Monday 27th December

Well, I survived Christmas. We had more than enough food, the Ham wasn’t all that small, the turkey was the right size thankfully, so there wasn’t a great deal of it left. Alex liked my Blintz, they are known as Topfen Golatsche in Austria, and he appreciated them very much.






Now it’s just a matter of waiting till the 17 January for the lawyers to get back to work, and find out where we are with the house. I’ve got all the organising done I need to, I know who to deal with in Takaka and Motueka for everything I want, from the poly tunnels, to irrigation supplies, pumps etc. All I need is to be down there.

I’ll probably be sleeping on airbeds for a while, till I work out what I’m doing with the house. There’s a lot of finishing work to be done inside, and some changes to make it feel and look more like somewhere I’d live. Once I get a few rooms back to finished I’ll start looking for furniture.

The weather is going from sunshine and blue skies, to grey overcast, windy, rain promised, but the temp still manages to stay warmish. I can see winters down in Golden Bay getting colder for the next few years, but I’ll deal with that in a few months once I have the tunnel houses set up, and start looking for cheap heaters to go in them. I’d like a few of the old kerosene heaters we had in the glasshouses, but as they went back in the mid 60’s when we put electric fan heating in, I haven’t seen anything like them since, which is amazing considering the thousands that were in use then. Everyone I knew at school on the market gardens around Otahuhu and Papatoetoe all had the same heaters. You knew which were the market garden kids in winter, we were the ones half asleep from being up at 1am refilling the kerosene heaters in the glasshouses. I think we had 120 or 140 of them in the two houses, I know it took an hour to an hour and a half to refill them all, then back to bed and up a few hours later for school.

Still, being outside on a crisp winter night, seeing the halo around the moon, feeling the grass crunch under your feet, I actually enjoyed it.

Not a lot happening at the moment, I’ll keep this updated.

Friday 24th December

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Hogmany.

We’re having a small Christmas here this year, Rose, myself, Kelly, Alex, and the twins. I’ve got a small turkey, small ham on the bone, Kelly is bringing Pavlova, I’m making blintzes with blackberry sauce and cream meringues, all the usual salads and bits and pieces.

Tomorrow is forecast to be in the high 25*C + range, so hot food is not going to be a priority. Thankfully the beach is just down the road to go for a swim to cool down.
The house progresses slowly, the LIM Report showed up a few discrepancies, mainly with building permits and compliance certificates. I’m not answering the phone lately, till I hear whoever it is reply to the answerphone. The land agent has been pushing to get me to sign and worry afterwards, like that is going happen. No compliance Certificates for the extensions or bathrooms makes it difficult to get insurance, or approval for anything else, so we’ve given the vendors till the 17th January to get everything bought up to date and compliance certificates approved.

Damian and family are in Melbourne for a few weeks with Tarshas' parents, Hayden is back in Wellington, so we’ve got Roses side of the family to feed instead.

Merry Christmas to Pete and Katja, hope to see you soon when I move, Happy Hogmany to Marianne, snowed under in Edinburgh, Merry Christmas to Libby, Hogan, Al, Mary, Marye and Tim and TJ, Mary-Anne, Gatto, Chris, Mike, Rhonda (Corona), John and Sylvia, everyone else I’ve missed my apologies.

Take care, Happy New Year,

Warren

Monday 20th December

I’m slowly getting somewhere, but all that means is I’m slightly faster than a snail over short distances.

The LIM Report (Land Information Memorandum) came back from Tasman District on Friday. An awful lot of stuff missing, like drainage and plumbing permits and compliance certificates, building compliance certificates. So back to the vendors to either make right and obtain certificates, or we start negotiating the price again. I could buy it as is, but if I, or anyone decides to sell at some later stage, we’d have to go through the whole thing again and obtain all the compliance certificates. We’re talking about $3,000 and maybe a bit more.

The weather has turned from sunshine to wet, cold and miserable, good for the farmers in the Waikato and Northland, it has been almost drought conditions there lately. Hopefully Christmas will be fine.

Damian, Tarsha and Jesse and Kahu are in Melbourne for a couple of weeks with Tarshas whanau. Damian needs the break, and Tarsha deserves a holiday after finally getting her Pharma Degree. Plus a new job when she gets back.

