Chutney time and David's poorly foot

I have a blogpost prepared about our Parkwood Seekers' trip to Sydney (undertaken before Easter), but it's waiting for the photos and I've had laptop/phone not talking to each other issues - they have been in the too hard basket.

But this morning, I'm making feijoa (1.6kg) and date (400g) chutney - plus it's also got 4 apples, 6 onions (oh how I cried), grated green ginger, a chopped chilli and 2 tbsp of cumin seeds, demerara sugar (no brown sugar in either pantry), and apple cider vinegar.

Once my crying had stopped and the dates & apples were added, in went the sugar and cumin seeds.

And once I'd stirred it, this is what is looked like. Now after 20 minutes or so, the dates are disintegrating and spreading their colour. Smells yum!

It's got a good half- three quarters of an hour to simmer, and then I will jar it. And it has to be left for a week. How will I keep David away from it?

And in other news: David's poorly foot. Some time ago (back in January, so I blame Julia) David tripped up some steps at Coastlands and grazed his lower calf and the top of his foot. All was well, nary a moan, until a few weeks ago before we went to Sydney and he got me to look at his foot. It looked infected and I was sure I could see pus under a scab - why was there a scab three months after the original fall, I ask you?

Long story short, I had a poke with a needle and got some pus out, put a kawakawa leaf on it, a pad over the that and then a couple of lengths of plaster. We thought it would be a good idea to check with the Parkwood nurses. They suggested going to the Weekend Clinic in Paraparaumu where David was give some antibiotics.

Then when we got back from Sydney, it was no better, so it was off to the Wound Clinic - sounds impressive and serious, eh? 

Once again, it seems as though David's extreme healing response (remember the anterior phymosis in his eye back in 2019?) had kicked in, and instead of growing new skin with a healthy blood supply, his foot was growing fibres (fibrinogen - I remember 6th form biology) across the wound. These had formed a hard scab, that I described as a carapace.

After a couple of attempts by chemical means to soften and loosen the carapace over a number of days, one of the Medical Centre nurses very gently pulled off the carapace. Since then we (I) have been dressing it with Inadine patches (iodine infused cloth).

I know the carapace (which has grown back) is smaller, but what's meant to be new skin growing around it looks very white, i.e. no visible blood supply that new skin would get.

I have the backup plan though - I have sharpened the axe and am ready to amputate when/if required. Adair, a very dear zero degrees friend with extensive nursing experience, is happy to come and help me. We have history - many years ago at a dinner party when a few of the other guests were under the influence of inhaled indimica, she and I had offered to perform a vasectomy on one guy who was being rather obnoxious. He thought we were joking until we started to clear the table ...

So watch this space.

Algae is awful!

 My second to last post was about Kevin and Josh cleaning out the ponds in front of our and Janet's places. We all had such high hopes of getting rid of what Janet so delicately calls green snot - the ghastly algae that was really prevalent in our pond but not in Janet's. And we were excited to be able to see the bottom of the ponds and the rocks and the fish and the frogs.

But somehow our dreams were dashed - within a week or so a different kind of algae took over both of our ponds - a dark green almost microscopic algae that just totally discoloured the water so that it was pea-soup green - after about 4 weeks, we couldn't see below the surface of the water and we could barely see the fish when they came up to feed in the mornings.

At first, I relied on Kevin to clean out the newly installed filter/pump. But with all the other gardening work around the village, he was only able to come about once a month. and when I watched him clearing the filters out in situ one day, I could see that it was a hiding to nothing having it be his task.

You can barely see the oxygen weed near the top left of the photo.

 

I also realised that there was no way the filter could get rid of this stuff on its own - it needed chemicals! And it had to be chemicals that did not harm the fish.

So I looked on the net and discovered a place in Napier that advertised Algaefix that purported to be safe for fish; I rang and spoke to Andre a very helpful guy and organsied to purchase said Algaefix and two tubs of Sludge Destroyer to be used when the algae had mostly karked it.

For 3 weeks-ish, I dosed both ponds with Algaefix, and before doing so each time, David and I pulled the pump apart, took the filters off and I carted them into the laundry to clean them out.

