Working, boss ...

Well, despite my best intentions, I am once again in full-time, if necessarily short-term, employment! Necessarily short-term because on May 19 we are flying to the UK for our next season on nb Waka Huia.

I am doing a project management assignment which is based on the West Coast of the South Island - a beautiful part of the country, but quite different from the probably better known Queenstown,  and Doubtful and Milford Sounds. In fact the West Coast is quite similar to the northern parts of Taranaki - same geological features, same flora - just a lot more isolated and travel in by air is more frequently affected by weather. It's the Southern Alps which stop the water-laden westerly wind and cause the rain to fall on the seaward side of them that in turn create a micro climate of high rainfall, lush bush growth, and quite changeable weather. But by heck, it is very beautiful in a rugged kind of way.

My new project is managing the remediation of a former gold mining site - it was state of the art in gold mining terms at the time it was active back in the 1930s to 50s, but not so clever on keeping the ecology of the site in good shape. The West Coast was a huge mining area - coal, gold - and a huge number of NZers can claim a forebear who was involved in gold mining - indeed David can, as his great great grandfather came out from Scotland as a 16 year old, walked down from Auckland, crossed Cook Strait and walked to the West Coast to mine for gold, and then walked (I am unsure by what route) to Dunedin and then up to Akaroa where he took on two 40 acre blocks at Wainui. The loveliest part of this story is that the young woman he'd been forcibly parted from at 16 (the catholic/protestant divide) had waited for him and he sent for her - she arrived with her now widowed father and they founded the family here in NZ.

So here I am in Hokitika, and will be here regularly until we head off to the UK. I will be working partly here and partly at home and my role is to keep the project on track time-wise and budget-wise. There is a whole range of extremely competent engineers, scientists and Dept of Conservation rangers who certainly don't need more expertise in their fields, but my job is to make sure the job gets done through them, using their expertise while taking the extraneous project management/reporting to governance stuff off their shoulders.

This morning I was picked up at 6am and driven up to the site of the goldmine. Health and safety is understandably a big deal here so I was equipped with all the PPE (personal protective equipment): helmet with ear-muffs, safety glasses, steel capped boots (I bought my own as I probably have the smallest pair of feet down here), full length trousers and long sleeved top, plus a little survival kit with water, food, wet wipes.

On site wearing the helmet and earmuffs, my new steel-capped boots (very Village People) and colleague Cameron's high-vis vest. I tried not to make dents in the front of it ...

The drive out to the mine was quite long and through beautiful countryside and on the way we passed the turn off to Reefton.

This one is for Gary.

On the way back I had to have a photo taken at Melita's former home town ...

The mine site was pretty interesting and the most amazing views can be seen from it. DOC already has a few information boards in place and seeing old photos of men having their lunch 800 metres underground and others going underground in the man-cage was just a bit spooky to me! There was some drilling going on today checking for groundwater and some water sampling from nearby streams was due to take place - it's all very carefully done with GPS readings at sample sites. All of the data that has been and is being collected is being plotted on a big map and will be used to inform decision making on how the site will be remediated.

It's exciting stuff!

This evening after a governance group meeting in the afternoon, a very late lunch, and a meeting with the very clever man who does the mapping, I flew home - over the Southern Alps in a small two engined plane to Christchurch (wish I had kept my phone turned on in airplane mode and taken photos of the peaks - next time!) and then a larger plane back to Wellington. Cab to the station, and caught the train to Waikanae by the skin of my teeth, and my friend Wendy picked me up and kindly drove me home. It's now 10.45pm and I am tired, in bed with a cup of chamomile tea.

This sign was outside a lovely wine bar in Hokitika that Kevin and I went to on Tuesday.

Bathroom renovations - a work in progress

We now have two loos - just like the Lautrec class of Black Prince hire boats - named for obvious reasons by someone who liked puns ...

We'd decided earlier this year that the bathroom had to be re-done, and over the UK summer and when we got back in NZ in October/November we had thought, discussed, consulted others about how it should be. Decisions were made and we had pretty much all of the bathroom fitments ordered and delivered in the week or so before Xmas, and I had cleared the messy garage (painting gear that hadn't been sorted and put away after Joe had finished the hall, sunroom,  laundry and pantry back in November ...)  so we could have everything ready. There were two toilets, two basins, a shower unit, a shower mixer (it's the coolest looking thing ever!), taps, towel rails, loo roll holders, robe hooks, basin pop-up wastes ...

