GETTING READY (FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS REALLY)

Another day of planning our move and already it's seeming like a monumental hassle.

It may be the case that my sister doesn't have room for the snooker table at her holiday house so I listed it on Trade Me. The table is in very good condition and, to buy new today it would cost over $6k. I've listed with a reserve of $2k to test the waters. The problem with a table of this size and weight is that, because of the heavy slates it requires at least 3 people to move it. It also has to be professionally dismantled and reassembled unless at least one person knows what they are doing. Fortunately YouTube has quite a few videos explaining the procedure but still - it's a fankle not made any easier by our remote location.

I bought some deck stain yesterday to paint the front deck that I managed to discolour with the water-blaster. I was going to paint it today but the weather looks a bit dodgy. Ditto for the paint and sanding paper I bought to tidy up some edges on the house particular up near the roof. I need reliably good weather to tackle this - hopefully next week.

I need to level out the earth underneath the house where I've been excavating and then I'll have to refit the weatherboards I removed to create an entranceway. Once again, this will be dependant on some dry weather.

I think I resolved the laundry situation by putting the unplumbed washing machine/dryer and laundry sink contraption into the shed - out of mind. This will hopefully stop The Old Girl's plan to get a plumber and builder in to fit them and rebuild the laundry. Sheesh!

I'll buy some suitable house-washing detergent soon and use the water blaster (on a low setting) to gently clean the outside of the house. This will also hopefully prevent The Old Girl from wanting the house painted before sale. Ditto goes for the kitchen and bathrooms. I tell you - if you ever want to buy a house buy one from her because she's happy to spend a fortune making everything nice before selling. I'm of a different mind. As long as everything is clean and tidy then anything a prospective buyer doesn't like becomes a negotiating item for sale price reduction - usually way less than the cost of renovation.

I won't sell or give away the kayaks yet and need the trailer for taking rubbish to the tip and giveaway items to the op-shops so will turn my attention to stuff inside the house. Anything we don't want or cannot fit into the new residence can be given away at the last minute. Anything we want to keep or sell we will transport to Wellington and put in a garage-type lock-up at one of the storage centres. There will be a greater chance of selling things in Wellington rather than here up north.

What I will have to do though is go through all of the storage and file boxes we have in the study, in the shed, in cupboards and in the attic and declutter if not actually throw it all away. This is an old person thing really, getting rid of memorabilia and other records at the end of your life that only have value or importance to yourself. Family records I will give to my sister who is the 'family historian' but work records and old property, banking, travel and other records will have to go. It's amazing what stuff we hang on to.

I'll have to seriously downsize our book collection as there is no way that we will have room for three bookcases worth in the future. It's a shame as we have a good collection. Paperbacks will be easy as I'll take these to op-shops or the tip but the larger, hard-cover books will be a wrench to get rid of. Unfortunately, in the modern digital age there's not much premium placed on books anymore. We'll keep a bookshelf worth of 'treasures' and give away the rest.

In the study, on top of the cupboards we have boxes of computer gadgets and connections that are also now obsolete due to the modern wireless age. I'll sort through these and match up where I can to the various unused laptops, printers, monitors  and other gadgetry that is stored in the shed. Thee'll be no point in trying to sell these so will go the FreeStuff  or the tip store.

The attic will be a real challenge as I've stored dozens of suitcases and bags up there full of clothing, shoes, kitchenware, glasses and Robert's go only knows what.

I'll have to think about how to get rid of the vinyl records CDs, DVDs and Play Station games I have. I don't really want to give these away for nothing although my nieces' children are growing up so may want the Play Station consoles and some of the games. I think I'll pack the rest up and take to Wellington and over time, sell them through Trade Me.

It's going to be an interesting couple of months but I wouldn't recommend it.

"SUCH FUN"

Water Rat said to the Mole: “Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing–absolutely nothing–half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”

Well, Whangarei can take a leaf out of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind In The Willows with its second annual maritime festival.

There was a lot of 'messing about in boats' at the Basin in Whangārei with about 20,000 people watching and joining in -  a big increase from the first event last year and a great indication for the future.

The festival was started in 2023 by overseas yachties who come to Whangārei’s Town Basin each year between October and May to escape the tropical hurricane season. Whangārei is liked by the internationals and they organised the festival as a way of saying thanks.

The event stretched about a kilometre along the Hātea River from the Town Basin. Steamboats added to the festival mix for the first time proved hugely popular with many taking rides, a handful at a time, on the tiny boats.

