Monthly Archives: December 2024

Shopping day but very little to buy this week. No laundry or MYLK till next week; not sure if they’re open or not but should be safe to assume they’re back in business next week. Rained hard for hours at a time so no walk for Bangle today.

Watched video of John Campbell’s podcast. He had a medic from Australia on who is sure that Long Covid is a thing and that it can be caused by either Covid the virus or an mRna vaccine. I cannot find confirming information online for this assertion although the speaker seemed very sure.

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Weird day and night, not sure what’s going on. Still late afternoon Bangle and I did our regional park thing and at dusk Bangle kpined the other dogs with Chrissie going round the orchard.

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Between them Keith and Marcus have cut up and removed all the big branches and associated litter from under the big oak. We’ll need to get tree surgeons to do the serious surgery to rebalance the tree.

Loose And Fallen Branches All Tidied Up C/O Keith & Marcus

Seems Like Quite A Lean

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Rosie took me over to Summerset Palms where I had a long briefing with Jodi who really is looking after Karola very well. I told Jodi we’d decided on Millvale House and I would be completing the admin for this straight away in the new year. Jodi was happy with that and said that a few days before the transfer she’d go to Millvale and do a handover of a profile of Karola and her medical/health situation.

Miss Brown was open so we went there for coffee and a bit of omelette – Karola ate a little bit. It was very windy getting to and ftom the car which Karola didn’t like – it made walking from place to place harder and I think she was a bit afraid of falling but we hung on tight so there was no actual danger of that. Karola is usong her walker with good dexterity now and doesn’t object to its use at all.

I was awake all night due to a sudden minot flare-up of gout; it wasn’t severe but just made its presence felt enough to stop me sleeping. The usual meds didn’t seem to make much difference. I did get to sleep shortly after 5:00am. Dozed until lunchtime.

Meanwhile keith came mid morning and tackled the fallen oak branches. He was using the old tractor to push the smaller branches away. The tractor developed an oil leak in the hydraulic system which Keith fixed by replacing three perished O-rings. He’s good at that sort of thing.

By the time Rosie and I returned Keith was pulling the very large branch down off the tree trunk; there are a couple of extra bark scars after that but they’ll heal and at least the fallen branches are no longer dangerous.

Keith showed me that the lawn on the south side of the big oak had risen, was now a distinct rise as the unbalalnced tree leaned to the north, towards the lawn between the cottage and the house. Now he pointed it out I too could see that the mighty oak had taken a serious list to the north. Marcus and I discussed and agreed with Keith that he should cut off three large lower branches from the north side and then see whether that stopped the sagging towards the lawn.

Rosie has been battling with a kidney infection and spent late afternoon in the emergency ward.

After feeding the chooks I moved the two chicks and broody hen with her remaining three eggs into the broody coop and gave them food and water.

Southern Side Of Big Oak Collapses

Marcus Awoke And Shot This Video

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Noticed broody chook had two chicks and maybe the las three will hatch as well.

Big branches crashed down off the southern side of the big oak at 5:50 in the morning with a thunderous raw. luckily no vehicles not people nor animals nor saplings were harmed.

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This time it wa a scramble of Ormonds including Peter Ormond’s widow and lots of children. Myself plus 10 guests. Delicious.

Sophie sat next to me and is an excellent conversationalist, I babbled on about my life maybe to much but I enjoyed it. Sophie’s business is arranging tours for people wanting to visit the gannets up on the end of Cape Kidnappers. Marcus is going to help her by being one of her drivers over the Christmas – New Year break.

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Rosie wasn’t available so Marcus kindly took me for my shopping. Afterwards we then went over to Tamatea and inspected Millvale House, the residential home there which is the other place taking level 4 dementia patients in Hawkes Bay, alternative to Colwyn House in Mahora. As expected there wasn’t a lot to distinguish them; about same distance to drivre to, rooms very similar although MillVale House initially has smalled hoses but by end of February will have rooms at lest as large as Colwyn and it’ll all be new. I wouldn’t choose to be in on of their rooms but then I’m not spending most of the day in the big dining rooms and just sleeping in the personal room.

Chrissie & Marcus invited me over to join their Christmas Eve dinner. Myself and 15 other people including Chrissie’s mum Cynthia (with Karola at Woodford), and may others on that side of the family. Delicious.

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According to my Oura ring I had less than two hours sleep last night; maybe it was the chocolate Gillian (house sitter) bought me but I was awake pretty much all night. Now that I type this I am feeling much better but it took all day. Late afternoon I took pie and coffee to the dog park with Bangle. Picked up laundry in case they are closed on Christmas Eve, turns out they’re open.