Moving date is meant to be the first week in February once we get all the minor stuff cleared up. That should give me a few months of good weather to get the tunnel houses up, and cuttings started for next spring/summer.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year if I haven’t posted before the end of the week.

Take care

Saturday 11th December

It’s been family day today. Jesse had her end of year graduation, she’s off to a new school next year, and she has done really well for the last few years.




Kahu turned 4 as well today, so he was doing his usual energiser bunny on super charge all day.



All the papers have been signed for the house at Golden bay, settlement is in about 8 weeks, Christmas here plus summer holidays mean there aren’t any lawyers around till near the end of January now to get everything signed.

I’m not sure what to do with the house, it needs a lot of finishing work in one half, the “finished” half is not what I like, and despite being advertised as set up for B&B or long rental, it really isn’t. Well, not in my view, but will look at it a bit longer when I get there.





Good things, there is more than enough land to set up two poly-tunnels, and still have room for outdoor growing on. Nursery # 3 this time. I’m a bit late for a good start with growing, but still have a few months to get things set up, and make a start on cuttings for next spring/summer.

I’m still waiting for my cartons to make their way back from Honiara, from Steves last email, the person who was handling the shipment, had to go away on wantok matters, so everything in the office stopped till he gets back. There are really somethings I don’t miss about Honiara.

I’ll have to start sorting stuff out here, I have cartons stored at one of Roses houses, I have cartons in the garage here, some stuff unpacked that I needed back out, clothes, cd’s books, which are going to have to be packed again. Plus some of the furniture from Mums place to take with me. Given the cost of getting stuff down to the South Island makes buying most of it again there a lot easier and cheaper, tables, chairs etc. Beds.

Thursday 9th December

Ok, I’ve done it, bought a house in Golden Bay, at Banhaim. NZD $262,500 for a 4 bedroom, 2 kitchen, 2 bathroom, plus spa bath and a 0.2 hectare section in the valley

It has been sort of set up as a B&B, but the people who own it are really a bit stuck in some other time zone. There is a lot of finishing work that needs to be done, and a lot that needs to be ripped out and redone. But as my sister has been on at me about for the last week, it means an income, that pays the main bills, and I have enough land free to do what I want as well

Good things about it, it is close, about 1 mile, from The Naked Possum and the start of the Kaituna Track, and about a ½ hour drive to the start of the Heaphy Track, so there will be the passing trade from the people walking both of those.

It’s in Golden Bay, which means the highest sunshine hours in NZ, ok, it also means that when it is winter, you see snow on the hills, the valleys and the ground. Which is also a plus as you get the winter people down there as well.

Next thing to do, is learn how to run a B&B, put up a good website advertising it, and find people able to do the stuff I don’t do all that well, like make beds, clean and have a good colour sense when it comes to decorations.

I may have to contact my ex-sister in law who runs Irelands best B&B for advice.

As anyone who knows me will know, I’m a moving target for doing things, never the same thing twice.

I’m taking a deep breath here, it’s like climbing all the way up to top of the tallest diving tower, walking out to the edge of the board, and looking down

Since Mum died, I have no back up, what I do from now on, is all my responsibility, no one to suggest other ideas. I came back from the Solomons, that was my way of clearing out all the crap that happened to me in Ireland, so now, this is me doing what I want to on my own and spending the next whenever doing what I want.

I used to have a wall hanging, a quote from Jewels in the Heart

“He took them to the ocean

and they fled in fright

He took them to the desert

And they returned to the city

He took them to the mountains

And threw them over

And they flew”

That is how I feel now, or the Fool in the Tarot, stepping off the precipice, into the unknown.

So I have 2 new things to do now, well, in 8 weeks when settlement date is, well, one new thing, run a B&B, the other is set up a nursery on the land available, which won’t take long, it’s the 3rd? 4th time now? 2 Morriefield Poly Tunnels, 8m by 2.35m for $4,000, a bit extra for propagation stuff, tubes, bags, irrigation, which I’ve not long done for the same thing in Honiara, ok, income from both.

Plus any other work available there, with the training courses, engineering shops needing qualified welders, nurseries.

