THE RIGHT STUFF - A POST IN PROGRESS

As I’ve yet to set up the computer ( we don’t have a computer desk yet for the study and the dining room furniture hasn’t been delivered) I’m writing this post on my iPad. Script is OK albeit slow but inserting images and copy and pasting links and information is very difficult so this post will be completed later.

Here’s a stat though …

 Well, I guess ‘stuffing’ might be applicable but I mean the right pillow.

We have our bed in the master bedroom set up and have slept here for the last two nights. Unusual for me though I’ve been unable to sleep well. I put it down to the fact that I don’t have my proper ‘sleeping’ pillow. Since moving down from Whangarei before Christmas I haven’t been using my favourite pillow and compromised with another one when sleeping in the apartment. My favourite one is packed away in a box somewhere and I’ve yet to find it. The compromise one, while not as good is back at the apartment in Cuba Street which I will retrieve today.

The right pillow with the right stuffing is important for a good night’s sleep. It can also circumvent neck pain. A stiff neck along with bac strain is what I have at the moment but … you don’t want to hear about that.

Over at Richard’s blog you will soon hear of his toilet capers but … you don’t want to hear about that.

At Robert’s resurrected blog he will tell you about his fishing problems and for the life of me I can’t understand why he doesn’t just ask his pal Jesus or his mother Mary to give him some fish seeing that Jesus has plants to spare and can rustle up some wine on call as well but … you don’t want to hear about that.

What you want to hear about is The Right Stuff, the excellent Tom Wolfe book …

"HIACE, HOW YA DOING?"

 "Beudy mate".

"Story".

That's how I imagine truck drivers converse. Richard would know.

Today I hired a Hiace van and moved a lot of big boxes and some small items of furniture from the lock-up to the house.

I had planned to do 6 trips but the rain made the last one difficult so I did 5. Man that van can hold some stuff. I cleared out both lock up garages of all but the big items of furniture and the gym machines which  the removal guys will handle tomorrow.

I did this because parking is difficult in Hobson Street and, as we own the front townhouse, a truck in the driveway will block entrance and exit for the other townhouse owners. By clearing out all the 'rats and mice' stuff this leaves 2 beds, 3 dressers, 2 couches, 5 armchairs, 4 sideboards, 3 large sets of gym equipment, a couple of wooden chests, a china cabinet, a bookcase and about 10 heavy boxes. I'm hoping that they can unload those into the house in less than an hour.

I'm stuffed now. I just dropped the van back to James Blond rentals who are just around the corner from the apartment in Cuba Street. It was a good deal and the van performed well. After a hot shower to loosen up my muscles I think I'll have a big glass of chardonnay (one with a label on it - Mills Reef Elspeth Hawkes Bay. Yummy.

THANK GOD

 God? No, sorry, then some other important person.

Someone equally as important but good and caring. Thank ... Richard. that's it.

Richard, even though being a bit under the wether ... weather ...

... helped me out tremendously today.

We did 4 carload trips each of boxes from the Newlands lockup to Hobson street. This has certainly 'broken the back' (not ours hopefully) of the move allowing the furniture movers on Saturday to more easily access the beds, couches, larger boxes and gym equipment. A job well done.

The heavy rain forecast tomorrow will keep me indoors unpacking these boxes and putting the contents away in their designated places - a task made all the more necessary by The Old Girl being on-site overseeing proceedings. This will enable me hopefully and weather permitting on Friday, to use the van I've booked to move across the rest of the smaller items.

In recognition of Richard's efforts I promise to, for the next 20 10 5 blog posts of his, refrain from making sarcastic, snide, facetious or derogatory comments WHATEVER the content of his blog post! For those readers familiar with my usual comments this is a biggie so ... well done that man for winning this valuable prize.

No need to thank me.

SETTLEMENT DAY

Today we took possession of the Hobson Street house and can now plan to move all of our stuff in and to organise the next adventure in our lives.

