Back when Paula was 9 (well 8 1/2)

Remember this grin and hair from Christmas 1978? Does she look like anyone in your household about 9?
Also the first teeth...same age as the 9yr old in your household!

Sunday 25 May

Yet another great weekend (although it's not even finished yet!).

Friday was great because we decided it was Ella's birtday celebration which needed something to remember despite her being in Oz. We went out to the local Indian restaurant (Botany South Punjabi Dhaba). We had a great time, See we ate everything and drank all the wine. Anyway Saturday was walk in the Park day with friend Anne. When we got back we were able to con Anne into helping us treturn the BIG plant to it's right place next to the new room. This is the giant Aloe that Nic bought me on her last trip, remember? Rooted now in it's old place after the move needed to allow the building. Then in the evening we decided on a barbie for the pair of us on the Patio lovely evening with moon etcThen it was video night, followed by Penny's Team Canterbury Crusaders heavily beating the Wellington Hurricanes in the Super 14 semi. (Watched it on the box of course.)

Sunday I went along to Orienteering with Anne. Lovely morning with excellent views all around Just as well Pen didn't go as it would have seen off her knee what with precipitous slopes and knee-high blackberry. It was out in open farmland adjacent to the West coast of Waiuku South of the Manukau Harbour. You wouldn't think there would be any problem finding little flags in open farmland. Except that the countryside is ancient sand dunes grassed over, it was like running up and down pyramids for an hour. If it wasn't for Tracker Anne I would have still been there. I still can't believe this orienteering thing. I thought I could read maps........not so.

Ohh ahh...something for me to write ! So far blogging has been R's thing & he does it so well. Just to add that while he was running up & down dunes/farmland looking for markers(?!) I was at Church exercising the non-physical body. Our lovely friend Penny from Church(I'm known as OP...Other Penny) had her 49th b'day yesterday which a bunch of girls/ladies celebrated by eating lots of cake & other goodies all afternooon. We need to have those afternoons more often...gives us a chance to use up all our words. Paulalala, it's YOUR b'day next so R&I will go out again. Bet you can't guess which place & no, it's not the Punjabi Dhaba!

May & June are certainly great months for b'days!

Those dolphins

Well. I should have worked that out eh, When they swam under me I should have realised immediately from their tail shapes that they weren't sharks. Anyway Just in case it happens to you, this is the GOOD shape. (Penny says she reckons I did know the difference, and subconsciously put me into non panic mode). well they were big anyway.

Thursday

We are definitely into Autumn now. lovely day here again but at 5 pm the high cloud is appearing. It's been a really quiet week while Penny has been at work. I did however pop out to the treatment plant where my ex boss is leaving the job to take up some grandiose post in Australia, managing their Eastern Native forests. So I did have some contact with the world and of course yesterday evening we had our local home group which is always good value. Earl grey has been quiet this week, not helping me with the gardening like he used to. Must be age or he's seen me do it before and can't understand why I have to do it again. Had to borrow a de-soldering tool from work to allow me to change a couple of controllers around which I had stuffed up on my project. alas no luck though. i think the capacitors didnt like the reverse volts. I'll try replacing them and if that doesnt work, looks like the bin!

Anyway, couldn't help but empathise with Nicola on her blog. I left Watercare after almost exactly 20 years. Needn't have retired, didn't have any new career or project, so it was a straight loss of a very good income (By NZ standards). However I think it was the right thing to have done. I was marking time, my vehicle had ground to a halt. no I havent suddenly produced umpteen paintings, done a huge amount of craft, changed the house around or anything really, none of the offers of work which seemed so likely before have come to anything, but I have moved on. And so has Paula. Doesn't seem like a year and she can already speak Stryne and has an pet lizard! Devon and Ella have moved on too. Good move. Keep it up Girls!!

Fishy tale from Matarangi

Penny was at work Tues to Thurs an I did odd jobs until she came home. Sort of gardeny things because we had great weather at home in Auk until the end of the week when fog struck the low lying areas, particularly Southward to Hamilton. Perched up at a huge 90m above sea level we can see the fog coming in across the Manukau Harbour but not be in it. So on Fri morn it was great to be able to leave home and tootle down into the fog knowing that we'd soon be out of it. not quite. We had fog all the way to Thames town where it lay in the cold 8 degrees, brr. it did fine up as soon as we rode across the Coromandel range and temperatures rose to theEnglish Summer temp.