For the last couple of weeks, I've been dosing the ponds with the Sludge Destroyer - it's a powdery mix of bacteria (that love to eat dead algae) and barley.

This is what they look like when I take them out of the pump - I think this is dead algae/sludge because it looks a bit browner than the algae and it smells...

 

And this is them after a big squeeze to get the surface muck off, about 5 rinses under the running warm tap, a wash with laundry powder, and a final wash with Handy Andy - a floor cleaner that has some ammonia in it.

An upside down view of the dismantled pump with the newly cleaned filters refitted. The next step is to tip that bit the right way up, then put it back into the bottom 'bucket' of the pump that we have cleaned out and refilled with water. There are 5 or 6 large clips to hold the top bit to the bottom bucket. Today, given David is out, I put the whole thing back together by myself.

I think we are winning slowly - the ponds contain about 20,000 litres of water all up, so there was a shitload of algae in them, and I use that word advisedly! We can now see about 15cm below the surface of the water which is a great improvement. And I am not going to let a microscopic plant beat me! I too have persistence and patience...

Please note that the fish are looking healthy - none of them are floating upside down, and none of them have strange tumours growing out of their sides. I reckon both chemicals we are using really are safe enough for them. And we are better able to see them now.

 

Absence explained

 It's months since I posted; and to be frank, I had pretty much decided to close the blog down. There were a couple of reasons for that:

• unbeknownst to me, I was suffering a bit with long covid - tiredness after any exercise and a general sense of ennui. Not surprising having had covid 3 times (once on arrival in the UK in April 2023, and twice last year). I had put the symptoms down to ageing, especially since we had moved into the retirement village and I thought it was likely to be the effect of leaving the wider community behind and being ensconced ever so comfortably here in Parkwood;
  
• I often felt that I was writing/talking into the abyss - I'd had very few comments on the posts in the last while, and as I was no longer writing about our narrowboating adventures, I thought it was likely people had given up reading. After all, bletherings about life in a retirement village or cleaning the ponds or baking sourdough are hardly captivating reading - in spite of my occasionally quirky takes on some of the activities...

So I decided to let it go. I did think about starting up a new blog which would not be subject to the false advertising of having nb Waka Huia in the title. But I could not find a way to start a new blog! Every time I tried, it just brought this one up.

I was all set to call it quits until a friend in the USA emailed to say she missed my regular updates of our lives here. So Judy, you have spurred me back into action.

Also our friend Sarah, who is writing a book about dealing with the various systems when living with a partner with dementia, encouraged me to keep going.

So here I am: explaining myself!

I am going to keep writing and posting, and if you are a reader, please leave comments for me. I really do appreciate reading them and responding to them as well.

Just so you know what will be coming up in future posts that cover the last 5 months, here is a list:

• 50 years of marriage celebrated;
• a 7 week action-packed, hilarity-filled visit from our friend Julia, and the travels we undertook together
• that will be a number of posts, I think;
• a visit from fellow boating bloggers, Lisa and David of nb What a Lark;
  
• David and the Parkwood ukelele group;
  
• an upcoming trip to Sydney with other Parkwood people;
• probably a bit about the ongoing fun with the Aquamove groups;
• and very possibly I will stray into the occasional political rant ...
  

Stay tuned and get your commenting underway!

Pond cleaning

On Wednesday a couple of weeks ago, when David went out to make a cup of tea at about 8am, he saw that Kevin was already starting work, getting set up for the big pond clearing that he and Josh had as their task for the day.

 

And the big pumpout begins - the algae and sludge were so thick that the filter on the end of the hose got inextricably clogged and Josh had to cit it off. Later I used my weeding hook to clear it out - took ages!

There is more water in that pond that we expected. Josh had the hose out across the lawn between our place and Susan's. What a weedy mess that left! Then he moved the hose to the gutter and it half flooded the road!

 

Kevin doing a brush down of the pond bottom while the remainder of the water was pumped out.

 

In that sludge you can see the larger of our two frogs.