Among these was one of the world’s oldest operating steamboats of its type, the 8m SS Puke. Yes, 'Puke' which is New Zealand’s oldest operating steam-powered tug, built near Dargaville in the 1870s to transport kauri to the settlement’s mill. It was brought to the festival in a first-time event participation by the NZ Maritime Museum in Auckland.

I FELL OUT OF THE BASEMENT TODAY ...

 ... Maybe I should explain.

As part of the tidy-up and declutter of the house I decided to move the spare washing machine/dryer and the laundry sink unit, both unused, that have been cluttering up the laundry area for ten years. Some friends who moved to the UK gave them both to us - brand new - and we thought we might use them in the future. Well, we never did.

As the washing machine/dryer is bloody heavy I got out the moving trolley that's stored under the house in the basement.

All good so far.

As I was hauling the trolley out, I overstepped the edge of the basement floor and fell out onto the driveway. Flat out. On my back. Oof - I had the breath knocked out of me.

As you can see from this old photo above the distance to fall isn't great but when falling flat onto your back it is dangerous. Not only falling, I then proceeded to roll slowly down the drive. This as you can imagine was embarrassing and I was just glad that no-one was walking along the road at the time or that the Old Girl was filming from the study window above.

This is just day one of the tidy-up exercise. What else can go wrong?

I think I'll use protective gear for the next little job.

HAVE YOU HEARD THE GOOD NEWS?

 

For a while now we've talked about selling up here and downsizing to a smaller residence or even an apartment. This has been driven by several factors; first, we're ageing and have to consider medical emergencies due to our health issues; second, we live a half hour drive away from shops, services, health outlets etc; third, there is no public transport here and we are totally dependent on a car that always works; and fourth, we have an old house that requires maintenance and have a smallish property that still requires gardening, tree cutting and general rubbish removal by trailer to the tip (a half hour drive away).

We thought we'd make the change in a few years but have now decided to do it straight away.

Wellington is going to be our destination. The Old Girl has few relatives left alive but one of her cousins who moved to New Zealand a decade or so ago has now permanently relocated to Wellington. I have friends in Wellington and a sister living in Waikanae. These factors really dictated selecting Wellington but for me it's returning home.

We will sell our house first and have the money banked before we look to buy in Wellington although I have spied a couple of prospects but am unsure about the neighbours:

Actually, Oriental Bay or Wellington waterfront are the desired locations. We will not 'fall in love' with a place before having the sale money in our pockets though and, if we can't find the right place will rent in Wellington for a few months while looking.

Ideally I'd like to get the house on the market before Christmas which will require a lot of downsizing and a big tidy up. Sanding, painting, cleaning etc is on the cards as will stopping The Old Girl from getting a new kitchen, bathroom and laundry built. I have to keep reinforcing to her that it is dead money as new buyers will likely redo it anyway. I'll discuss with a real estate agent when we get one along.

The choice of an apartment rather than a house is because we are looking for an easy care property that we can just lock and leave whenever we travel. Twenty years ago I'd never have considered this but, after having owned apartments in Auckland and lived in fairly large apartments in Toronto and York, the prospect, with the right sized apartment is now a possibility. The Old Girl knows that I like space and that us living together in a tiny apartment is a recipe for disaster. To this end we'll be looking for a 3 bedroom apartment with a couple of bathrooms, a garage and storage space. This is why it might take time. I have already sneaked a peek at some great ones in Oriental Bay that fit the bill but, as I said it's foolish to look too seriously before we have the money and are ready to move.

With luck we might be ensconced in early 2025.

JUICY 2

11 years ago I wrote a post (see below) about juice and used a video clip 'Juicy' which aunties YouTube and Google took down.  JUICY

Here's hoping it will stay this time as it's a good (if rude) song: 

I hope that this ones sticks (see what I did there?).

Anyway, as I mentioned a while ago, after giving the orange tree at the rear of the house a good pruning, it came back bountifully and we've been enjoying orange juice for a while.

The problem is that the tree was planted by the previous house-owners in the wrong place and it overshadows one of the bedroom windows and obscures the side of the house.

This morning I gave it a severe haircut as you can see:

I'm sure that it'll grow back again with perhaps even more fruit.

We can now also see the stingray sculpture again.

I got a lst load of oranges before the pruning and will make up some juice mixing with apple, kiwifruit and carrot. Yummy.

SERENDIPITY

Yesterday, October 7th was the anniversary of The Old Girl's wedding of many years ago.

By a strange twist of fate and in no way planned, the same date is the anniversary of The Old Girl's divorce 14 years later. How strange is that?

