Ground drying out nicely; chooks laid two eggs today, first time more than one egg for ages.

Small things made the day zip by. The old NextGen RF-IR repeater stopped working and I had to dig out the little scrap of paper which said how to associate the TV “remote” with the home base station before I could get it to work again. The remote is a special Sky “installers remote” that combines a regular TV remote and the Sky TV remote function. The NextGen system lets me control the Sky box from anywhere in nearby rooms; its RF signal goes through walls etc and the base station converts that to IR with an “eye” that blinks at the sensor on the Sky box.

Major problem with NextGen stuff is that the manufacturing company has vanished – no web-site, no user guides on Google etc, so apart from the documentation I saved at the time, I’m flying blind.

Karola pointed out that the outside tap over by the homestead is leaking a bit; it’s the tap used by the artisans (“tradies”) because the homestead water has been turned off since last Monday, expecting the rain-water tanks to be cleaned last Wednesday. Covid interrupted that but we’re hoping it’ll be done this Wednesday instead. So I set out to fix the dripping tap. It’s dripping from the spout, not any of the connections so I expected it to be just a washer replacement.

I have some ordinary tap washers somewhere, I know I have, I can see them in my minds eye, but after an hour of searching I gave in. It’s no wonder we have duplicates of so much stuff here, we’re drowning in stuff that might be useful one day, so much so that when that day comes we can’t find it. So as darkness fell I zipped down to Mitre-10 and bought some washers along with more of the cat’s whisker gutter guards and a white plastic tarpaulin, more of a netting really. The tarp is for anchoring the eight shelves of books in the homestead linen cupboard in case of earthquake. I shall also move the many pictures stacked on the floor beneath as soon as one of the upstairs bedrooms is painted.

I checked just now and the tap has not leaked since the washer replacement.

Oak Avenue Weather:1.6℃—13.8℃ 0.8mm rain [76.3] TdT eggs=2

Cool but sunny day. Decided to take a walk along the Clive wetlands which was surprisingly busy when we first arrived, hordes of cyclists and several dog walkers, but deserted on the way back.

In the afternoon I did a few odd jobs like taking the old copper guttering to the stump dump – copper guttering we save for thre scrap metal merchant but ordinary old galvanised guttering goes straight into the skip.

Actually read a back-number of The Economist, I’ve barely read any Economists or New Scientists or Scientific Americans for months it seems, and this one had interesting things to say about TikTok.

Bridget, Gill, Karola, and I were in a shared “chat” TXTing about Chris’ surgery today at Wellington Hospital. Bridget and Natalie were at the hospital throughout the operation just patiently waiting, finally going home when they decided to keep Chris in overnight. Last we heard Chris was eating and drinking, good signs.

Cape Kidnappers Across The Wetlands

Oak Avenue Weather:3.3℃—18.4℃ no rain [75.8] TdC TdO eggs=1

Very windy which is helping dry up the sodden ground after the week’s rain. So windy that when we took Bangle down to the stop bank she was very reluctant to come on her walk – so we relented and took her home.

Paul and Matt finished what they could inside; we’re now waiting for ten more sheets of GIB and some more edging for the skirting. They then worked on the protected section of the west verandah, around the window frames.

Mark trimmed the cottage Bay tree hedge.

Annual Bay Tree Hedge Trimming

The Ram Villains Who Have Been Ring-Barking Young Elms

Prow Of The West Verandah Almost Finished

Orca In Wellington Harbour (courtesy Ben bell today)

Splendid View Of South Island From Wellington Today (courtesy of ben Bell)

Oak Avenue Weather:8.5℃—17.2℃ no rain [75.9] TdO eggs=0 Mark=4

Seven cars/vans outside the house at various times today: Paul and Matt plus Monique (painter), Ivan (electrician), Selwyn Cooke (CooksAVS – smoke alarms), the Gib Stoppers, the scaffolding checker.

I had a very late night yesterday. I decided on a whim to clear the homestead dining room ready for GIB as Paul and Matt had almost finished the upstairs and had seven sheets of GIB left. It was after 1:30am when I’d finished moving the books and furniture out – except for the Kauri table and chairs and a large dutch dresser – pictures and hooks off the walls, curtains and rails down.

Paul estimates we’d need seventeen sheets for the dining room and so we need another ten which may not be available for another week – but Paul and Matt got the scrim off the walls and nailed up the special skirting trim ready for GIB.

The GIB-Stoppers aka plasterers came today and by this evening had done all upstairs bedrooms except the main bedroom.

After talking to Paul we decided to buy just one set of the spiral balance sets, for the west-facing doubler-hung sash window at the end of the passage upstairs. Order is in, paid for online, and now expected in New Zealand on Friday.

After a brief but heavy rain shower coinciding most inconveniently with my foray with Bangle to get the paper, it became a delightful sunny day. We walked along the stop bank rather than going round the orchard to avoid Bangle getting coated with mud – the ground is still quite sodden.

Selwyn Cook and apprentice came today and wired up several more smoke alarms. He’ll give us a Producer/Compliance certificate for the council inspection.

We also discussed the interference I get between the terrestrial coax cable TV programme and the HDMI-over-ethernet digital setup when both used simultaneously. The apprentice wryly observed that I had the aerial orientation 90° out of whack and maybe that’s contributing. The frequencies of the coax signal and the HDMI-over-ethernet are far apart so there shouldn’t be any interference. Like me, they were both surprised that having the aerial under a corrugated iron roof worked at all – Faraday cages and all that jazz.

And another odd problem; that while an Apple TV 3rd generation worked just fine with the matrix switch and HDMI-over-ethernet, a brand new AppleTV 4K 2nd generation one doesn’t. Selwyn suggested that it’s trying to use the 4K mode which the TVs support but perhaps some elements of the digital network don’t. Another thing to experiment with.

Mark came and finished the Totara watering system for the “avenue” of eleven Totara trees along the Middle paddock fence-line adjoining the Long Acre paddock. After our walk along the Ngaruroro stop bank Bangle, Karoala, and I popped into town and got some “cats whiskers” leaf excluders for the eastern verandah gutters. Mark put them up. I also decided not to divert the homestead garage storm water direct into the main drain but continue harvesting it for the rain-water tanks. It may be that the tannin-stained drinking water is due to the leaves fermenting in the east verandah gutters for months, rather than just the straining of rain through leaves on the homesatead garage roof.

I replaced the two double-plug wall access plates for our “land-line” telephones in the homestead with single-plug ones as only one socket actually works st each face-plate.

My GF Bread – Two Weeks Old – The Rams Enjoyed It

Dining Room Contents Mostly Eased Into The Living Room

Dining Room Wallpaper And Scrim Off

Mark Completes Totara Watering System

Oak Avenue Weather:6.8℃—20.8℃ no rain [75.6] TdT eggs=1 Mark=4

Paul and Matt continued with GIB and also installed the sun porch window frames.

