An Ominous Heavyness

It's lunchtime.  The temperature is suddenly plummeting.   Ten minutes ago it was over 30℃ and now it's 27℃.  This morning I played croquet and the air was still and heavy down on the  coastal plain were the lawns are.  When I got back to The Cottage for lunch it was hot and airless and the cicadas were in full throat for the first time this year (ok full abdomen as that's where their noise emanates).  The sky was sending mixed messages with patches of blue in an otherwise broken clouded sky.  Then the thunders started rolling around in the distance.  Then the trees started 'snowing'.  In fact it was almost to the day that I blogged about them 'snowing' last year.  Now the rain has started, heavy clouds are coming over from the South behind The Cottage and the temperature is dropping further.  The ranch sliders are open - oh! BIG lightning flash - and the thunder is getting nearer.

I have just spent the last 15 minutes on the deck, camera in hand, to try and photograph some lightning and record some thunder.  Well I had the perfect opportunity to record a magnificent and long roll of thunder but I was in photo mode and there was no lightning to be had.  Now it's just raining.  Ah well.

A Night Out

Wendy and Martin went out to the annual dentists' get together at a fashionable winery on Friday.  It may be midsummer and I may be typing this in 27 ℃ (81℉) but they got dressed up in their Scottish garb for the occasion:

Sunday Just Happened and I Nearly Missed It

That's not to say that I blinked and it was over it's just that it happened so quickly; dans un instant; im Augenblick; in het knipoogje van een oog.  I apologise but I know no Swedish.  

This morning I went to watch the finals of the Golf Croquet Silver Badges at Te Mata.  Our people, by that I mean members of the Marewa Croquet Club took the primary and middle grades but, unfortunately, as always our representative in the Championship grade was beaten by Te Mata's indestructable Tony Stephens - one of NZ's top players who has been at the top of his game for the last 50 years!  Says it all really.

I returned home and decided this afternoon to write my Christmas cards.  Having Christmas in the middle of the summer is hopeless for getting motivated.  Christmas does not come in the hot weather!  So I did some Christmas cards which will be posted in the morning but which stand little chance of arriving before Christmas.  I think that  for the remainder I will have to adopt a more imaginative approach.  That'll buy me a few more days.

Later in the afternoon I popped up to The House to see what was happening in their world.  A visit by friends and a BBQ just being cooked was a good excuse for a glass of wine.  Three exceptionally pleasant hours later I found myself back at The Cottage in time for the end of a programme on The River Nile with Joanna Lumley (sigh) and then a programme on how Coronation Street came into being.  

Now it's time for bed.

The Croquet Club Christmas

Yesterday the Croquet Club had its Christmas lunch and afternoon tea.  There were no unusual croquet games as there usually are- just ordinary ones, a buffet lunch (of considerable portions) and afternoon tea comprising the President's Christmas Cake, strawberries and New Zealand sparkling wine.  By the time I started taking photos the bulk of the participants had left leaving the die-hards who had played in the afternoon to partake of afternoon tea:

 Frank, the President, advancing to cut the President's Christmas Cake

 First things first - get into the bubbly

The serious part of the day

 The even more serious part of the day

Helen is still a formidable golfer and croquet player and maker of President's Christmas Cakes.  And former Headmistress (it's amazing how many teachers play croquet!).

Sisters - and teachers - Chris and Karen!

The Club President (Frank) tops up the Club Captain's glasses (the Club Captain, Jayne,  doesn't have to drive to the Club!).

Actually there is an argument for the provision of the bubbly before play commences at 10.30 am.  After imbibing a reasonable number of glasses Jayne and Karen challenged Frank and I to a game of Golf Croquet (Jayne refuses to enter the Dark Side and play Association).  Granted Karen had not been imbibing, nor had I.  However after Frank and I had been slaughtered we sought a re-match only to be further defeated even more comprehensively.  Ah well.  It's only a game.  Yeah right.

The Kea

Adrian in a comment on my previous post asked "Have you still got those Parakeet type birds that trash cars...if so rent a car and get some pictures."  The answer is in the affirmative.   The bird is the Kea.  We don't have them in the North Island but on the West Coast of the South Island they are plentiful enough even though they are an endangered species.   The problem with the Kea is that it is a loved and hated creature.  (Just like the rest of us then.)  Loved because it is an endearing and comical figure which is curious and unafraid and 'befriends' tourists.  Hated because it has been known to kill even healthy sheep and has a rather unendearing habit of removing the rubber from around car windscreens and generally causing damage to anything that can be pulled off a car.