Wednesday 8th December

I’ve really got out of practise with this, too many distractions here I think.

The big house I’ve been after in Golden Bay, ok, the owner isn’t going to move on the price, he is stuck at $300,000, I got to $287,500, allowing for $25,000 that upgrading the sewage system to Council compliance would cost, let alone the $8,000 needed for repairs to the house where it is showing signs of neglect. Oh well.

I’ve got an offer on another one at Banhaim, 4 bedroom, 2 bathrooms, spa bath, bigger section as well, 2,023 sqm, 0.2 Hectares. It’s been built or extended to be a B&B, but not quite finished, so I should be able to get it and finish the rest of it over a few months. Plus it is just down the road from The Naked Possum. Not that I’m interested in running a B&B, but it is income.

Tarsha graduated the other weekend, so we went to the Grad ceremony at Auckland Uni, fully qualified Pharmacist at last.



I’m still at a loose end here, it’s coming up to Christmas, and not a lot of places hiring staff just before the summer holidays, and not wanting to pay holiday pay to new people. Plus trying to get the house in Golden Bay.

New Year soon, new start again somewhere else I hope.

Saturday 20th November

It’s been a busy week. Flew down to Nelson Monday morning, picked up a rental and drove over the hill to Takaka. It was a bit overcast, so things did look a bit gloomy at times driving over, still some snow on the peaks and thick fog from Canaan Downs till near Upper Takaka.

Met up with the Real estate agent at Harcourts, and with my list of places we drove off to Pakawau, Collingwood, Banhaim and a few places on the outskirts of Collingwood and Takaka

The one I am really interested in is this one, at Pakawau, well, about another 15 minutes from Pakawau, about half way to Puponga. I’ve put an offer in, there are some things that need doing, the septic tank has to be relocated, a few window sills need replacing, some of the exterior timber siding will need to be replaced, but overall, for a 100+ year old house it is in surprisingly good condition.






There is enough room at the back of the house for a good sized tunnel house, probably one of the bigger Morriefield ones, http://www.morrifield.com/tunnel-house-models.php, I’d like a wider one than 2.350m, have asked if they can make one to suit.

Some of the other houses were really good, some were totally so far away from what I like. This one has been on the market for over a year now, and only had one offer made so far in that time. Inside it is still close to original, all Matai flooring, Rimu architraves and trim. The kitchen needs a bit of a tidy up, hopefully the wood fired range still works, and the fireplaces.


Takaka is still fairly much the same as it has been for a long while now, the shops still smell of incense and patchouli oil, a lot of really good restaurants, organic and other food shops, clothing. Just in walking around asking about the costs involved in repair work got me 3 work offers, also went to The Naked Possum http://www.nakedpossum.com/ for a look. It’s tucked back off the main road a bit, at the start of the Kaituna Track http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/tracks-and-walks/nelson-marlborough/golden-bay/kaituna-track/


Grant had a major stroke last year, and is slowly recovering, and the tannery and nursery have fallen behind a little. So I left my contact details, had a long talk with Jocelyn, and once I move down there I’ll go back and start to learn how to bark tan possum skins.






Got into Wellington Tuesday afternoon, it was 27*C when I left Golden Bay, it was overcast, windy and 17*C 30 minutes later in Wellington.






Met up with everyone at VSA on Wednesday, had a couple of pleasant surprises with some of the comments. I feel that I didn’t actually achieve very much in Honiara, but VSA seemed to feel I got more done than they expected. And I lasted longer than anyone thought as well, given the conditions, attitudes and general difficulties involved with living there.

I got offered 3 counselling sessions, like? Counselling??? For what?

Anyway, I agreed to go back to VSA a couple of times each year for orientation meetings with new volunteers, and go through the pitfalls and high points of volunteering. I don’t regret anything about going to the Solomons, I’m more annoyed and angry that things got to the stage where nothing was going to happen or change. Good experience in all ways.

Saturday 13th November

I’ve been back 3 weeks? 4? It seems forever at times. We had our usual fireworks night last week 5th, at Damians, with the usual large amount of fireworks. Considering the amount we had, it was a wonder we got through them all without a mishap until the final flower blossom that blew out as Damian lit it, and he’s now got a couple of weeks off work and his hand has some incredibly huge blisters and damaged skin.