Monique, after a day off due to rain, continued with painting the balcony railings and other parts of the balcony that benefit from having scaffolding. Next week the scaffolding goes round to the east side.

Mark worked on the Totara watering system, despite the mud. He also helped me fit the replacement Subaru left back light assembly so everything still functional if not beautiful.

Stop bank walk, not round the orchard, due to mud and puddles.

Stop-Bank: Endless (Mindless) Moving Of Gravel For No Obvious Reason

Sun Porch Window Frames In Place

Oak Avenue Weather:8.5℃—18.5℃ no rain [76.8] TdT eggs=0 Mark=4

Henare TXTed to say he was going into hospital for his second hip replacement today.

Landrover still playing up and I still haven’t got round to calling the AA; maybe tomorrow.

Bangle to Emma for grooming around 9:30am then shopping including picking up another TV and mount, this time for the homestead dining room. Raining hard and cool enough to mist up the windows in the car. The upshot of that was I backed Karola’s Subaru into a shipping container – which didn’t mind a bit. Broken left rear light and the plastic bumper dented and dislodged. Took the shopping home, dumped the damaged vehicle and rushed back to pick up Bangle from the groomers.

Mark checked in to say it was too wet and miserable.

Later, as forecast, the rain stopped and the sun came out. Karola’s trailer passed its WOF at the Caltex garage on Omahu road so we all went off in the Subaru (not the Zoe, it has no tow-bar) and: got a second-hand replacement tail light for the Subaru from Mudgeway Parts-World, picked up a couple of things I’d forgotten in the morning from the Flaxmere New World, dropped in to Gagan’s roadside green grocers where Karola bought more mandarins and a single avocado, then picked up the trailer and went home.

Had long discussion with Paul about how the homestead gutters should feed into either the rain-water tanks or directly into he storm-water drain. He and Matt are proceeding apace with putting up the GIB.

Flanders called to say that as the thin man who can get inside the rain-water tanks when cleaning them had contracgted Covid their visit was delayed for one week, until Wednesday 3rd August. That means another week without running water in the homestead.

Bridget’s Chris is back in Wellington; he and Natalie flew up from Queenstown this afternoon.

No walk today. First the Landrover started but then quickly stalled, then we took Zoe but were tharted by the dep surface water at the cattle-stop into the Ngaruroro domain.

Oak Avenue Weather:11.8℃—17.4℃ 7.2mm rain [76.8] eggs=1 Mark=0

Having finished quite late last night, the day began slowly for me. Paul and son Matt got on with the upstairs GIBbing; electrician Ivan came and continued his work: down-lighters fitted in the bathrooms, but they’re so bright that he’ll be putting dimmers on each room. Down-lighters come as a sealed unit at around 8W LEDs so what we’ve got is what there is. Ivan also added a couple of double power points on the west wall of the main bedroom; we’d always had to have an extension lead draped around the room perimeter for lack of a power point. Ivan spent the morning up in the roof space as part of his task to convert all the bedroom centre light-pulls into conventional switches by the doors. No mopre bumbling round in the dark searching for the light-pull.

Ivan said he’s retiring after this job is done – but he’ll come back to do the extra switches and power points when we do the main downstairs reception rooms. He still has to do the heated mirror electrics, the heated towel rails, and finishing off the bedroom centre lights.

Ivan says the HomeBase man, Daniel Curry, came back this morning to check his fixing of the kitchen stainless steel sink – where it sloped up for about 20 centimetres near the corner. I gather the correction worked OK as he also re-measured for the glass splash panel to go from the under-bench fridge right to the corner. A rectangle has to be cut in the glass for each power point which apparently is quite complicated due to the glass lamination that makes it strong, heat resistant, and crack-resistant.

Graham Boaler, master joiner, brought round the frames/sashes for the verandah windows today. He chatted a bit about his mother-in-law who is old and frail and has just gone into assisted dwelling – but they’re not looking after her very well. With the chronic and savage shortage of nursing staff of all kinds this must be a real worry.

Bridget TXTed to say that her husband Chris, on a skiing holiday with his eldest daughter, Natalie, has broken his upper arm and is in hospital. They are fortunate that another family is also on holiday there. Chris knows them from work, and the daughters are of Natalie’s age and are at Marsden too. They are making sure Natalie is safe and sound.

Mark came and began work on the irrigation scheme for the eleven Totara saplings. Just before he came we’d arranged to drop off a trailer at the Caltex garage nearby only to find that the Landrover was playing up. It started but very quickly stalled again. So I switched to the Subaru – flat battery. Tried jump starting with Mark’s car but his battery wasn’t strong enough. So we took the trailer down with Mark’s car. Unlike the Zoe it does have a tow bar.

On his way home Mark dropped me off at Hawkes bay Tractor Dismantlers who have been fixing my Fergie for about three week, the needed parts are hard to come by for a sixty-year-old tractor. And the engineer said I needed a new battery so, on my drive back on the Fergie, I dropped in at Newport Auto Electrical and got a new battery.

Then, when I got home I jump-started the Subaru with the tractor and left the Subaru running for three hours to recharge.The Subaru battery was new in 2020 so a new barttery should not be needed; we shall see.

Yesterday evening I finished clearing the large bedroom upstairs, bedroom two, finishing a little before 2:00am, having carried about 20 loads of books downstairs to the bookshelves in what was the old front hall (see below). Taking the shelving down in the bedroom took longer than expected; thirteen screws per upright, far more than in most shelving of this type.

The Old Front Hall, To Become The Library – No Lack Of Books

Oak Avenue Weather:7.1℃—12.5℃ 10.2mm rain [76.3] TdO eggs=0 Mark=4

Apart from meals and a walk down at the stop bank today was mostly spent in continuing Friday afternoon’s task of clearing the other big bedroom, bedroom two, of the books and book-shelving on the walls. Today I put up more temporary shelving in Karola’s “linen cupboard”.

The walk down on the stop bank hit a fine break between gentle showers; almost no-one around despite being a week-end. Alarmingly the Landrover stalled a few times. That is, the engine started but coughed and stopped after a few seconds. It did eventually start properly and got us home albeit with some un-nerving periods of gliding when the engine cut out again.

The usual Sunday tasks went on hold, except for charging the Zoe and taking out the rubbish.

Oak Avenue Weather:5.3℃—10.9℃ 1.2mm rain [76.5] TdT eggs=1

As Bridget commented after reading Friday’s journal entry, I was exhausted and slept right through till lunch time, and agan most of the afternoon. But in the evening I did continue for a few hours. Our goal is to make all the main bedroom, “boys room”, tween bedroom, and room-at-the-top-of-the-stairs: cleared enough to GIB by Monday.