Marcus and family came home a day early last night, not for any particular reason.

Marcus and I are going to look at Millvale House tomorrow afternoon after doing the shopping.

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Marcus and family came back this evening because the weather turned bad up at the lake.

The usual with Bangle at lunch time. And a few emails done though most of my mails are still unanswered from last year.

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Just another Saturday, until it wasn’t.

Just after lunch I got very cross with my iMac because it had gone to sleep and wouldn’t wake up. After a while of cussing and pressing power-on button very hard and checking power cord etc the penny dropped. We had lost power.

Now the $3000 control box that was destroyed by ants forming contacts between vital components – shorting out – is still in Christchurch or on its way so the generator didn’t start up as it should when the grid goes down. But I should be able to start it manually. The generator was easy once I’d located the key to unlock the lid. There were three buttons marked STOP, AUTO, and RUN. The STOP button was flashing. So, nothing ventured etc, I pressed RUN and the generator turned over for a while and then roared into life.

But, still no power on the buildings. So I left voicemail with Campbell Watt in Christchurch (021 228 3055) and then rang electrician who helped install the generator, Aaron Wakeford (021 878 741) and he told me that there was a switch in the control box that I needed to switch on. As I recalled it is extremely stiff and you need an extender handle to be able to turn the switch but I managed it. Restarted the generator, warned Gillian, who is house-sitting for Marcus et al while away for a break at lake Rotoiti, to let go of any bare wires she might be clutching, and it all sprang into life. Next four hours we were on generator power.

I called neighbour Louise Haywood wife of Brian Cope (our cell towers still working but others in HB down, maybe I should get StarLink) and she agreed to let me know when the grid came back on. She told me the Hawkes Bay wide power cut was a lightening strike on Trans Power link connecting Hawkes bay to the main north island grid and it might be some time before it was fixed. A couple of hours later she let me know that urgent needs such as the hospital and the BP petrol (and electricity) station at Stortford Lodge were back up but that was being rerouted from Wellington. A couple more hours and we were all back up and I switched back to the grid.

Well its good to know that my expensive investment of a backup generator works and Aaron says he’ll be round on Christmas Eve to replace the control unit so then I should have smooth “no hands” transfer to and from the generator when needed.

News spread of this event and was on our evening news with pictures of the electricity pylons melted in the strike. Given Robin heard about it in UK perhaps we made a line in international news. It’s dry as anything here – total fire bans and stringent water restrictions for those on mains water.

Ants are a problem here, not only did they infest the generator and its control box but they also killed the pump in our waste system a few weeks back – again by bridging circuits with their nest building. Catch 22 with the waste management system is that the alarm in the cottage is powered from the waste management controls outside so I had no idea it had stopped working until some other electrical problem made me look in the mains box and see that the septic tank circuit had triggered. Lucky that was noticed before the sewage backed up into the cottage but it was quite a procedure for team of plumbers to unclog the septic system which had been overflowing for a week or so.

And would you know, vermin damage, and explicitly ant damage is excluded in domestic insurance policies in New Zealand, but the generator is on Karola’s farm insurance which has no such exclusion, or so my broker tells me.

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Too warm and muggy for much during the day. Bangle and I had pie and coffee on our usual bench in the dog park then went for a long walk around the park including a walk back along the stop bank and back up the stream. The Dyson fans are very useful in this damp heat.

Family Quietly Kayaking In Regional Dog Park

Breath Testing Police Stop Outside Our Gate – Happens 2 – 4 Times A Year

My Nightly Meds

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I drove myself over to see Karola and take her out for a snack. Karola was in a good mood and eager to go out for the afternoon.

I first had a chat with Jodi with Bridget on the phone. I explained that Marcus, Chrissie, and I had visited Colwyn House which is in Mahora and hence easier to visit than any Napier establishment. I met my expectations; small rooms with barely room for a favourite chair but much as I expected. Jodi will see if she can keep Karola where she is until January – apparently Summerset management need to agree.

Karola and I had snack at The Boardwalk opposite Kim the hairdresser in Ahuriri: a pork salad and a bowl of fries plus coffee. It was raining most of the time and the mist so heavy you couldn’t even see the port. We could hear the waves crashing on the beach outside the restaurant.

I called Millvale House, the only other place offering psycho-geriatric level of care (dementia level 5) in Hawkes Bay. Agreed to ring back on Monday and arrange an appointment to visit. Marcus will take me if it’s on Wednesday.

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Marcus and family are off to Lake Rotoiti todayso I got an Uber to take me to the hospital and back afterwards. The test went as planned this morning and there were no obvious big issues found – a bit of an anti-climax. As they said in the briefing, uncomfortable but not painful at the time but painful for a while afterwards. Now it’s back to the specialist to see if more is warranted.

