Monthly Archives: July 2007

Felix and I assembled a storage chest (pine wood and lots of screws). Another quiet day; Anna is at work and Jo the minder came and looked after the boys.

Hawkes Bay Weather:8°C—18°C; no rain [?]

Quiet Monday; Anna took the boys out for adventure and Karola and I shopped and read. We got a kitset storage chest for Felix and a set of toy shelves for Barnaby to assemble. Karola and Barnaby had theirs done in a flash; Felix and I took inventory and then laid our chest out to do tomorrow. I got Felix a small plastic toolbox wth some “explorer” essentials – wind-up torch, string, pliers, screwdrivers etc. Meal out together in the evening.

Hawkes Bay Weather:4°C—17°C; 0.1mm rain [?]

Anna, Felix, Barnaby, Karola and I went to the National Maritime Museum on the underground and Docklands Light Railway.

Hawkes Bay Weather:5°C—13°C; 13.2mm rain [?]

Karola and I had lunch with Gill Doyle and Claire Ewing and I went shopping for shirts in Regents Street. We had afternoon tea in Harrods – Egyptian theme, very crowded as it turned out to be the last day of a week of Harrods sales.

Hawkes Bay Weather:2°C—18°C; no rain [?]

Shopping, tennis coaching for the grandsons, collecting Barney’s birthday bicycle, boys bicycle ride in Lammas Park, a meal at Pizza On The Green. Barnaby has already had his official party so this was the actual birthday, not the official birthday.

Hawkes Bay Weather:5°C—19°C; no rain [?]

We got rid of a small old tree stump in Anna’s back garden; otherwise it was more of the same.

Hawkes Bay Weather:2°C—18°C; no rain [?]

Quite a nice day in London; more tennis practice and then noon tennis lessons for the grandsons; a visit to Wickes for an axe, crowbar, nails and a saw – followed by more nailing of bits of wood by the grandsons.

Hawkes Bay Weather:3°C—16°C; no rain [?]

Grandson-minding. The boys go to an hour’s tennis coaching every fine day this week; we also took them shopping and for some pre-coaching tennis, and some “banging nails into pieces of wood”.

Hawkes Bay Weather:2°C—17°C; no rain [?]

English summer weather still very mixed, and expected to continue that way for weeks, or so says the TV. Couple of outings to local parks, including Kew Gardens and Gunnersbury Park, with Anna and the boys.

Hawkes Bay Weather:2°C—14°C; no rain [?]

Left the hotel and joined up with Anna having a leisurely pavement-side brunch with Felix and Barnaby a few minutes walk from her place in Ealing. Minor excursions with the boys or Anna throughout the day and Karola watched the last day of the big international golf tournament in England, an exciting day of surprise upsets, allegedly. We are now staying with Anna in Ealing. She’s made lots of improvements to the inside and garden of the house since I was here last, it is much more welcoming and warmer and comfortable than before.

Hawkes Bay Weather:-2°C—10°C; 0.1mm rain [?]

Another huge breakfast. Then we went to Osterley Park for a walk and lunch. Occasional showers but generally a warm, partly cloudy day.

In the evening we went to Heathrow Terminal 2 to pick up Anna and her two boys, returning from a week in the south of Italy. Planes were delayed or cancelled in large numbers due to yesterday’s storms and Anna’s plane arrived an hour late but otherwise without incident. Karola cooked them scrambled eggs on toast and then they all tumbled into bed after a days travelling, and we returned for our last night in the Heathrow Marriott. I e-mailed a colleague in the USA and got the online systems to send him the missing file so that tomorrow perhaps he will send it to one of my other e-mail addresses and I can resestablish contact with my IBM mail. It’s not that daily contact is necessary, but 5 weeks without access would be a nuisance.

Hawkes Bay Weather:7°C—14°C; 4.5mm rain [?]

