Remember Those Baby Bibs?

When we arrived in Whakatane and decamped from Lucy into the motel unit - we always take a large unit.  Usually that means that there are two bedrooms and a bed in the living area.  That means that I get the bed in the living area!  Apart from any other considerations I'm usually awake for several hours after the others are fast asleep.  Anyway, as usual I digress, Gaynor produced a small parcel and gave it to Jayne.  When she opened it it was an apron.  Eh?!  But it wasn't.  It was a bib!  Remember those plastic baby bibs with a foodcatcher?

Apparantly when the team had been away at the Lower North Islands Jayne had produced an apron when they were eating a Thai take-away so that she didn't get any splashes on the white team 'uniform'.   One of the team had made a comment about not using it when they went out for a meal the next day to the St Johns Club in Wanganui.  Needless to say Jayne, being Jayne, did just that.  Rumour has it that Sandra was not amused.  Sandra will never read this because she not possess a computer (nor, although this is totally irrellevant, does she possess a mobile phone).  Well here was the apron proudly modelled by Jayne.

 

 

One thing about Jayne - she's a fantastic sport!

A Pretty Darn Good Day

It's just 1am here in New Zealand and I thought that I'd write a few words before bed.  I've got a huge stack of postings I want to do but this one will have to do for now just so as you know I'm still here.

After 4 hours and 13 minutes (approximately) sleep last night I wrote a few emails and did the usual morning things and then went to croquet in the family's new car.  It hasn't got a name yet but it's a Mitsubishi Grandis.  I was using it today because I was picking Jamie up from school - it's the end of term.  He had quite a lot of gear (he's a weekly boarder) including a table (don't even ask).  I managed a few hours this afternoon trying to catch up before taking Fraser to gym and going out to the Practice to help Wendy with some business projections.  We arrived home just before 10pm.  Several wines later and Wendy has just gone back to The House after the first of our discussions about life, the Universe and everything since I returned in October. 

It seemed such an ordinary day.  But I am so thankful for days such as this.  Life is pretty darn good.

Taking A Liberty

I'm not one of the world's most enthusiastic pet lovers.  It's not that I don't like animals.  I do.  It's not that I don't like pets.  I do, usually, if they belong to other people.  You can understand that my lifestyle is not a pet-friendly one.  I did inherit a cat.  his name was BP which was short for Big Puss.  I can't recall what his proper name was.  Hew as a wonderful cat.  He would follow me from room to room and settle whereever I settled.  This could be a problem if he decided to settle behind me when I was cooking in the kitchen and he was trodden on many times as I stepped back onto him. It never deterred him, however, from parking his body in the same place the next day.  I'm not sure he was all that bright in that respect.

He was, however very bright in other respects.  He was not allowed in my bedroom and would camp outside the open doon withour ever stepping over it.  When a friend and I lived together we didn't use my bedroom.  When I was in our bedroom alone he would camp outside it.  However when my friend was in it BP would come into the room and ignore me.  He would even jump onto the bed!  He would then look me straight in the eye and dare me to throw him out knowing full well that my friend would defend him.

I loved him and his death in my arms by injection by the vet at the age of about 17 saddened me greatly

I have now been adopted as another poor fool by Comet, the Geddes family cat who now regards me as part of the Geddes clan.  I'm very flattered by that although I recognise that I am being regarded as a mug but.......

if I want to wash on your bed...

 

who do you think you are that's going to stop me?

 

I'm still watching you

 

Now I'm asleep and you can go back to what you were doing

A Journey to Whakatane

As you know I've been away with the motley crew from the Croquet Club of Jayne, Colleen and Gaynor at Whakatane (pronounced Fak a tarn ee) at a croquet tournament. I'll post some more on the tournament but the journey to and from the delightful town (rather unfairly dismissed, I thought, in Lonley Planet as pleasant or some such similarly bland adjective) is the subject of this posting. Firstly I should tell you where Whakatane is. Sometheing , I suspect, few New Zealanders know.

Location

The journey there in pouring rain for nearly 6 hours in Lucy!