No walk for Bangle today but after her groom she’s silky smooth and removal of the barley-grass seed must have been appreciated.

Our electrician, Ivan Alach, came by today just to see how we were and bringing some green beans and a couple of nectarines. He looks fitter than when last he came to fix something.

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Wow the weather has changed; overcast with a mild very cold wind laced with rain.

Anyway Rosie drove me over to drop off Bangle for grooming, then we did the shopping, picked up Bangle after grooming, and home.

Excitement re Bangle is that Emma the groomer found a barley-grass seed working its way into poor Bangle’s bottom. I assume that was rather uncomfortable but now it’s all out and disinfected to everyone’s relief. Things like that are hard to spot with her fluffy bum.

I’d not dressed for the change in weather so it was very cold outside the car and cottage. Once inside New World I was so cold that I lingered by the rotisserie chicken cabinet to get a bit warmer.

Rang Millvale House to see if marcus and I could visit this afternoon. No because they’ve had a Covid case and are in lockdown until they get the all clear test results later this week. I’ll call again on Monday.

Marcus and family are off tomorrow to Lake Rotoiti, near Rotorua, back on Monday. Taking the jetboat.

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Combination of the heat, the changes for Karola, and perhaps an incipient cold but I had a very restless night. My Oura ring says I got 3½ hours sleep which made me very groggt in the morning.

At 11:00am Marcus took me over to Colwyn House in Duke Street, Mahora and Chrissie joined us there to talk to the manager and discuss options for Karola in the new year. Colwyn House Lifecare is one of only two establishments which support people with psycho-geriatric needs, aka dementia level 5. The staff seem experienced, competent, and friendly. The individual rooms are very small but there’s probably room for an extra chair and some photos on the walls. Since Anna & Bridget visited the place has been repainted internally, banishing the glaring primary colours which were part of what out them off when they visited last February.

In the afternoon I had my regular quarterly diabetes health check at the Hastings Health Centre – no problems there.

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Quiet day; lunch with Bangle in regional park – in the shade under the trees. Later I joined Marcus& Chrissie, and probably Matilda and Minty, for a delicious quiche & fillet steak dinner on the Karamu verandah to celebrate Marcus bringing a large, very large outside table for meals.

Bangle Hoping For Pie Crust

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Slept till 11:00am – I don’t think the Brownies agree with me, I certainly sleep but am dissy when I wake in the night and feel lethargic, more so than usual, when I do get up.

Bangle and I went once again to the regional park for lunch comprising a potato-topped pie and coffee. Bangle gets to eat the crispy crust to reduce the amount og gluten and sugar I eat.

Articles from The Atlantic, often mirrored in Medium, are generally much better signal/noise for my taste. On basis of too much overlay I cancelled my The Atlantic subscription on Sunday but today I resuscribed and am seriously contemplating cancelling my Medium sunscription. I’ll miss many of the technology articles but they have usually been early warnng of breakthroughs that turn to dust. Y’d be better off watching videos from Just Have A Think and looking at BBC and Economist online.

Marcus has invited me to dinner tomorrow which fits perfectly because I forgot to get enough meals for this week.

Regional Dog Park – Walk Under The Trees

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Marcus called Colwyn House and got us an appointment 11:00am Monday.

Bangle and I had pie and coffee in the regional dog park, on the usual seat under the trees. It was very hot in the sun.

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Rosie drove me over to take Karola out for a snack. Beforehand I had quite a long chat with Jodi about a report made recenty on Karola’s condition. The report made last week while Jodi was on holiday documented the difficulties Karola were having with the staff and how Karola’s physical and mental health had declined markedly over the last few months. The upshot was that the assessor, from the DHB’s department of Older Person’s Mental Health, concluded Karola needs the next level of care, physio-geriatric level 5. Summerset Palms are not equipped to provide that level of care and so we need to find a place elsewhere for Karola. This was not a pleasant finding but they seem implacible. Bridget, Gill,, Jenny & Noel, and Marcus family know and are helping begin the search. So far we’ve only found two places which offer level 5 support in Hawkes Bay, both of them close but very likely fully occupied. <arcus has kindly offered to take me to see these esyablishments tomorrow. Bridget is finding out from Jodi how much time we have and whether Karola being removed from the Old People’s Mental Health register for Hawkes Bay has financial implications.

Marcus took the dogs for their walk around the orchard today, including Bangle.

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Rosie dropped me off at the hospital for my appointment at 10:20am. By 10:45 we’d established that they had no record of my appointment and in fact the specialist due to administer the test wasn’t even in this morning. The same old Chinese woman who sortd out last time when they’d sent me the paperwork for the wrong procedure was there again to rescue the day. I now have an appointment next week at same time.

