Monthly Archives: July 2008

Thursday 31st July in Ealing

Boys – football

Barnaby and I went to PC World in Chiswick and bought a gizmo for the iPhone that’d broadcast music and sound in the car so it could be played over the car’s loudspeakers.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 6°C—17°C; no rain [?]

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Wednesday 30th July in Ealing

Boys – football

Hawkes Bay Weather: 12°C—15°C; 40.8 mm rain [?]

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Tuesday 29th July in Ealing

More fotball for the boys.

Without warning my right wrist started swelling as if it were sprained. I can only think it was delayed reaction to my wrist being bent back a bit too far by a lamb rebelling against jumping into our trailer a week before we left. It kept me awake last night so Karola and I went to Ealing Hospital to get it checked. Eventually I was seen by a very pleasant young doctor wearing what appeared to be a cobalt blue nun’s habit. She determined that it wasn’t an RSA or Carpel Tunnel problem and gave me a prescription for strong anti-inflamatories. These helped a little.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 5°C—13°C; 33.2 mm rain [?]

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Monday 28th July in Ealing

It’s school holidays for Felix and Barnaby and today they played football at Barnes

Hawkes Bay Weather: 1°C—15°C; no rain [?]

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Ealing – Day 5 – Barnaby’s 6th Birthday

A day of events for Barney, finishing with a nice dinner at “Pizza On The Green” – the very same table and menu as last year.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 3°C—12°C; 0.1 mm rain [?]

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Ealing – Day 4 – Saturday

Felix and I got Skype video calls working between his computer downstairs and my laptop; I anticipate this will also work between us when I return to New Zealand. Tightened bolts on the garden furniture loosened by rough treatment of the boys over the last year or so. Karola and Anna charted the route and timings down to the South of France – we’re off early on Friday.

Had a quiet dinner out with Anna and Karola at Joie d’Vivre about 50m down the road – Mediterranean menu. Meanwhile marc had taken the boys out for the afternoon.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 6°C—11°C; 39.3mm rain [?]

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Ealing – Day 3 – Week Ending

I struggled with the local home wireless network at Anna’s place and by lunchtime was able to print from my laptop onto the new printer. Karola and Andrea (nanny) took the boys swimming.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 7°C—14°C; no rain [?]

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Ealing – Day 2 – Shopping With Felix

The printer needed a cable and some more ink already so Felix and I went up to Ealing Broadway and went shopping for the morning – including more food and drink at M & S.

Andrea took Barnie birthday shopping separately. Karola tried to catch up on her lack of sleep by pottering – she’s finding the transition quite a bit harder than me.

In the afternoon Karola and Andrea and the boys went swimming at “Pool in the Park” at Richmond. I watched a never-seen-by-me-before last episode of “The Prisoner” from 1960s I suppose.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 8°C—18°C; 0.2mm rain [?]

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Ealing – 24 July 2008

After a blissfully uneventful flight over we’ve recouperated and had a couple of days with all the grandchildren before the More’s returned to New Zealand. As I type they should all be collapsing back at home in Station Road.

Anna has made us exceptionally welcome with lots of food to keep Grandpa occupied – he hasn’t even done his web log since taking off, tsk tsk. The weather here in Ealing is very very good, in high 20s. Karola is with grandchildren 24 x 7 and really “in her element”. What with Bridget energetically organising things and Anna calmly being the gracious hostess and the grandchildren being 8/10 good – Felix and Barnie quite a bit less chaotic than I remember and Natalie and Alex quite considerably more boisterous – it really has been a good start to the holiday.

Here’s 3 pictures of all the grandchildren at a tea party – a sort of precursor to Barnie’s 6th birthday. Chris, Karola’s elbow, , Felix, Natalie, Barnie, Anna, Alex, Bridget (off to right), and me.

Oak Avenue Weather:__℃—__℃ no rain [?]

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Ealing – Day 1 – Bridget et al Back to NZ

We all went to Walpole Park – 5 min walk away – in the morning and played football – well Karola looked after Alex and Bridget stayed behind and packed and the rest of us got very warm as we ran around kicking the soccer ball. Barnie’s (Chris’s) team won 5 – 3 while Felix’s (Andrea’s) team were unusually calm in defeat. A squirrel chased up a tree by Barnie threw bits of acorn down at us.