Huge breakfast soon after the restaurant opened and then, as I panicked about being unable to get to my IBM mail, Karola got the hire car and organised a day trip to see Roger and Anne Hughes in Harpenden. We set off late morning and it was just beginning to rain; the rain became torrential and Karola had to drive at 30-40mph on the M25 with headlights on and wipers going full blast and still not clearing the rain; water inches deep across all lanes as the heavens just opened – like being in Florida in the summer, but unexpected here. We crawled on up round past the M40 and off on an A-road towards Hemel Hempstead with the cloudbursts coming less frequently but copious water on the roads. The trip up to Harpenden took about 2.5 hours, including some backtracking when we got temporarily mislaid, but mostly it was the atrocious weather. The weather cleared and it became a nice warm sunny day spent with Roger and Anne, leaving in evening sunshine around 9:00pm. The return trip to Heathrow Marriott via St Albans and the M25 took 22 minutes.

Hawkes Bay Weather:2°C—11°C; 16.6mm rain [?]

Hawkes Bay Weather:9°C—13°C; 13.5mm rain [?]

In the morning, beset by showers, Karola and I moved the last of the electric fence from around the peaches, did last minute shopping (I had a haircut) and I continued trying to set up my new laptop with copies of the programs I thought I’d like to use while in the UK. After lunch I (at last) packed for the UK and then continued setting up the computer, At 3:00pm the taxi arrived; at 3:30pm we set off.

I left behind a cable (easily rectified once we get to the UK) and one tiny little file needed to operate my IBM e-mail program, but I didn’t know that at the time. Other things we’ve forgotten in the rush will no doubt become apparent later, but on the whole we seem to have everything. Karola patiently shut doors and put things away so when we left the place was basically secure.

At 3:30pm we set off in a taxi to the airport in Napier; our luggage was booked right through to London; the plane to Auckland left at 4:25pm and arrived on time an hour later. Soon after 6:00pm we were through immigration and in the Air New Zealand Koru club (Karola bought a membership and I went as her guest, something of an about-face from the previous 20 years) where we sat on comfortable chairs and nibbled from a well provided buffet until 10:45pm when boarding began. Security was thorough but no problem and by 11:30pm we were airborne in quite comfortable economy-class seats in the upstairs hump of a 747 with tons of legroom and computer power and business-class food and drink. That’s what you get for a “premium economy” seat. 11.5 hours later we landed in HongKong, 1.5 hours later we were back in those same seats on the way to London where we arrived without incident 12.5 hours later. Heathrow is dirtier and more confusing than I remember it but even so, with EU passports, we were outside in a bus to the hotel in less than an hour. The Heathrow Marriott is a little older now, a little tarnished at the edges compared with when we used to stay there a decade ago, just after it was built. I was persuaded to upgrade to a slightly nicer room with breakfast and Internet connection thrown in.

Karola read 4 paperback novels and I listened to 10 half-hour lectures on DVD on the plane. I also watched a New Zealand film called Black Sheep, which I cannot recommend against more strongly – a couple of amusing jokes, some New Zealand scenery, a lot of blood and guts, and truely amateur acting and directing. Compared with my last experience of international air travel the in-flight entertainment was better – a much larger selection of films and maybe 100 CDs to choose from; but the films I thought worth watching I’d already seen, and the CDs I liked were ones I had. So, just as well I have about 40 hours of lectures on DVD to watch.

The anti-Jetlag pills we bought in Auckland, (because an old guy who happened to be buying some when we were browsing in Whitcoulls reccomended them highly), seemed to work a bit. Those plus Karola’s UK-bought sleeping pills (you can’t buy anything effective over the counter in New Zealand) got us off to a good sleep around 6:00pm.

Hawkes Bay Weather:10°C—13°C; 21.9mm rain [?]

Old netting and standards fence across the lawn; temporary 120m; raining while we did it.

Hawkes Bay Weather:10°C—13°C; 21.7mm rain [?]

Karola and I finished putting up the netting fence extending the inner fence along the planting area beside the orchard drive. It involved attaching a pair of boards to the end of each roll or part-roll using bolts to squeeze the netting securely between the boards. Then, using a length of #8 wire attached to the top and bottom of the pair of boards, and looping the middle round either the Landrover towbar or the equivalent hitch on the Fergie, a pair of wire strainers are used to tension top and bottom, leading to a nice taut netting fence. Each roll is connected to the next by crimping the 9 corresponding wires together; you hardly notice the join.

