Eleven O'clock and All's Quiet

The dishwasher is quietly (well, rather noisily actually but it doesn't create the right ambience for the post) purring away in the background as I listen to Elgar's Sea Pictures (Just for a change I'm listening to Della Jones instead of the definitive Dame Janet Baker recording from, I think, 1965 or was it 1968?  It was a long time ago anyway.) and take stock of the week that's just passed.  One way and another the 44 days 19 hours and 50 mins that have gone by since I landed in Napier have been some of the busiest at a stretch in this country that I can recall since the first time I came here in 2005.  And the last week has seen the busiest of those 44 days.  It's been  wonderful but I'm now looking forward to a quiet week in the run up to the Christmas weekend.

Today I woke with a start rather late at 0722.  Within a few seconds I was up and the kettle was on.  I was due out at 8am with Wendy and Martin to the Farmers Market in Hastings.  The odd thing about getting up so rapidly was that I had absolutely no recollection whatsoever of the dream that I'd woken from except to know that it was deeply unpleasant.  Perhaps that's why in the past I remembered so very few dreams because at one time I always rose within a few seconds of waking.  Now I often turn over and doze for a while.

The weather for the Farmers Market was cold but the rain had stopped for which we were truly thankful.  Unfortunately a combination of time spent actually looking and buying and the miserable weather meant that I took only a handful of photos.

Superb smoked fish - that's a couple of meals catered for.

A huge selection of artisan breads.  I didn't need bread today.

There's nothing better than carrots with their tops on and organic carrots are one of the few organic foods where I can taste a difference.

Note the wheelbarrow on the extreme left of the picture.  The clever ones were shopping with a wheelbarrow.  We had to make four trips back to the car.

All in all it was a successful morning and I think it may well be the start of a trend.  What I had not realised, because I'm never in Napier on a Saturday morning 'cos I play croquet then, is that there is a Farmers Market in the centre of Napier on a Saturday morning.

We got home around midday and I set about preparing a buffet for friends from Napier who had visited me in Scotland last year and The Family - a total of 12 to be fed. 

After a really wonderful, relaxed evening catching up everyone left and I'm now writing this and musing on how lucky I am.  Not only have I had a fabulous day, week and month but, given my propensity to over-cater I will probably have nothing to cook for the next four days anyway.

So now it's time for an early night - I should make bed before 1230!   Life's pretty good.

The Swimming Pool: Day 6

The pool has now been filled with water and the concrete has been poured into the gap between the earth and the pool lining wall.  The base for the pump and equipment shed has been laid.  Getting there...

Thankful Thursday: The School Prizegiving

Yesterday evening was the Puketapu School Prizegiving.  All the children from The Family are or have been pupils there.  I am privileged to have been to the Prizegiving each year since the youngest of The Family, Catriona, first went to the school on her fifth birthday in 2006.  This year the format was substantially the same but considerably shorter than last year.

The school's band entertained us before the 'formal' proceedings

Girls perform the Maori Poi

The first year Merit Awards (3 per Room)

My teachers never wore shoes like that!

The seniors demonstrate many modern dance types over the last decade (Fraser in the centre with green spectacles)

Aiding the Head Teacher in his speech

Fraser (penultimate offspring) receiving the cup for the most dedicated gymnast.  He's represented the school and performed in the NZ Nationals.

Frazer and his joint House captain receive the shield for the best House.

Senior top pupils about to leave giving their memories of their teachers over their times at the school

All in all it is a very different occasion from any Prizegiving that I ever experienced:  the air of formal recognition of achievement being combined with a wonderfully informal atmosphere (in which there are no school uniforms being worn) with lots of fun and performances.  

I've been very proud and very thankful for the privilege of being part of it over the last six years.

Mark's Blog

Some of my readers have noticed that there have been problems with Mark's Blog "Tales From and English Coffee Drinker" and comments that he has made on my Blog which keep disappearing.  SP and I have also been having problems as in Bloggers and Followers.

This morning I received the following email from Mark.

As you may have noticed from one of the recent comments from Fi on your blog about followers my blogger nightmare continues. It looks as if not only has the comment I posted on that post been removed, again but Google have disabled my entire account. This means all my blogs have gone and I can't access my gmail account either. I've completed the contact us form but goodness knows what I did to have my account suspended,

Hopefully it will get resolved soon but....