In this Guardian article Paul Broks investigates the supernatural side of coincidences:

ARE COINCIDENCES REAL?

"The rationalist in me knows that coincidences are inevitable, mundane, meaningless. But I can’t deny there is something strange and magical in them, too ..." he says.

Have a read of the article. There are some interesting things in it including this one: 

"The biography of the actor Anthony Hopkins contains a striking example of a serendipitous coincidence. When he first heard he’d been cast to play a part in the film The Girl from Petrovka (1974), Hopkins went in search of a copy of the book on which it was based, a novel by George Feifer. He combed the bookshops of London in vain and, somewhat dejected, gave up and headed home. Then, to his amazement, he spotted a copy of The Girl from Petrovka lying on a bench at Leicester Square station. He recounted the story to Feifer when they met on location, and it transpired that the book Hopkins had stumbled upon was the very one that the author had mislaid in another part of London – an advance copy full of red-ink amendments and marginal notes he’d made in preparation for a US edition."

Life is strange and there are many things that we experience that we cannot account for - Robert's posts are just one example.

REM sang in 'Losing My Religion':

"Oh life is bigger
It's bigger than you
And you are not me
The lengths that I will go to
The distance in your eyes ... "

 

NEW POST - THE RELIGIOUS CURMUDGEON

 

THE LITTLE SHOP ON THE PRAYERIE

THE LAST POST ...

 ... on this subject - well, from me anyway.

The blogs have been abuzz with posts and comments on The Ten Commandments.

Two thirds of bloggers think that it's a load of old cobblers and one third believe that they are the most important rules given by God. This gift apparently is so sacred and self evident that the believers in it don't feel the need to justify or explain The Ten Commandments.

Here's what Robert said:

"Reading posts by two commenters, it is interesting how and why they both take umbrage at the 10 Commandments I have on my side bar. There is unanimous agreement, by them, that they could do better. Yet when they try, their attempts fizzle after three ideas. A surprising commonality is that God does exist but could have done better! Here again they try to suggest how but fizzle once again after "no slavery" and " be nice." They quote one person saying God should tell us to be loving! Obviously they haven't read the Bible. One that made me chuckle was "no one should be forced to be religious"; and bad intentions are not sinful!

They skip over many important subtle aspects. Murder is wrong they agree, as it is especially wrong to abuse children ; yet I know them to be pro-choice (for abortion). One shouldn't commit adultery, they agree, but fornification is agreed by theologians to be in that basket and not mentioned by them either because they are obviously not against sex outside marriage!

If I bought a brand new expensive motor car and one of them said "throw away the manual, I've written a better one, but I only had three ideas to put in it"; I know what I would say.

I don't feel the need to justify or explain the Ten Commandments. Others more learned than I have done this, and these are freely available through the internet and on YouTube."

 

Well Robert, I know that in your usual christian arrogance you don't feel the need for justification or explanation but surely you must see the ridiculousness of this 'gift from God'. 

Purporting to be, and celebrated as, the most important guiding and "beneficial laws given by God on Mount Sinai that show us how to live a better life now and please God forever." - from Life, Hope and Truth, The 10 Commandments are taken by Robert and his cronies to be alpha and omega with no need for questioning.

How is it then, I ask, not really expecting a sensible reply, that of the ten things there really are only six instructions?

1. Believe in and honour God
2. Respect your parents
3. Don't murder.
4. Don't steal
5. Don't lie
6. Don't be adulterous.

The exercise is padded out to ten things by repetition:

• Three mentions of honouring God
• Two mentions of stealing.
• Two mentions of .committing' adultery.

I'd have thought that if those old religious guys wanted ten things then they could have found at least four more bad things that were going on around them.

George Carlin though has narrowed it down to two:

NEW POST - THE RELIGIOUS CURMUDGEON

 

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

FRIDAY

 I had an early start to the day having woken at 4.30 and couldn't get back to sleep.

It's a cracker of a day here and I'm thinking about taking the kayak out seeing that the water is so calm.

I've had breakfast and done my 'chores' (set the bread to bake, cleaned both dishwasher drawers and set them to run on a short cycle with baking soda in them, used 'Drano' down all the plug-holes and put a suitable derogatory comment on Richard's post). I'm all set to go.

It's amazing how changeable the weather is. Over the last two days we've had a big storm with high winds and lashings of rain - now it's calm as anything.

There have been orca and dolphin in the bays over the last week. I doubt if I'll see any though as they seem to favour rougher water for some reason.

This little family of orca were videoed in Urquarts Bay which is three bays away from McLeod Bay. a few days ago.