We repeated our netting work with about 30m of old netting joining up the new (totara batten) fence and the old diagonal fence between the Triangle and wilderness paddocks. So, at last and really in the nick of time: the Front paddock is once again sheep proof and the planting alongside the orchard drive protected from browsing sheep; the wilderness paddock is ready to be ploughed but in the meantime (for next 2 days) we let the 8 Romney ewes in there to graze any sweet patches of grass; and the Triangle paddock just needs a netting fence to separate it from the lawn – electric fence is not reliable enough to use while we’re away.

And it’s raining again . . .

Hawkes Bay Weather:7°C—13°C; 64.2mm rain [80.4]

Things went rather slowly today with more than the usual number of mis-steps due I think to the heavy colds going the rounds. Karola had a stinking cold for the last 5-6 days and I’ve got something similar for the last couple of days and it does make one a bit more dozy than usual.

Despite that, it was more fencing for me today, beginning with chainsawing some stay posts and blocks and then putting in a stay for the netting fence extension along the orchard drive, straining up 4 wires and beginning to lay out the netting. Four of the posts rammed earlier needed straightening after the top wire demonstrated just how crooked they were.

If the rain holds off or is just occasional showers we will finish in time before Wednesday. We are doing some trial packing and weighing – 20 kilos doesn’t go far and that’s the baggage allowance for each of us.

Hawkes Bay Weather:4°C—11°C; 0.4mm rain [80.6]

A beautify sunny day, mostly. Karola had already sorted and laid out the 90 old totara battens for the fence and we together put them all on the new fence today – 630 staples. The galvanised diamond-tipped barbless staples were just the ticket.

Laurie McDermott came round for a last chat with us before we go – he’ll look after the animals and keep an eye on the house and grounds while we’re away.

Hawkes Bay Weather:5°C—13°C; 0.1mm rain [81.0]

More showers with occasional sunny breaks, cool but not freezing.

All 7 wires are now strained up and crimped and stapled to the posts. Naturally I ran out of 4mm crimps, I was one short; had zillions of 2.5mm crimps but only 6 for #8 wire.

We will try using old totara battens (5 between each pair of posts) although they are said to be very hard to nail into. I asked at Farmlands and they gave me a few galvanised diamond-pointed, unbarbed staples to try – these seemed to go in OK with Karola holding a spade against the far side of the batten and me hammering the staples home, so we bought a small quantity – 20kg was smallest which must contain several thousand staples I suppose, keep us going for years.

According to my plan on Tuesday/Wednesday I should have finished this fence 2 days ago and also have the netting up across the lawn. Things continually take much longer than I expect – I am subject to Hofstadter’s law “Things always take longer than you think, even when taking into account Hofstadter’s Law”.

Hawkes Bay Weather:4°C—11°C; 0.3mm rain (43mm of rain so far in July according to Mary’s rain gauge) [80.0]

Showers, frequent and more intense. Mild and a spot of sunshine in the afternoon while we were entertaining yet another potential financial advisor. Brien Mahoney (pronounced “mahey”) is a consultant with Guardian Trust based in Napier (brien_mahoney@nzgt.co.nz 06-835-6534 or 027-430-9215) and he is a friend of Brian and Margery Cobbe . Brian Cobbe used to be Karola’s family lawyer and a trustee for the then Karamu Trust; Margery taught Karola at Mt Biggs primary school – small world here.

A bit more progress on the new fence – all the posts are now “straight enough” and the wires are partially on. Karola loaded up the trailer with old totara battens; 5 of these need to go between each pair of posts; we have been warned that the old totara wood is very hard so it may turn out to be impractical to use them; we shall see.