We were keen to get our favourite builder, Luke, to do the carpentry aspects of the bathroom changes so that meant him doing it during his holidays - the statutory holiday period between Xmas and New Year. We also found Mark, a young English/NZ plumber happy to work then, so it was all on to get a functioning shower, toilet and basin before the grandsons arrived on 30 December!

The provision of Ministry of Food cheese scones each morning,  an ample lunch with plenty of protein and salad as garnish only, cream doughnuts for afternoon tea, and beers at lunch and after work each day were critical factors in having happy workers. The cheese scones were Luke's request and he was keen to have them each day - they must be good then! I have got rather fast at making them ...

It's about to start so we have the boxes to decant stuff into

Shower still intact, but not for long!

So it all kicked off on 27 Dec. That first day, Luke was on his own and worked flat out stripping out the bathroom and our separate toilet - he removed the bath, the shower cubicle, the vanity unit and the toilet, as well as removing wall linings, skirting and scotia in the bathroom and the bottom half of the toilet walls.

Luke has started - the shower doors are off! the piece of glass still in place at the end of the bath is going to be part of Luke's glass house - wish I'd cleaned it more thoroughly before it came out ...

Luke loves this aspect of the job for some reason - destruction is a lot of fun, I gather.

The old toilet is a goner

Prepping the portable toilet for use in the shed for a couple of days - how very familiar to us boaters! We keep it as an earthquake preparedness measure and it came in handy for those two days.

Shower walls are gone and the bath and vanity have done a runner ...

... to the garage

Wall stripping underway - plenty of insulation in the exterior wall cavities

Householders are not allowed to touch.

He prepped one wall so an in-wall toilet cistern could be fitted in the bathroom, and moved the wiring that would be in the wrong place for the new fit out. He started the relining of the bottom half of the walls in our separate toilet - I cannot remember the name of the wall material he used, but it is a Hardies' product with a tongue and groove look, and is actually an exterior wall cladding but fine for inside as well. No point in spending big money on real wood if the t&g is going to be painted, eh? And being an exterior product it will be excellent at withstanding water in the bathroom.

So early on the morning of 28 Dec, Mark the plumber and Luke were both on deck getting the fit-out started - poor b*ggers worked all day in extreme heat as it was one of this summer's hottest days so far, and there were two hard working chaps in a small room! David set up a fan for them in the hallway, but it was of limited use given it couldn't be pointing right at them as they wouldn't have been able to come and go with ease.

Mark on the job of making the chase for the shower - naturally the waste was in a different place from the old shower

The sledge hammer came into play

Did Luke have the right tool to chip at the concrete more effectively? Of course he did!

Mark doesn't need Protective earmuffs or knee-pads - he's 29 and bullet proof!

Mark had also dug down to and exposed the sewer pipe so the outlet for the second toilet could be ducted into it.

Because it was David's mum's 92nd birthday on 29th, we were taking her for afternoon tea in Masterton.

before going to Masterton, we had morning tea with the workers - Mark on the left, Luke on the right, David in the background.

So after making and eating morning tea (more cheese scones ...) with the guys, David and I left them in the tender care of Lynne, our friend who was staying with us - she's a brave woman as with the bathroom and toilet out of action, we were using the portable toilet out in the garden shed  and showering had to take place down at Bruce and Gary's place ...

Lynne's job was to sort out their lunch and make sure there was a cold beer to accompany it. When we came home it was great to see how much progress had been made - one functioning toilet and basin in the separate toilet, the shower base,  walls and mixer were installed, pretty much all of the wall linings in the bathroom were up - that involved gib above the 1 metre line, the T&G stuff below it and a dado rail over the join, plus skirtings at the bottom.

New toilet and handbasin, plus t&g and dado fitted

And most importantly, there was a new doorway between the bathroom and our bedroom - we now have a family/ensuite bathroom; ie no traipsing down the hallway to get to the toilet in the middle of the night!

The following day, Luke did a fair bit of finishing off work and re-concreted the path that Mark had dug up the previous day. Mark had only the shower doors to fit and the second toilet in the bathroom to install and he was planning to be away home at about 1pm.

Preparing the shower doors for installation. You can see the new doorway through to our bedroom by the shower base.

