Monthly Archives: September 2024

Woken from deep sleep by the furniture movers, Efficient, to say they were outside ready to take the chaise longue and matching chair over to Bulls, to Chloe. They were very polite and got everything loaded up and away although they had to wait for 20 minutes for me to get dressed and presentable.

Went to get coffee late morning then continued watching videos that Harry has sent me links to over recent weeks. Mostly about dietary ways to avoid getting Altzeimers.

Late afternoon we took dogs to the park.

Marcus In Australia With All His Family, Returning Tomorrow

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Bridget kindly took me to get coffee at BP despite it being one of Bridget’s fast days. Dos to dog park late evening; not many people about. Marcus let us know he was coming home tomorrow which will please Duke the fox hound who has been kept in kennel for last couple of days.

Bridget takes the dogs round the orchard most every morning and this morning the dogs played up, both of them though Bangle was the ring leader in running off in the orchard and evading capture for an hour.

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Another lovely day. Bridget took us again to Ocean Beach with a lunch break at Red Bridge.

Got a call from Peter Offenberger who has been back from their UK trip a few days ago. Had a good trip but family issues have kept them preoccupied since then.

Bridget and I spent an hour or so sorting books in Karola’s old office – on the end of the homestead garage block. Surprising how many books in there although many of them seemed to be farming books from Kaz’s collection.

Bangle’s Footprints In The Sand

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Despite being a fast day for her, Bridget took me and the dogs into Stortford Lodge for my coffee and apple turnover at BP’s Wild Bean Café.

Up in the homestead roof space I tested the ethernet wires and the power cable to the security control box; both were working.  As guided by Selwyn, our security engineer and alarm monitoring man, I unplugged the power from the controller – so both mains power and the backup battery were disabled – and plugged it in again which should have caused it to reset. However there was no green LED twinkling away inside the controller so it may need more specialist attention. Selwyn said to wait 24 hours and see if it’s healed itself and is responding handshakes with the monitoring people.

I have agreed to switch monitoring from Havelock Hills Security (HHS) to Selwyn for the same monthly rental because he offered and HHS has become just an agent for EastTek, a different security firm in Hastings.

Later Bridget took us all for walk in the regional dog park.

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Got a call from Havelock Hills Security to say the homestead security system had ceased responding. I got Marcus to check that no fuses were tripped in the homestead – no they were all OK but Marcus did say they’d had a power surge this morning when all the lights dimmed and flickered momentarily.

At the last minute Bridget kindly took me over to see Karola around 1:00pm and take her out to Miss Browns café in Ahuriri where Karola and I again shared one of their rather good omelettes.

Gillian, the house sitter for Marcus and family while they are in Australia – we were introduced yesterday, arrived with her two dogs to add to Marcus’ family’s three. I took the opportunity to take a photo of the homestead security control box to send to Selwyn.

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I forgot a couple of things when shopping yesterday so Bridget kindly took me into town in her lunch hour. I bought ketchup for Bridget and fish for my dinner tonight. As we were in town I checked whether my trousers pocket had been mended (Stitch In Time) and the wheel-back chair with a wobbly leg had been fixed (O’Connell’s Furniture Shop). The trousers had been ready for over a month; I must have missed their voicemail when AONet changed their voicemail system to a new one. Apparently the other three legs of the chair came apart when they tried to fix the damaged leg so it’ll be a bit longer yet.

Marcus and I took the trailer load of discarded books, papers, and other stuff to the transfer station in Henderson Road. He also took about eight boxes of books in to The Red Book Shop for second hand books in Hastings.

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Bridget took us all into Hastings before lunch to get coffees and the fish. We did the rest of the shopping after she finished work at 5:00pm followed by walking the dogs in the regional park as darkness fell.

A woodburner installer, associated with F L Bone, came this morning and discussed with Marcus whether the double-sided French wood burner could be installed midway between the sitting and dining rooms as Bridget suggests. The initial answer is yes so we await further deliberations.