The following picture was, I think, taken by the Homer Tunnel on the road from Te Anau to Milford Sound in South Island in early 2007.

Thankful Thursday

I was going to say how thankful I was to be able to hear a Morepork this evening.  Then that post grew a life of its own.  It wasn't hearing the Morepork itself which was what made me thankful, it was the fact that I was free to hear it, that I was here to hear it and that I have ears with which to hear it.  They are all things which we take for granted.  For so many these things are not available: the freedom, the  opportunity and the ability to hear. 

For those things I am thankful.

Morepork

It's just after 9.30 pm and I heard a car and a door shut.  It has to be a car arriving at The Cottage or The House because there is nowhere else close.   So I opened the ranch sliders and stepped onto the deck.  There was no car in my drive so I just savoured the cold air for a minute or two.  As I stood there a Morepork started calling.  It is the first one that I have heard since I returned to New Zealand  nearly six weeks ago.  

The Morepork is so called because its call is 'more pork'.  For those who don't know a Morepork is a small owl also known as the Southern Boobook (Ninox novaeseelandiae)  or Ruru.  It's found all over New Zealand and across most of Australia.   They are mainly nocturnal, but are sometimes active at dawn and dusk.  The main hunting times are evenings and mornings, with brief bursts of activity through the night. On dark nights they often perch through the middle hours and, particularly if the weather is bad, may hunt by daylight instead.  Although their main hunting technique is perch-and-pounce, they are agile birds with a swift, goshawk-like wing action and the ability to manoeuvre rapidly when pursuing prey or hawking for insects and small birds.  

The morepork lends its name to the fictional city of Ankh-Morpork (is a fictional city which prominently features in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of fantasy novels) and appears on its coat-of-arms.

A shield, quartered by a river (the Ankh) and tower (the Tower of Art). The quarters bear two moneybags,  a field of cabbages and the unmarked black field of the Vetinaris.
The shield is supported by two hippopotamuses and crested with a morpork holding an ankh.

Moving House

I've blogged before about moving house.  When we were coming home yesterday we came across a house being moved during the day.  They are usually moved in the early morning when traffic is at its least.  However out on the main highway in the ranges the move presumably is made during the day because it would simple be too dangerous at night. 

PS Please note the shorts being worn by the hardy roadman in the last photo.  Perhaps my dark raspberry shorts which I've been forbidden to wear are not so bad after all.

Wairaka and the Saving of Mataatua - Updated

Last evening in Whakatane we went to have dinner at the Sportfishing Club which overlooks the harbour.  It was a very enjoyable meal.  Karen, who hadn't been to Whakatane before,  wondered aaboutthe significance of the statue at the harbour entrance.  I had blogged about it last year when we had come to this same croquet tournament.  However the links which I had inserted are no longer valid.  So this is an update. 

The statue of Wairaka with Mount Manganui on the Bay of Plenty in the background

 The Statue of Wairaka

 Wairaka close up

Whakatane (to act as a man) - This story springs from the 12th Century Great Migration. The women of the Mataatua Canoe, left to themselves when the men went ashore for the first time, found a waka (canoe) drifting out to sea again.  The paddles were tapu (the English word "taboo" derives from this) to women, but a high spirited teenager, Wairaka, who was the daughter of Chief Toroa, boldly seized one of the paddles and paddled the waka back to shore. As she did this, she shouted "Kia Whakatane au i ahau" (let me act the part of a man) and her actions saved the women but also coined the name of the town.

Wairaka is also part of Maoris legend for other reasons.  Wairaka of the Cave makes interesting reading.

A Successful Day

Well it's a funny old life.  Here we are in Whakatane.  Last year the rain poured down and the lawns had to be squeegeed.  Today the sun shone.  Today I - or we in the 'top' group of players - played six of the best games we have ever played in a single session.  I can truthfully say that even if I had lost all six matches they would have been 'good' losses.  Almost all the matches we played ran to 7-6 or 7-5 (or 6-7, 5-7 depending on whether you were a winner or a loser).  As it happens I was fortunate enough to be a winner in 5 out of the 6 games I played.  The result was that I won the top group of the tournament.   So this evening I am a happy bunny.