Will it be a plague of locusts next, I ask?

Over recent weeks, we have had numerous tiny insects appearing in the kitchen. I have found them in the pantry and had to throw out quite a few opened packets that they had crept their sneaky way into - even though I generally firmly fold down the tops of packets, folding is no defence against these little blighters! Frankly, I have no idea what they are - I have taken everything out of the bottom three shelves and swabbed them down, only to find more of the little buggers have hatched or awoken from hibernation, dammit! Where I find them in swarms now - well, at least 6 of them over the course of a day - is making their way across the kitchen floor. No idea where they are heading for, but when I see them, I pick them up and put them in the kitchen sink with the tap running: that'll teach them! They can go for a long dark swim!

Last photo opportunity before the long swim ... This beast is about 1.5 to 2mm long, taller than it is wide. I looked them up and I am fairly sure they are drugstore beetles: bloody typical that it's a beetle with an American name.

And then yesterday, we were inundated with bloody ants again! My bad, because I accidentally didn't put the lid of the golden syrup jar on properly - I'd brought in the jar from the motorhome and used it, replaced the lid but not tightly, and hey presto ants could be heard screaming "Don't jump in, Charlie, Angie, Peter, Dwight, Archie - it's quick syrup!! Feed from the lid only! Go back and tell the team to stay away from the edge! Hurry!!"

Anyway, they were everywhere. They are quite amazing really, as one day there's none and all of a sudden there are thousands of them marching marching marching.

Fortunately a week or so ago, Wendy bought some ant bait for us - she rang Kevin while he was meeting at our place with Sarah and me - pre-lockdown, I hasten to add. - so she got ant bait for us too as a precautionary measure.

It is now placed along their route in/out, and they are carrying it back to the nest/s. I replaced the baits this morning and yesterday morning and they are voraciously munching and marching again! When I did a speed test this morning, my micrometer indicated they are marching more slowly... 😆😏😜😉 But then during the day they sped up again!

At the bottom of the pantry. Bait is on a bit of cardboard and they are into it.

And making their way to and from the pantry

You can see them crossing the carpet edging ...

 

Behind the fridge and up the cupboard wall to the tiny gap below the bench (some of them), and along the bench to behind the microwave and around the corner to the windowsill and out between it and the bench (the rest of them) ...

 One bonus - I think the ant-bait is attracting and killing the other insects! Yay!!!

The kindness of friends

Amid all the scary stuff that is going on at the moment, it is the kindness of friends that lifts our spirits.

Wendy did our supermarket shopping on Tuesday. I made cheese scones for her to take home to the family, and I did make sure David put the money in her account before he had a wine...

I know you are bored with pictures of cheese scones but too bad! 8 for the Bryant family, 2 for Kay, the rest for David and me - at the time of writing there are still 2 left waiting to be toasted!

Wendy and I spoke from a distance of about 3 or 4 metres, and it was lovely to see her. She brought chardonnay (of course), chippies (both those latter two were her suggestions), mushrooms, a bit of fruit, cans of coconut milk, tuna and chickpeas - separate cans of course. What a godawful combination that would be! Now a pause to hunt for the vomiting emoji ...😱😰👎 Can't find it on Blogger, so you will have to imagine it.

Jillian came to the window on Monday to say hello as she went out for a walk. And on Wednesday she came and sprayed our roses and our lemon tree and I also collected some lemons from her tree before she sprayed it. (Today I am going to go over and pick lots of her rhubarb - she said I could. It is huge!! Almost tree-like!)

Other younger neighbours - yes we do have a few around here but not many - have offered to do shopping for us oldies, and Corinne found the delivery service being offered by a fruit and vegetable place in Otaki, because she said she knew that a number of us usually rely on the Waikanae Saturday market. We do, and it will be missed.

David and I saw a fair few teddies in windows around the neighbourhood on our walk the other day.

Mel and the owls are watching out for passing children ...

Corinne and Dave's house cannot be seen from the street, so they have a painted bear!

Some are harder to see, but they are there!

Some are very little ...

Others are not bears but even so they cause a smile and excited laugh as we heard from a mum and her 3 kids out on their bikes and coming along behind us!

Amazing how many people have teddies! Maybe people are wrong when they say that my brother in law is strange; although he does have about 120 bears all up. Well, far fewer now as he has given some to his grandkids.

Reflections obscure this one, sorry, but there he is in his sunny yellow T-shirt!