Keith did more sawing today and cut Bridget a nice flat cross-pie e about six inches thick and over a metre in diameter. He also cut to size ten chunks for chopping boards.

Bridget carefully oiled the surfaces of all the wood – to slow drying time and avoid splitting.

Selwyn Cook came round and tested out the cottage alarms but could find no faults.

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With Bridget’s help the majority of items for LoveLink – the outfit that outfits empty houses when allotted to homeless families – and tJenny Hendery’s Op Shop has been moved into the homestead garage. Also, Bridget sorted through the extra books that came from the homestead upstairs linen cupboard after I’d sorted through them earlier. The remaining books go to Marcus or The Red Bookshop.

Marcus mowed the lawns today; it only takes him a few hours so I don’t know why Henare and Mark were so much slower.

Bridget took us to dog park again; it’d been raining lightly so there were not many people there today.

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Kieth was out there chansawing up the last remaining chunk of oak down by the cattle stop. As I suspected, by leaving it through the summer in the sun the three metres of trunk had split with split lines making milling it for planks or bench seats or table tops impractical. Bridget commissioned Keith to make eight chopping blocks about 40mm thinck and he thinks he can achieve that.

Bridget took us all to Ocean Beach at lunch time. We stopped at Red Bridge as usual for coffee and a snack. Beach itself was warm without much of a breeze so ideal for our walk.

Marcus is planting along the fence line where I got Keith to mastermind the felling of the old eucalypt grove. He’s planted flax along the fence, then a line of cabbage trees behind that and finally a row of pittosporums. This will quickly grow and shield the Front paddock from idel glances from traffic on Ormond Road.

Keith Sawing Up The Last Piece Of Cyclone Oak Trunk

Ocean Beach – Someone Off To Ride Along The Beach

Looking Back Along Ocean Beach – Warm And No Wind

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Bridget dropped me off in Stortford Lodge mid morning and I picked up the car. Service cost just over $500 which is what Bridget expected and another service won’t be until next March along with its WOF.

Spent the afternoon sorting through the remainder of the books on shelves in the homestead linen cupboard and taking the ones I want to keep over to the cottage.

Bridget took up to the dog park just before dusk.

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Bridget followed me down to Bayswater in Stortford Lodge so I could put the Subaru in for an annual service. We got coffees and then she took me back home.

Lis Coonie arrived as planned at noon and we went over to Summerset Palms, picked up Karola, and went for a late lunch at the Birdwood Café on Middle road out of Havelock North. Karola and I shared a chicken & eek pie then we all had one of their delicious desserts. Afterwards we drove up to the top of Te Mata peak and then I picked up my weekend MYLK meals and a cou0ple of things from New World before we took Karola back to her appartment in Summerset Palms. All afternoon Lis and I talked about people and things that happened twenty or more years ago and Karola chipped in when there was a name or event she remembered. Seems like she had a good afternoon although I expect it was quite tiring for her. We got her back just in time for dinner.

Keith Macaulay was waiting for me when I got back to the cottage, just to say he was going to move the big piece of oak trunk from near the cattlestop tomorrow. He’d been talking to Bridget and agreed she could have a slice of the oak for a table at her house in Wellington.

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Triton person gave me a call as planned this morning to adjust my hearing aids. Unfortunately Triton headquarters had upgraded their systems and she was unable to connect to my hearing aids via my iPhone – Hastings being one of three regional surgeries that were left behind in the upgrade. So I’m to go to their physical site in Hastings in a couple of weeks.

My clean white MG is quite dead – not a sign of life; no screen displays, no lights and the boot doesn’t open. I talked to Bayswater, the local agents, and agreed it might be a blown fuse due to power surging when the grid failed last night. Unfortunately the car had finished charging but was still plugged in which may have contributed. Rang the help desk as suggested by the agent, Bayswater, and an hour later a tow truck arrived. But with the car fully inside the garage and dead we could not get it into neutral to roll it out. Solution, after ore chatting on the phone, was to “jump start” the 12V ancilliary battery upon which the car basically worked. So I’m charging it overnight to see if all is then well.

