw in Reader’s Digest (November 1942). And that's just a few of the attributions.

But, hey, I was really just talking of New Zealand and trundlers. So if you ever want to park your shopping trolley in this country (a long way if you are in the Coop in Stornoway) you just look for the Trundler Park.

A Quiz by any Other Name

Marsha and Callum and I were up at Wendy and Martin's on Monday night for dinner and to play Buzz! The Mega Quiz which is sold as the all-new interactive quiz game. "Buzz! The Mega Quiz is an easy to play, TV-style game show that delivers a socially competitive experience tailor-made for the PlayStation® generation with over 5000 questions across a variety of topics and genres, including fashion, music, sports, film and more. Buzz provides an accessible gaming experience that is played competitively by real people [there is another sort of person?] using one of four pick up and play Buzz! Buzzers. The Buzzers are fun to hold, easy to use and come packed in with the game." There's more to the blurb including "Buzz! The Mega Quiz brings the ultimate interactive game-show to your living room. with easy to use “Buzzers” and the general knowledge themes on a huge variety of categories allows just about anyone to pickup and play and provide social competitive gaming." In other words it's a modern take on the quiz game. So now you know even if you didn't want to know. And given the known readers of this Blog that will be the great majority.

Buzz provides a game format at which I am spectacularly inept regardless of my ability to answer the questions.

Marsha and Callum (MAC in the picture), however, excelled at the format and at answering the modern music questions:

I Took my Knee to the Doc

I decided that it was about time to take my right knee to see the Doctor again. I took it to see a Doc in Napier in October 2006 because it had been giving me trouble for quite a while and I wanted to make sure that cycling wasn't going to do it any harm. He did all sorts of things to the knee and said that it was fine and that cycling would strengthen the muscles and would be positively beneficial. When I asked how he could tell he said that if it hadn't been then after what he'd just done to me he'd be scraping me off the ceiling. Now that's the sort of explanation I can understand.

It has given me trouble on and off ever since and I mentioned it to several Doctors who have all said the same thing adding that the sporadic nature of the pain could mean a loose piece of cartilage which would probably one day have to be removed. Anyway since last summer the knee has been swollen and it has been giving me quite a lot of trouble recently. Sometimes it makes me wake up in the night with jabs of pain when I fail to turn my lower leg when I turn my body. Now it's started to ache at night vas well as during the day.

So last night I made an appointment and saw a Doc at 0845 this morning. 'Everything' he said 'to do with the cartilage and so on is fine. You probably have arthritis.' Anyway I went off to Hawkes Bay Radiology and had an X-ray. This afternoon the Specialist will prepare a report and the Doc will get it tomorrow morning.

Health service is fast when you are paying for it directly and as you have the treatment. For the most part one does pay for non-accident health care in New Zealand although no-one, whether visitor or resident, pays for accident care.

Arthritis could be a bummer. Why? Because it could interfere with my croquet! Ah well.

I thought this was a pretty boring posting so I though I would treat you to an added photo.

Colourful House

A house on West Shore, Napier.

Thunderstorm

It's late afternoon or early evening whichever 1730 hours is.

We are experiencing the promised thunderstorm. It's really quite spectacular. Not the constant and loud bangs and fearsome ripping lightning that we experienced in Tuscany in Italy in about 1993 when the most spectacular thunderstorm I can remember raged all evening. Not like the incredible thunderstorm that kept Liverpool awake during much of one summer's night some time in the 1970s. In fact not particularly memorable for anything but the fact that the deep heavy rumbling actually makes the ground and the cottage shake very noticeably. It's very weird and just a little bit scary.

The strange irony is that the News on TV at the moment is highlighting the drought much of the Country is experiencing. Until today the Waikato (just South of here) has not had rain since Christmas and Canterbury in the South Island is in a similarly serious predicament. Marlborough, one of the principal wine growing areas (in the North of South Island), is also experiencing serious drought conditions. This does not bode well for livestock and wine prices which are two very significant exports. Mind you, as a person with a UK income, anything which reduces the strength of the N Z Dollar is welcome.

Hot and Humid

It's been very hot and humid this afternoon. By far the most humid day I've experienced here. What's rather odd is that the humidity at the airport at 1600 was only 28% and the temperature was 30 deg. Anyway during the afternoon's play I changed my polo shirt and the new one was soaked within half an hour. I didn't find the heat overpowering just the fact that I was unpleasantly moist! It was quite windy too. Now at 1800 there are threatening clouds, the wind has got very strong and the forecast is for thunderstorms. The temperature on the deck has dropped from 32 to 28 deg.

Why don't flies wound themselves when they fly into windows at the speed they do?

Lifeblood

A week or so ago I was at Ahuriri (part of Napier down on the waterfront) and watched the container ships coming from and going to the harbour. A lot of New Zealand's goods are moved this way and, of course, imports and exports have to come this way - there's no trans-Tasman tunnel!

Waiting to turn into the port channel

Waiting for the outgoing vessel to clear the channel and release the pilot

Pilot cutter leaving vessel with sport fishing boat entering small boat harbour

Pilot cutters/tugs busying themselves

Entering port

Unloading began within 10 minutes of docking

Also in port was this cruise ship - part of New Zealand's huge tourism business

Breakfast on the Deck

Breakfast and a crossword