The Large “Boys Bedroom” (Use To Be My Workroom) Upstairs – Almost Cleared

Oak Avenue Weather:3.2℃—10.5℃ 0.6mm rain [76.5] TdT eggs=1

The Carters truck arrived with 30 or so GIB boards for us, for continuing the lining of the upstairs rooms. This is about half of the GIB bought to complete the upstairs bedrooms. Paul and his son Matt, also a builder, took the GIB upstairs; all done by lunchtime and Paul took the afternoon off to give us time over the weekend to complete clearing the upstairs bedrooms ready for the lining with GIB next week. The upstairs passages and the Bee room are done. The tween room and main bedroom have had their wallpaper and scrim removed; the room-at-the-top-of- the-stairs and the other large bedroom await my clearance of books, beds. furniture. pictures, and TV equipment. That is what Mark and I spent the afternoon working on.

Truck Stays Safely On The Hard Stand and Uses Hiace Crane To Deliver The GIB

Carefully Did It

Karola’s Linen Cupboard – Temporary Storage For The GIBbing – Books Shelved Eight High

Oak Avenue Weather:4.2℃—11.4℃ 0.4mm rain [75.9] TdOx2 eggs=0 Mark=4

Our master builder, Paul, is fretting wanting to get the final council inspection done. He actually has lots of other stuff to be getting on with but having been a foreman at a big construction company for most of his life he does like to chivvy people along to actually get things finished.

So, among my tasks, detailed yesterday, I have those which involve not only chasing up the appliance shop to get the heated mirrors done and collecting the heated towel rails, but actually choosing some light fittings as apparently the council inspectors look askance at naked bulbs and even more so at wires sticking out of the walls where lights are supposed to be.

Ivan came this morning and connected the two lights I put up yesterday at the switch – so my four new lights are working. Ivan also started on another of his extra tasks which is to rewire the bedroom lights so that the switch is by the door, not a pull-switch hanging down in the middle of the room.

Mark was busy today.

Much of the time for me and for Mark has been taking all Karola’s gazillions of pictures, mostly photos in frames, off the walls and stacking them relatively safely – then getting out all the picture hooks, multiple generations of hooks, some conventional brass hooks with a single pin which tends to break off in the very hard Kauri wood, some small nails, some small screws, lots of eyes as in “hook and eye”. And the books, the mountains of books. Today I have started putting up some book shelving – that stuff which has metal uprights and blades which slot into the uprights as the brackets, then a plank across the brackets. It’s only now we’re older that we splash out on custom made book shelving, in the old days we just had wall after wall of this metal stuff. Anyway, upstairs there’s a room which used to be the bathroom and is now destined for Karola’s rather large linen cupboard. It’s in there I have to find room for as many books and pictures as possible; the only other resident is a large hot water cylinder.

Typical steps forward and back … today Daniel Curry from HomePlus came to measure up for the bathroom mirrors – four of them. Bridget has also suggested putting a painted glass splash panel along the top of the kitchen sink – from the sink up to the cupboards above. Daniel found that the sink bench, while mostly level, rises by a few millimetres about 20 mm from the corner of our L-shaped kitchen bench. But the glass can only be cut in a straight line, so either there’ll be a nasty gap along the much of where the glass meets the stainless steel bench, or we could stop the glass splash panel 20mm short of the corner. Daniel has come up with a better solution; he used some struts and wedges and glued that corner down to where it should be. Sighs of relief all round. Meanwhile he says, when he opened the cupboard door to look at that corner from below, quite a lot of water flowed onto the floor. A valve is leaking. This is the same valve the plumber told us about at Easter and we put a small saucepan under it – but not a drop in the pan over Easter. Now it’s leaking and the valve will have to be replaced.

Bangle and I went round the orchard as dusk fell. We go widdershins in the morning and clockwise in the evening so tonight it was clockwise. As we came up to the tall shade netting fence, protecting from non-organic spray drift from our southern neighbour, the netting had torn free of its bottom restraining wire a bit more than yesterday so I sent a TXT to Peter Fitzpatrick, the orchard manager, to alert him before more damage was done. Then, just as I got to the point at which the netting was still holding fast to he bottom wire there was this loud tearing sound and the netting billowed up alongside me as it tore free of its bottom wire right up to the far end. Bangle, terrified, raced off and away. I got my breath back and sent another TXT to Peter Fitzpatrick, the orchard manager, and sent the photo you see below. They’ll come and fix it when the wind dies down tomorrow. To avoid more expensive damage these tall fabric fences are designed to tear along the bottom wire in cases of extreme wind, so it’s working as designed.

Fabric Fence Unzipped Itself Noisily Starting Right Next To Me

Oak Avenue Weather:8.4℃—14.0℃ 0.2mm rain [76.6] TdO eggs=0 Mark=0

Rained all morning, probably most of the night as well. Very soggy. Mark took a rain check.

Postie brought gifts this morning. The light fittings, which just a couple of days ago were said to suffer a two week delay minimum, arrived. My order of three little “keystone” ethernet cable joiners arrived. And a mysterious heavy blue box inscribed with the word StarLink. That’s Elon Musk magic, not for me, but in small faded print it said it was destined for Brian Cope, next door. I let him know and he came over and picked it up. It’ll be interesting to see how that works, using the Musk 100s of “low earth orbit” (LEO) satellites to deliver 150Mbps Internet with excellent response times. It is quite expensive, I’ve looked into it myself a few times, about $1200 up front for the connection station and then almost $200 a month for the service. In contrast I get a miserable 1 – 10Mbps with lousy evening performance but the Internet plus bundled phone landline is $90 a month.

Builder Paul came up with some new items today, items that the council inspectors might take exception to:

1. FloorMart have not yet sealed the new vinyl floor where it touches the skirting boards. Brett Person said he’d not heard of that being needed before but happy to do it as he understands the practicality of stopping any bath/basin/shower spillage getting out of the bathrooms or laundry.
2. Heated towel rails need to be installed, and the heated mirrors above the “vanity units”.
3. Stormwater drain across the front of the house needs to be dug and laid
4. All electrical work needs to be completed and certificate provided by Ivan. This means not only the towel rails and mirrors but also there’s downlighters to be fitted and lights on the verandah / sun-porch. We needn’t worry about the light switches I want extra to the plan so that, for example, one can enter the “library” from the bottom of the stairs or the living room and turn on the lights. Right now the only switch is by the old front door. The lights in the new build – the bathrooms and laundry and kitchen – are a mixture of final fittings and temporary bulbs without shades, but as long as they’re all working that’ll pass, Paul says.
5. The rainwater from the three large concrete tanks passes through a couple of particle filters and then a UV blaster to neutralise any biological detritus, but it still looks like weak tea and Paul thinks that when the inspector sees this in the loos he may suspect contamination.
6. Window frames and windows for the sun porch haven’t come yet.
7. Lawn built up wirth topsoil to the bottom of the last riser, on the steps out to the lawn from the french doors at the bottom of the stairs. With so much rain, what we’ve put there is compacting, but maybe not too much.
8. Need “producer certificates” for the plumbing, the sprinkler system, and the electrical work.