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I was pretty tired this morning so only just awake when dogs barking let me know I had a visitor. It was Patrick Coonie out of the blue. Anyway I did make him an Earl Grey tea as requested and we chatted for a while. As Rosie is in Australia with her mother from today and Bridget is supposed to be working remotely 9:00am – 5:00pm I don’t have a driver for going to see Karola on Thursday so it’s worked out well in that Lis Coonie has agreed to be my driver and will also be with Karola and me for our regular afternoon tea.

Around lunch time Bridget, I, and the dogs did the shopping.

Made good progress on sorting more books; I now realise I’ll need to cull the ones I’ve already chosen because there’s just not room for them all. Maybe I’ll put favourite but not likely to be touched in the store room.

Marcus is still trying to find a good compromise for woodburners in the Living and Dining rooms.

Bridget whisked us over to the dog park just before dark.

Amazing: Mid-evening we had a power cut for over an hour. I counted to six and the lights came back on, the generator took over for the cottage and the homestead. Brilliant. It dropped back to the grid when that came back on with hardly a flicker – the clocks and systems did notice though and rebooted themselves again.

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Didn’t stir all day out of the cottage except to feed the chooks and check for mail. Cold but not bitterly so – with the heat pump humming away. Cloudy and more wintry weather is forecast.

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Went to Ocean beach to walk the dogs, refuelling at Red Bridge café. South-easterly wind and sand very soft, even down to the water, which made it much less pleasant than most other times we’ve been there.

Bridget and I, with some help from Marcus, cleared almost everything from the Summer House. Marcus took some things he thought might be useful for his familty but most went on the big trailer to take to the Transfer Station for recycling or the tip.

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Went to Farmlands in the morning and got more chook pellets and Black Hawk food for Tux. Then off to Te Mata’s Peak Restaurant for lunch. Somewhere in that Bridget washed her car at the DIY cleaning place in downtown Hastings and I washed my car at BP. I had been waiting until my replacement wing mirror arrived as ther broken one was held together by duct tape and was not waterproof.

Later Bridget and I did a lot of sorting of my paperback mystery books: Ngaio Marsh, Agatha Christie, Arthur Upfield, Donna Leon, and on and on. Last thing we took the dogs for a walk upstream on the Ngaruroro stopbank from Carrick Road.

Naughty People Riding Bikes On The Stopbank

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Bidget took both dogs for a walk round the orchard, morning and evening.

First thing Bridget drove me to get chook pellets and a coffee, efore her work started.

Augusta came as Bridget planned and the had another good session on the cottage lawn with Tux and Bangle.

We noticed that Bangle had a little sty on her lrft eyelid so I called the vet and lucj=kily we got an appointment at 3:30pm. As usual I weighed Bangle at the vets and she is 1.9kg – I reweighed her several ties as I could not believe it. When Bangle came to us she weighed about 14kg. Last year she weighed 19kg. At the end of September she weighed 14kg again and now about 11kg. Vet said she was certainly not underfed and could do with being a bit lighter.

As the eye thing was not hurting or annoying Bangle and the only treatment would be a general anaesthetic and surgery the vet suggested we leave it alone and just keep an eye on it.

I am to return if it gets worse or Bangle starts scratching it.

Got a mountain of paperbacks from the homestead linen room but there;s plenty more to sort through.

Gill called to say her birthday flowers arrived, it being her birthday.

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Rosie drive me quickly into Hastings where I picked up a coffee and my MYLK meals for the weekend.

We were back in good time for the F.L.Bone guys, Steve and Kim, who came as planned at 2:00pm to discuss having one of their Chemenee Phillipe high-end wood burners installed at Karamu. We started off discussing their model 846 which has glass doors front and back, for appearing in the Living room and Dining room. After much discussion this appears to be impractical as Bridget and I insist that the wooden chimney breasts in both rooms remain unchanged; we also need the existing hearth slabs of stone to be preserved.