Kahu as Spiderman



I’m flying down to Nelson Monday to look at a property in Golden Bay, on the beach, huge house and a lot of ground with it. There is a garage and workshop, large back yard suitable for tunnel houses, and just the width of the road from the beach. It’s on the market for $310K, which I should be able to raise against Mums apartment.

Then a meeting with VSA in Wellington on Wednesday, and finally back to Auckland Thursday.

I’ve been wandering along the beach with the camera in the evenings and mornings, so you’ll have to put up with more photos J

Thursday 11th November

I know, it’s been over 3 weeks, I should have written this up before but it’s not been an easy thing to put down in words.

I left Honiara, well tried to leave, Thursday 14th, got onto the plane then as usual with Pacific Blue, the plane had a fault and we were stuck overnight in Honiara. I got hold of Steve and he booked me into Kitano Mendana for the night. Adrian was upset over me leaving, somehow we managed to have a really good relationship, despite everything.

Friday I spent the morning with Adrian at Don Bosco, waiting to see if Pacific Blue had managed to organise another plane or replacement parts for the one sitting on the tarmac. The maintenance guys flew up on Solomon Air with parts, then spent till nearly 5pm getting it all sorted. Consequently, we were too late into Brisbane to make connection flights so those of us travelling further were booked into the Chancellor Hotel for the night with Pacific Blue picking up the cost. Nice hotel, if anyone has seen Hotel Babylon on tv, that almost sums it up.

Anyway, after a long disjointed journey, I finally got into Auckland about 4.30pm Saturday afternoon, rang Damian and he came and picked me up at AKL, and I stayed at his place for the night.

Moved back into Mums place sharing with sister since then.

The last 3 weeks have been a mix of job hunting, and clearing up stuff with VSA, medical etc, and finally getting to see Leonard Cohen in Concert. Absolutely brilliant. All the years I’ve spent listening to him made the wait well worth it.

At present I’m considering moving to Takaka or Golden Bay, if I can get the finance and buy down that way. Then I’ll start my own small nursery and just potter about with some fishing, hunting and growing stuff. And get used to NZ winters again. I’ve been freezing since I got back, even though it is almost summer and temperatures have been around the 15 – 20 C mark.

There is work around Auckland, it’s more a matter of convincing employers that I’m still capable despite being out of the country for a while.

Will keep updates coming into this from now on.

Weekend Edition 9/10 October

Well it has all finally come to a head at work. My favourite driver who speeds, demolishes the trucks, equipment, tools and I have had a couple of rather long and loud “frank discussions” as they say.

Wednesday morning started with me asking him to bring the grass cutter he borrowed to cut his grass, back on Thursday morning as Adrian had managed to get us a chance for a monthly contract at Don Bosco Training School, nearly $2,000 a month for one days work each month.

So I got accused of saying he’d stolen the grass cutter, it was written in the register, etc etc, and I’m trying to get a word in that all I was asking was that he bought it back so we could use it on Thursday. It did get a bit tense, in the end, he said he wasn’t going to do Don Bosco anyway, and if I insisted he would stop all the crew from working and they would sit there till I left and never came back.

I’ve had enough of all this, so I sent an email to K about it, and I refuse to work with him unless there was another person there as a witness to anything said or done. So that led to another “discussion” when he found out.

Thursday got even more heated, he arrived in the old truck, loaded all the crew up and was gone by 8.20, in the big truck. I thought ok, at least we have the old truck if we need it, but he’d locked it and taken the keys with him. So we had no vehicle.

They all got back about 12.30, I asked where the keys were which led into another “discussion” so I finally had enough and decided to go in to see K in her office, I couldn’t be bothered with emails and phone calls. So I got into the big truck and started to back out. There were a few words shouted, he tried to stop the truck by grabbing the rear mirror bracket, which caused the mirror to hit his head, so that got smashed off the arm, then he chased after the truck as I was backing out and wrenched the door open. I was wondering if I was going to get done over totally or just a lot of bruising by this stage, but he just grabbed the keys and we had a bit of a stare off for a little bit till he finally handed the keys back.

