Hello and welcome to 2017! I'm glad you made it here :)
Unfortunately just prior to the new year, my boss' Mum passed away. I'd only met her once, but she was so nice. It's kinda scary really, back in late November/early December during either docking or crutching, she felt a little off colour. After visiting the doctors they said she had pancreatic cancer, and from what I've heard, it had spread through her entire body giving her only weeks to live. How is that, like I don't know all the details - I've only heard snippets here and there, but how can you go from seemingly healthy, to looking at living only a few more weeks?
Sadly, she went downhill very quickly after the diagnosis and spent Christmas time in hospitals having emergency surgeries and the like and passed away on the 30th December. This was why I milked Christmas Day morning, because Cam couldn't be there.
She wasn't old either, the sad thing is that Cam's wife Jo had to go through losing both of her parents to cancer over many long years. Out of either option I don't know what I'd prefer - something short and quick like Cam's Mum, or false hope drawn out over quite a few years like Jo's parents.
It's awful, around here in my neighbourhood so many people (especially farmers) seem to get to a certain age and suddenly find they're filled with cancer and die shortly thereafter. It sort of makes you curious as to what happened around here once that have caused all the people in that generation to all have the same sentencing?
The funeral is today, it'll be huge. I considered going but at the same time I wasn't too sure, so I didn't go.
On New Years Day Mum, Dad and I drove down to Hamilton rather early in the morning. We've bought a shed off some friends down there, and finally made time to start taking it down. It's an American Barn style shed, not massive but big enough for what we need it for. It's green, white and red - so needs a decent paint job done when we put it back up, but it's in good condition which is the main thing.
So Dad and I got started on the two sides, thankfully the iron has small screws/bolts instead of nails, so I was running along having a blast with the drill, pulling them all out. Once the two sides were off, we jumped up onto the roof. Bad move. We have a mental note to put all of the walls up before re-installing the roof because it was swaying from side to side, rather violently. Not particularly pleasant, that. Shoulda pulled the roof off first...
Anyhow, amidst the swaying shed we managed to chug along slowly and carefully with the roof iron, managing to pull off about a quarter of the roof area - as it took ages. We're writing on the back of each sheet in numerical order, which way is up and where about it came from - which takes a little while. So at least when we eventually come to rebuild the shed here, we should get the sheets in the right places!
Unfortunately it got pretty windy and drizzly after a while, so it was too dangerous to be up there, I know I certainly didn't feel like falling off a shed roof to celebrate my new year! So we packed up and left - apparently the sun came back and the wind died down about half an hour after we left...seriously?
Mum, Dad and Nick are heading back down sometime this weekend to finish it off, they've still to the roof to pull down, the entire back wall (which will be pretty easy, really), what's left of the front wall. The three roller doors - somehow, and hopefully all of the steel framing. The steel is quite light, and with Nick there they should be able to chew through it rather quickly. I've done my dash with it, that's for sure. We'll probably rebuild it next summer, these things take time lol
I spent a couple days with Taylor earlier in the week as he has been on holidays, his friend Mike was also staying at his house so we basically just hung out together for most of the time. Monday was scorching, so that night we went to the beach so they could swim. I'm currently without anything suitable to swim in, so I got to just sorta stand there and watch, about knee deep in the water.
There's a nice little part off the beach where we were, between some massive rocks where the water comes in like a little lake, oddly it's filled with shells there - not sand like the rest of the beach. But it's a lot calmer and nice to have a little swim around in. Quite a lot of people jump off the rocks into it during high tide, although I wouldn't be that keen considering there are rocks in the water in some places. You can fish off the rocks there too, but from Nick's experience you only ever catch rock cod, or you lose your line!
My mission on Monday is to go to Kmart or somewhere and find myself some togs, so at least I can swim with them, rather than standing there looking silly on a scorching hot day. Tay and his friends are all getting into spear fishing, with the actual guns. Although I wouldn't do that exactly, I want to try out snorkeling with them at least. Considering how close I live to so many beaches, the amount of times I actually go to the beach is ridiculous - I need to get out more.