This bear is in Rhys's ute - the sun was shining very brightly so the reflections were impossible to avoid - sorry about that!

This is not a bear. This is David by the Waikanae River when we were out walking the other day. About 500metres from our place is the river and farmland. We are so lucky to have it all so close!

I made a mask for us each and David has modelled his here for your pleasure:

Wearing his dad's Belgian bargeman's cap (I think) - I reckon he looks like the bank robber in the children's book When the Wind Changed. Tim thought he needed a dark shirt to be more authentically in that character - so clearly, Tim remembers that book either from his own childhood or from reading it to his boys.

A more seasonally appropriate look, don't you think?

We have been playing a lot of 5 Crowns with friends on FaceTime and WhatsApp:

We have played with

• Joy and Grahame (Waikanae), 
• Salvi and Ann (Stoke), 
• and latterly Salvi and Ann plus Chris and Ann (Stoke), 
• and also Mick and Julia in Desborough, UK.

Must have been up to Queens given there are 12 cards in their hands ... David is clever and took a screen shot.

I made this fabulous looking vege curry and got carried away with the amount of chilli flakes so it's too hot for me - even with lots of yoghurt! David did not appear at all concerned that he would have to eat all of it.

Yesterday's lunch - ciabatta with grilled cheese as the basis of a deconstructed BLAT - must make it again.

This morning, for breakfast he had homemade tomato soup and toasted cheese scones

In NZ it appears most people are being very good about staying home and staying safe - and saving lives by not being out and about. The Police Commissioner said in a briefing a couple of days ago that they had arrested 3 people and released two of them, one was still being held because of 'other matters'. A phrase that always raises my curiosity ...

We have, as always, been keeping an eye on (for that, read: watching obsessively) the situation in the US - what a sh*tshow it is there!

Here I am in articulately and formidably assertive mode giving some severe feedback to someone who had written that the dumpster didn't say the things that he has been recorded/videoed as saying and that the Democrats should stop picking on him... AAARRRGGGHHH!!!

Mmm, I wonder who that could be about???

We are SO SO SO SO SO SO very very very lucky to have Jacinda and her team.

Here's a couple of other things that have come across my social media feeds:

That's it for the moment - but I have another post being written in my head already about bugs ...

Being in lockdown...

Some how I haven't been able to post recently - I think my hiding in plain sight kicked in, even though I've been FaceTiming people, having drinks and nibbles with friends and even playing cards. Mucho Funno and lots of laughs.

I have noticed that David and I get tetchy more easily at the moment; and then I realised that we are in a state that initiates the preserving life at all costs, and the fight or flight response (heightened alertness, all senses working overtime, extraneous details not required so shut up about them, just focus on what is critical right now). So Jacinda's Be Kind, Stay Calm, Stay Home message has a basis in recognition of what this kind of situation brings out in us naturally.
 
It also helps explain why we eat comfort food - to store fat in case of shortage rather than just because we like the mouth feel - and actually, that's why we like the mouth feel, so that we will eat it...
 
I am finding that it does help to think about why these responses occur and what they came from in our distant and not so distant past - finding the rationale builds my understanding, which in turn helps me not respond from emotion. Well, most of the time anyway! 🧐🤐🥶🤬 

I copied this from a comment I made in FB this morning and somehow it has picked up the emoji - bugger!

Anyway, please stay safe and be as happy as possible. Mxxoo

A boat going begging ...

David has just come to tell me that, in trying to find out the cost of an annual CRT licence, he has accidentally transferred the ownership of nb Waka Huia to persons unknown.

So if you want a boat, there it is - yours for the taking!

AAARRRGGGHHH!!! And he wonders why I love him - so do I, frankly ...

Fortunately, I have had lots of chardonnay so am feeling little pain.

Sarah is a gem!

Last night we had Joy and Grahame around for dinner, and because we were working right up to the close of business, Sarah and I shared making dinner. I made pear and parsnip soup - very yummy indeed. Just sauteed onion, peeled, chopped and sauteed pears and parsnips, with about 3 tsp pf curry powder, then some liquid vege stock added, a few gratings of nutmeg and some salt. Then all pureed with a stick blender once the pear and parsnip were tender, then reheated.