I told K that there was no way I am prepared to work with him at all, too unpredictable and erratic, so we have a meeting on Wednesday to supposedly sort this out. There are a lot of other issues as well, but until they are in the open I’d rather not go into them.

So, I have my resignation letter typed and printed if they keep him on, after that I’ll see what or where I go. Getting out of Honiara will be a good idea I think. 18 months here without being able to get out of the town is more than enough, plus the frustration level that is involved with trying to get anything done here.

I’m getting too old to be having to put up with threats and intimidation by anyone. I had 10 years of that in NZ with the TOPS courses, there was always some gang wannabe trying it on. I often wonder how the hell I never got done over in all that time, with some of the guys that I had confrontations with. Ok, my house got turned over a couple of times, and my van got trashed once, but they never tried it on with me. Came close a few times I know, but backed off.

Wednesday 6th October

I think I’m over yesterdays rant, well, over but still keeping it in mind anyway.

Added to my list of food I refuse to eat, it’s a short list anyway, only one item originally, it is now 2 things.

If anyone can give me a recipe for cooking eggplant/aubergine that can make it even almost palatable please send it along. I keep persisting in trying to find a recipe for it that can make it taste any different to partially rotted green waste in a compost heap, but so far it still smells and tastes like the most vile smelling rotting vegetation I have known.

And yes, I’ve tried slicing, covering in salt, dipping in batter and frying, making a vegetarian curry, that Greek dish that reminded me of what I used to feed the muscovy ducks, every possible permutation of steaming, frying, baking, roasting grilling that I can think of. It still tastes like crap.

Oh, the other thing I refuse to eat is tripe, so I don’t have a fussy type of nature. But Eggplant/Aubergine now joins the list. Finally, I have given up trying to find a way of making it edible.

Tiff is still away from work, she has a really bad dose of pnuemonia, the worst I’ve seen her, she is definitely not a well lady.

I mentioned Adrian bought me a dozen bottles for my home made ginger beer last week. I added in another bottle of my pineapple/pawpaw/chilli sauce as well to the 3 bottles of ginger beer I swapped for the shirt, I still have a few bottles of sauce in the cupboard.

He phoned about 5 pm yesterday. He could barely talk, his tongue had gone numb, his eyes and nose were watering, he was sweating from every pore in his body, and he’d made the mistake of rubbing his eyes with his fingers after dipping a sausage into the sauce then licking his fingers to get the last drop.

I’d warned him it had had a few months to cure, and was probably a lot hotter than when it was first made, but this is Adrian, he’d put about a tablespoon full onto a single sausage.

He came out to Ranadi today, he had recovered, but is treating the sauce with a lot more respect now. I find it spicy, but not excessively so, but I eat raw chillies at the market to find the hottest ones anyway, and I love vinegar cured chillies on a salad sandwich. Without a lot of that green stuff as well. Add more chilli is always a good motto.

I’ve been tracking my son Hayden in the Porirua Council elections, he seems to be holding his place well, and should get voted in when the voting is closed and the results are finalised next week, allowing for postal voting. He went to his first Housie night this week, commandeered the microphone for a couple of minutes and picked up 45 more votes, well they said they’d mark their ballot papers and post them in anyway. He didn’t say if he won anything at Housie though.

Employment still seems to be tight in Auckland, Stef is still unemployed, been a while now, and things aren’t looking any better short term. The whole economy is turned down, and I don’t think there will be a huge turnaround even with summer coming eventually.

I’ve been in touch with Computenz NZ, the training and assessment organisation in New Zealand. They feel I can slot back into their organisation if I go back, I’m still registered with them as an Assessor, I’ll have to do a bit of retraining due to a lot of the early Unit Standards having altered, but nothing that I haven’t been keeping up with thanks to being still on the mailing list for Horticulture Training Standards Moderation Boards.

It’ll be a good job at worst, and a good way to stay in the training and teaching field. It’s either that or chase down some contacts in BOC Gases and see about working for BOC as a welding demo person. Or find some small craft bakery and work there. Depends on how I feel I guess, One of the good things about having had a few choices at times, and making the most of them. Or find something completely different to learn. The last choice sounds good to me, but probably not all that practical, and as I’ve never let practical be a consideration, it may be the one I choose eventually.