We stopped in to see another friend of Tay's - Luke, before we went to the beach. He works on another local farm and there are wild cats there. They were chatting when I saw an adorable grey tabby kitten with a white bib, watching us. I tried getting close to it, but he ran away. Not five minutes later he was sitting on the wheel of the side-by-side. If you know me, obviously I was like "omgosh! Look!!" They tried to catch it, but it went into the bike. Eventually it came out and ran into one of the cowshed drains, after lifting up a steel lid Taylor managed to catch it. Yes, we took it home - me driving his car, while he held it (he loves his cats, I've never seen anything like it!) and it just sat there purring!
I guess the kitten must be at the right sort of age, not too wild but slightly trusting, he was still a little dubious at Taylors house, but he's getting more and more friendly. So, so cute. Pawpaws, the other cat was livid about the new arrival, hopefully she'll get over herself in time.
I'll do a post in a little while with some pictures - once I've transferred them from my phone. I've got no work at the moment so at least I've got time.
Oh, still on the car hunt, but I've found some really nice ones and I'm looking at a few make/style options. I really like Mazda Axela's, but I've seen some Toyota Corolla's as well, some are signature class with really low k's and they get some great warranties with the purchase, only a couple years old, slightly above my price range but I would say it would be worth the slightly higher price. I'll keep you posted :)
Showing posts with label beach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beach. Show all posts
Thursday, 5 January 2017
Monday, 29 August 2016
A New Chapter
We're at the time of the month where you look up at the calendar and still think the month has just started - only to find out it's almost ready to end. We're entering into Spring in a few days and it's exhausting trying to think about where time seems to be disappearing to.
I've had a busy few weeks, with a little bit of excitement and a little bit of, well, sadness if you can call it that.
I'll start off by saying that I had to take my good old Ali (my beloved BMW) north today, to the car doctors. She's been having issues for the past month or so that are just getting worse as the days go by - and a tad more on the dangerous side too, as there is an issue causing her to surge forward while I'm driving. As you can imagine, surging forward while I'm stopped for whatever reason is pretty freaky, especially if it was near a pedestrian crossing or there were cars quite close in front of me. Thankfully it has only happened in this form while I waited for some cows to cross the road, and I was a decent way back anyhow. But it's nerve-wracking. She's also stalled a couple times and the last time it happened was at an intersection on the edge of SH1 and she wouldn't restart. She's an automatic, so it's a little more tricky when things go haywire. Eventually I got her back on the road (after Mum and Dad had arrived to tow me) and got home safely. So yeah, I'm without my car until tomorrow night, and upon picking her up I'm expecting a hefty payment needing to be made. Somebody is going to need to work a few hours to make it up again!
I caught up with my friends, Sam and Chantelle on Thursday. We were (as usual) overdue on a catch up, so went out for dinner at one of the local pubs and had a good few hours of talking. It was nice. This was to be our last get together with Sam before she headed off on her big OE to California, to some sort of Bible College there. Little did Sam know that her family had planned her a surprise combined leaving and 21st birthday party and we were going to see her again on Saturday night! She will turn 21 in February, but as she will be gone for the next 10 months or so, she won't get to celebrate it with everyone back home.
It was hard really, as she asked what we were going to be doing on the weekend and Chantelle and I obviously couldn't say too much. So we just muttered a couple things, caught each others eye and smiled secretly. I felt quite mischievous about the whole thing. There was something else I was planning on doing on the weekend, but I decided not to steal Sam's thunder - as she told us of a similar thing happening for her, so I kept it quiet for a bit longer - even though I was burning to tell somebody! Hold on, don't read ahead, it's coming!