I looked up 'Settling' in the on-line dictionary and found quite a few different meanings:

Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages 

Settle
verb

1.Gerund or present participle: settling.
resolve or reach an agreement about (an argument or problem).
"the unions have settled their year-long dispute with Hollywood producers"


2. Pay (a debt or account).
"his bill was settled by charge card"


3. Adopt a more steady or secure style of life, especially in a permanent job and home.
"one day I will settle down and raise a family"
make one's permanent home somewhere.
"in 1863 the family settled in London"

4. Sit or come to rest in a comfortable position.
"he settled into an armchair"

But also ... (of an object or objects) gradually sink down under its or their own weight.
"they listened to the soft ticking and creaking as the house settled"
And, more alarmingly: (of a ship) begin to sink.
"the craft was settling nose-down in the water"

Hopefully our settling today will be of the number 3 and 4 variant without ships and houses sinking!

I picked up the keys shortly after midday and took a load of stuff (old wines from our cellar mostly) to the new house and stored them away in the garage. Fortunately the garage has some built in cupboards and shelving which I will add to and managed to stack these away tidily.

After than I returned to the apartment and loaded the car with some bags of clothing and took to the house. The Old Girl met me there after work and approved of the house (but not the cleaning job they did) and we 'walked' it to decide on extra furnishings we may need. That done we returned to the apartment to change clothes and went downstairs to Cuba Street to celebrate the purchase. A glass each of Louis Roederer Champagne and a glass of rose for her and chardonnay for me along with some tempura oysters and some monkfish toast entrees sealed the deal (probably covered by numbers 1 and 2 in the Oxford dictionary meanings).

Job done.

The next part - moving in will be hard work though. Fortunately Richard will help me tomorrow with the smaller boxes and. over the next couple of days I'm hoping to have the way cleared for the removal guys to bring the big boxes and furniture from the lock up to the house on Saturday. It'll b nice to have things to sit on.

What will also be nice is for the retail suppliers to deliver the fridges and freezers we bought, the dining room table and chairs, a sideboard, a TV stand and an extra couple of armchairs. Then we will be settled and will move in properly at the end of the month.

TALKING OF STUPID

 

Has anyone read Robert's blog Bob's discombobulate Bobadilish?

Maybe not, seeing that he now puts all his creative effort in to his Facebook page of which I'm unsure what the title is. Somethings are better not to have gone there.

Bob's discombobulate Bobadilish is bad enough as seen by his blogging ID image:

This is 'Bob' in church (probably St Mary of the Angels) communing with the Holy Spirit who somehow imparts its knowledge to 'Bob' and gives him ideas for his posts.

An unkind (er) person might suggest that it shits on his head which I admit might be the same thing given by the content of his latest post where he wrote:

In the first reading Ramathain has two wives. He loved one, Hannah, more than the other but Hannah was crying because she was barren so Ramathain said "Aren't I worth more than ten sons?". So it goes.

That reads like bird shit to me alright.

 

STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES

 Beyond most people's belief, the USA is being run by a bunch of idiots who are on that level of dumbness where they think that they are clever.

No doubt you have, many times over the last year, heard Donald Trump say that South American and African countries are emptying out their prisons and mental asylums and sending the inmates to illegally reside in USA.

Most of the time when the orange idiot spouts this nonsense it is ignored by the press and the public as he makes so many outrageous claims and tells so many lies.

The danger is though that it becomes 'true' by being repeated so much and that his lackeys start saying the same thing as well. The toadyish and rather stupid Justice Secretary Pam Bondi repeated the lie recently:

Where does this lie come from? It comes from ignorance and stupidity rather than deliberate mendacity.

Somewhere along the line someone told Trump that amongst the people from Venezuela and other South American and African countries seeking citizenship in USA were a lot of asylum seekers. The illiterate idiot in his mind interpreted this as people coming from mental asylums and insane institutions. No doubt he and the lackeys have been told of the error by someone with an actual brain but they choose to keep the misinformation going and to continually lie about it to the red necked, red hatted and red toothed idiots who swallow such garbage because, well, they don't have properly functioning brains.

And these people think that they are running the Western world?