So I had an appointment for this test based on a specialist appointment with Mr Wang on 7th November, 2023. He referred me to the hospital for a test. You have to go in the public health system because there are no copies of the equipment in private hands in New Zealand. The history from then on is quite chaotic so one hopes the actual tests are more orderly.

I got a letter from the hospital (DHB, District health Board) a couple of weeks later saying as that my conditions were neither life threatening nor severe they would not even put me on the waiting list, the list was too long already.

To my surprise I got a TXT advising me of my appointment for this test on 23rd November, 2023. Things were a little fraught here so although Anna took me in I decided to skip the test for the time being. Also the appointment said that the test was for surgery as if I’d already had the test. The old Chinese lady was very nice about it and said she’d contact me in a few months time to see if I’d changed my mind.

Mid January I got a TXT from the DHB saying I had an appointment 27th January, 2024. Two days later I got another TXT sayin my appointment was postponed and they’d advise me of the new date.

Yesterday, 10th December 2024, I got a letter in the post with the correct instructions and saying my appointment was today at 10:30am. We wait for next week’s appointment to see how that goes.

Bangle trotted off with Chrissie and her pack late evening.

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Rosie, Bangle, and I did the shopping before going to Tainui reserve for short walk and lunch – coffe and a potato-topped pie.

Chrisie took Bangle with the other dogs and their black cat for a walk round the orchard late evening in the cool.

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Today, it being a cloudy but warm day, Bangle and I went along the Clive estuary and had lunch on the seat just before the notice boards a short distance from the bend round into the wetlands. I intended to go further but Bangle had a mind of her own today and scuttled / rummaged well ahead of me. After her share of the mince pie she set off back towards the car.

High Tide – Clive Estuary

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Regional Dog Park again; pretty warm so being under the trees seemed best.

Matilda drove up from Christchurch last night so Marcus has a full house for now.

The two chicks are small fully feathered now though wether pullets or young cockerels is not yet clear.

One of the chook run rat traps was knocked over so I righted it and checked the counter. The GoodNature automatic rat trap counter showed 4 but there have been no signs of corpses so I siuppose, as shown in the GoodNature videos, other rats have come and dragged them away. Today there was a corpse so five rats in as many months – but I haven’t checked the other trap also next to the chook house.

Rat Caught By Goodnature Automatic Rat Trap Last Night

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A bit cooler but still quite warm. Another walk in the dog park with a pie and coffee; Bangle enjoying the edges of the pie pastry.

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Marcus cut up and removed the branch that fell off the big oak yesterday and he mowed the lawns including the cottage lawn. I took Bngle to the dog park where I had punch. Later Bangle wet with Chrissie round the orchard when it was a bit cooler.

The chook that lost most of its tail feathers has been sitting on fake eggs for a few days so it seems she has decided to be broody. I’ve put an egg under her yesterday and today and taken away the fake eggs; we’ll see how it goes. The two chicks by two chooks hatched a few weeks ago now have adult plumage and are running around with the rest of the chooks, free range. One is mostly white, the other mostly black but I have no idea whether hens or roosters.

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Read a few emails but it soon got too hot and so Rosie and I tootled off to pick up Karola at Summerset Palms then off to Miss Browns for afternoon tea, well for half an omelette each and a coffee.

Snagged an ice-cream on a stick before we trundled back. Chrissie invited me for tea, fish pie.

Large Piece Off The Big oak Tree Crashed to The Ground In Strong Gale-Force Winds This Evening

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Another lunch on a stone bench along the main leafy bridgeway into the regional park. Bangle likes it. We then went up to the wooden bridge across where the dogs mainly swim and back down the side of th stream, in the shade.

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Rosie, Bangle, and I went off to Hastings for the week’s shopping and a short walk in Tainui Reserve. Really quite warm at 31℃. Rest of the day quite quiet; Dyson fan keeps me cool inside catching up on my reading. Pavla postponed until tomorrow.

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Short walk with Bangle in regional park. I had coffee and pie on a bench in the shade while Bangle enjoyed snuffling around in the leaves. Quite warm but going to be warmer tomorrow. To my delight this summer there’s plenty of fruit growing on Karola’s micro-orchard outside the cottage bedroom window, green growing fruit on: Cox’s Orange pippin eating apple, Ballarat cooking apple, WBC pear (aka Bartlett pear), Winter Nellis pear, Santa Rosa plum, and, smaller and younger Hawera plum, (replacement for Black Doris that was frost damaged).

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Another lazy day with walk with Bangle.

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