Everything at work has slowed down this week, timber is delayed, the roof for the prop house is a bit behind schedule, as to be expected, with Tiff away there isn’t anyone available with all the contacts, so the sooner we get the nursery set up the better and we can increase the office staff and spread the workload a bit, and give Tiff more time to be a CEO instead of everything from office girl to Manager.

We’ll make it eventually.

Tuesday 5th October

Another birthday gone and over with. I’m starting to feel I’ll be 70 years old and still trying to get this whole project finished.

Oh well, at least it helps pass the time. Still, a decent beach, some surf and the chance to go fishing would make it a lot better.

Did anyone catch the own goal that the 10:10 lunatic fringe of the eco green fascists made on Friday? With their “be green or we kill you” video? I saw it Monday, they are the lunatic fringe that needs to be watched closely. Ok, real title was “No Pressure”

It lasted all of 3? hours up before it was pulled due to the widespread condemnation all over the blogosphere. So far most of their sponsors have pulled out, I’d like to think I was part of that, I spent a lot of Monday sending letters to their sponsors asking just where their brains were supporting a radical group that promoted killing everyone that disagreed with their agenda. So far Kyocera, Sony and Eaga have pulled their sponsorship, still waiting for O2 to wake up.

Franny Armstrong would have to be the most dangerous person around at the moment, apart from the more long term lunatics like Maurice Strong, James Hansen and William Connolley. Anyone who thinks we only have 4 years to cut the worlds population and stop global warming before we kill the planet is not playing with a full deck of cards. Definitely more than a few sandwiches short of a picnic as far as brains go.

What is next on the green fascist agenda? Armbands for non-AGW believers? Re-education schools? Concentration camps? Arbrecht macht frei? Any green party or organisation that doesn’t distance itself quickly from this lunatic group deserves all the oppribrium that falls upon them from now on. You would have to insane to think you could put out propaganda aimed at children and advocate killing people that don’t believe your ideology. Well ok, Nazi Germany did it, and I have no doubt so have other lunatic socialist/fascist/totalitarian groups, it still doesn’t make it right as a lot of the more strident AGW fanatic websites seem to think.

The black underbelly of the Green Party showed it ugly side finally, as I’ve thought for a long time. One of the reasons I dropped out of the Greens in New Zealand was because of their anti-everything that meant development, progress, better living, cheaper energy. And their underlying population control agenda so long as they were the ones deciding which population was going to be the one culled. Much as they have done with Africa, the middle east, Asia with malaria control, letting millions die from Malaria instead of controlling or eradicating the bloody mosquitos. And their blind refusal to let cheap electrical generation go ahead, instead pushing bloody inefficient, uneconomic windmills and pissant little solar panels. Like I’m so sure they can run an engineering shop with solar panels, or a million dollar windmill when there is no wind. But that is their whole agenda isn’t it? To stop any development, stop manufacturing, let people starve to death in the name of cutting the worlds population. Oh, and to save dear sweet Mother Gaia. Bloody Lovelock has a lot to answer for with his highjacked science fiction stories.

My Grandmother, may she rest in peace, travelled by stagecoach from Christchurch to Otira, cooked on a wood stove, used whale oil, then kerosene, lamps, then lived long enough to see people walking on the moon, 4 major wars, from the Boer war, to Vietnam, radio, movies, television, telephones, electricity, all in 94 years. Her mother spent 5 months sailing from England to New Zealand, it took me 25 hours to fly to Ireland.

And the stupid luddite loopy looney Greens think they can see into the future from here? As though nothing is going to improve, change, alter for the next million years? And using fudged, adulterated, adjusted data from so called “climate scientists” to try and prove the earth is going to fry, while all around them snow is falling.

Lunatics. Blind, unseeing, unthinking lunatics. And dangerous ones as well.

You want to cut the worlds population? It’s easy, provide cheap reliable energy, electricity to those countries without, and watch their population growth slow down and reverse. You want to cut carbon emissions? Although why I haven’t been convinced for yet, it’s easy, provide electricity so the people stop cutting down forests for firewood to cook on. It’s the biggest selling item in the Solomons, bundles of firewood, especially in Honiara, where we haven’t enough trees left to cut since the civil war, when practically every tree in Honiara was cut down for cooking fuel.