That’s about it.

I talked to Floor Mart and Brett says he’ll send someone round to do the silicone sealing of the edges of the vinyl next week.

Talked to Nick Curry, picked up two of the three heated towel rails for Ivan to install. Expect the mirror measuring to be done tomorrow.

Rang Flinders the rainwater and septic tank cleaners, recommended by our plumber Gareth Donnelly, and they’ll be here on Wednesday to clean out the three large concrete rainwater tanks. I started draining them this morning and this evening they’d discharged probably 60,000 litres or more into the ha-ha.

Spoke earlier to Paul Van Weerden and he sent a “Producer certificate” for the sprinklers just in case the inspector enquires.

In addition to all this I got a call from Colleen Hamilton, SeniorNet organiser, and we talked about my enquiry for Karola to have some iPad tuition. Colleen Hamilton 0274678938

Collham41@gmail.com

One of the tutors. Beryl, is experienced in providing tuition for the latest iPad.

Although we did the week’s shopping yesterday, Bamgle, Karola, and I trundled into town this afternoon to pick up a few things we’d missed yesterday: tubs of Rush Munro ice-cream (It’s shut on Tuesday mornings), a bag of fine sand, some light bulbs, tins of Watties peaches.

Oak Avenue Weather:8.8℃—14.o℃ 7.4mm rain [76.8] TdO eggs=0 Mark=0

The ground is still far too soft to allow a heavy GIB-carrying truck onto the homestead lawn but, depending on the conditions on Friday, Paul may either get the truck round to the north side and unload GIB directly to the top floor or, with his son Matt, man-handle them up the stairs from the safety of the gravel hard-stand by the back door.

Monique water blasted the balcony roof and upper woodwork yesterday, today she sanded and painted and got much of that upper area accessible only with the scaffolding finished. Of course the wall inside the balcony and its ceiling can be done without the scaffolding as can the walls and ceiling of the verandah below.

Shopping went off without a hitch.

When Mark came he and I spent the afternoon preparing the main bedroom and the “tween” room for GIBbing and so on. We still have quite a bit to do but moved prodigious numbers of pictures, photos, and books into the new linen cupboard – which used to be the upstairs bathroom. Also small items of furniture. We put some furniture into the main bedroom’s bathroom and expect to group the major items, the kingsized bed and two large free-standing wardrobes, in the centre of the room with enough space for the GIB installation to go ahead.

Watched episode one of the new murder mystery “Murder In Provence” with Roger Allam (Endeavour) and a small part played by the acerbic Patricia Hodge (Holding The Fort, Miranda). Very much my cup of tea.

Tween Bedroom – Dozens Of Pictures and Photos Now Off The Walls

Main Bedroom – Similar Story

Old Bathroom, Now New Linen Cupboard, Chock Full

Oak Avenue Weather:11.2℃—16.4℃ no rain [76.6] TdT eggs=0 Mark=4

Friend Robin Harrild in England discovered I was on the manifest of the Strathnaver which left London for Australia on 28th February, accompanied of course by parents Michael and Mary and baby sister Gill.

Monique came early and water blasted the north side of the homestead in preparation for painting it. Despite the power of the blaster, which certainly stripped away flaking paint, there was only one small area of leak inside, in the living room. Paul fitted the lock to the double french doors at the bottom of the stairs. Later Elms truck arrived with 1½ cubic metres of topsoil and Paul and Mark spread it around the base of the wide steps leading up to those french doors. Mark spread grass seed to start the lawn back growing there.

Bangle, Karola, and I set off late morning for a walk in the sunshine along the stop bank. Elizabeth Pishief (archaeologist) chose that moment to call me to discuss a possible visit by the local Heritage society. She had expected the homestead project to be finished by now and so when I said there were a few months more to go she rescheduled her proposed visit until November.

Mark and I measured out the lengths of pipe needed to bring irrigation to the eleven Totara trees down the northern side of the Long Acre fence-line. Late afternoon I went to Harris Pumps and got the extra 50m of 13mm pipe we need and some extra connectors.

Meticulous Maids, running a bit late, sent three maids today who made short work of cleaning the cottage.

My 1962 model 1 Massey Ferguson MF35 with three cylinder Perkins diesel engine is still not ready.

I console myself with this old advertisement for Massey Ferguson

Topsoil Builds The Ground Up So That The Steps Are Legal

North Aspect Balcony Water-Blasted Ready For Painting

Oak Avenue Weather:-0.7℃—14.2℃ no rain [76.6] TdT eggs=1 Mark=4

Cold but beautiful day so we went to Clive and walked along the wetlands lime cycle track; lots of walkers qwith dogs and cyclists out enjoying the path.

Internet went down at the cottage in the morning. It was OK in the homestead garage. The ISP’s Internet router has WiFi so we can see if the wireless link is up across to Temata Peak from Karola’s office. Not working in the homestead. So I disconnected the homestead, restarted as many switches and routers as I could find and the cottage sprang back into life so either the rats have been creating more havoc with the homestead wiring or some of the gear in the homestead is broken. I was playing with TV WiFi yesterday which may be a clue.

Bit disconcerted when I had to scrabble around to get cash for coffee at BP today. The sooner the new credit cards come the better. As luck would have it Apple tried to charge my monthly rent for the iCloud space and it failed so they gently yhreatened to take most of it away. This must happen regularly so I expect I’ve got a few more days grace.

Anna, partner Dave, and “the graduate” Felix spent a couple of days in Genoa visiting, among other places, the Villa Bianco. Warm and sunny ut not a Red Alert heat wave like Britain.

Inside Villa Bianco

Spoonbills, Black Swans, And Sundry Other Waterbirds

Looking Back Towards Napier

On The Beach – Again

Oak Avenue Weather:-1.3℃—__13.0℃ 0.2mm rain [75.9] TdC TdO eggs=0

Well, our English correspondents have mentioned that it was quite warm this summer and as I tend to fade at around 30℃ I’m not unhappy to be in the depths of winter in sunny Hawkes Bay.

Still very damp underfoot although the sun is shining. We could do with a bit more wind to dry things out.

Finished putting up the two simple light fittings I bought for the homestead upstairs passages and Karola approves so I’ve ordered two more to complete the passage lighting.

We have TVs in the homestead living room, kitchen, and the bedroom at the top of the stairs but need one more for the dining room. In checking out the control cabinet under the stairs I was a little alarmed to find a small mountain of material heaped up under the centre of the matrix switch. It doesn’t seem to be metallic, it’s like sand made of wood or plastic gnawings. Much too fine for rats, it really is like sand. I thought ruefully if that has come from chewed components inside the controller no wonder it’s acting a little erratically. Ants maybe? It’s a warm spot as the controller has been left turned on for months, maybe that’s what attracted some small invertebrates.

