I've been having trouble with the settings on my laptop and decided to junk the Google Chrome application particularly because it kept coming up with requests for subscribing. I was suspicious because of the misspellings in the pop-ups. If it had been from Robert's blog I'd have considered it legitimate but, being Google I assumed that, with all of their money they could afford proper proofreaders.
Anyway, I'm using the basic Google page which, by and large is like the old one but, when opening the link to Richard's Bass Bag I noticed this:
Can you see it?
At the top, above RICHARD'S BASS BAG is the warning "Not Secure - Richard's Bass Bag"
KAZOO Also called mirliton. a musical toy consisting of a tube that is open at both ends and has a hole in the side covered with parchment or membrane, which produces a buzzing sound when the performer hums into one end. Slang. the buttocks.
I've been requesting that Richard writes a post on playing the gazoo but the request has fallen on deaf ears. Maybe he's gone deaf from playing the gazoo - who knows? Intrigued, I checked out 'gazoo' on the internet and found this:
Well, not a musical instrument then but it could still be applicable to Richard's Bass Bag "reflecting life's vicissitudes, vagaries, ritual magic and dreary reality".
Further investigation showed that I've been misspelling the word (I'm not the only one) and should have been typing 'kazoo'.
The kazoo is a musical instrument that adds a "buzzing" timbralquality to a player's voice when the player vocalizes into it. It is a type of mirliton (which itself is a membranophone), one of a class of instruments which modifies its player's voice by way of a vibratingmembrane of goldbeater's skin or material with similar characteristics. There is a smaller version of the kazoo, known as a humazoo.[1]
Playing
A kazoo player hums, rather than blows, into the bigger and flattened side of the instrument.[2] The oscillating air pressure of the hum makes the kazoo's membrane vibrate.[2] The resulting sound varies in pitch and loudness with the player's humming. Players can produce different sounds by singing specific syllables such as doo, too, who, or vrrrr into the kazoo.
The decluttering and tidying is on-going. We at The Curmudgeons Inc.ⓒ have no time for mere lawn mowing like that old guy down south. Ptooey!
I loaded up the trailer for the tip run and then took the trailer to VTNZ for a warrant of fitness. All good - the rewiring job I did a year ago is still holding up.
I then went to Placemakers and bought some Dricon Pavelock which is a kind of fine sand and cement mix for spreading over brickwork to lock the bricks in place. I'll broom this over the 'courtyard' when there's a guarantee of 3 consecutive fine days and no rain.
The changes I refer to in the post title is that I've always been a hoarder and have found it very hard to get rid of anything unless it's totally munted. The Old Girl is the opposite. She has always found it easy to divest herself of things that she hasn't used for a few months. The differences in upbringing I guess. In Scotland the apartments and houses there rarely have storage sheds, cupboards and garages to keep junk in.
This decluttering exercise has shown a change in me. I've found that, knowing we will be going to smaller premises, I've had to evaluate everything we possess and allocate to 'keep', 'giveaway', 'sell' or 'junk' categories. At first I agonised over the categorisation but have since found it easier with today, freely biffing stuff into the trailer that in the past I would have kept as treasures.
I guess I've learned recently that my treasures are not many other people's treasures. It's hard to sell or even give away stuff nowadays as we've become a throwaway society. I've found that often, using Trade Me or Facebook for selling is a pointless exercise and even Freestuff (part of Facebook/Neighbourly) just brings along very picky people. The Op shops are proving to be a no go complaining that they are already overstocked with most things. This then leaves the tip. As I said I almost emptied the basement, the shed and many cupboards of remains computer gear, ornaments, stationery items, some old tools, bric a brac, timber, shelving and paintings. Yes, paintings. When we moved up here 15 years ago I brought all of our artwork and we've bought more since. Included in the stuff we brought was a lot of framed paintings and prints and new and used glassed frames from the picture framing shop we owned. They have stayed in the shed and only occasionally 'exhibited' indoors. When I got to the tip I approached the manager of the tip shop to see if she wanted them. She told me that only yesterday someone had brought in a lot of artwork and they were 'choc-a-bloc' with them. She suggested I just throw them into the tip pit. I was loath to do this as some of what I was throwing away had real value -even still with for sale signs on the back of them up to several hundred dollars. I dithered while I was emptying the trailer and waited until one of the pit workers ambled over to check what I was getting rid of. He put aside two pellet guns (the ones I used a couple of years ago to discourage seagulls), a Black and Decker weedeater and some other bits and pieces. I asked him if he wanted some paintings and his eyes lit up when I showed him. There were about thirty of these plus a lot of picture and photo frames which he gladly took and stowed away. this made me feel better about getting rid of them.
I listened to The Marmalade song 'Reflections of My Life' which I like, not having heard it for many years and found that some of the lyrics match nicely with my present situation. I've highlighted some of them:
The changing of sunlight to moonlight Reflections of my life Oh, how they fill my eyes The greetings of people in trouble Reflections of my life Oh, how they fill my eyes Oh, my sorrows Sad tomorrows Take me back to my own home Oh, my crying (oh, my crying) Feel I'm dying, dying Take me back to my own home I'm changing, arranging I'm changing I'm changing everything Everything around me The world is A bad place A bad place A terrible place to live Oh, but I don't want to die Oh, my sorrows Sad tomorrows Take me back to my own home Oh, my crying (oh, my crying) Feel I'm dying, dying Take me back to my own home Oh, my sorrows Sad tomorrows Take me back to my own home
I don't have any particular sorrows to talk of and have resigned myself to dying in the not too far future. I don't foresee and sad tomorrows and don't believe that the world is a terrible place to live despite all of Donald Trump's attempts to make it so.