Sheesh!

STAND AND DELIVER ...

... or, in Richard's university holiday job at Murray Roberts and Company it was a case of sit and deliver given that he was a delivery driver.

In his latest post he wrote this:

Speed reading through his post as I do and it is recommended, I misread that as Dick Turpin being an early relative of his. Sorry about that.

I can see Richard as a highwayman though given the demands he makes on other bloggers to proofread and update their blogs.

Good luck with the practice tomorrow. It will be interesting to see the video that comes out of it. You can take your guns with you but please, leave that Murray Roberts' poem at home son.
 

MOSTLY UNDERWHELMING*

* No, I'm not talking of the posts on those other blogs - that's a given. I'm referring to the MICHELANGELO - A DIFFERENT VIEW exhibition in Wellington that we went to see yesterday.

Big feet and swollen ankles  (no, I'm not talking about those other bloggers, I'm still talking about the MICHELANGELO - A DIFFERENT VIEW exhibition) ... were the feature of most of the portraits.

It was as if it was a Leonardo da Vinci expose of diabetic sufferers.

I was disappointed that the colours in the photographic reproductions were so muted.

The promotors tout this ...

The exhibition has used state-of-the-art technology to reproduce photographs taken of the artworks following recent restorations ...

The printing techniques used have been able to reproduce the colours, the details and brushstrokes, even compensating for the curved nature of some of the paintings...

... but I don't buy it. Surely advanced photographic technology would provide something better than what's on show and 3-D photography and film would have provided a better experience and replicated the sensation of being in the Sistine Chapel.

 Oh well, see it if you want but the best thing about it was the coffee in the nice coffee bar in the excellent new Takina Wellington Convention and Exhibition Centre.

HERE'S TINA!

I'm tired after my trip by train and bus to Waikanae today. At Waikanae railway station I walked to Charles Fleming retirement village to visit my sister who resides there. It's only  a couple of kms away but it was stinking hot in the blazing sun. I also walked to and from Wellington railway station as well.

"So what?" you might ask - as it's only about 8kms total but a couple of days ago I walked 13kms including a bit of up and I have twinges in my groin - not in a nice way. I'll have to take it easy over the next week as I don't want to damage myself prior to the house shifting Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday next week.

I wasn't going to mention this but the old Wainui nag has been in print again complaining about a lack of a post today. I guess the old chap doesn't get much excitement so I can see that a daily post of mine can ginger him along. He phoned me actually when I was on the bus somewhere near Pukerua Bay as he's going to help me with moving boxes on Thursday when I will have a van. I booked  one today - a smallish Toyota Hiace cargo van. I didn't want one of those behemoth ones I've hired before as I want one with manoeuvrability. I also wanted one with bloody windows so I can see out when backing and parking. 

We will only be moving the small boxes and sundry items from the lock-up (2 garages) so don't need a big van. I hope that Richard won't be disappointed. Still, it'll give him a chance to dress up again in his blokey driver's outfit which features: A black singlet with a tartan flannel shirt over it; blue jeans and large unlaced workbooks; a weeks growth of beard; at least a week's lack of washing along with the ubiquitous underarm stains. Maybe I should check that all the windows in the Hiace open properly before I drive it away. His offer of help is appreciated however and will get the job done much quicker.

I suggested that Richard park his car somewhere in Wellington where parking will be free for a few hours. No doubt he'll park in Makara or Seatoun but hey! Wainuiomata ... sorry, what does it matter? I'll have the van from 9am to 4pm so there's plenty of time.

Old friends eh? Simply the best.

Yes, you knew it here's ...

THE FINDER

 Richard of RBB sees himself as some kind of superhero and has created a Marvel-type character of himself known as THE FINDER.

Early reports of this character were of him roaming around NAKED but fortunately this was dispelled and it seems that THE FINDER roams about in his 'tighty-whities' kind of like Donald Trump

Not this fortunately

Whatever floats his boat I guess. Things must be quiet in the 'Nui' made worse by him being outed as the an anti-Christ.