We stood out in the carpark just prior to leaving, Chantelle and I looking awkwardly at Sam, pretending to be sad because it was meant to be the last time we would see her in a long, long time. There was a cat out on the road edge attempting to cross the road - SH1 if I may add. We stared at it in horror as it ran out in front of a car, the noise was the worst thing I've heard in a long time and seeing the aftermath was hideous. Why it chose to run at that moment, I've no clue. Why we continued to watch even though we knew what was about to happen, I've also no clue. I sort of wanted to run down there and scare it away, or call it back - but I didn't want to do that in case it forced it across the road in front of a vehicle. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, don't you think? One of the next drivers stopped and moved the poor thing off to the grassy edge of the road, otherwise the three of us would've gone down and done it ourselves.
I hate thinking about it because two out of the four cats we've lost to our road over the years have been mine, although we found out quite quickly. I can imagine a little kid wandering their backyard, calling and calling for their little friend that always used to come eventually, knowing the kitty was never coming home. Hopefully somebody found it the next morning, as it's sad seeing an animal left and never claimed after becoming a victim to the road.
Ok moving on from that sad story, I'm fast forwarding to Saturday night; Sam's party. I never got there in time to see her arrive as I had to milk and got there about half an hour later - I hear she was stoked once she realised what was going on (her younger brother had hauled her off the the Auckland University open day, so she could do the tour with him that day).
I was happy to be there celebrating her birthday with her and the rest of her friends and family, but it was also sad knowing that this was going to be the last time I'd see her in a while. She was accepted into the course in February, and got her Visa in May - we thought D-day would be ages from then but it came so much sooner. This time saying goodbye for real was so, odd. I've never done that before, you try to be happy and excited for her, but at the same time it's sad. Chantelle and I were like, wow this is actually it. It's just us now. She will fly out on Sunday and isn't due to return until May or June next year - if she comes back at all, she may stay over there for longer yet...
Now, moving onto the cool thing that happened on Saturday - I went out for lunch with somebody. Or I should say more specifically that I was taken out for lunch, which was really nice and then we drove out to one of the many local beaches and wandered along that for a while. We're going out again but I'll tell you guys after the fact. Now I'm not saying anything in particular, but I'm sure you guys are clever enough to figure this one out for yourselves. :P I'm not naming any names either to prevent any ambitious Facebook profile stalking!
So yeah, there's a fair bit of changes happening in a very short space of time. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens anyway :)
I'm going to attempt to write a Haiku. It's an old type of Japanese poem that consists of three lines and is made up of a certain number of syllables. Just five syllables in lines 1 and 3, and seven syllables in line 2. It doesn't rhyme and is preferred to not have similes in it either - Yep, I googled it to find out what I was doing! I remember them using Haiku's a fair bit in Hunt For the Wilderpeople, but until recently I hadn't tried to do any. So here goes. Believe me, it is taking a decent amount of thinking!
Hungry calves, mooing
Sloppy, cold milk in tow
Contentment is joy.
Ok, so I'm not very good at it - it's harder than I thought. I guess that's why most of
them talk about nature rather than anything else. But that one basically says, it is music to my soul when those calves stop bellowing once they've been fed. Quiet calves are content :) Maybe for each of my future blogs I shall attempt to write a new one - see how I go anyway.
I've had a busy few weeks, with a little bit of excitement and a little bit of, well, sadness if you can call it that.
I'll start off by saying that I had to take my good old Ali (my beloved BMW) north today, to the car doctors. She's been having issues for the past month or so that are just getting worse as the days go by - and a tad more on the dangerous side too, as there is an issue causing her to surge forward while I'm driving. As you can imagine, surging forward while I'm stopped for whatever reason is pretty freaky, especially if it was near a pedestrian crossing or there were cars quite close in front of me. Thankfully it has only happened in this form while I waited for some cows to cross the road, and I was a decent way back anyhow. But it's nerve-wracking. She's also stalled a couple times and the last time it happened was at an intersection on the edge of SH1 and she wouldn't restart. She's an automatic, so it's a little more tricky when things go haywire. Eventually I got her back on the road (after Mum and Dad had arrived to tow me) and got home safely. So yeah, I'm without my car until tomorrow night, and upon picking her up I'm expecting a hefty payment needing to be made. Somebody is going to need to work a few hours to make it up again!