The problem for the double sided wood burner is that it’s depth means that either one or both sides would need to be inset by such an amount that the inset would look unusual and be difficult to stoke.

Anyway we ended up with a much more expensive solution but one which, if it worked, would satisfy Marcus and Bridget’s desire for a look and feel in keeping with the old house. So theF.L.Bone men went awaay to mock up a configuration for us in their workshop.

Gill & Ben have delayed their visit by a week to 10th – 16th October.

Ben Brings Home A Kaka-Beak Plant In A Pot

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Rosie drove me over to Summerset where we picked up Karola and took her over to Ahuriri where Karola and I had Kim give us her six-weekly hair cuts. Karola was in quite a bad mood when we picked her up but gradually thawed as we drove over to Ahuriri. By the time she’d had her hair washed and cut she was in an upbeat mood. After our haircuts we went next door and Karola and I shared an omlette. Very sad for me was when she got back to her little apartment in Summerset she said how much she enjoyed the outing and how much she disliked being in Summerset.

I asked Bridget to record the USA election debate and we watched it after dinner. Profoundly depressing but not surprising.  As a conversation Kamala Harris triumphed hands down but as a debate it was pretty even. Kamala Harris said things that demonstrated her values and had a positive vision for the future. But Donald Trump raged about the evils of the Democrats and Biden and Karmala telling outrageous lie after outrageous lie. He was also given a chance to respond time and again when they were supposed to be moving on to the next question. He didn’t answer any straight question but each time went into a rant about something tangential. The problem is that Trump’s lies were much more memorable and are bound to be what most people remember of the debate.

Bridget, Gill, and I had a chat about it afterwards including about Jack Tame’s assessment on TVNZ1 which seemed very biased against Kamala Harris. Reading the BBC commentary later you would not think Jack Tame had witnessed the same event.

On The Way To Summerset Palms In Napier

Off The Photo Board – Karola Enjoying A Visiting Comfort Dog

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Doctor’s appointment at 11:15am because Gill & Bridget insisted I see my GP after my weird fall last week. I suddenly just fell to the ground in the cottage dining room having bent over to pull up a window blind. Good news, yes it probably one of the medicines prescribed so Richard changed that and we await developments. Richard also encouraged me to keep driving, not to let it lapse, because driving is a good mind-body exercise and, while it’s still safe to do so, he encouraged regular driving, not to hand all driving to my drivers Rosie and Bridget.

Bridget is working remotely from the cottage and has very kindly taken time out to drive me for coffee and dog walking almost every day. Rosie does the shopping trips and going to see Karola, and is well rewarded for it.

Today’s shopping trip included a visit to F L Bone to look at their showroom item of the double-sided Chimnee Philippe 846 wood burner (French made). And also a visit to Harvey Norman to look at double- and queen-sized sofa beds. The latter in case we decide to make Karola’s old office (3m x 6m) on the end of the homestead garage into a sleep-out.

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I mowed the cottage lawn and curtilage, and because Mark used to do that as part of mowing the bigger lawns, it was something I hadn’t enjoyed for years.

Gill and Ben are locked in for a visit 3rd October to 8th or 9th. They are going to stay at the motel they found last time over by the coast near Clive.

Bridget took a break from her remote working and I got a coffee and a small spirit level from Mitre-10 for helping put up pictures.

Marcus came over mid afternoon and we hung and re-hung all the pictures in the cottage bedroom; still the living room to do.

Bridget helped me streamline my wardrobe and the bathroom cupboards plus another couple of surfaces which had accumulated detritus over the years. More for the Op Shop. I’m still hoping to reduce my girth by several centimetres so am keeping a variety of trousers to cover my bets.

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Today we walked the dogs at the Clive wetlands. Hardly any water birds there today; no black swans or spoonbills. Bridget was rather disgused that Tux found an old dead sheep carcase down on the water’s edge, out of sight of walkers on the limestone path. There were a lot of people about, several families, lots of dog walkers.

