A bitser

As I noted at the end of my last post, I was too hungover/tired to drive up to Taranaki on Boxing Day. Instead, I stayed in bed until about 4pm, I think, or maybe a bit earlier, and then got up and did the packing of the motorhome for an early departure the following morning.

Alarm set for 5am, so we could be ready to leave right on 5.30am. So, smack on 6.30 we were driving out the driveway ... I am not sure what took up the extra hour, especially as we had both woken earlier than the alarm and had had a cup of tea in bed well before the alarm went off. I DO know that David still had to collate and pack his clothes, but as he didn't take much, and as he stored them (still in the cloth shopping bag he'd collated them in to) behind his seat, it can't have been that.

Who knows and I cannot remember, and David will certainly not be remembering; I am not saying it's his fault, but I am blaming him. 😝😀😍😇

It was an easy trip north with very little traffic, even at that advanced hour of the morning. We had expected it would take us about 5 hours but we were there in 4.5, even with a stop at Inglewood at the New World supermarket. But without a stop at Viv's Kitchen in Sanson - dammit, I really wanted one of their cream horns! but the husband didn't want anything to eat so on we came. My bottom lip was stuck out for a fair while after that ...

We were aiming for Waitara Holiday Park to stay on site so we could spend time with my sister Dee and her family, given our kids and grandkids are not domiciled in NZ.

We had not told them we were coming and our welcome was all we could have hoped. Big hugs all round and expressions of pleasure.

Within the hour, most of us were on our way to Urenui Beach Camp for a picnic and a swim in the river. The black sand is very hot - and those of us who grew up in Taranaki somehow seem to cope with it better than the others.

Dee getting ready to go for a swim. I had to help her on with her swim shoes.

Pohutukawas - NZ xmas tree

We took Nicola and Jonnie back to the camp in the motorhome. David took this photo while I drove, so there were no safety issues!

Back at the Holiday Park there were no powered sites left, so we relied on the solar panel to do its job in the amazing Taranaki sunshine. The leisure battery was always in good shape throughout our 3 day stay.

I was in touch with our friend Lesley and a what's app group during that time, and some photos of current locations were shared.

This was the view from our windscreen - a bonus of not having a powered site, as they are all at rightangles to where we were, and thus have no view of the mountain.

This is one of the views from where Lesley is staying at the moment near Thirsk (near the northeast coast of England)

And this is one of the sunsets she photographed from the house she is staying in - pretty spectacular, isn't it?

 

This is one of Lesley's xmas presents - she has shown us a few pages. It is well worth reading ...

Murray is currently on leave from the hospital and is home. So he and Kurt made this new sign for the camp. The log is a large piece of driftwood that Kurt and Glenn found on the beach, and split lengthwise. Fence posts attached, letters spraypainted, polyurethaned and drilled, careful measurements and plumb-lines taken, letters attached with carefully calculated spacing. The finished result is great!

The beach is very close, so a sign made of driftwood is the perfect thing. And it is very expressive of the family history of being by the beach and construction from things found there - all of the Booth grandkids used to drag stuff home from the beach at Tongaporutu and then make furniture. Dad alternately despaired and thoroughly enjoyed watching the kids being creative over a period of hours as they made bookshelves, chairs, ornaments for the prow of the dinghy, ... The despair was at knowing he would NOT be able to throw any of it away without severe repercussions!

We came home early on 30 December so we could go to Bruce and Gary's for dinner as Nigel and Paul were staying there. We did stop at Viv's Kitchen for me to get a cream horn: big mistake, huge as I had the worst case of reflux after I ate it. So that will teach me - not to not have a cream horn, but to scrape off at least 60% of the cream - that extends ALL the way down the length of the pastry.

My contribution to dinner was dessert: little chocolate pots with sides of rhubarb and cream. Yummy, but I could have put slightly more sugar with the rhubarb as it made Paul's eyes curl! And I ate sparingly - my tummy was still a bit sensitive, bicarb notwithstanding.

Our neighbour Kay came over on 31 December and, along with a cup of tea, I gave her a haircut. And a style change - she usually wears it a bit longer than this, with her ears covered (why? she has lovely small ears) and layered all the way down and quite long down her neck - it usually barely counts as short hair.

She has cheekbones, and eyes, and ears and a very nice neck - who knew?

I think we were the only people who stayed home on New Year's Eve - I was in bed and asleep by 10pm. However that did mean I was awake early to greet the new year well before it occurred in the northern hemisphere - not that I got out of bed for anything more than to make tea and eventually (after 11am) make breakfast. I did also take photos to send to my cousin Gordon in Surrey.

Low cloud seen from one of the dining room windows. The hills beyond are Hemi Matenga - Adrian Spann from Briar Rose will recognise them as he has climbed part the way up with David.

There's the CROW and the driveway - no point in getting out of bed as it was cloudy!

The cabbage tree - actually there are three of them and they are about 40 or 50 feet high, I think. I will get David to work out their height using trigonometry some time. usually you can see the hills in the distance behind them, but not on 1st January 2020, dammit.

Breakfast in bed - cheese on vogel toast with tomato and lots of black pepper, plus half a fresh juicy peach. Carbs, protein and two fruits - sounds balanced to me!

At about the same time I was making brekkie and taking photos of a dull new year's day here, these two and others of the Lockie's Support Group were out celebrating.

This is Annette and Kevin who we met at The Lockkeeper's Rest at Sawley. Don't they scrub up well? But they weren't at the Lockies, I am fairly sure.

Tim sent us this photo of him and his boys, plus if you look closely, the two dogs who are also dressed for winter.

I think this is in the park in Bury not far from their home. Kai is behaving impeccably as always. Storm has turned her back on the team and looks like she may be contemplating escape across that open field...

I am not sure if Storm's paw on Kai while they sleep is to show dominance, or for comfort. They are apparently good mates now. We haven't met Storm yet - she is only 20 months or so old, while Kai is about 8 years old. They are both rescue dogs.

We don't do resolutions here, but David and I have struck a couple of new agreements for the New Year:

1. he will do his own eyedrops from now on (after a mutual tantrum)
2. I will do bits of weeding and pruning and deadheading (not of him ...) and he will do picking up and removing the stuff I pull out and cut off. (This is only between Sally's visits)

Both agreements represent a win for me. And the second represents a win for David too, as he will not be co-opted into one of his pets hates (gardening) but will participate in more of what he enjoys (filling the rubbish bin) and he won't have to get grumpy because I distribute weeds and trimmings on the lawn and paths.

So far, the second agreement has worked a treat - I have deadheaded the roses along the driveway and the ectoplasms (I can never easily remember their real name which is osteospermums - just checked on wikipedia, but ectoplasms sounds much better to me), and the roses in the back garden, chopped seedheads off the parsley, and deadheaded two very large daisy bushes in the side garden and pulled out various bits - it is great just being able to leave them lying around knowing a certain husband will remove them!