Tim, Marta, Olek and Karol were due to arrive from Scotland, and it was all go getting ready for them - we were on target for having a functioning set of bathroom equipment. Then disaster struck while I was at the supermarket making sure there was enough food for the family's arrival. David phoned to tell me that the toilet Mark was about to fit didn't match the in-wall tank that had already been installed - they had been bought as a set but weren't. Oh botheration and other bad words! When I got home and Mark explained the problem, I quickly decided that the best thing was to buy a new toilet with an external cistern, leave the in-wall tank in the wall  (to remove it, Luke said, would take a fair amount of time and some new materials). As I was still preparing for TMOK's arrival, Mark headed off to buy the new toilet - fortunately, Lynne and I had been to Mitre 10 and photographed a toilet she liked that I also thought was pretty cool. So the choice was easy to make. Mark was back in 30 minutes and the new toilet was rapidly installed.

The shower has a halo head and is just fabulous

Lynne and I liked this toilet as the seat fitted well over the pan's exterior and interior shape - you'd be surprised how many don't! We reckon it's because they are designed by chaps, dare I say it, and the aspect that isn't considered in terms of form is the cleaning requirements - function over form any day, we say! It's squared off but surprisingly comfortable!

The new door - it's where the bath used to be

This is where the new vanity will be - it and the door to our bedroom are in the place where the bath was.

From the bathroom to our bedroom, via the wardrobe

Luke's temporary solution to the wardrobe deconstruction before we get a new system fitted. First talk to the wardrobe consultant, methinks!

Mark finished off as much as he could with warnings not to use the toilet or the shower till the next day to give the glue and silicon a chance to go off properly. And then Luke did a heap of finishing and cleaning - concrete dust and sawdust go everywhere - even if doors are closed, dammit!

So having a functioning set of bathroom equipment was achieved in the nick of time, but it is still very definitely a work in progress - no vanity unit in the bathroom, walls and ceiling unpainted, no vinyl on the floor and no tiling above the small basin for the separate loo. Those tasks have to wait for the exodus of the family. And I still have to order the vanity unit - I struggled before Xmas with choosing one that didn't look like every other vanity in the catalogues. But a conversation with Luke brought the realisation that unless I was keen to spend a couple of thousand dollars on one, I was going to have to choose something that was acceptable, if not sublime!Landmark strikes again!

There is a fair bit of work remaining, and Mark and Luke will complete their bits, the flooring will be fitted by the same people who will fit the carpet. But I am unsure how the painting is going to get done - I found out today that I am going to be starting a project management assignment that will keep me fully occupied till we depart for the boat in May - yikes!! How did that happen?

A blogging gap explained

Well, for a retired person I seem to have been very busy and occupied. Not that that should surprise me given how busy most retired people are that I know. David and I often remark that we don't know how we fitted work in to our lives previously, but it did help that from aged 55 David was the retired one who could handle life's administrivia while I was gainfully employed.

Christmas was a social whirl from beginning to end - those extremities seem to extend well beyond the actual day and involve much food and wine - Xmas Day was an organised pot luck for fourteen at Bruce and Gary's. We stayed over with 6 other guests, three of whom were in two camper vans, and the three other guests went home. It was a wonderful meal and lots of laughter. Nibbles and bubbles were served out on the deck prior to the meal - it was a scorching hot day here in Waikanae. We do love Xmas in the summer! Strange I know for northern hemisphere people to understand but it just feels right to us, even though most of our Christmas cards feature snow, holly, robins, etc - we are used to the contrary and contrary view of the festive season.

On Boxing Day we had visitors so it was home from B&G's after brekkie, make  a batch of cheese scones, plate up some nibbles, wine into fridge, table and chairs restored to the lawn from their lawn-mowing retreat, a quick clean up of the kitchen which had been left incomplete as we departed for B&G's the previous morning. (My schedule had forgotten to take account of bubbles and photography session at the neighbours on Xmas morning, so even though I'd been up at 7.30 to make 14 individual chocolate puddings, a large salad and to decant 3 litres of gravy into a large pot for transporting and carve two legs of lamb, I was not organised enough to get all the dishes done before we left - note to self: must improve planning skills!)

The 27th was D Day for the start of the bathroom renovation, but more of that in the next post - it requires photos and right at this minute I have to get up and get pots filled so we have access to water today and that porta potti needs emptying ...

Have Gold Card, will travel - for free!

Although my Gold Card arrived a week ago (the Monday after my birthday) today is the first day I have used it. I had an osteopath appointment in the city this morning at 9am and would have had to leave home by car about 7.30am to be sure of getting in and parked on time. As the train that would get me there in plenty of time also left at 7.30, I decided to be a passenger rather than a driver - a much cheaper option when most of the travel is free (i.e. after 9am). So I left home 15 minutes earlier to walk to the station and joined the commuters. A number of them were looking a bit jaded in the run up to the Xmas/New Year break, and I felt inordinately pleased that I was in jeans and a T-short while they were dressed for business ...