Tonight is the “big rugby game” when the All Blacks meet the Irish team with the potential to lose the three-match series amid great shame and gnashing of teeth. The game was broadcast live exclusively on Sky TV and we don’t have the sports option. So, in case Karola wanted to watch I hunted round for a way to stream it off the Internet.

So “muggins” searches for a website that looks official – say https://allblacksrugby.co.nz with silver ferns and other official-looking insignia prominent. There’s pages of stuff, photos of players, and on and on.

Watch New Zealand All Blacks Rugby Games

(Live & On-Demand) on the official online streaming service.

Here is our complete guide to watching the 2022 New Zealand All Blacks Rugby live and on-demand stream online, or watching it on TV.

2022 Steinlager Series: All Blacks vs Ireland Rugby Live Stream

Game	Venue	Date & Time	TV Channel	Official Broadcast
All Blacks vs Ireland	Sky Stadium, Wellington	16 July, 2022	SKY NZ & Foxtel Now	Access Live Here

And “muggins” clicks on the “Access Live here” and, just like with the Burleigh Horse Trials and some golf, they want you to register but only put a hold on a dollar for a while to, they say, ensure you’re a genuine person. So I do that, click on the “continue” button having been successfully ‘Registered” ….. and end up on a porn site?

Somewhat discomforted I cut them loose and quickly went online and looked at my Visa account. Yes the $1 “hold” was there but also, even more recent than that, a $67.10 charge from a company I didn’t recognise. Rang the bank, got my card cancelled and the two charges challenged. So just a darn nuisance to have to change my PayPal and Apple Pay etc cards but serious harm avoided I think.

I got emails congratulating me for joining the “adult games” site and saying that as my TWO HOUR free trial was over they’d just charged me for my first years subscription, $85 they said.

Consolingly Gill said that when similar happened to her – but without her instigating it – she found a couple of subscriptions she’d rather terminate and invalidating the credit card cleared that up nicely.

Mysterious Pile of Woody Sand Found Under Electronics Controller

UK Issues First Ever Red Extreme Heat Alert, Warns of Death Among Fit and Healthy

See full bioJuly 15, 2022 5:28 a.m. PT

What’s happening

Temperatures in the UK are predicted to hit 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) next week for the first time on record.

Why it matters

There is a risk of heat-related illness and death even among “the fit and healthy,” said the Met Office. The brutal heatwave is an example of how human-induced climate change is making seasonal weather events more extreme around the globe.

The UK is known for many things: fish and chips, the royal family, sarcasm and obsessive talk about the weather in spite of a famously mild and often dreary climate. On Friday, the country’s weather service, the Met Office, really gave Brits something to talk about when it issued its first ever “Red Extreme” heat warning, with temperatures next week predicted to hit 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in parts of the country — something that’s never before happened, according to current records.

With such high temperatures rarely seen in UK summers, the country is ill equipped to deal with the impacts of extreme heat and has issued a level 4 heat health alert warning, constituting a national emergency. Most homes in the country do not have air conditioning, and people have been warned to be on the lookout for heat-related illness affecting themselves and others, especially the elderly, the young and those with underlying health conditions. “At this level, illness and death may occur among the fit and healthy, and not just in high-risk groups,” the Met Office warned.

The ongoing heatwave affecting the UK and Europe has already seen temperatures well over 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) in parts of the country this week. Next week’s temperatures are due to peak on Monday and Tuesday, before returning to below 30 degrees on Wednesday.

“Currently there is a 50% chance we could see temperatures top 40 degrees Celsius and 80% we will see a new maximum temperature reached,” said Met Office Chief Meteorologist Paul Gundersen in a statement. The high temperature record in the UK is 38.7 degrees Celsius (101 degrees Fahrenheit), which was recorded in Cambridge in July 2019.

Is the climate crisis to blame?

Just as with the historic heatwave that descended on the Pacific Northwest in the US and western Canada last June, the heatwave affecting the UK and Europe can be linked to the climate crisis. It follows devastating heatwaves across Asia this spring, which saw temperatures to spike to above 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in Pakistan. Such events are already killing and displacing thousands of people across the globe with increasing regularity.

“The dangerous temperatures we’re going to see would have been almost impossible without human-caused climate change,” said Ben Clarke, an environmental scientist at the University of Oxford, over email. “In that alternative world, it would still be hot over the next few days, but it would be significantly cooler.”

Last year’s IPCC report was unequivocal in stating that heatwaves are occurring more frequently and are hotter than they would have been in the past due to human-induced climate change. It also warned that if we reach a 2 degree Celsius increase in global warming, heatwaves will be even more frequent and extreme.

“In a recent study we found that the likelihood of extremely hot days in the UK has been increasing and will continue to do so during the course of the century, with the most extreme temperatures expected to be observed in the southeast of England,” said Met Office Climate Attribution Scientist Nikos Christidis in a statement.

This might be the first time that temperatures in the UK have hit 40 degrees Celsius, but Christidis warned that the chances of seeing days with temperatures this high was 10 times more likely in the current climate than it would be in a climate unaffected by human influence. A study by the Met Office found that summers with 40-degree days happen as infrequently as once every 100 to 300 years in the UK at present, but even with current pledges on emissions reductions could be happening every 15 years by 2100.

“Heatwaves like this one are still rare, but already far more common than they were several decades ago,” said Clarke. “As we continue to burn fossil fuels, we’ll see many more days like these, but also records being repeatedly broken as we continue to push back the boundaries of what’s possible.”

Oak Avenue Weather:1.4℃—12.7℃ no rain [76.4] TdOx2 eggs=0

After another night of rain the ground – the lawn, the paddocks, and all round the orchard – is sodden; squelch, squelch everywhere.

Paul, went to Mitre-10 yesterday in search of the spring-loaded ball catches for the inner french doors (they are inset into the top edge of the door and so the door just clicks shut with a push, opens with a pull), he’d spied a french door latch and locking set in an unexpected corner of the door knobs and fasteners aisle. As he explined it it sounded like just what we want but the Mitre-10 staff didn’t show me yesterday. So, briefed with this information I went back to Mitre-10, Karola, Bangle, and me, and swapped yesterday’s purchases for this complete french door locking lever-handled set. Then on to Goddard’s to return the rebated lock and handle set I bought from them yesterday.

Paul needs a couple of cubic metres of topsoil to build up round the wide steps leading down from the new french doors at the bottom of the homestead stairs – to avoid the need for an extra step which would end up being below current ground level. However it’s so sodden he put them off from delivering it today.