Ready and waiting to go back in the pond...

 

And back he goes.

 

The bottom is clear and clean, and now it is being refilled. It took over two hours with the hose running constantly.

 

Now they have started on cleaning Janet's pond. She calls hers Lake Superior because it's larger than ours. We call ours Top Lake because it's higher...

Lake Superior has the pump in it which needed to be relocated to down in the sump so it was clearing more gunk each time it was on.

For some reason, the gardening shed doesn't have a supply of butterfly/fish nets - who'd have thought? So I headed up to a local shop that sells all sorts of cheap and random items at really reasonable prices. I bought 3 nets. I didn't need one because I was official photographer. Janet joined Kevin and Josh in capturing fish before they got sucked up into the pump - would have been messy! Janet and I have kept one net and donated the others to the gardeners.

The frog is happy again. Isn't he a beaut?

Kevin digging out the water-lilies in Lake Superior's sump. Heaps of grunge in the bottom of that!

While the clean up took the whole day, there were still tasks to complete: 

• tidying up the pump and pipe work - done
  
• installing the fountain - done
  
• completing the wiring - done
  
• trimming rocks between the ponds to ensure there was not too much water in one pond and not enough in the other - done
• PROJECT COMPLETE - apart from Kevin bringing some white water lilies from other ponds around Parkwood for both of our ponds...
  

 

Originally the plan was to use that green ceramic globe behind Kevin as part of the fountain. However, the diameter of the hole through it and its base was too narrow for the hose. Kevin fashioned a limiter (or whatever it's called in plumbing terms) to make the hose thinner, however the pressure with a narrower hose was too strong and the water spouted up about a metre. Not what we or he wanted. So instead, he found some large and small rocks and fed the pipe up through them. We love it!

 Janet donated us some fish from her copious supply, and we are going to buy more for our Top Lake. And we are going to buy a pool vacuum head and hose as well as a hand pump to start and maintain the siphon - so we can keep the bottom of the ponds clean without having to ask Kevin to clear the filter every week or so.

I've still got it!

I stepped on the scales this morning before getting in the shower and was horrified to learn I have gained even more weight. So I decided that the container of icecream I had bought on Tuesday night and eaten some of that evening and yesterday just had to go.

So once ready to head over to the pool to take my first session of Aquamove for the day, I got the offending (but essentially innocent) icecream from the freezer and headed over to the Maintenance guys to get them to put it in their freezer so one of them could take it home at the end of the day. 

Just before I got to the workshop I said hello to Gendy and our friend Peter who were getting ready to drive the Parkwood van this morning (taking non-driving residents to and from the shops at Waikanae). Peter called out that he would see me at 12.45pm. 'Yes?" I said questioningly. 'For lunch,' he said. 'But that's next Thursday,' I said. 'No, it's today,' he asserted. 'Are you sure?' I said.

Yes, he was sure that he and our mutual friend Murray were coming to lunch today. I wasn't sure. In fact I was sure it was next Thursday, but not to worry. 

So I turned around and took the icecream home and put it back in the freezer, told David his schedule was being changed, we were having two guests for lunch, pointed to the delicious dal left over from last night  - a recipe that serves 6 (why don't I modify amounts? For just this eventuality, obviously!), informed him I would make individual apple tartlets when I got back from the Aquamove sessions, and headed off having asked David to set the table in my absence.  

Fast forward to my arriving home and the following things occurred between 12.15 and 1pm:

• I discovered/remembered we had two bunches of asparagus in the fridge so I decided they would be the starter, and prepped them, and preheated a pan of water
  
• I put two mugs of rice in the pyrex bowl and got David to do the 4 mugs of water, the salt and the butter, and put it into the microwave to cook while I prepped the banana, threaded coconut and lime juice side dish
• David spooned 3 chutneys/relishes into little dishes
• I prepped the apple tartlets (a sheet of puff pastry from the freezer, cut it into 4, scored each piece with a sharp knife about a cm from each side, spread each piece with raspberry jam, peeled and sliced the braeburns from the fridge, placed the slices on the jam and sprinkled them with a mix of white sugar, brown sugar and cinnamon that I keep in the jar to use on banana and blueberry muffins) and got them into the oven to cook
• I reheated the dal
• I put some chilli flakes in one wee dish and a mix of chilli flakes, cayenne and salt (received a few weeks ago as part of a Wonky Box as a flavour sachet for avocado which I jarred and kept - near the 2 sugar/cinnamon mix...)