Sarah made a dish that she had created once when she had a surfeit of silverbeet (swiss chard to UK people). She sauteed a finely chopped onion, then sweated heaps of silverbeet (about 5 times more than you think you'll need), placed both of them (the silverbeet drained) into the bottom of a large greased casserole dish. Then she broke up and spread a chunk of smoked salmon and about 300g of feta over the silverbeet. Finally she covered that with 6 eggs beaten with 1/2 cup cream, and sprinkled grated cheddar on top and baked it for about 30 minutes in a 180 deg C heated oven till the top was browned and the middle was set.

Absolutely scrummy - the man I am married to who absolutely "hates" feta, devoured a bigger helping than anyone else at the table... (He also absiolutely hates pumpkin and kumara and parsnip, but he loves soup made with these vegetables - go figure!)

Dessert was chocolate pots, stewed Omega plums and whipped cream (my creation).

And today we were working at the dining table (real paid work) and our IT specialist was away having one of his last appointments to do with his eyes. Sarah struck a problem, left David a message and then decided to solve the problem herself.

She had an 'aha' moment, and said quite calmly 'I know what I'll do!' and leapt up with the fly swat and madly started beating around the back of one of the laptops, the cables and the printer, shouting 'I'll get you, you bastard!!'

As I collapsed in laughter, she had to explain that there were two things going on:

1. a fly had flown past that had to be annihilated, just as
2. she was going to resolve the IT issue.

The situation reminded

• me of my early and very techno-phobe days where I had a cartoon of Garfield whacking his computer screen yelling 'Compute this, sucker!' 
• Sarah of Basil Fawlty yelling in a hysterically upset fashion while using a fallen branch to beat the mini when it broke down ...

It is a very good thing we work from home. We would be a severely disruptive influence in an open plan office!

Vegetables and fruit storage

Yesterday morning we went to the outdoor market in Waikanae, after a lovely breakfast in Paraparaumu with Bruce, Gary, Leith and John.

Three shopping bags of fruit and veg plus 2 dozen eggs were purchased and brought home, and then carried in from the car to the kitchen, where they remained.

This morning (Sunday) after lying in bed blogging and then using the blender/muncher on the tomato soup I cooked yesterday, and ladling it into containers for freezing, I had to head to the supermarket to get sugar and more Allspice for making tomato sauce - today's housewifely task.

I noted that the bags of veg and fruit were no longer on the kitchen floor, and went in to say thank you to David, as one of my pet hates is the 6th handling of groceries (count them: 1 into the trolley/basket; 2 on to the counter/checkout travelator thingie; 3 into the shopping bags and into the trolley; 4 into the car; 5 out of the car into the kitchen; 6 away into their appropriate storage areas).

But disappointment, unmet expectation - he'd put away the eggs and blueberries but moved the other 2 full to overflowing bags to just out of sight across from the fridge.

#*%ˆ#$#$#. Off I went to the supermarket in high dudgeon - using the car, but in super-charged mode ...

I calm down as I am doing the next round of 1 - 4 grocery handling.

But the calm is shortlived. What do I see when I come back, you ask, that would set the steam rising again? Very good question!

In the middle of the kitchen floor, no longer discreetly across from the fridge, are the two overflowing bags of veg and fruit.

But wait, it gets worse.

This is what is sitting on them:

@#ˆ#@#*

So I write back:

And push it under the office door.

I then, as women can and so often do, made space in the fridge for everything. But into the office I took the head of celery and a parsnip, and told him these were what was left over and he should bend over ...

Busy times

It's 9.30 Sunday morning and I am still in bed - nothing unusual in that, for me, regardless of whether I am working or not. However when I am working I try to make sure I have restful weekends. For some reason, and I have NO idea what it is, I do not have as much stamina as I previously had...

The work is going well, Sarah and I make an excellent team, with a range of similar, a different and complementary skills. We are able to mainly work from home - mine, that is. Sarah flies up from Nelson each week, leaving Jack to look after himself. David is here, and he is our Number 1 Systems Admin, our key tech support and deliverer of cups of tea.

I think this seats 20 people and it's what Sarah flies in and out of Paraparaumu on. The flights are always full, and sometimes she has to fly into Wellington on AirNZ instead.

I did suggest that Sarah (centre) threw her bag over the fence and then jumped to save walking around ...

 We go into the office to run workshops with particular groups and do the planning and follow up work from home - much more peaceful as we are the only ones in our open plan office (i.e.the dining room) as David has his own office and keeps the door shut between him and us for some reason!

She was happy to be out walking, honest! But it was prior to coffee and the sun was in her eyes ...