Felix and I went with Chris to PC World and we bought a printer for Felix (to replace the old broken one at Anna’s), a piece of Apple Mac networking gear that I thought I’d need to get onto the Internet at Anna’s place and then take home with me, a holster for the BickaPhone. The printer has been in heavy use since we installed it – both Felix and Barny finding the ‘copier’ function useful – it is a combined flatbed coper, scanner and a computer printer.

I fixed the TV in the kitchen for Anna – just a couple of plugs that had worn loose.

The grandchildren had a party afternoon tea with a chocolate cake – a prequel to Barnie’s birthday party in a couple of days.

Bridget, Chris, Natalie and Alex all got off remarkably quietly and calmly around 7:20 pm. We talked to Bridget when she was through customs and again when they boarded – the girls were behaving nicely and they’d had the usual mixups with seats.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—18°C; 0.2mm rain [?]

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Leggo (Let-me-go) Land

Part of the hotel package included free tickets to Leggoland – 2 adults, 2 children. So, as planned, while Anna went off to work, we all went out to the Leggoland theme park in Windsor.

Andrea the nanny was to drive Karola, me, the two boys while Chris and Bridget et al went in their own hire car (with sat-nav). Bridget arrived around opening time at 10:00 am and Karola nad I waited for another hour before I called Andrea to see what the holdup was. Felix answered and said that they’d been in a crash so I was a tad apprehensive with Felix half-sobbing down the cellphone. Anyway it all turned out to be more of an emotional thing than any serious damage so within the hour Andrea and the boys turned up at the hotel and we were off to Windsor.

I am not a fan of theme parks or amusement piers or English holiday beaches or camps or postcards, shopping malls, carnivals, circuses, markets or crowded streets.

However, in the process of getting over jetlag, going to Leggoland didn’t make it that much more unpleasant. Eminently forgetable except for the entry price – UK pounds 35 per adult per day – and inside though the rides were free the food and drink wasn’t.

We escaped home without incident and then had an enjoyable light dinner in the back room of Oporto’s portuguese restaurant about 100m down the road from Anna’s house. The children were surprisingly well behaved considering they’d been running around at Leggoland all day; Anna joined us of course; we waited for her to come home from work.

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

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In Transit To Heathrow

Auckland to Hong-Kong comfortable seats, slightly too much food, slept for several hours and didn’t quite feel that horrid headache-dehydrated feeling so a much better flight than usual.

Karola had ticket into the Thai lounge at HongKong and that is really nice – spacious, clean, airy – it’s on a mezzanine floor only 50m or so from the departure gate and so had shave etc and felt refreshed – as well as more food and a cup of tea. They let me in as it was really not at all busy and Karola was convincing about her checked-luggage lounge pass for me.
Watched 10 mins of a film “St Trinians” full of recognised UK actors but rubbish, not a patch on the original. Watched “Shine On Me” Rolling Stones documentary Scorsese- directed documentary – long and with only 2 popular Rolling Stones songs.

The second leg (11 hours Auckland-HongKong, 2 hours in HongKong, 12 hours to London Heathrow) was even better. Watched “The Golden Compass” (from book I of “His Dark Materials” and even though I knew the story it was quite well done. Karola and I watched a series about building a bio-friendly house in England – suitably untaxing viewing. Despite the in-seat power-plug and tons of stuff to read and do I didn’t open the MacBook nor the iPhone once. Am I cured? (Yeah, right).

Landed early afternoon, glorious weather, taxi to hotel, no hassles.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 7°C—17°C; no rain [?]

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Off To England

In the morning we took a coop and the black hen and her 5 chicks over the road to the Saunders – the two little girls were delighted and the chickens were actually put in the guinea pig’s cage until they sorted out animal accommodations.

Laurie and Enid arrived in good time and we went off to Napier airport only to see Craig Vernon from next door seeing one of his daughter’s Kylie, off back to her job in Wellington. We had a relaxed time at Auckland airport – buying a new pair of sound-cancelling earphones (Sony, $132, not the black-box NZ ones for $350 nor BOSE for $750) because Karola’s old ones didn’t work – only to find that we’d been trying to use rechargeable AAA batteries without any charge. I also bought a 2GB flash USB stick as I couldn’t find the 1GB one I bought last year – of course as soon as I got to England I found it in an inner zipped pocket of my computer bag.