Clive Estuary En Route To The Wetlands

Chooks – Where We Begin Return Along The Wetlands Limestone Path

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Bridget took us all over to Ocean beach with a coffee break at Red Bridge on the way. The beach was very windly indeed so very refreshing.

In the evening Bridget and I went over to the homestead and had dinner with Marcus Ormond family, our new tenants. Marcus had been at the races with one of his relations so we began the dinner a little late. A roast lamb dinner, delicious.

After dinner Bridget and I sorted through the books on the shelves in Marcus & Chrissie’s bedroom leaving only the old bathroom, now known as the linen cupboard, to do.

Ocean Beach – Windswept And Very Few Bathers

Footprints In The Sand

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Mid morning we were visited by the new managers of Karola’s orchard, Peter Simpson the head of commercial operations for Mr Apple and Dave Isherwood, Orchard Manager which includes Karola’s lease block. Bridget and Marcus also introduced themselves.

Then at noon Augusta Grayson, our dog trainer, came for an hour and a half giving mainly Bridget and the two dogs more useful tips on training.

Late afternoon we all went into town and picked up Bridget’s new dual HDMI adapter she’d ordered online a couple of days ago before having a good long walk in the dog park.

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Rosie drove me to pick up my MYLK meals for the rest of the week and then off for a pleasant late lunch with Karola over at Miss Brown’s in Ahuriri.

Marcus has found a different, but similar, wood burner available from local top-of-the-line heritage and traditional hardware store F L Bones in Hastings. It’s half the price and will probably be able to offer us sight of a local installation. The wood-burner is French and is made of cast iron rather than steel which is allegedly better.

Dog park with the dogs and some practice of the “touch” task.

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After a very warm day yesterday there was a distinct drop in temperature today and a couple of light showers.

Bridget and I unpacked my new 27” Samsung computer monitors and tried them all. My plan is, mimicking Al Gore, to have a desktop comprising these three screens attached to a new Mac Mini expected to ship in late 2024. The Mac Mini will have the new Apple M4 chips and be essentially a supercomputer in a small box the size of an AppleTV. It is packed with massively powerful support chips for doing AI, not that I need or can even imagine what that will do for me.

Postman delivered Chrissie’s new passport and as they were out I signed for it.

Still plenty to do sorting out the books I would like to keep.

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Off at 9:10am to take Bangle for her six-weekly grooming,ing at Emma Speeden’s groomery. Then the usual shopping and back to pick her up at 11:30am. We did also pick up two keys for the little cupboards built into the fine wall bookcase now on the wall between the cottage dining room and kitchen.

Marcus mowed much of the lawn around Karamu and seemed to be much speedier than Mark or Henare.

The three computer screens I bought to go with the anticipated Mac Mini in a few weeks time arrived at Noel Leeming last night and Bridget and I picked them up before taking the dogs forr their main walk of the day. At the dog park. A man with two large hunt away farm dogs seems to come at the same time as us and they bark loudly which means we try to avoid them.

Chloe’s birthday today – she is about the same age as me, Karola, Jenny Hendery, and others comprising the cohort of 1946.

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Main excitement today was that I had some fainting turns this morning ending in me collapsing to the floor in the cottage dining room. No harm done but a bit scary, I think that as Gill suggested I’ll go and see my doctor – it might be the meds he’s giving me..

Spent the rest of the day dozing on the sofa. Ate my MYLK dinner for lunch and gradually improved after that. I sonderwd if it were due to my low blood pressure and not eating very much.

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Bridget took us over to Ocean Beach late morning with a stop off at Red Bridge for coffee. We did a decent walk along the sea shore, there were lots of dogs and their families there and we must have met up with at least half a dozen labradoodle – three of them black and same size as Tux.

Continued sorting stuff’ Bridge and I made up about ten cardboard moving boxes. Two are for blankets and sheets etc for the people who furnish empty homes assigned to homeless people; one for Jenny’s op shop.

Old Santa Rosa Plum And Nearby Black Doris In Tree Guard (Centre)

Spoonbill, Waikanae Estuary (courtesy Ben Bell)

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