One sunny day when we were working in the city we walked through the grounds of the Beehive and our Parliament Buildings. Note that people are walking around through the grounds and sitting having lunch on the lawn. How many countries can you get that close to the seat of government?

And there is a play area for kids with seats for watching parents.

Not huge, but lovely.

We are still going for walks most mornings when we aren't heading into the city (the walks on those days are to and from both Waikanae and Wellington stations, and often we are towing cabin bags full of papers (workshop plans and handouts), laptops, marker pens ... oh, and a small container of toasted chilli almonds and another of sliced carrot: blood sugar is so important!)

A swimming pool waiting to be installed at a new house build on Kohekohe Road - there had been a house there that was demolished and a new one is being built

Foundations going in.

Walking on a wet day by myself before Sarah arrived - I was walking virtually with Ann. Te Moana Road intersection with Ngarara Road.

A lovely spot of colour on a dull day. It had a wonderful perfume too.

I picked Sarah up from the station later on the same morning and the weather had deteriorated.

One morning, before walking, I pulled the garden edging out - we don't need it now the roses have grown over the edge of the concrete. I've taken it out of the back garden too as it was looking messy. (David did the bits I left). Rob had put it in when we had spread heaps of mulch so the birds couldn't continue spreading it on to the lawn while hunting for bugs ... But the mulch is long gone now.

After work drinks are easy to get to and we can always find a seat ...

And a dinner platter is easily assembled from the fridge. We'd been into the city that day to run a workshop - and bought a loaf of very delicious sourdough bread at a market near the bus station. Beetroot and carrot salad bowls, guacamole, hummus, salmon pate, port salut cheese, avocado, capsicum, gherkins and bits of ham. Looks and sounds like a balanced meal to me!

Dean came to stay one night last week and I made this plum galette. It looks strange, but it was yummy! Homemade pastry too.

In the meantime, the grandsons have turned 15 and 10.

Ready for presents with their dad and Dana (plus dogs) in Manchester.

On Friday I picked all of our grape harvest - we'd been picking them a bunch at a time for a week or so, and I thought that if we didn't pick them all they would over-ripen. They are buffalo grapes and beautifully sweet. David's task is to remove the netting from the vine where it is still clinging, get rid of the leaves and twigs that are holding it captive and then roll it up and store it for next year. It has been very effective at keeping the grapes safe for us - last year, its first year of fruiting, resulted in well-fed birds and hungry grape-less humans!

When this assignment is over, this will be me (esp as our grapes are now harvested) ...

... because I don't want to get to feeling like this!

And in terms of travel to the UK this year, we are waiting and seeing - the coronavirus situation is on our watchlist. Interesting how easy it is to fall in to over-worrying about it. The media is NOT helping people to react with common sense - the scare tactics are pervasive.

I have registered on the safetravel.govt.nz website which sends updates, and I am keeping an eye on the mfat.govt.nz site as well (Min of Foreign Affairs and Trade) - their site links to a site which shows all registered travel restrictions.

I remember having the serious flu (Hong Kong version, I think it was) back in the early 80s, and it was the sickest I have ever felt - I had to hold my head on when I walked downstairs to the toilet, didn't eat for a few days, and David had to drive me to the doctor - yes, I was too sick to drive and got in the car with him in the driver's seat, so it was desperate indeed! I could see why people died of it (the flu, not David driving). The only thing the doctor could do was give me a jab to stop me vomiting up anything I drank so that the dehydration was reversed. I don't want it or any similar illness again. But I caught it, going about my life as a young mum in Johnsonville. At the time I was part time teaching, and I don't remember anyone else on staff or any of the kids having it. So clearly I'd picked it up randomly.

And I don't remember there being any travel restrictions - it was that year's seasonal flu, and it was the luck of the draw. Since then, flu vaccinations have become standard, and we get one each year. Almost all workplaces I've been in since the early 90s have provided them for free or at a vastly subsidised rate - in part as a caring employer, and in part to assist with business continuity. The first workplace that I was in that did this was the SWIFTT project - we were on an extremely tight deadline and the project could not afford the delays that would ensue if software developers or training designers or business analysts were out of action.

David and I will get a flu vaccination this year before our scheduled travel date to reduce our vulnerability and make sure we continue in good shape. At 69 and 70, we are in the vulnerable age bracket, if we happened to come across the coronavirus's path, however neither of us have any other underlying health conditions.

But as I say, we are waiting and seeing.