2GB USB flash for $30; a whole computer advertised on TV for UKP400 – it is just amazing how prices of electronics have fallen.

After an hour or so in the Koru Club courtesy of Karola’s membership – she’d mislaid the guest card but sweet-talked the receptionis into letting me in – we boarded without any additional security. Short hiatus as, despite checking with the check-in at Napier that we were definitely “upstairs” we found ourselves downstairs – in the right sort of seat but next to the baby-row at the front of economy and near food prep. and the stairs. Without a great deal of harrumphing the stewardess convinced someone to swap with us so we had the good seats upstairs where the service, the food, and the facilities are shared by only a few rows of Business Class with their lie-flat beds in front of our 8 or so rows of Premium Economy.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 10°C—17°C; no rain [81.3]

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Bicka Goes On Holiday

Laurie and Enid came over for morning tea and we walked them round the place – the water troughs and gates and so on.

In the afternoon we took Bicka up to her winter holiday home with Graham and Tracey – she was very pleased to see Henry, the fox terrier and settled in immediately.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 7°C—14°C; 9.5mm rain [81.5]

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18 Jul

Karola went shopping in Hastings – maize and wheat for the poultry etc. and then went to see Shelly Vernon next door and Craig and leave them the key / alarm. So Laurie and Enid have a key and alarm, and so do Craig and Shelly next door. ArmourGuard are not to send patrols but to first call Laurie and if no answer to call Bridget.

Last minute Ian and Karola book buying in Napier for me – 45 mins round trip. I have stocked up on books about parenting and managing boys in trepidated anticipation of the weeks to come.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 9°C—14°C; 1.5mm rain [81.0]

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Even More Trees

Karola continued her tree planting. I dug the holes and she planted 30 trees, Ozmanthus (false holly), PB5s in pots. These went in an L shape part parallel with the yews along the road boundary and part at right angles towards the old wooden gate in the Front paddock.

I also recreated the short netting fence between the sheep yards and the big gate into the orchard up by the big shed. All went well, adding stay posts to a couple of corner posts and running a #8 wire along above the netting to give a bit of extra height. I was on the last join, a short metal sleeve or crimp to join the ends of the strained-up wire, and I cut one end a centimetre too short – the wires touched but did not overlap. So I strained up the fence another notch. CRACK, the nearest corner post broke under the strain. Of such little tragedies is life’s rich pageant made. Anyway it was all up and mended in constant drizzle and fading light. The mild temperature and light drizzle are just perfect for the trees.

Dinner unexpectedly with the Hendery family in Napier – they’ve just come back from staying for a few days at our Pitoitoi flat.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 4°C—10°C; 4mm rain [80.9]

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More Trees

Karola continues planting trees – two Holm Oaks and a Grapefruit near the lemon tree in the front paddock. I did computer stuff most of the day.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 1°C—12°C; no rain [80.3]

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Recycling, The Traditional Approach

Haircuts in the morning – the last New Zealand haircuts for a couple of months. In the afternoon I was persuaded to part with a whole small trailer load of electronic cast-offs – some, like the 19″ and 10″ IBM CRT displays, still in good working order; others like an IBM laptop and Karola’s 1998 IBM NetVista, sadly defunct and estimated to cost much more than another new computer to repair. Printers, attachments, phones, cables and cords, all went to the Transfer Station and hence to the Landfill. The only way to get obsolete electronic equipment recycled is to pay for it, and at the computer recyclers in Seaview, not even paying them would make them touch most if it.