I"m beginning to get worried/paranoid.  I do keep a back-up of my blogs but......

More Experimenting

This looks like an ordinary photo of the scene from The Cottage's deck.  Doesn't it?  Well it's not quite what it seems because it was taken at 0153 yesterday (Wednesday) by the light of the silvery moon.  

Blogger and Followers

I'm not sure what Blogger's up to these days but as I mantioned earlier SP and I were having difficulties following each other's posts and kept disappearing from each other's reading lists.  That seems to have been sorted.  Then yesterday Mark wondered whether I'd upset him and removed one of his comments from a post.  It was a perfectly innocuous comment, he's never upset me (how could he, he likes Marmite) but, nevertheless, despite me having the email to say he's commented the comment had disappeared.

Today I saw that I had an extra follower in that the number had increased by one.  However when I tried to find out who the new follower was I realised that, in fact, I was now followerless.  Come on Blogger, raise your game.

A Year's Supply

What sort of drinking habits do you have?  I'm referring not to alcohol because I have a feeling that  that would be courting disaster.  Just your ordinary daily beverages.  For example I usually drink green tea with lemon when I get up in the morning.  Sometimes I get a bit rash and have Lady Grey (black tea scented with oil of bergamot, lemon peel and orange).  At lunchtime I drink Red Bush Tea.  At other times I drink Earl Grey or Lapsang Souchong (Lapsang is distinct from all other types of tea because lapsang leaves are traditionally smoke-dried over pinewood fires, taking on a distinctive smoky flavour).  Sometimes I mix Lapsang with mixed with ordinary tea.  Why am I telling you this?  Well I like my tea weak and am frequently made fun of for that preference.  My dear friend Anna's New Zealand son yesterday decided to give me a present of a year's supply of tea.    I thought he was being a tad cheeky.

PS I never take milk or sugar in tea or coffee and when I'm not drinking tea I drink coffee.

The Cottage and The House

The Swimming Pool posts have led to some comments which make me think that some of my more recent readers and not aware of the circumstances of my life in New Zealand and also think that I live in The House.  I don't.  I live in The Cottage.  Over the years I have done many posts involving The Cottage but I think that if you follow this link you will get a better picture of the situation.  There are more pictures and stories to be had if you follow the label The Cottage.

The situation is that my New Zealand family, Wendy, Martin and the four children are my surrogate family.  They live in The House which is on a 5 acre (2.2 hectare) Lifestyle Plot.  You are limited to one house on a lifestyle plot but you can have a 'granny house' so in October 2007 a 'granny house' was put on site and that is now my New Zealand home.

At the moment The Family is making substantial alterations to The House including putting in the swimming pool.  Because I use this blog partly as a means of keeping in touch with friends and family, partly as a sort of diary/reminder of things I have done and the chronology of my life here and partly as a way of meeting people in Blogland I sometimes blog on things as a matter of record rather than general interest.  The swimming pool is an example of that.

So I hope I haven't given anyone the wrong impression.  Your comments are all pertinent of course in that I shall certainly be there swimming in it!

The Swimming Pool: Day 5

It doesn't really look as though much progress has been made but it has.  The bank at the back has been removed to make way for the patio and the pool's pump and equipment shed.  Bushes and overgrown undergrowth have been removed to enable people once more to see the view and the more plumbing and pipework has been done.

Living gets in the way of Life

For the last three days I have risen early and planned to spend at least a reasonable amount of time in Blogland both posting and reading.  However it's not worked out like that at all and here I am at 4pm on the third day and, apart from a few short posts and reads I've been absent.  I've got lots of things done,  fed lots of people, been (I hope) a good host to my visitor and enjoyed those days but my 'other life' has suffered as a consequence.  I'm not ignoring anyone.  I'll be back.  

In the meantime every time I get an email from my old friend David aka Marcel I read his footnote which is a quote from Spike Milligan "We don't have a plan so nothing can go wrong!".  Of course you can then get sidetracked by the hundreds of funny Spike Milligan quotes.  After that the world of quotes is your oyster and the day could pass without you even noticing.  So I plan.  Which guarantees that things go 'wrong'.  C'est la vie.  Ce qui doit être meilleur que l'alternative.