We had gorgeous weather on Fri Sat and Sunday. the sea was dead flat and as no surf for a change, the water was as clear as anything. The impetus for our trip was really so Pen could get into her "ocean swim" routine now she's determined to do the Rangototo crossing. As you can imagine despite never ending beers on the deck (while doing a spot of painting no less), we had the beach swim thing. So we took some photos to prove we got into the gear. Surprisingly the water was still quite warm on Friday, well of course it would be with wetsuits. I plodded along the beach alongside my mermaid the water was so clear we could see the pairs of crabs marching along underneath us. when we got washed in a bit penny had one of them rear up on its hind legs, sensing her above.

Saturday we went for our "icecream walk", an hour along the seafront to Kuaotunu beach shop for a gigantic ice cream. Took a few photos, Viz

As you can see there was no-one on the beaches, but 2 horses.

Unfortunately it was cloudy when we got back from our walk so we put off the swim for the day. Sunday I stocked up with a bit more carb for breakfast as i seemed to be cold for too long after Friday's swim. We swam down the beach where as usual my uneven stroke kept washing me into the surf line and then we swam back up the beach. unfortunately this time i kept going out to sea, so with Penny a tiny bob in the distance I had to keep taking stock and swam diagonally back. While plodding along I suddenly became aware of a very large black fin just under my left side! in a microsecond I realised it wasn't Pen and then the thing drew level with me. It was big! Now remember here we had had all sorts of sightings of sharks this summer, even to them being reported in the paper, and I knew that although they didn't come inshore, that I was way out of my place. What does one do? the beach was deserted anyway and in the whole of it's 3km there were only us two in the water. All I could do was to maintain my stroke and pretend to be nonchalant and powerful, but at the same time made a left turn directly for shore! Next it swam directly under me and another came around from circling to go under from the right. Then I was aware of something really big on my right but I don't breathe from my right and I wasn't about to break stroke to investigate. I felt this was definitely getting out of hand. there's something unnerving abot circling fish. I felt like the cowboys of the wild west with my correlled wagons while the indians circled.. As they swam under I could see that they were easily as large as me. At least there wasn't any whit patch! Checking on my direction to the shore I noticed Mr Left had a very rounded dorsal fin, but rough edged, as if it had been nibbled. I was sort of getting over my adrenaline rush thinking I should have been bitten if it was going to happen. This close examination of me carried on while I did some serious swimming. Mr Right gave a snort and I realised they were dolphins. The snort must have been his signal and they just went. Plodding on I was soon at waist depth and looked around for them but they were gone. Unfortunately my swimming goggles weren't clean so I can't say I got a good look at their details, anyway I would have needed glasses for anything other than knowing they were black and large. Pen says my eyes were as large as saucers when finally we met. Anyway I thought you'd like the fishy tale as young Katie was interested in marine Biology. See, over here you can have a lesson from the real thing right close to home! talking to the lone beach sitting family on our way back it seems they had been cruising all along the beach, even broaching.

On our rather damp (it was overcast and showery ) beachwalk on Monday we saw seabirds flying at sea level in a continuous stream of several km in length. as they went down the shore we saw the now familiar fins of a couple of dolphins well out to sea. Must have been feeding time. Then it was pack the Civic and back to Auk to see Earl Grey and Tabitha. As we'd been away Earl was absolutely sure he was going to be allowed to sleep in our bedroom that night. Had to get the broom no less to winkle him out from under the bed at midnight.

Bridge to Kuaotunu Store

Sunday night

Sunday evening and our Tom's back for the next week of school. The family brought him along and we all had birthday cake for his 16th. The Cozens were rather jaded from their family party yesterday and I suppose we were also not at full power after our Oxfam wind-up get -together. it was a great evening depite numbers 30 ish being down from 50 ish last year.

We had a barbie

Then we had prizes (bad ones of course!)

Then beer etc

And a cake

And people chatted bigtime if they weren't watching the pictures of the walk on the big screen

All in all it went well, especially as the rain and wind held off till next morning.