Given the travel was going to be free from 9am, I decided that after my osteopath appointment, I would also go out to Lower Hutt by train. I wanted to buy a container to feed the TV/dvd player/Apple box cords through so they don't look so untidy on the floor behind the equipment. I would rather have them reposing in a box where they may well multiply (see previous posts for my theory on the reproductive tendencies of power cords) than have them out doing so in full view!

So off on the train I went to Melling, then a 10 minute walk to the shop, a bit of faffing around as I found the box that would do the trick, a 10 minute walk back followed by half hour wait in the sunshine for the next train back to Wellington. 

A bit hard to see Wellington city in the background, but believe me it's there - this is the view down the Hutt River as I walked from Melling Station to the shopping centre. Not a cloud in the sky!

As all services were running on time today, my transfer to the Waikanae train was easy with over 10 minutes to spare. I am pleased that my usual habits of jinxing every Waikanae-bound train I have travelled on since we got here 12 months ago has let up for a bit.

The scenery on both trips was wonderful and it was a brilliantly sunny day, so Wellington Harbour looked stunning, as did Kapiti Island on my way back. As Dave Dobbyn sang several years ago you can't beat Wellington on a good day.

A view from the train as I headed back to Wellington - showing the entrance to Wellington Harbour and the airport - the flat bit of land on the RHS of the photo).

Part of Wellington city as we came along the harbour's edge.

Not the best photo but this is Kapiti Island from the Waikanae train as it goes along the side of the hills above State Highway 1 - just so you know, that is our main highway, NZ's equivalent of the M1 ... Not a lot of SH1 is dual carriageway, and a helluva lot less of it is motorway. But then, we have the population of Birmingham living in an area pretty much the same size as mainland Britain, so we don't need the roading capacity.

I was home by just after 1pm, with my mission started - to make sure I use my Gold Card as much as possible. It's lifelong and I hope my membership of the club is for a very extended period!

I like birthdays!

I am now officially an OAP, and am eagerly awaiting my first National Super payment (due on 15th Dec). Not sure what I will spend the new riches on, but am not setting my sights too high, given it's not a huge amount ...

On Friday, my actual birthday, we had a great party here at Cafe Rata, where the guests brought along most of the food and most of the drink. A number of them also brought presents, which was not expected but a lovely surprise. I received some lovely plants for the garden, some very yummy chocolates, and an Aynsley cup, saucer and plate. I am a collector of such china and have managed to squeeze this one into one of the three china cabinets ...

David organised a cake from a local bakery. For non-NZers' edification: Winston Peters is an MP here who some years ago introduced the Gold Card for superannuitants - free public transport (within limits) and discounted services and goods that suppliers could offer.

By my birthday, my Gold Card hadn't arrived, so David had the cake decorated appropriately for me. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that my card may have arrived earlier in the week but he secreted it away to make the cake more apposite. I will have to torture him with the threat of cold water to discover the truth!

Blowing out the candles - lucky for David that he didn't use 65 of them ... As it was he knew we had candles somewhere but he couldn't very well scour the kitchen without my getting suspicious, so John and Jenny from next door provided the firepower. You will note, I know, that my chardonnay was not far away, in case of flames erupting uncontrollably of course!

As I said, the party was great - lots of fab friends came to help celebrate my coming of age, i.e. pension age. Champagne cocktails, chardonnay and a couple of large glasses of water before I went to bed at 1am. I'd have to confess to feeling a bit tired yesterday afternoon, but of course pensioners are allowed nana naps ...

And my Gold Card turned up yesterday - suspicious timing, or what?!!

National Superannuation - I am ready!

Well, tonight is my last night of being 64. Tomorrow I qualify for NZ's National Super, so will officially be an OAP. I am still waiting for my Super Gold Card to get free public transport and discounts at a range of retail outlets - I hope it arrives soon!

Birthday party tomorrow evening - guests are bringing a plate of finger food and a bottle.

Chicken nibbles are marinating in the fridge; champagne cocktail components are ready: ginger and lemongrass syrup is made and lychees are purchased, 5 bottles of bubbles are in the fridge. And of course a couple of chardonnays are there too.

So tomorrow all I have to do is cook the chicken nibbles and make some mini-sized Ministry of Food cheese scones, do some clearing up, rearrange the lounge dining room and put a drinks table in the hallway.