Hawkes Bay Weather: -1°C—14°C; 0.1 rain [80.5]

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Lambs To Go

All went smoothly – we got 14 of the lambs into the trailer before it became crowded then Karola, not wishing to jam them up any closer, had the other two with her in the back of the landrover as we drove the 5 minute to the works. All over for us in an hour; hopefully not much longer for the lambs either. I spent the rest of the day computing while Karola visited some nurseries and garden centres and bought a few more trees.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 1°C—13°C; 0.1mm rain [80.1]

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Amazing weather

Warm sunny day. Karola continued with planting a few remaining trees while I made a ramp for the lambs, to get them from the sheep yards up into the trailer. Amazing weather. One week to go before the UK / France trip.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 1°C—17°C; no rain [80.9]

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iPhoned

9:00am a knock at the door and Postie handed over the iPhone – shipped to the world yesterday, ordered before lunch yesterday, here before morning tea today. We opened it at lunchtime and I had my first call, to Geoff Robinson in the UK who’s kind gift it was (is). It is absolutely entrancing little gizmo – hours of fun to come.

First we dagged the little daggy ewe lamb and gave her and #218 a drench (#218 has been coughing) and drafted out the hulking brute of a ram lamb that had jumped the fence to join the ewes. Then we put all the ewes and Nelson back in the North paddock to give a little separation from the ram/wether lambs. Then we dagged 4 of the ram/wether lambs so they’ll be clean for their final trip on Monday.

Karola and I planted the rest of the 50 manuka and Karola also planted Karamus in amongst her toitoi et al on the north-east corner and along the road frontage.

xxx Harris called in wanting some bamboo for a charity float – we said he could have a few bits of the pile over by the road fence behind the garage. He’ll come and get it sometime in next few days.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 4°C—20°C; no rain [?]

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iPhone You Phone, We All Phone Together

Today the iPhone 3G was launched worldwide and I bought one as they were running out mid morning.

Karola, Bicka and I went to Pernel Fruit World, round the corner on Pakowhai Rd, for lunch. They also have some of the least horrible greetings cards around. We then went via New World supermarket in Taradale to Titoke Nursery on Riverbend Road in Meeane. We bought another 50 manuka and 5 kanuka were given to us as a gift.

Late afternoon we planted 30 of the manuka, getting near to the end of our planned pre-trip tree plantng for 2008.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 10°C—17°C; 0.2mm rain [81.1]

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Progressive Meats Rep Calls

Much milder today and that makes a big difference.

Karola contacted progressive Meats again and this time they were terribly attentive; a buyer, Robert Russell, came round in the afternoon and was early – said they’d take all 16 wether and ram lambs, no problem. By 4:00pm the office had called back and we had a confirmed slot to deliver them at 10:00 am on Monday. That’s a relief because it’s unlikely we’d have enough grass to overwinter them. Robert Russell russell.rk@clear.net.nz 06-834-4226 or 027-680-6806.

Karola planted several Karamu and Titoke ‘replacements’ where other trees had failed in the planting area along the orchard road. The piece we planted last winter was particularly hard hit although the lemonwoods prospered; Karola planted about a dozen replacements.

I put in a post for the twin netting gates across the corner of the northern corner of the North paddock.

Karola also put in the final couple of trees in that northern corner planting area.

Hawkes Bay Weather: __°C—__°C; no rain [82.0]

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Drop-In Day

Jenny Hendery was dropped off for morning tea with her two mokapuna – Jasmine and Emily Hendery – Jenny’s grandaughters, Simon Hendery’s daughters. (Mark who came and helped us last week is Simon’s younger brother). Noel Hendery joined us after some vicarly duties in Hastings. I gave them a free HP printer I’d got via a promotion and for spending so much on HP printer ink.

Cynthia Chalmers – the merry widow of the Taihape Road came for lunch.

In addition Karola and I gave the lamb with an injured leg a shot of penicillin – after Cynthia showed me how to break the vacuum seal in the syringe – no wonder I’d thought every syringe was faulty in the past – terribly hard to get stuff out of. And Karola cut the worst of the dags off 2 – 3 mucky lambs, the rest are quite clean and they”re all lively and seem plump – though it’s hard to tell beneath the wool – so cold do quite well at the saleyards on Monday.

And we did a bit more on the railings.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 6°C—12°C; no rain [82.0]

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Tommy For Lunch

Wind has died at last – still antarctic southerly. Finished another panel of railings. Philida Ormond and her mother Tommy came for lunch.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 4°C—12°C; no rain [81.3]

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Kaz and Yvonne Take Tea

A bit more on the railings but it is still windy and cold. Kaz and Yvonne called in for afternoon tea on their way from Gisbourne home to Fielding,

Hawkes Bay Weather: 2°C—12°C; no rain [81.6]

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Gale Force

It was so windy today that we did no work outside.