Other news from the week was that we went to the memorial service for the Teacher and children who attended Tom's school. It was at the Telstra stadium down the road and it was filled to overflowing. It was very well organised, the students did a lot of presenting and music and visual presentations. it was very stirring. Even the Mayor of manukau was there. it was broadcast on Rhema radio and on Shine TV I believe.

On a much more minor note I've got some noseplugs so that I don't fill up with water while swimming with my mermaid. more lengths on Friday and less sneezing afterward. Now we'll see how Monday swimming goes. after that its back to gardening (the dreaded backlog), Finding out how to get my electronic project back on track, fixing the spa pool circulator, erecting the shed....etc.......etc...... Maybe get some art in as well, but Friday is definitely Matarangi day!!

Well we're back from swimming this afternoon. I havent got totally waterlogged yet but certainly fill up with water. Noseblowing will continue till tomorrow! As intimated before, Penny slides through the water like some aquatic racehorse while I chug along in the lane reserved for the SLOW. Anyway it was her 40 lengths to my 32, (No not the picture, that was last year, only the 25m pool, it's indoor season now) but she took time to get in having bought a new pair of go-faster goggles.

Well it's still showery here which was good as I was able to put some more grass seed on the lawn for the birds. Only a few figs today as the waxeyes are out there and they get up before I do. anyway, the other fruit is ok and apples are coming to the season end. the passionfruit are really big but not in large number. Keep well, Rich

Two things for Jemma to contemplate they sit in front of the fire when it's on and when it's not they insist loudly that it's teatime. So just in case you've forgotten, Jemma, this is Lawty Towers where we live, note the extension on the end at left where you can crash out (like we regularly do with Nana and Granddad naps). As you can see I am waiting at the front waiting for you to come along and collect your not so little $800 Earl and extremely high volume Tabitha. Because we've been away for the week they are berating us ceaselessly and Boy can she make a noise now. It's probably due to the fact that Summer ended last week and they can no more splay themselves out under the bushes all day.

Anyway they've plenty to moan about as this weekend we seem to have been out quite a lot. had a great time out at Waiuku on Sat night for a pot luck supper then home at 2am for a trip to church at 9 am ish. Another wet day today and we just got home on a really slow motorway to lunch at our place with Roger and Co. and also Anne Humphrey who is singlehandedly raising the number of plants in my garden to the extent it will look really good next growing year.

Well Paulala I'm not studying, but I'm going at the art stuff slowly and also I have a small soldering project from Dick Smith to do which will allow me to record some of our vinyl onto CD. but Hey retirement grows on one. While Penny is off work I treat every day like we are on holiday. When she goes back to work I treat every day like I'm on holiday. But of a pain now that it is depressingly wet outside but the good thing is that I can see the oranges getting bigger every day! You remember my clay heap from the extension? Well after I disposed of it the patch has been seeded but I think the sparrows ate all the seed. Maybe I'll re sow it.

Our topic of conversation nearly always covers the Houghton saga. Where will they wind up and when! We keep getting carried away and sort of designing all sorts of imaginary options for them. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Penny has decided after her second Oxfam that yes she is capable of doing some fast times, but no longer needs the pressure on the knees. Now of course it's swimming! She seeks to emulate her Bro's and do the Rangitoto swim. Some knee trouble after the walk required a couple of Xrays. Delightedly all the bone areas seem to display really good density and no structural problems. So there you are Jem. just keep up the exercise! Roger has just completed the Milford to Takapuna King of the Bays swim, took him an hourish in the water and in heavy weather. I swim like a brick so I don't feel I will get caught up in that but I guess I'll be invited for the training periods at the pool where I will be able to feel Pen's bow wave as she cruises past. Actually I won't be doing the Oxfam thing either so it will be back to just the occasional run in the park next door. I have my stopwatch to make sure I don't slack too much and of course the scales. It's been good to have to eat everything in sight to maintain my weight since Christmas, but they won't be needed now.

the School holidays are now officially over. We have Tom back in residence with us again and it is now business as usual. Pen's physio tomorrow and her back to teach on Tues. Me to lounge about. Ahh, such is life!