And if they were really serous about cutting carbon emissions from energy production, they’d be promoting Nuclear energy, no CO2 emissions, constant supply of energy, and good enough for countries like France to generate 80% and more of their electricity. Luddites. Lunatic fringe luddites. I admit I’m a bit wary of Nuclear in NZ, not enough stable ground that isn’t on, near or about to become an earthquake fault. But we have 500+ years of coal that we haven’t sold to China yet that we could use, and still places for hydro and geothermal plants.

And bloody stupid John Key goes ahead and cripples New Zealand with a stupid Labour Party leftover ETS catastrophe. And tries to talk about NZ becoming an Information HUB. Yeah, right John, you need cheap energy to become one of those, you’ve just made it uneconomic for any company to want to open up business in NZ.

And probably killed more New Zealand businesses as well.

Prat.

Having got that off my chest, I’ll have a coffee and find calmer things to write about.

Tomorrow.

Weekend edition

We’ve started on Woodhenge finally, 4 of the main shade support posts are in place. Everyone apart from me was thinking this was going to be long day of hump and grunt, in the end it took us 45 minutes to get the posts in place.

10’ of 8” x 8” (3 metres and 200mm x 200mm for those in civilised places) of Vasa timber. It is incredibly dense and heavy, each post was a 4 person lift to get onto the truck. I parked the crane truck beside the holes, ran a rope and loops around each post, then swung them into place. It took longer to mix the cement than it did to get the posts in place.










Friday 1st October.

Trying to stop everyone from wanting guide the post into the hole while it was on an ok, rather dodgy rope sling was fun. After the first one I managed to have everyone standing back while I swung the posts around, I don’t know what the law is here on workplace deaths, I think it involves me getting to Henderson Field ahead of the Police, and not coming back. Once I had the post centred all we had to do was hold a foot against the post and pour the concrete around. The guys thought it was terrific, if we’d had all the posts as promised I am sure we would have had them all in place before lunchtime.

Then we finished putting the weed mat down in the shade house area, and sat around wondering what to do next. Ended up sending them out to do a big clean up in Honiara for the weekend, and finished about 4pm.

I had Jacinta at the nursery all day, she usually works the roundabouts and parks, but a car ran over the roundabout yesterday while she was working on it, and she is now a little nervous about working on the roads.

Can’t say I blame her either

Adrian called out to Ranadi as well, he took one look at the posts and said I was bloody mad, how the hell did I get that size timber for a start, and Jesus Christ and his brothers, is this going to be permanent? He’s built a few nurseries in his time as well, and thinks I’m doing ok out here considering the difficulties we have with obtaining everything.

I’m still trying to find some eye bolts with a sufficiently long thread to use as wire strainers, I’m thinking I’ll have to get some made.

Saturday 2nd

I went mad at Wings this morning and bought some stewing steak, about 500gm (1 lb) for $30. So I’ve been fantasizing about what I’m going to cook tonight, well, later. It is looking like a beef curry, coconut cream, chillies, onions, garlic, and fresh made chapati to soak up the sauce. I had to throw out the rice I had, only a couple of weeks, and it was full of weevils again.

My rice container is a plastic bin, holds 10kg of rice, but the lid isn’t that tight a fit. I had a look around town this morning for some fridge seal stick on rubber but all I got was blank looks. I may have to go back to the expensive alternative and buy a kilo at a time, Tiff said they just skim the weevils off when they cook rice. I’m not quite to that stage of culinary expertise yet. I prefer my rice to be without the added protein thanks.

And yes, I have cleaned out the cupboards, frequently, and sprayed and washed with bleach.

It is more a container problem, as I said a while back, anyone wants to start selling Tupperware here, they will make a killing. Or decent click-clack containers. Well, anything with a good rubber seal. I’ve had weevils in my flour, rice, sugar, cockroaches in damn near everything, so I never leave anything out for them to find. Chinese sweet and sour sauce jars are great, all I have to do now is remember to write on them somewhere what exactly I am putting into them. The sniff and taste test gets some strange reactions, especially with dried chilli powder. And trying to distinguish between bread improver and chicken soup powder gets a bit hard at times. And some interestingly flavoured bread.