Such organisation seems a bit grown up to me - I will have to change that behaviour immediately!

Counting the cost and sharing out the chardonnay

Tony from nb Holderness keeps impeccable records about their expenditure on boat related costs and analyses the differences year on year based on the duration of their cruising and where they travel.

David and I don't keep records - I had intended to but when I did a mental calculation of the collection of the early receipts both last year and this year the possible totals were too scary. So, in my usual cowardly fashion, I gave up before even starting.

This morning I commented on Tony's blog along the above lines and also noted that we found that food cost more in NZ than in the UK, and in particular I can often buy good NZ wine cheaper in the UK than here at home.

Tony has done some investigation and calculations:

Your thoughts on the cheap wine in the UK got me thinking. The population of Wellington is 450000 and the total for New Zealand is 4.4 million. The population of Greater London is 8.6 million. Therefore there is a much greater market here. A 40' shipping container will hold 12000 cases of wine and it only costs about $6,500 to ship it to London. Actually it will be a lot less to a regular shipper as I got those figures from a one off enquiry. It turns out that in 2012 NZ produced 194 million litres of wine. Only 57.7 million of them came to the UK but the total export of your wine was 178.9 million litres (all 2012 figures). That fact means that every person in New Zealand has only 3.4 litres to drink. I reckon that you are drinking somebody else's share!

Only 3.4 litres - what is he thinking of? Me drinking somebody else's share - what is he thinking of? I am only here in NZ for 7 months of the year now, so 5 months of my consumption has to be counted in the UK. Of course, children don't drink, and a huge number of people drink beer or spirits and another group of people don't drink alcohol - how strange!

So in my defence:

• I am not usurping (or uslurping for that matter) anyone else's share in fact, given chardonnay has lessened in popularity I am helping to keep the vineyards and market afloat! 
• I am also making sure that I am not consuming anyone else's share of the ubiquitous sauvignon blancs or pinot noirs that NZ is famed for - as those who know me know I am faithful to good chardonnay. 
• There's always plenty of bottles left on the shelves in the supermarket when I leave (and in all the other supermarkets I don't go into all over the country) so clearly some people are not drinking their fair share, shame on them!

I do hope that Tony wasn't suggesting that I bring a container of chardonnay over to the UK with me - firstly, it would never fit on the boat and secondly the container would sink or block the cut and some smart boater who understands salvage rights would take unfair advantage.

In the interests of readers knowing how dedicated I am to finding good chardonnay, I have included some photos taken on a recent trip to the Toast Martinborough event, an annual wine, food and music festival that is extremely popular - I was invited to go with the IQANZ group that I do short term part-time consultancy assignments for.. Their boss couldn't go, so I was given his ticket - a very generous gift as they are not cheap and included train and bus travel to Martinborough, brunch and 50 Toast Martinborough francs (= $NZ50) to purchase wine and food throughout the day, a sunhat, and sunscreen - fortunately not needed as the weather was overcast with occasional short showers. I was pleased about the weather as, much as I like sitting drinking with friends in the sunshine, it is debilitating to say the least ...

It was a great day - a very long day that started with catching a train to Wellington at 7am and ended with my getting a lift home from the station at 9.30pm, and it was a huge amount of fun with a lovely bunch of people - AND I was very pleased I didn't have to get up in the morning to go to work unlike the rest of the team ...

At Palliser Estate - first port of call for brunch with the first chardonnay of the day (yummy), even though they were freely pouring their lovely bubbles.

With the team at Escarpment, to pace myself for a long day, I had a coffee as well as a chardonnay (average).

The entertainment at Escarpment

Nicki, Kim and Jo - I don't remember seeing them tilted over so it must have been Dave W who was on n angle ...

The whole team at Ata Rangi, I think - you've seen one vineyard, you've seen them all ... Jo is excellent at selfies and I guess it helps if you are tall. From left to right the team are Justin, Nicki, Kobus, Karen, Matt, Kim, Dave, Chris and me as the ring-in. Very good chardonnay.

As I took Kevin the boss's place, I had to make his end of year speech. I think at this point I was saying that the year had been successful because he had a very big boat (but it's not a narrowboat so it doesn't count ...) At Dry River, I think.

On the way back on the bus from Martinborough to Featherston to catch the train. Dave is also very good at selfies - it was chilly by then and we were all pleased to be sitting in a warm vehicle. Still awake and very happy with the day.