This evening went to see a film at the Century Cinema in Napier. Excellent German film (with subtitles) called “The Lives of Others”. I quote: “Winner of this year’s Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award, this is a tautly-plotted film set in 1984 East Germany when surveillance was a way of life, the secret police (Stasi) employing 200,000 officers and 1 in 50 of the population were registered informers. Gerd Wiesler is the agent set to spy on Georg Dreyman, one of the country’s leading playwrights who lives quietly with his girlfriend Christra. Wiesler after a time realises that his target is innocent and is being spied on for other reasons… ”

Hawkes Bay Weather:6°C—11°C; 3.4mm rain [?]

Gentle showers drifted across all day, finally becoming steady rain for a time around 4:00pm. I tried waiting out the showers but eventually this proved too frustrating – each time I set foot outside after a shower it started the next one – so I donned waterproofs and ignored it. It was most fortuitous that I installed the three strainer posts two days ago; the ground is getting very sticky and it’s quite impossible to ram earth now – and the forecast isn’t much better for the next 3 days.

I got two stay posts in and a couple of wires on the new fence between the wilderness and Front paddocks. Also was delighted to find that the large roll of old netting we planned to run across the edge of the lawn actually is long enough; must be over 100 metres long; it’s laid out now along the route of the as yet undug piece of ha-ha and I got the warratahs yesterday so it won’t take long to erect. I put up a little gate at one end so that if Laurie McDermott needs to feed out hay while we’re away at least he doesn’t have to climb over a netting fence or detour through the geese enclosure. Karola continued deconstructing some netting round her totara row; it’ll be long enough to patch the 29 metre gap between the new fence and the old diagonal fence separating the wilderness and Triangle paddocks.

Hawkes Bay Weather:7°C—12°C; 7.4mm rain [81.1]

Only a week left to complete all pre-trip projects. Showers and chilly but not freezing.

In the morning I tackled a job I’d been putting off. I got out the Honda petrol generator and hooked up my grinder, took all this in a wheel barrow out to where the tractor flail mower sits with its broken linkage pin. In under an hour I had ground my way through the shaft of the left-hand broken linkage pin and the very worn right-hand pin too. Much glowing metal, sparks, and noise. Previously I’d tried to undo the nuts fastening the pins to the frame of the flail mower but even with my 18″ huge Crescent spanner I couldn’t get them to budge; I tried various lubricants and leaving overnight but still no joy, hence this rather brute force technique for removing the pins.

Took the pins up to HB Tractor Dismantlers and Kerry sold me replacements. In addition I left him the new Bio 190 mulcher’s drive shaft as it is (deliberately) too long and one is expected to saw both the revolving shaft and its protective cover to the right length for your particular tractor. The revolving shaft is in fact two shafts, one slides inside the other to accomodate the changes in length when you raise or lower the mulcher on the Fergie 3-point linkage. It also needs to retract a bit to allow you to slip it onto the tractor PTO of course. Kerry also said he’d buy back the two old bald tyres he sold me a couple of years ago, replaced by the new “boots” I bought for the Fergie last year. People using tractors to drag their boat off the lawn and into the sea like to buy very bald but functional tractor tyres as it does less damage to their lawn.

Karola completed her de-battening of the replaced fence, the last 2 wires of a 7-wire fence. She began taking down some netting from round her line of totara trees – each of which now has its own treeguard or wire and shade cloth held up with “warratah” standards (metal posts) so the enclosing fence is unnecessary. I continued with the repairs and additions to the fencing separating the Front and Triangle paddocks from the wasteland/bonfire paddock. This must be finished before we go next Wednesday.

At Karola’s request I changed the old, rusty, worn out gate latch on the old wooden gate by the grass bridge for a new one; we don’t want any gate accidentally coming open while we’re away.

Hawkes Bay Weather:7°C—12°C; 3.8mm rain [80.7]

We finished Karola’s GST return for April/May (due end of June, tsk, tsk) and posted it – that means we put it in the mailbox by the back door and raised the little red flag – there are some advantages to being a “rural delivery”.

Most of the day taken up with putting in 3 large 2.4m long strainers for the new fenceline separating the Front paddock and the wilderness/bonfire paddock. The weather was just right for it, cool and occasionally cloudy with no wind. The soil is damp but not muddy so it is easy to dig and rams well too. As usual I hit a layer of pumice and some old rotten tree branches about a metre down in each hole.

