I Love Gannets

Thankful Thursday

I have 3 days and 15 hours and 44 minutes until my departure back to Scotland.  

That is a very long time if one has toothache.  If one has a life to pack up into The Cupboard as well as live each day to the full then it is ein Augenblick. 

Today I was thankful for the moments spent just relaxing at Ninety Mile Beach in Northland with Pauline.  It set me up for the rest of my stay here.  I have saved two of my (and, I think, Pauline's) favourites from amongst the photos I took when we were there.

 For the peace and tranquility of those moments I am truly thankful.

Triumph

When I was a youngster (a very youngster!) our next door neighbour's son had a black Triumph Renown (Razor Edge).  It's registration plate was JVO 10.  Adrian Howard's Dad drove a Vauxhall 10.  It's registration plate was FXY 333.  That was 60 years ago.  Don't, however, ask me what the registration number of my MX5: I've only had it since 2006!  This must tell you something about me but I'm not sure what.

I was reminded of this when I saw a 1949 Triumph Renown parked at the repair garage I use in Napier. 

I included the last photo despite not being able to get one without the reflections to show the beauty of the dashboard.  Bench front seats were common then too.  The gear lever was a 3-speed column shift and the shift mechanism and engine were the same as in the Standard Vanguard Phase II that I learned in ten years later.

The car driving along which can be seen through the windscreen is a fairly common sight in Napier.  New Zealand must have the highest per capita ration of veteran and vintage cars in the world.

The Faraday Centre, Napier

Yet another of the things I had never done whilst living here was to visit The Faraday Centre in Napier.  In 1979 The Hawke’s Bay Museum of Technology was formed to foster the preservation of regional technology of significance.  In 1995 it amalgamated the Hawke’s Bay Cultural Trust and the centre was renamed The Faraday Centre.  It is now part of the Hawkes Bay Museum and Art Gallery.  It is fascinating and yet another place I will re-visit.

Perhaps the most impressive, or perhaps the most spectacular would be a better description, of the many exhibits is a Tesla Coil shown being demonstrated (very noisily) in the last three photos.  

This will not be the last you will hear about the Centre although you might have to wait a while for the next installment.

A Few Memories of Northland

The crossroads of two forest logging roads.  A solution by someone with a sense of humour methinks.

Many Northland roads are still metalled (gravel) and the MX5 couldn't negotiate a lot of the potholes and ruts and large stones.

and some are quite hairy

A last view of the Uppity Downity Mountains my last and very gloomy morning

The occasional (then) much needed shower rushing by in the distance

I just loved this house near Langs Beach past Waipu.

The Last Beaches of Northland (For Now)

All within a stone's throw from where Pauline and I were staying on the East Coast of Northland.

Houhora Heads looking into the Houhora Harbour

Houhora Heads looking out from the Houhora Harbour

Houhora Heads looking into the Houhora Harbour

Matai Bay

Waikato Bay

Waikato Bay

Who's Graham Edwards? Where's GB?

I've just noticed that I'm no longer GB.  This is not good enough.  I don't want to be Graham Edwards.  Blogger has substituted my Blogger persona with my Google+ persona.  It's my fault for ticking some request box or other in an email yesterday.  Caveat Blogger!

Now how do I remedy that I wonder?

Done it.  Blogger really didn't like me doing that.  I'll no longer have all the benefits of the thousands of extra people who would come flocking to read my blog having seen me on Google+.  Do I care?  No.   I'm quite happy being just plain GB in my small corner of Blogland.  For the time being anyway.

Thankful Thursday

After having just enjoyed a couple of days away playing 'social' croquet and generally having a good time I'm back in Blogland this evening and wondering which of the many things for which I am thankful will make it to the postline today.  Particularly given all the news coming the the USA at the moment.  Then I read a post my Meike's Mum entitled My Onkel Otto.  I'm an emotional person and this post touched a lot of my emotions.  Initially I did a long comment on the post and then I realised that I was not commenting on Meike's Mum's post but was abusing the privilege of comment by the use of too many of the word 'I'.

As CJ has said in his comment on the post when I was very young I had a deep relationship with my Uncle Eric and spent much of my life admiring him from afar (he married and we all but lost touch until his wife died when he was in his late 80s when we became close again). So I can well imagine the sort of relationship Meike's Mum had with Onkel Otto and I'm rather envious of the length of time for which she had it.

I am the same age as Meike's Mum (I was born June 1944) and I had a schoolbag similar to the one she was wearing on her first day at school.  I think that my Maternal Grandfather (who had had a business making luxury leather cases) made it for me but on reflection I'm not sure - it may have been my Dad [hopefully CJ will come to the rescue because he remembers almost everything].  

I was amused by the reminder that the girls used to sit in a bath in their jeans to make them fit tightly - before the use of lots of Lycra in the fabric.  I had forgotten that.  I didn't buy my first pair of jeans until about 2007 or 2008 after I came to live in New Zealand.  It will come as no surprise to those who know me (and, I suppose, everyone else given that I was in my sixties by then) that I did not sit in a bath with them on!

However the most moving part of the post for me was looking at a photo of Meike's Mum's Onkel Otto and realising that the person looking at me in the photo (the one simply entitled 'Uncle Otto') was a friend from my University days: the shape of the face, the mouth and the expression were uncannily similar.  I attended his funeral just under a year ago. Of course it wasn't Onkel Otto but had I simply see the photo out of context it would have taken me a while to realise that I wasn't looking at my friend.

So what has this got to do with being thankful?  I am very thankful for the time I've spent over the last two hours this evening reflecting on my Uncle Eric, on my friend from University, on the sort of life that Onkel Otto and Meike's Mum's family had and on so many other things brought to mind by this post.

Thank you Meike's Mum. 

If The Weather Permits

I shall be going to Dannevirke tomorrow first thing in the morning for two days of friendly croquet.

Unfortunately the weather is not looking good for the next couple of days so it might be called off.

So I may or may not be here at the computer tomorrow but if I'm not I shall catch up when I get back.

Beach Riders

I so wanted to be one of them.   Next year.....