I caught up with my friends, Sam and Chantelle on Thursday. We were (as usual) overdue on a catch up, so went out for dinner at one of the local pubs and had a good few hours of talking. It was nice. This was to be our last get together with Sam before she headed off on her big OE to California, to some sort of Bible College there. Little did Sam know that her family had planned her a surprise combined leaving and 21st birthday party and we were going to see her again on Saturday night! She will turn 21 in February, but as she will be gone for the next 10 months or so, she won't get to celebrate it with everyone back home.
It was hard really, as she asked what we were going to be doing on the weekend and Chantelle and I obviously couldn't say too much. So we just muttered a couple things, caught each others eye and smiled secretly. I felt quite mischievous about the whole thing. There was something else I was planning on doing on the weekend, but I decided not to steal Sam's thunder - as she told us of a similar thing happening for her, so I kept it quiet for a bit longer - even though I was burning to tell somebody! Hold on, don't read ahead, it's coming!
We stood out in the carpark just prior to leaving, Chantelle and I looking awkwardly at Sam, pretending to be sad because it was meant to be the last time we would see her in a long, long time. There was a cat out on the road edge attempting to cross the road - SH1 if I may add. We stared at it in horror as it ran out in front of a car, the noise was the worst thing I've heard in a long time and seeing the aftermath was hideous. Why it chose to run at that moment, I've no clue. Why we continued to watch even though we knew what was about to happen, I've also no clue. I sort of wanted to run down there and scare it away, or call it back - but I didn't want to do that in case it forced it across the road in front of a vehicle. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, don't you think? One of the next drivers stopped and moved the poor thing off to the grassy edge of the road, otherwise the three of us would've gone down and done it ourselves.
I hate thinking about it because two out of the four cats we've lost to our road over the years have been mine, although we found out quite quickly. I can imagine a little kid wandering their backyard, calling and calling for their little friend that always used to come eventually, knowing the kitty was never coming home. Hopefully somebody found it the next morning, as it's sad seeing an animal left and never claimed after becoming a victim to the road.
 |
| The card I made Sam - I thought it looks quite cute if I do say so myself! |
I was happy to be there celebrating her birthday with her and the rest of her friends and family, but it was also sad knowing that this was going to be the last time I'd see her in a while. She was accepted into the course in February, and got her Visa in May - we thought D-day would be ages from then but it came so much sooner. This time saying goodbye for real was so, odd. I've never done that before, you try to be happy and excited for her, but at the same time it's sad. Chantelle and I were like, wow this is actually it. It's just us now. She will fly out on Sunday and isn't due to return until May or June next year - if she comes back at all, she may stay over there for longer yet...
Now, moving onto the cool thing that happened on Saturday - I went out for lunch with somebody. Or I should say more specifically that I was taken out for lunch, which was really nice and then we drove out to one of the many local beaches and wandered along that for a while. We're going out again but I'll tell you guys after the fact. Now I'm not saying anything in particular, but I'm sure you guys are clever enough to figure this one out for yourselves. :P I'm not naming any names either to prevent any ambitious Facebook profile stalking!
So yeah, there's a fair bit of changes happening in a very short space of time. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens anyway :)
I'm going to attempt to write a Haiku. It's an old type of Japanese poem that consists of three lines and is made up of a certain number of syllables. Just five syllables in lines 1 and 3, and seven syllables in line 2. It doesn't rhyme and is preferred to not have similes in it either - Yep, I googled it to find out what I was doing! I remember them using Haiku's a fair bit in Hunt For the Wilderpeople, but until recently I hadn't tried to do any. So here goes. Believe me, it is taking a decent amount of thinking!
Hungry calves, mooing
Sloppy, cold milk in tow
Contentment is joy.
Ok, so I'm not very good at it - it's harder than I thought. I guess that's why most of
them talk about nature rather than anything else. But that one basically says, it is music to my soul when those calves stop bellowing once they've been fed. Quiet calves are content :) Maybe for each of my future blogs I shall attempt to write a new one - see how I go anyway.
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