• Peter arrived early and we chatted, Peter poured the drinks and we waited for Murray. Who didn't arrive. So Peter called him. He was still at home because the lunch was scheduled for next week... 😜😛😛
•  So I put the asparagus on to cook.

The three of us sat down to eat at 1.05pm.

See, I've still got it - a 3 course meal in 45 minutes with 3.5 hours' warning 2.75 hours of which was taken up by Aquamove sessions...

And the lovely thing is, Peter and Murray and another friend (Tom) are coming for lunch next Thursday. Peter says they would love the dal, so I will make that again next Wednesday and once more be prepared ... Peter is going to bring the asparagus, and I've found another apple dessert to try!

 

Seeing these women in the pool at Aquamove today made me smile. I really enjoy taking these sessions.

 

Aquamove, and baking for the Fair

Aquamove sessions:

Here at Parkwood we have a lovely swimming pool which isn't used much during the day - a few people come and swim early, but mostly it is empty.

I had thought about how I would like to do some kind of aqua movement classes - nothing too strenuous or noisy, but some exercise to keep my joints moving well and to give me some exercise. So at one of our sector meetings, I asked if anyone was interested in Aquamove classes. Yes, Wendy was. Then I asked again at the new residents' morning tea, and Ann was. As always, it then took me a while to build up the courage to canvas more widely for interest. I am not sure why this happens to me, i.e. being overcome by a feeling of anxiety about whether people will like my idea (therefore like or not like me - doh!)

Anyway, after a couple of weeks or so of inaction, I finally got off my bum and got on to getting it sorted. 

I rang and arranged to meet with one of the Kapiti Coast District Council aqua-fitness leaders, and we discussed what sort of exercises would be useful for us older people. She suggested Aquamove and sent me some exercise sheets - it is gentle, non-bouncy exercises that stretch, assist with strengthening, joint mobility and fitness. We talked about having one of her team come to take the sessions; however at the same time, having listened to the questions I asked, she assured me that I would be able to run them.

My task then was to get an email sent out to all of Parkwood asking for people to register their interest and elect whether Tuesday or Thursday would suit them better.

I thought I'd probably get about 12 replies which meant I'd would be able to form two sessions.

But there were 32 responses! Amazing!

Then came the tasks of:

• organising people into different sessions based on their preference where possible, 
• getting the exercise sheets laminated, 
• making a notice for the swimming pool/gym door publicising that the pool would be occupied from 9.30 to 12.30 Tuesday and Thursday, 
• purchasing polystyrene pool noodles, 
• emailing all participants with information and a list of who was assigned to which group - and 
  
• most importantly, letting them know that if they wanted to swap sessions, it was up to them to find someone to swap with...

So I am now running 4 sessions each week, 2 on Tuesday morning and 2 on Thursday mornings. Not everyone who registered an interest has come along, and that is fine. I did rather spring it on them - from the time I asked for interest to the first sessions it was less than a week, and people here at Parkwood lead busy lives.

I was a bit nervous on at the first Tuesday session, but that dissipated quite quickly. And I realised we could fit a lot more exercises in the half hour than the KCDC person had thought possible. And in the second session that day, Janet R who had attended aquarobics for a number of years, made several suggestions of exercises that we could also do. I love other people's suggestions, so when I came home from the first Tuesday, I wrote Janet's ideas on the back of one of my laminated sheets and they are now a part of the routine.

Of course, as the leader I cannot be in the pool with them (in part from an H&S point of view, and in part because I am short - they wouldn't see me if I was instructing from in the water!), so I am doing the exercises poolside. Some of them are easier on dry land, others are not. It's a good thing I can touch a wall to keep my balance at times...