I mentioned Adrian called out Friday. He’s really at a lost end here, his wife works for RAMSI, he gets to come here as part of the package, but there is nothing organised for him so he gets to wander around trying to find things to fill his time in with. And yes, he does annoy me at times, in fact more than annoy, but I’ve learnt how to deal with that and we have a rather funny relationship. As I mentioned the other day, he turned up with a new shirt for me, ok, I can’t wear it when his wife might notice it, but that is how he is.

I had a bottle of ginger beer (my home brewed one) at Ranadi on Friday when he called out, so I gave him a taste, and asked him if he could keep me any soft drink bottles to bottle it into.

He went away, came back about an hour later, he’d been to Szeba Bottling Co. and bought me a dozen 1.25 litre bottles to use. I told him I didn’t want him BUYING bottles, the empty bottles after he’d had the contents were acceptable, but no, he didn’t have any left at home, his House Mary takes them for her Kwaso brewing, so he went and spent $55 buying me bottles to put ginger beer into. I’ll give him the money back when I get this months allowance, and a few bottles of ginger beer, and that is why I can’t really get annoyed with him, with all his problems, he really wants to help everyone.

Sunday 3rd October

All my intentions got dashed this morning, Emory turned up asking to borrow the truck to take his wife and newborne to #9, or somewhere, his pidgin is good, but the dialect gets a bit hard for me to follow.

Anyway, I’ve been home all day, so I have 10 litres of ginger beer bottled, pita bread proving for dinner later, no water again, as usual for weekends, but the floor has been swept and nearly everything picked up and put away.

We’ve had thunder most for the day, and some heavy falls of rain, it’s been considerably cooler than usual.

Some of the funny things that strike you at odd times. I was thinking today about something my cousin mentioned at Mums Funeral Service, about how he used to try to use me as an example for not having to tidy his room up. I admit, my room at home was a mess, it would get cleaned out a couple of times a week, all the clothes would go into the wash etc, but it invariably got back to a ruin quickly. It was always thus, even when we were living in the packing shed before the big house was built, and my sis and I shared an alcove.

Some of it was that Dad wasn’t concerned, as long as I was prepared to get up at 5am, and help load the station wagon and go into the markets with him, then be dropped off at school on the way home he wasn’t going to get worried if you couldn’t see the floor. When you think about it, being 6 or 7 years old, and going into the Markets at that hour was like a huge adventure. Watching the guys with the handtrucks handling stacks of cases of fruit and vegetables, waiting till our cases of produce were auctioned off, going to the little cramped hole in the wall café, that was full of gruff weather beaten men, having plates of fried eggs and bacon on thick slabs of toast, washed down with cups of over sugared milky tea in thick mugs. For a young kid it was brilliant, I loved it.

Working with Mum and Dad in the packing shed till 10 or 11 pm, the radio on the national programme, live from Parliament. With Dad muttering obscenities about various politicians, Mum winding him up with her own comments, as soon as I could see over the top of the grader I was put on feeding tomatoes through, probably about 4 or 5 years old, I have no idea how young I was, I just remember spending most of my nights in the packing shed. Standing on a couple of apple boxes to be high enough.

Winters were always interesting, getting up at 2am to help fill the kerosene heaters in the glasshouses , clear moonlit nights with a crisp sheer shimmer from the ice forming on the grass and glass houses. Clear spots on the panes of glass above the heaters. Trying not to spill the kerosene as I filled the containers, relighting the wicks, it’s no wonder no one was too concerned about being tidy, we never had time or the inclination, there was always something more important to be done. Spending weekends planting tomato plants in the glass houses, even when I had girlfriends call around wanting to go out, it became “ok, you help plant till we get to half way, then I can get some free time” and bargaining with Mum or Dad about how much further I had to plant before I could get away.

It is no wonder that any chance we had to get away we went as far as possible away from the glasshouses, every school holidays would mean a trip away. May was always for many years to the Crystal Springs at Matamata, August Dad would take my sis and I and just drive and we’d camp where ever we found a camp site. I think we saw most of the North Island before I was 12.