Hawkes Bay Weather: -4°C—10°C; no rain [81.7]

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Headstrong Ewe Lamb

Mary’s rain gauge says we’ve had 60 mm rain here since last I checked on 25th May – 60 mm to the end of June.

Late last night a lamb started intermittent baaing. Early this morning Karola said she could see it had its head stuck in a fence so I got up and went out and freed it by turning it on its side and pulling hard. Our sheep have relatively thin but tall faces so she was completely stuck trying to back out right-side up and she obviously turned her head sideways to grab a morsel of grass,, hence getting trapped.

Late this afternoon I erected electric fence across the top of the lawn and got the ewes and Nelson out of the North paddock into the West (aka Triangle) paddock – the North paddock is supposed to be food for August.

Karola has talked to him several times but the Progressive Meats rep has still not come to size up our ram/wether lambs so maybe we’ll arrange to take them to saleyards next week.

Karola and I cleared the loose hay out of the big shed, storing it for now in the guardsman’s box (aka the old disused long-drop shed). Then we repaired/replaced the old fluorescent strip light in the cottage sitting room with a normal fitting – the fluorescent started fusing the other lights in the cottage a couple of years ago so we haven’t used it since then.

Matt Saunders came and borrowed the tractor – returning it filled with diesel. Matt & Karen (Amy – 5yrs, Renee 3yrs) live at Stables 140 Ormond Rd, ph: 879-5557, work Vertex Pacific Ltd.

Rowena came to see Karola today.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 0°C—11°C; no rain [81.3]

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Bicka Vaccinated Against Kennel Cough

Very late nights for us last night. Karola watching the Williams sisters clamber up the Wimbledon ladder; me being in a two-hour tutorial by IBMers for IBMers on “Second Life” from within “Second Life”. As a consequence I have a “Second Life” avatar, Bicka MorPork. Initially she had the appearance of a female dinosaur. I can see how one could spend hours and hours in there what with creating just the right avatar (online character) with the right wardrobe and so on.

Today I moved several hundred old battens from the big shed; Karola and I tried in vain to open the house water filters; we did however manage to rejoin a large plastic downpipe with its top gutter spout. At Karola’s suggestion I “rolled” the deeply rutted lawn where the gutter-cleaning truck had parked – not brilliant but better than the truck tyre ruts.

I took Bicka in to the vets in Hastings and she had her Kennel Cough vaccine – a squirt up the snout.

Janet Scott called in to see Karola

Hawkes Bay Weather: 5°C—15°C; no rain [81.5]

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Guttered

Today we did the gutters. J R Boyle’s truck with a 20m platform hoist arrived around 9:00am and Mark and I went up in it and found to our delight that the top gutters were almost all clean with the exception of a few clumps of bright green grass which were what fired Karola up to get the gutters cleaned. About 11:30 we’d finished the high gutters; Mark and I used the Fergie bucket as a hoist and did the verandah gutters and the cottage ones facing south. We used a ladder for the homestead kitchen leanto gutter and the back cottage gutter. Very satisfactory. J R Boyle $125/hour rental of the truck and operator Bob from Cork in Ireland. Ph 027-487-3328.

In the afternoon Karola and Mark carted mulch and put it round most of the trees we’ve planted recently. I did computer stuff.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 7°C—18°C; no rain [81.0]

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Firewood Moved Out Of Big Shed

With Mark Hendery’s help I moved 3 – 4 trailer loads of eucalypt and cedar firewood to a new home under the eucalypts in the Front paddock. We also piled up the 20 or so Elm beams that the hay had been stacked on in years gone by – underneath was a warren of animal holes. And we cleared away a trailer load of old oak firewood that’d been languishing in the Island paddock for 3-4 years.

It looks like one of the Ladbrooke boys will be willing to sell our apple firewood that I cut to size and piled up in the shed several years ago. That’ll not only make space in the shed which we’re lending to Alan for a while – he having sold his orchard including sheds – but maybe we’ll recoup the expense of cutting it all up.

Hawkes Bay Weather: 2°C—16°C; no rain [?]

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