Also, to Paul’s surprise, his 60 or so sheets of GIB, enough to do the rest of the upstairs at Karamu, has arrived. He’ persuaded Carter’s the builders merchant, to hang onto them for a while as we’re not quite ready for them yet. Paul had been advised of a six week backlog so this was good news.

Paul finished putting the knobs and catches on the inner french doors and also put the bolts – top and bottom – on the french doors leading onto the west verandah, at the foot of the stairs.

Relieved to get this done Karola and I had lunch at Lappuccino’s with Bangle sleeping in the car.

Mark came and his main task today was reconditioning an old set of drawers in the homestead garage in preparation for painting them next week. I inspected his latest hole dug for Karola’s compost (see below) and it is good.

Mark’s Latest Compost Hole

Oak Avenue Weather:3.3℃—12.7℃ 12.6mm rain [76.4] TdTx2 eggs=0 Mark=4

I gave three of last year’s eight pullet chicks to Mark and he’s got them in a large pen in his garden. He also similarly acquired a black and white male (neutered) kitten called Sampson who now terrorises all of the rest of Mark’s menagerie. I have yet to meet, but am looking forward to it, Mark’s three guinea-pigs who allegedly go “wheet, wheet” when talking to him, but only when talking to humans.

The other five went to Tracey & Graham, the kind Bangle-minders who live 45 mins from civilisation by road, up the Napier-Taihape road. Hence a shared interest in Bangle and chooks.

A couple of light fittings arrived today by post. Postie dropped them off and was keen to chat – usually they are under time pressure and rush of immediately. Now I discover that these fittings use a small bayonet bulb socket. I am planning to put them up so we can see them when lit, in situ.

Karola, Bangle, and I popped down to Mitre-10 and got the appropriate candle-shaped LED bulbs. I also picked up a rebated lock set for the new french doors, only to find they had no suitable lever handles to go with it. So off to another shop and ditto, no suitable handles. So online tonight staring at scores of lever handles with barely discernible differences in most cases. My goodness this household hardware is expensive.

Karola’s expensive uniquely prescribed glasses have been missing for a few days causing a certain amount of frostiness as we moved to backup prescription glasses. However, today, as we were getting Bangle into the back seat of the Zoe I noticed something glinting on the floor behind Karola’s seat. It turned out to be one leg of the missing glasses, the rest being hidden under Bangle’s back-seat blanket. Oh frabjousness; we celebrated with a couple of large crumbed Terakihi and small scoop of chips from Captain Salty.

Mystery Photo From Gill: Anon, Richard, Karola, Ian – But Neither Names Nor Place Are Certain – Circa 1965 Maybe

An Idea From Tracey – Bangle’s Godmother Up The Taihape Road

Oak Avenue Weather:7.5℃—15.9℃ 10.2mm rain [76.6] TdOx2 eggs=0 Mark=4

Haircuts with Kim in Ahuriri this morning. Despite the longer drive I think we’ll stick with her. As I said to her, “better the angel you know than one we don’t”.

Had some thoughts about the door knobs overnight. I had contacted New Zealand online threaded rod suppliers but they did not do 8-32 UNC or anything like that slender diameter. One supplier did respond and suggested a model shop might be my best bet. Meanwhile I thought maybe getting two of the 8-32 bolts and welding them to make one continuous 2½ inch bolt might work.But I then considered the likely cost for tow such fiddly little bits of welding and rejected the idea. Finally I think we have a solution. I suggested to builder Paul that he cut off the heads of the bolts provided, screw each bolt into the knob and glue it in place. Cut of the bolt head and file it down into a point then use it as a screw. If the 32 threads per inch is too fine then just glue the shank into the door. We’ll see how that goes.

Meanwhile Paul almost finished putting up the GIB in the bee Room. And the scaffolding team came and removed the scaffolding along the west end of the homestead, rebuilding a scaffold along the front (north) of the homestead.

Mark dug Karola a new compost grave and then began digging the short trenches needed to bury the domestic water supply where it runs from the pump shed to the homestead. He is also digging a trench ready for the feed from the cottage bore to a float in one of the rainwater tanks to act as an emergency source of water should we experience extended drought.

There was a lot of tractor noise coming from the orchard so Bangle, Karola, and I went down to the Ngaruroro stop bank; the lime path was already quite dry despite the heavy rain that didn’t stop until the early hours of last night. The river is up a couple of metres but nothing exciting as yet.

Scaffolding Team Removed West Side And Erected North Side Scaffolding

Ngaruroro River In Flood – But Not Serious

Oak Avenue Weather:9.8℃—20.5℃ no rain [76.9] TdT eggs=0 Mark=4

It being a little damp outside Paul switched to doing some more GIBbing in the Bee Room, the upstairs bedroom on the north-east corner.

Shopping for the week, including two GF loaves from Cornucopia – I seem to be eating a lot of bread recently – then we called in at the Health Centre only to be told they were not doing “walk-in”s and they were booked solid for a couple of weeks. However they said the Bay Plaza Pharmacy in the KMart building was doing “walk-in”s. So off we went and there was no queue, we got our shots within a few minutes and, after the obligatory “cooling off” period of 15 minutes, we were out fo there.

I’m trying to get Karola an self-teach book for her iPad; the many online tutorials are so amateur and unhelpful. The bookshop next to the pharmacy didn’t have any because they tried stocking some a few years ago but sold hardly any. The people there suggested the library and some hands-on courses for seniotr citizens advertised in the community newspaper. The library was partly quite useless – iPad Fro Dummies and similar from 2009! but they had on order the latest version of iPad For Seniors so Karola is waitlisted for that. I also phoned one of the outfits advertising in-person group sessions on iPads and similar electronic gadgets but I’ve yet to hear back.

The inner pair of French doors will have a spring-loaded catch let into the top edge of each door. We need a simple knob to open and close the doors and i selected a pleasant design from the twenty or so on display at Mitre-10. These are drawer knobs, not door handles and so they expect to be fastened with a bolt screwed in through the face of the drawer from inside. We want two knobs per door approximately aligned so ideally a length of threaded rod would do the trick.

I went searching for a bolt long enough to fasten both knobs through the thickness of the door. At Fast Trade, my local engineering supplies store with thousands of items, Nicola Craig, a competent young saleswoman, figured out what the bolt specification was: 8-32 UNC which means 8-gauge shank with 32 threads per inch. After much searching I went away with their best offer, a couple of 50mm long 8-32 bolts. Almost, but not quite – they need to be just a few millimetres longer.

Much of New Zealand has been getting lots of rain over the last 48 hours.

The Driveway

Ducks Enjoy The Homestead Lawn Under The Liriodendron

Oak Avenue Weather:8.9℃—14.3℃ 36.0mm rain [76.8] TdOx2 eggs=1 Mark=0

Rain on and off and much more forecast over the next couple of days.