The road over The Ranges is steep and narrow and busy

and windy

and full of road works

and windy

but arriving home in The Bay makes it all worthwhile

Going to Whakatane

I'm off to a tournament in Whakatane.  It'll take us a good bit of the day to get there in Lucy.  We'll go via Taupo and Rotorua.  I don't suppose there's be much photography opportunities though because the weather's pretty poor - cold and wet and dull.   I'm just letting you know in case there is no cell signal up there for the mobile broadband in which case I'll be incommunicado for a few days.  I'm being picked up at 0930.  Oops.  It's 0855.  I'd better pack!  Bye.

A Curious Pooch

When we were in Norsewood there was a small dog wantering around with her (equally curious) owner.  Both appeared to be very interesting characters indeed.  The dog was insepeable from her master and when tied up for a few minutes to the Hot Dog stall she created a whining that would have called out the fire brigade (who, in much of New Zealand are still called out by siren)  in many places. 

 

 

Norsewood

I can't find a blog posting on Norsewood but I can't believe  that I haven't done one.  Norsewood is located on State Highway 2 between Waipukurau and Dannevirke.  We dropped in on Sunday on the way home from the tournament in Dannevirke.  There was a market taking place.  This will not be my last posting on this wonderful community.

Since I was last here this mural has been painted on a wall

 

Liked these garden pots

Shoeless In New Zealand

Last year I was sitting having a coffee in Emerson Street - the semi-pedestrianised street in the centre of Napier which has many of the smart shops and cafés.  A young and exceptionally smartly dressed young lady walked down the road.  She would have turned heads in any society dressed in a smart summer dress complete with hat and handbag.  But what struck me was that she was barefoot.  In almost any other City I can think of she's have been wearing elegant shoes - probably with significant heels.  But not necessarily in New Zealand.

I thought of that today because an elegently dressed lady reading the weather report was also shoeless.  In actual fact, of course, we weren't supposed to see her feet.  But after the news was over and she walked over to the newsreader to chat the cameras remained on longer than usual and as she walked off the set there she was, barefoot.

I just love New Zealand!

The Lower North Island Teams Tournment

This is one of those occasions when I am not only using someone else's photgraph (with their permission) but also blogging for my own records.

This is the Hawkes Bay team for the Lower North Islands Tournament.

Left to right: Back Row Don Reyland (Te Mata) Sandra Bathgate, Gaynor Robertson and Jayne Powis (Marewa)

Front row: Zoe Petterson (Marewa) and Annette Reyland (Te Mata)

They won!

Summer ? in Hawkes Bay

Yesterday I decided that I would use the morning to get my Christmas cards done.  I'm already too late for the ordinary post and will have to use airmail once again.  I weakened at lunchtime and decided to spend a couple of hours on the croquet lawns before feeding the children and looking after them whilst Wendy and Martin went to a dinner.  But before that I had a few things to get in Town.  The croquet was not to be.  I met a friend in Town and she and a friend were just going to Ujazi for lunch.  The sky was black.  Lunch looked a better bet than croquet.  It was.  The heavens opened.  Fortunately The Handbag was in an undercover carpark 'cos I'd left the hood down.

The temperature changes are very sudden and dramatic too.  On Sunday it got to 35 deg on my deck.  Yesterday it was 22 deg at one point and dropped within 15 minutes to 15 deg and then to 13 deg which is where it is now.  This is summer in Hawkes Bay?

Since then we've had rain and thunder and more rain.  In fact the rain started in earnest around 4pm yesterday and it has continued without let-up in the 19 hours since then.  There is no sign of it stopping.  A friend from Northland tells me that they are desperate for rain up there.  Everything is green in Hawkes Bay although I understand we are technically in the fifth year of drought.  Does'nt seem like it to me.  In fact it's undoubtedly the wettest spring since I've been coming to NZ.  Last year I had the lid on the car on a few occasions for the first there months.  This year it's been on a lot.  But even the farmers aren't all happy.  Apparently it's been the wrong sort of rain for the soft fruit farmers (too heavy and damaging to the fruit) and too much at the wrong time for some because it's diluted the sugar content.  There is never a way of pleasing everyone.

But I'm playing the Glad Game.  I'm not playing croquet this morning but I am managing to read and write blog postings and I'm going to finish my Christmas cards, enjoy lunch with a code cracker or crossword and pop into Town and post my cards and do one or two odds and ends.  Life's pretty good.

The rain it poureth

 

in stair rods

 

bouncing off the roof of the water pumping shed

 

making my drive a quagmire

 

and providing a bath for this happy Blackbird.