Craig came over while I was digging and had a chat. He too had noticed the return of the pair of grey herons; they landed in the wilderness paddock for a while and then spent the day wheeling around; Craig says that they have a nest in the Hickory. We haven’t seen the herons for several years although they used to be a regular feature.

Hawkes Bay Weather:4°C—12°C; 0.2mm rain [80.7]

Bright, sunny, crisp day with beautiful snow-covered mountain views from the bed. I did more fencing stuff and Karola planted the Ngaios.

At Karola’s suggestion we drafted out the 8 Romney ewes and put them in the Middle paddock – a bit of special treatment to see if we can get them looking as sleek and healthy as our other sheep. Of course our other ewes do seem to like apple tree bark and hay and sheep nuts whereas the Romneys seem only to want best quality ryegrass which is in rather short supply.

Hawkes Bay Weather:2°C—11°C; no rain [80.7]

Showers periodically, interspersed with some sunshine lulling one into thinking the rain had stopped for the day. Shopping in the morning – including picking up some new possum bait from Farmlands. Phonecalls with Gill in the afternoon as she installs Windows on her black Mackintosh Macbook laptop.

When not drying out or waiting for the rain to stop Karola and I continued with fencing project – to get the wilderness paddock ready for ploughing next week and the rest of the paddocks sheep-proof for when we leave for UK in 11 days time.

Hawkes Bay Weather:1°C—9°C; 1.5mm rain [81.1]

Persistent drizzle but mild and no wind. Good for the young trees.

Fed the sheep another bale of 2007 hay. Still 3 geese and 12 bantams and a cat.

Spent most of the day out in the elements using the Fergie to pull out more fence posts no longer needed. Plenty of mud involved. Also wrapped up the electric fence from around the lawn.

Karola picked up 40 Ngaio trees from Matatoa Nursery in Shannon on her way home; she arrived around 3:30pm. Bicka was quite pleased to be home but clearly very much at home in the warm car too.

Hawkes Bay Weather:5°C—9°C; 14mm rain (28mm for July in Mary’s rain gauge) [81.2]

Earlier start than usual; the Bobcat arrived on its truck at 8:00am and moved the two large heaps of ash, all complete within 3 hours. This year’s ash heap is twice the size of last year’s – about 20 cubic metres of ash, and it was still hot and burning inside. At one point the wooden edge to the truck tray caught fire and each Bobcat shovel full of ash sent large clouds of black, sooty smoke into the air. We dumped the ash into a depression along the side of the orchard drive; two poplar tree stumps started burning and I later put them out using a hose connected into the irrigation system along the orchard drive. Nick (Total Earthworks Ltd – 021-338-964 a/h 06-876-6056) did a nice job of smoothing the huge pile of smoking ash, covering it with ash from last year’s fire.

While this was going on I used the Fergie to pull up fence posts across the Front paddock, the fence line no longer needed with the repositioning of the fence about 20 metres further west. In the afternoon I dug up the remaining strainer post on that redundant fence line and filled in the post holes. The new fence will be much less visible from the homestead and the gates will be hidden by the Liriodendrum on the lawn.

I put the final top coat on both the new gates. Adam Ladbrooke came round on his tractor just as I was finishing; he’s ready to plough the wilderness field and, now that the ash has been moved, we’re ready too.

Last night, while investigating why one of my weekly automated web journal backups hadn’t been sent for the last two weeks, I discovered that none of the automated backups I have been doing for some months are any good. The backup program is working properly but the mail system is truncating long lines and causing havoc. After a few hours research I think I’ve found a solution. Of course as soon as we found out Bridget and I made special backups of all our databases – we’re lucky we didn’t need any of the backups before.

Karola was expected back this evening but has decided to stay an extra day with Bridget and the grand-daughters.

Hawkes Bay Weather:8°C—18°C; 10.8mm rain (12mm in Mary’s rain gauge) [80.8]

Got up late, sunny, cool day with gentle breeze. Fed animals and penned up the 1st eleven ready for their truck at 10:30am. By 10:45am they had left. I counted the sheep we have left and there are 40: 1 x Nelson; 4 x ewes – #200s, 9 x ewes – #400s, 8 x Romney ewes, 6 x ewe lambs, 1 x wether lamb; 11 x ram lambs.