They are smiling!

On Thursday the sessions went smoothly and were a lot of fun - I feel very relaxed about running them now.

The Parkwood Fair

And a big part of the busyness for David and me and for a lot of Parkwood people was getting ready for the Parkwood Fair that was held on Saturday. I baked and baked and baked.

• two chocolate brownie cakes
• two almond and coconut gluten free cakes
• about 38 cheese scones
• a batch of shortbread
• a small batch of cheesy shortbread
• 5 loaves of sourdough bread 

 And I also made a batch of red capsicum and chilli jelly - it's easy and yummy.

The almond and coconut gluten free cakes

 

Cheesy shortbread - a wee bit more golden than I wanted, but they were delicious.

 

The great bake off of 9 Wren St...

 

I was assisting on the Baking and Preserves stall. I think I may have missed my calling - selling ice to Inuits. No one who made eye contact escaped without buying something, and many people made eye contact when I called out to them, and then they purchased...

David was helping on the Fine China stall - he didn't wrap or sell anything, but he took the money and organised any EFTPOS payments. And of course, the women he was assisting just loved him - haven't I done a good job on socialising him over the years? 😀😂😍😇😈

Preliminary results are that we made a goodly amount of money from the sales: china and cakes, preserves, white elephant, electrical, furniture, paintings, games, knitting/crocheting, plants.

By Saturday afternoon, I was really tired so I had a long nap. Sunday I was still quite tired so we had a quiet day apart making dinner early so I wouldn't have to motivate myself later in the day, and we went for a walk. And I did manage to break a string on David's second ukelele - I was tuning it to lend to another ukelele participant and wound the wrong string winder, all the while wondering why the string wasn't coming in tune... 

So on Monday, after I'd prepared the loaves of sourdough in the morning, I drove to Levin - again -  to get the ukelele re-strung - doh!

I've run the Aquamove classes again this morning (Tuesday) - gosh it's fun. But tiring and I've had a snooze in the armchair.

Our Australian citizen:

We had a text from our lovely daughter Kirsty on Saturday telling us she'd voted in her first local body elections in Sydney as an Australian citizen.

The lovely Kirsty. Well, half of her...

Apparently they go hard out with some kind of food stall and sausage sizzle at the polling booths. This is a democracy sausage! Yay!! I think we need to start that here in NZ.

 The lovely David:

This morning David took 3 ukeleles to his class: a soprano one (very small) that is too small for him and he is donating it to the ukelele teacher to be given to a local school, his own one, and the baritone one I had to get restrung yesterday - he is lending it to a classmate who is struggling with a soprano (too small), and his own, plus his music stand and sheet music. He has an A3 stand and has printed his sheet music (words and chords) on A3. You can probably tell by the background that I took this photo while I was still in bed...

 

He thought it was very funny, okay?

 

Definitely!

Out of hospital and into the agapanthus

 Well, I collected the motorhome on the Thursday before last and, although the cost of leak repairs was quite high, we were pleased to pay it - the motorhome has had quite a lot of the original sealant replaced, because UK sealant doesn't last here in NZ's sun.

Since I collected it, we've had it parked next to our place. And we've had Kat staying with us again and she slept in it. She did have a noisy night when we had intense thunderstorms with heaps and heaps of lightning.

We need to have a new place to store the motorhome because Parkwood management has decided that motorhomes and caravans can no longer be stored on site. We have arranged to keep it up behind Richard and Ngaere's place about 10 minutes' walk from here.

I have previously driven it up their long sloping driveway and it was fine - I just put it in T1 (Traction drive in 1st gear) and up we went, with no hassles.

Last week, because the guys were going to be mowing the lawns here, I needed to move the motorhome from beside the house. So I decided to take it to Richard and Ngaere's. As I was leaving Parkwood, it occurred to me that I could just leave it at the Plateau parking area until the run of really stink wet weather is over. But on I went, with Kat in the passenger seat. She was on adjusting in the wing mirrors so I could get the cab safely through Richard and Ngaere's gateway and then re-adjusting them so I could see the sides of the habitation area as I drove all the way through - I've tried it with the mirrors folded flat and it is bloody scary not being able to see the sides...

