Monday 21st November

I really like getting up at 3am to go milk cows, especially when I get short paid by $500 and it has taken nearly 4 weeks and I’m still not paid. It started back the last week of October, with Labour Day. I got paid the extra for that but not the previous weekend, so I put a note to the woman who does the pay, and she said to include it with my next time sheet. Which still left me with $5.24 to last another 2 weeks after the power bill and telecom were paid. Thankfully I have the pantry stocked up, although Tuffy was looking a bit sad on having dry dog food and kitchen scraps for most of the time.

Then naturally, I didn’t get paid the next fortnight, I’m still missing the weekend hours, so I put another timesheet in for the week, instead of the fortnight, hoping that it would go though before today, but again it is still missing.

To say I’m getting a bit jaundiced about it is a slight understatement. I didn’t have any petrol for the Pajero, so the gardens are missing out, well, I’m missing out on the extra income from them until I can get some petrol and get around to them. Still, it means I’ve caught up on the gardening at home, all the tomatoes in the polytunnel have set the first truss of fruit, the beans are to the top of the strings, well, some of them anyway, the zucchini are almost at flowering and the chilli plants have started flowering already as well.

It’s been a depressing month, the weather has been typical spring here, sunshine, rain, more sunshine, then rain, and a late blast of snow on the mountains the first couple of weeks in November. Add in the pay hassles and I haven’t been feeling the most convivial person. But the rhododendrons have been flowering around the house.

Tuffy is growing into his feet still, he’s just above knee height on me now, well, more than just above, a couple of inches at least, and he insists on trying to help when I’m in the kitchen by standing up at the kitchen sink looking around. His head is nearly level with my shoulders when he does, which is a bit disconcerting. He is slowly learning basic stuff like “SIT DOWN YOU STUPID BLOODY DOG” and “DON’T CHEW MY RUGS”, although the message seems to take a while to get through.

The Kahawai are running at Collingwood river mouth finally, chasing after the whitebait. I’ve caught one so far, for 2 afternoons spent fishing, which isn’t as bad as it sounds. The Kahawai was 1.8kg, and I got 2 really good sized fillets off it, one for dinner and one for lunch the next day. If the weather improves, although we have storms forecast for this week, I’ll be back down next weekend to try again if the river hasn’t flooded too much.

The lawns still haven’t been mown this month, my replacement mower hasn’t arrived, so the pasture is well above knee height. I’ll be a long while cutting it back to a manageable level once the mower does get here. Just another thing to look at and get depressed over.

On top of all the above, I finally made an attempt to finish off upstairs, it isn’t on my high priority list, there is no way of getting out if there is a fire, I’ll put balconeys and ranchsliders to replace the windows before I’d want to sleep up there. I’ve had trouble with the plaster in a couple of spots all of last summer, since I started on it, and the couple of months I’ve left it has shown what the problem is. The crap fake timber lining hid the problem the plaster has shown it up. I’ve ripped the rotten stuff out from where the aluminium window has been leaking, and I’ll go back to my original plan and strip it all out and plasterboard the whole room once I’ve replaced the rotten timber framing. Just more expense I don’t really need.

The General Store in Collingwood has reopened with the new owners, I’m making enquiries about what they are going to do with the bakehouse part of it. That sounds infinitely better than milking cows, the hours would be much the same, early starts, but without the cows pissing and shitting on me. And warm and doing something I prefer. I’ve been keeping up to scratch with the baking, fruit buns and yeast buns with cream filling was the theme this week. They turned out reasonably well, edible anyway. Brigid likes my Vogels Bread copy, I give her a loaf every week or so to keep her family fed.

Golden Bay is getting busier as the season changes, a lot more back packers coming through to the Heaphy Track, and Takaka is getting crowded with camper vans and house buses. Trying to get in and out before the crowds is getting harder, I’ve found going in straight after morning milking at 8.30 with Tuffy gets us there about 9.15, before the tourists are up and about. From what Brigid said the other morning, anytime after 11am is chaotic with people just shambling along the footpath, and bloody camper vans with young european tourists getting all tangled up with driving on the other side of the road and making turns against the traffic.

Other than the problems I’m still pleased I moved here, it’s peaceful at night, I’m left on my own to do what I like, and the neighbours downt he road are good. We all keep an eye out for each other, but without living on each others doorstep.

Book club is still going, with a bit of a revamp. We’re joining up with the Book Discussion Scheme, so that instead of all of us bringing our own books along, we all get a copy of a book from the BDS every month, read and evaluate, then get together to have a wine or three and have an evening out. Oh, and discuss the book.

I don’t know if I have anyone coming down for Christmas yet, Hayden has been making some noises about coming over from Wellington, but I’ve not heard from him, and Stef mentioned that she might come down as well for a couple of weeks. I think it is going to be potluck over the Christmas New Year period. Damian is planning on coming next May School Holiday with the kids, which works out really well.