The chooks went inside through my new curtain last night but at lunchtime still hadn’t screwed up their courage to come out. I’ll have to take it slowly, just a dangling fragment of the curtain at a time.

Karola, Bridget, and I discussed wall lights last night which ended with me buying a couple of very simple ones for us to see in situ.

We attempted to get our second booster Covid shots today but it isn’t easy. I rang the Covid help desk and found out that none of the preferred locations were taking bookings but a few were, allegedly, doing “walk-ins”. Well it took about 15 minutes on hold to get through to an operator and after checking for bookable slots nearby – there were none – we were advised that my pharmacy of choice, Stortford Lodge Unichem, was open for walk-ins 9:00am – 5:00pm and longer on Wednesdays.

So we drove down there only to find they were not doing any Covid walk-ins, in fact no Covid at all, only flu vaccinations. I re-called the help line but after another ten minutes on hold decided to drive down to the Health Centre and see if they were open for walk-ins. They were not, no signs of life at all.

Meanwhile Anna sent me the cutting below, a strange but true tacit “rule” for English speakers that we do without hesitation.

Oak Avenue Weather:__℃—__℃ no rain [?] TdOx2 eggs=0 Mark=0

Slow start to the overcast cold day; suddenly my iPhone chirped – cinema in 30 mins it said. I’d forgotten that today’s French Film Festival film, Maigret with Gèrard Depardieu as the eponymous …, started mid morning, not just after lunch. Off we went – oh, but where’s the tickets, on the fridge still – so back home, no sign of the tickets so printed off a fresh set and again, off we go. Got there just after the starting time and there was a queue. But not to worry, the adverts were still running when we got to our seats.

Quite the best of the three FFF films we sampled, Very atmospheric as I expected, Paris in a bygone age. But also, I’d forgotten the Simenon story, the plot had nice unexpected twists and turns. As Karola remarked, there were almost no men in the film, it seemed to be all women and Gèrard.

Only one walk round the orchard today. mid afternoon and stil very soggy and dark due to the heavy clouds. In order to deter the sparrows from entering the chook house and eating their pellets I’ve set up a little curtain with torn strips across the pop-hole hoping that chooks will brush it aside but sparrows will be thwarted.

Gill’s archaeology amongst the Amsden papers is almost over; more photo records stored here for safe keeping.

Anna’s “Blue Ice” Salvia In Her Garden In Ealing – Beautiful Blue

Ian In Hastings – Yes Hastings (UK) In 1948

Departure for NZ was late Feb 1952 – on about the 27th judging by the telegrams and Postcards

Where It All Started

In 1946/7 Mary and Michael lived in the gypsy caravan “The Nomad” that they bought from some gypsies. They found this somewhat cramped after Ian was born so moved to a larger caravan for a bit, with a tent outside for visitors.

Parents Michael and Mary with Close Friend Pat Davies and “The Nomad”.

After the caravan it appears that we stayed at Little Fosse, Nettleton, Cotswolds. Upstairs was a self-contained furnished flat in which Mary, Michael, and Ian lived for a time around 1948–1949 when he was a toddler.

We all moved to Horsham – were at the St Julians Community, Barns Green, Horsham in 1949. At some point we stayed over a pub in Horsham. We all then moved to Honeysuckle Cottage, Heathfield Farm, Brooks Green, Horsham. Gill was born in September 1950 while we were living in this cottage.

Honeysuckle Cottage – Ian and Great Grandma Loui Sternberg, July 1950

By May 1951 we were living in South Norwood, London where the family stayed until departing for NZ

Ian 4½ years and Gill 8 months old: watching the ducks fly off the lake in South Norwood Park, May 1951

Ian at 13 Woodvale Avenue, South Norwood, London, 1951

Oak Avenue Weather:7.6℃—12.5℃ 2.8mm rain [76.7] TdO eggs=0

Read late into the night again and finished the latest “Slow Horses” novel called “Bad Actors” by Mick Herron. Most of the same moth-eaten characters, which is a lot of the charm. Themain outcast spook, Lamb, is unrelentingly awful but you know that inside there’s an honourable man which circumstances and experiences in his spook life lock up tight.

The head of MI5, Diane Taverner, is a very calculating character, superbly matched to the job. All in all the cast of characters are all heavily damaged goods. I found it hard to put down.

Not much achieved today except a good bit of programming, although as with dreams that don’t seem quite so masterful in the light of day, I’m not sure how bug-free it’ll turn out to be tomorrow.

Late morning we did the short walk down on the stop bank which counts as one turn round the orchard.

Oak Avenue Weather:6.2℃—19.5℃ no rain [76.9] TdOx2 eggs=0

Another film at lunchtime. This one, called The Villa, was quite entertaining but nowhere near as entertaining as The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel or Quartet which both dealt with older people getting older. Slight echoes of The Intouchables, another French film we saw years ago in Petone. Some moments of humour but seemed a bit disjointed as if at various

points someone with a watch had said “time for the next subplot” and it staggered improbably and quickly to the next stage. The end was just too “all came right in the end”.

Farewell Mr Haffmann was as advertised, was what I expected, and might easily have been much more violent and savage, for which I was grateful. Auteiul was thoroughly engaging to watch but I thought it was more Karola’s sort of film – WWII and Nazi Paris – but she says not.

I’m hoping Sunday’s Maigret with Depardieu will be memorable.

On the way to the film we bought a new belt for the Grillo; this time they actually had the right size in stock. And we squeezed in a coffee stop at BP to avoid drinking the quite horrid coffee served in much smaller cups at the cinema.

Lots of (gentle) rain and Mark took a rain check; Monique didn’t come, Paul came briefly, but it really was too wet for outside building work.

Had another delicious prepared meal from Gill this evening; we have a few more Friday meals provided by Gill still in the freezer, for which we are very grateful.

Oak Avenue Weather:__℃—__℃ no rain [76.5] TdO eggs=1 Mark=0

French Film Festival is winding down here and I’ve booked us, Karoa and me, seats at three films: Farewell Mr Haffmann, The Villa, and Maigret. Farewell Mr Haffman, today at lunchtime, has the brilliant French actor Daniel Auteiul in the starring role.

Tomorrow is The Villa which is touted as having appeal to those who enjoyed Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and The Untouchables – both of which were better than Samuel Johnson’s faint praise remark: Worth Seeing But Not Worth Going To See.

And on Sunday it’s Gérard Depardieu (again, he’s in The Villa too) in Maigret which promises to be very atmospheric, lots of old Paris, dark alleys and so on.

Mark came and continued mowing in the Goose paddock, ending up damaging another of the many drive belts that keep the Grillo trundling.

Oak Avenue Weather:-1.3℃—11.9℃ 0.2mm rain [76.4] TdOx2 eggs=0 Mark=4

Karola had a dental appointment midday so we took that opportunity to stop off at the Wild Bean Cafe yet again, and post a package.