So through the gate successfully, and then I engaged the Traction gear and up we went.

Bugger!! Almost at the top, the ground was soft and the motorhome skidded a bit. So I stopped, reversed a wee way and tried again. Nope, not happening.

So there was nothing for it but to reverse down the drive and out the gateway.

Well, that was the plan, but it didn't go according to plan, now did it?

Somehow, I managed to go off piste and ended up over to the left of the driveway and in the agapanthus! And agapanthus leaves are full of notoriously gooey sap when broken open. And when the wheels run over them, they exude the gooey slippery stuff. And wheels don't like it and decide not to go forward or back.

So I declared defeat, went and told Richard and we considered what to do. The options tried:

• putting mats under the front wheels (it's front wheel drive) to see if I could gently drive forward - no. But one mat just got scrunched and pulled back under the wheel...
• Richard and Kat pushing me backwards - no, no movement and the Ducato has the very clever functionality that, in a skid situation, the wheels won't turn - to stop me digging myself in deeper.

At that point, Richard said he would have a go at cutting away the agapanthus leaves when the weather cleared up and I would come back on Friday, after 3 days of fine weather. Hopefully the driveway would have dried out and I'd be able to reverse away from the agapanthus leaves.

But over night, I started thinking about the likelihood of being able to drive out, even with the agapanthus cleared. So I rang Kapiti Coast Towing and asked the advice of Royce, the owner. He suggested that he would come and have a look at it with me the following day. His counsel once on site was that there were two ways to release the motorhome from its bondage: EITHER put a strop around the large tree beside the driveway and around the wheel, and then winch the motorhome off OR get a small tractor up the bank and then tow the motorhome up to the level where it was due to be living.

A day later I told Richard what I was thinking and he said he was just going out to hack away the agapanthus leaves. When I went to look at his progress, it was really clear why the motorhome had come to a halt and wouldn't be pushed back - in cutting away the leaves Richard exposed a 400mm (1'4") high and about 600mm wide (you do the maths this time) agapanthus root system ... AAARRRGGGHHH!!! 

 

There was NO way I was ever going to be able to drive over that!

So I phoned Royce. We agreed on the option of the tractor towing the motorhome up the hill.

Not too long after that, he arrived with his truck, accompanied by his worker Michael in another truck with the tractor on the back.

 

See that little rounded off rectangular section? Behind that is a fitting that an eyelet screws into.

 

That eyelet thing - it lives in a toolbox under the passenger seat - Royce knew where to find it. I would have remembered eventually ...

 

Royce was calling Michael letting him know we were ready.

 

Michael arrives with the tractor on the back of the truck

Did you know that tractors have multiple very, very low gears that are put into play when climbing slippery banks? I didn't, but I do now! If you want, I can show you video of the whole process...

 

Michael driving very close to Richard and Ngaere's motorhome having also missed the lemon tree in the left foreground...

Once Michael got up the bank - using the very very low gears, he reversed down the driveway. They attached the ends of the chain to the eyelet on the motorhome and the chassis of the tractor, then slowly, slowly up the hill.

The towing went very smoothly and they made it look easy. Michael drove the tractor and Royce steered the motorhome. Once the motorhome was in place, and Royce and Michael had loaded the tractor back on the truck, I washed the agapanthus goo and leaf bits off the motorhome, pulled the blinds up and locked it. And headed home in the car - I needed a lie down.

It was well worth the $250 that Royce charged - I thought that was incredibly reasonable: 2 trucks, a tractor and 2 men and well over a couple of hours of Royce's time over two days and an hour of Michael's, not including travelling time. A bargain!

P.S. I had a couple of viseos and more photos to add in. But Google Blogger is playing silly bloggers/buggers: it says I need to accept all cookies before I can load photos. And then accepting the cookies does nothing. SO I have just drag and dropped the photos. The ones on the post are the only ones I could load on. And videos - no chance!