Odd jobs: charging up the Fergie battery; measuring the mulcher driveshaft so that it can be cut to the length needed for our Fergie; mending a door latch; sweeping large numbers of leaves out of the garage; buying a tin of galvanised iron primer and other bits and bobs from Mitre-10.

In the afternoon I primed both the gates I bought yesterday, hoping to get them both painted Karamu green before Karola gets home tomorrow.

I called Matatoa Nursery back and ordered the Ngaios for Karola to pick up on her way back tomorrow. Also arranged for a Bobcat contractor to come here tomorrow and move the ash from the bonfires this year and last year into a depression on the boundary with Craig Vernon, to the north, along the orchard drive. Craig has agreed I can do that.

Hawkes Bay Weather:5°C—16°C; no rain [81.5]

I took a mid day flight back to Napier, paid for with airpoints; Karola and Bicka are staying down for a coiuple more days and driving back on Thursday. Meanwhile I will take delivery of Ngaios and Yew trees and get the 1st eleven ram lambs off to the works etc. A call from Taupo Native Tree Nursery, 2 weeks after confirming our order of 40 or so Ngaio trees, said sorry but they’d run out of Ngaios.

I have found another source for the Ngaios in Shannon, Matatoa Nursery, so if I am lucky and confirm purchase tomorrow Karola may be able to pick them up on her way home on Thursday. (119R Engels Rd, Shannon 06-362-7477).

Checked the animals and I couldn’t find any sheep corpses and I counted about the right number so I guess they’re all there. Nelson is limping – front right leg – which I think is more likely to be arthritis rather than footrot. It was the front left leg last year. Ram lambs seem to be a bit more cheerful now the weather is warmer again and they’ve grown a little wool.

Only a dozen bantams now – Laurie McDermott confirmed that he only saw 12 when he fed them this morning. All 3 geese are still around.

I bought a pair of 4.25m farm gates from Goldpine on Omahu Rd, Brumby Hurricane gates, for the place where the Front, North, and West paddocks converge. Police were out – red plain clothes car – ticketing speeders in the Avenue so I was careful not to be seen with my trailer – the trailer lights have stopped working. Later, on a trip after dark to the supermarket, I noticed that the instrument panel in the Landrover was dark – fuse #8 has blown again; there’s a fault in the trailer wiring that blows this fuse if I turn on the main beam lights while the trailer is attached. Hmmm.

Hawkes Bay Weather:5°C—16°C; no rain [?]

Karola cooked a meal to take to Bridget for dinner; I experimented with my latest laptop, the 17-inch Macbook Pro. I got it to run Mac OS X, Windows XP Pro, and Fedora FC6 Linux all at the same time. We went in to Bridget’s place in Khandallah mid afternoon. At 5:00pm I went to Karori and brought Mary over to share the meal – Bridget’s Chris was in Christchurch on business for a couple of days so it was Karola, me, Mary, Bridget, and of course Natalie and Alex (Alexandra). The two granddaughters were on their best behaviour and were charming.

Later I took Mary back to Karori and stayed to watch a UK crime drama on Sky television.

Hawkes Bay Weather:5°C—18°C; no rain [?]

Relatively warm in Hawkes Bay, less so in Wellington. A colleague from IBM in the UK, Dave Selby, is visiting New Zealand for a couple of weeks, working with a local customer, and he came out on the Day’s Bay Ferry and the four of us (Karola, me, Bicka, Dave) had a brunch at the “Chocolate Days” restaurant on the waterfront. Mid afternoon we all went in to see Bridget and family, taking Dave back to his hotel at dusk. Karola and I went to the Rashbrookes in York Bay ( a couple of bays north of Day’s Bay) for dinner and had a delightful evening again. Bicka looked after Pitoitoi, rather enjoying her run of the place.

Hawkes Bay Weather:7°C—18°C; no rain [?]