Paul and Monique hard at it from daybreak; and the roofing people spent much of the day putting gutters on the new verandah and completing the guttering up high on the west side of the homestead.

Mark took down the electric fence and stored it; the One Acre will be allowed to rest until the lambs arrive and new born lambs and electric fence don’t mix.

Mark then began mowing the Ram paddock; the iris tends to dominate at this time of year so we hope to discourage it with a haircut.

At the stop bank we were surprised and delighted to see Noel Hendery with his band of not-so-young males who hoon around the cycle paths on their souped up electric bikes. allegedly covering as much as 50km on their weekly outings.

Noel Hendery (Facing Camera) With His Cycling Old Codgers – Electric Bike Brigade

Haven’t Seen Riding Here For Many Weeks

Oak Avenue Weather:2.5℃—14.3℃ 0.2mm rain [76.8] TdT TdO eggs=1 Mark=4

Mon(ique), the painter, here before daybreak, again, she works from around 7:00am to mid afternoon. Paul soon afterwards. Spouting guy came today and proposed taking all the water of the west face and the north face to the north-eastern corner. However, given the likely incidence of heavier downpours in the future I asked for the west face to be decanted onto the new verandah roof and away, leaving only the north face to be drained down the north-eastern corner. Spouting man has started putting up the west-facing guttering.

Yes it’s weekly shopping today; a bit later than usual so much busier at New World. As Karola has told me many times, experience shows that the minute you get home you remember several things you should have bought, and so it was today. So we made a second trip into town this afternoon, leaving Mark to plant our new Kauri trees.

Part of this afternoon’s expedition was to see if I could get some better-fitting work trousers. For the last two – three years my winter work trousers have been warm, strong, and just too low-slung for comfort. I am forever “pulling them up”; apparently it’s the fashion to have trousers slung low on the hips but with all the pocket junk I carry round this is just troublesome.

Went to Alexander’s in Hastings where I do occasionally buy non-working clothes (expensive but good quality) and after trying on several pairs of trousers I found some that do come up to my waist and will probably solve the low-slung problem. Bang goes another $400.

We got a TXT from Mark saying he’d finished planting the two Kauri (below) and as it was starting to rain he was off home. By the time we got back the whole site was empty, no builder, no painter, no roofer. Everyone had decided it was such a miserable cold, overcast day and now raining that they’d take a rain check.

Felix’ Kauri – A Present That Will take 200 Years To Bloom

… And The Spare, Just In Case …

Oak Avenue Weather:2.8℃—13.2℃ 0.2mm rain [76.9] TdOx2 eggs=1 Mark=2¼

Paul and Monique hard at it as the sun rose; Monique enjoying the warmth of the sun as she perched on the northern end of the new verandah.

Mark, with some help from me, continued preparing for the planting of the ceremonial Kauri.

Called Hawkes Bay Tractor Dismantlers and they’re trying to get parts for the hydraulic pump. My MF35 being a model 1 these are hard to find so I agreed they could instead get a new model 2 or 3 pump and retrofit that. Apparently the pump pressure will be significantly better with that change too.

Karola, Bangle, and I enjoyed the morning walk in the sun along the Ngaruroro stop bank. Late afternoon Bangle cajoled me into another walk, this time round the orchard.

Karola suggested we have lunch at Lappuccino’s which we did; bacon chuffle for me and somewhat unusual french toast for Karola.

Meticlous Maids, two of them, came today and cleaned the cottage, as they do every fortnight, usually on a Monday. Extreme staff shortages and lots of people off sick with flu and Covid and other winter ailments mean we may have to miss a few cleans over the winter months.

Gill’s Photos – Nothing Changes

Oak Avenue Weather:0.0℃—16.0℃ no rain [?] TdT TdO eggs=0 Mark=4

Cold start and weak sun when it did come out.

First walk was round the orchard, the second down on the stop bank, the short walk.

Today some photos Gill unearthed, of Anna and her “squire” James out from England on their world tour after graduating and just before Anna went into a hard year’s slog at Law School. Photos were taken at 66 Seatoun Heights Road, Wellington Feb/Mar 1991.

James and Anna

Ashley, James, Anna and Shaun

Oak Avenue Weather:-1.3℃—17.4℃ 0.2mm rain [?] TdOx2 eggs=1

Did I know Lexi was a “Drummer in a rock and roll band”? No I did not, but here she was this afternoon streaming on the smokefreerockquest.co.nz, an annual New Zealand nationwide talent contest. “First Aid” is an all girls band from Marsden (Samuel Marsden Collegiate School) which is among the top three or four girls colleges in New Zealand, here competing with rough boys bands from all over. Mostly the cacophony did not appeal but there were one or two tuneful gigs amongst them. Clearly a show by youngsters for youngsters. But thrilling to see Lexi drumming away and her mum, Bridget, says she was co-writer of their item too.

Meanwhile Gill continues her relentless investigation and classification of Brackenbury family inherited papers and photos. I post a small selection here, most of which I’d never seen before, as they are tangible links back to an almost forgotten past. Here on the farm journal the memories may just last a little longer.

An Absolutely Glorious Winter’s Day Early Afternoon At The Ngaruroro Stop Bank

Looking Back Towards Te Kaweka Ranges Across Gnarled Sentinels Of Apple And Peach

Gillian & Ian At An Early Age – 1951

The Chookmeister Prodigy – Stud Farm, Weald 1949

Oak Avenue Weather:-0.1℃—16.0℃ 0.2mm rain [?] TdT eggs=0

Karola and I had appointments at the Health Centre mid morning. All went smoothly and we celebrated with coffees and buying three 630ml tubs of Rush Munro ice-cream on the way home.

Diane Libby came round with one of her mokopuna to look at what her husband Paul Libby has been up to these past few months – a very pleasant lady.

Karola, Bangle, and I took the recycling paper and plastic to the recycling station. Two burly Pacifica guys who’d just finished putting their stuff in the bins helped Karola get our paper off-loaded.

Very muddy underfoot so Mark took a rain check.

Bridget’s email is giving her trouble on her new iPad Mini – it tried so many times to login that her external IP address for the entire family got blocked.

The more chook pellets I put inside the chook house in the little wooden trough made by Mark, the more they vanish. And today I noticed some very modest droppings on the secondary perch next to the trough – way way too small for my chooks. Villainous sparrows I guess. At least it isn’t pukekos.

Kauri Tree (Heir & A Spare) To Celebrate Felix’ First In Economics From St Andrews

All Seven Contented Chooks With Their Main Man

The Three Really Ancient, Really Noisy “Pilgrim” Geese

Evidence Of Wrongdoing – Isn’t This Sparrow Guano I See Before Me?

Oak Avenue Weather:1.3℃—14.9℃ 1.2mm rain [76.7] TdTx2 eggs=1 Mark=0