Whenever I plan to do something a bit tricky around the house The Old Girl is always a but skeptical and suggests that I ring a tradesman to come and do the job.
For a while now the kitchen sink mixer has been playing up. The connecting flanges were loose and couldn't be tightened as doing so would cause leaking. The tap has been leaking which no doubt leads you to the correct assumption that I tried to tighten the flanges.
The leak got worse over the last week and T.O.G. instructed me to ring a plumber. I left a message with him on Friday morning but by Saturday afternoon I still hadn't had a response so I decided to take things into my own hands.
We have had, for many years a new kitchen mixer tap still in the original packaging. This had been given to us when some friends relocated to Scotland and gave us a brand new washing machine, a dryer, and a laundry tub system. I'd forgotten about the mixer tap and only found it last week when decluttering. "Dammit" I said when I hadn't heard from the plumber and he wasn't answering his phone "I'll give it a go myself". I actually said this out loud, to myself as The Old Girl had left on Friday to go to Kerikeri - back this afternoon. This was a great opportunity for me to do the job with perhaps some time to get an emergency plumber out if I botched the job.
I turned off the water mains and disconnected the old fitting which is now adding to the junk pile I'll take to the tip this coming week.
I successfully fitted the new fitting which by coincidence was the same model as the old one and all of the connections lined up.
And it works!
Job done although I nervously checked on the performance yesterday evening and this morning just in case. I told The Old Girl about it this morning when she called.
"Well done matey" she said which made me feel quite chuffed.
Yesterday when I climbed a ladder to bring down plastic crates of photos and documents from above the wardrobe in the study The Old Girl said - "I don't want you injuring yourself matey. You have lots to do around the house over the next month or so." I asked her why she missed her calling as a nun.
Well, later in the afternoon as I was putting some recyclables in the bin, I was caught in a shower of rain and ran back inside. I was barefoot and tripped on the metal sill of the French doors. It hurt like hell and when I looked down saw blood spurting from my second toe on my left foot. I knew that I'd broken the toe as well and, sure enough it has swelled up badly. The sill cut through the nail and sliced into the toe. I had an uncomfortable night that required taking paracetamol (the strongest painkiller other than chardonnay I use) and I nervously looked at it this morning anticipating a trip to the emergency doctors. I cleaned the toe, redressed it and taped it firmly to the big toe next to it. I hope that this does the trick. Unlike Robert I won't post a disturbing photograph of the injury.
I think that Robert wants to sell his house to me.
Here's the comment he put on my last post:
Here he seems to be upselling Petone/Lower Hutt where he just happens to live. It's a wonder he didn't add:
"Next door to a church and rich in cultural activities (Mongrel Mob funerals). Close to the quaint Racecourse Hotel where there's never a dull moment. Convenient takeaway shops announce their wares with enticing aromas day and night. Feeling adventurous? Call ... "
I guess Robert must have missed my earlier post where I said that we were downsizing from where we live so as to have a maintenance free property with no garden to manage, to not have to travel 20 minutes or more to town, to be able to walk to amenities and to not be reliant on having to use a car to get to shops, services and entertainment.
One of the many readers complained that I haven't updated the blog today.
I guess that the poor old pensioner hasn't got a lot going on in his life and he looks forward to my daily posts.
Well, here's an update:
The weather today has been very changeable with the odd rain storm andhigh winds but with intermittent sunshine. The sunshine hasn't lasted long enough for me to do my outdoor chores: sanding and painting deck rails and the odd house feature; finish staining the deck; washing down the weatherboards; loading up the trailer with ink for the tip etc.
I instead, sorted out old photographs and boxes of assorted stationery and memorabilia. Yes, we are going down that rabbit hole that all oldies seem to go down - the throwing out of photos and keepsakes.
Having no children means that there's no point keeping lots of the personal stuff that we have both collected. I have been putting aside family stuff that has meaning for my sister though. As the unofficial family historian she can have my dad's war memorabilia including his service medals and various items I have had given to me by my parents. The digital age has kind of taken the value out of photographs nowadays unless they are very old or of outstanding quality. The casual snapshots are pretty boring really.
I've already given away almost all of our paperback novels (to the tennis club) and have many better quality books that I'll sort out in categories and donate to the local school library.
It's a wrench but we just won't have room for them in our next residence unless we buy a house again.
Talking of that, when discussing our requirements in an apartment we agreed that maybe a 2-bedroom apartment won't be big enough for us so we'll have to look for 3+ bedroom apartments. This might prove difficult in the area we desire - Oriental Bay or waterfront and may push us to other suburbs like Mt Victoria, Roseneath, Newtown, Thorndon etc - still close to town though. Apartments might not be much of an option in these though so a townhouse of self contained cottage might be the answer. We don't want a garden as the idea of a 'lockup and leave' residence is what we're looking for.
Hey ho. I might be getting ahead of myself here as we may not get what we want for our house given the current property market. We may still be up north for a while but .... there are orca in our bay today and yesterday. Magic!
This post should have gone under The Wine Guy but, since I changed the settings on the lap-top it's difficult jumping through to other tabs. The Old Girl has been working in the study (her office) all weekend (and, at 7pm tonight is still working) so, as is often the case, I'm typing this at the dining table.
One of the pleasures of keeping a reasonably decent wine cellar over the years has been discovering bottles of wine that, for one reason or another have gone unnoticed for a long time.
Now, not that I have anything remotely resembling the collection I used to have, I do have a few bottles of good wine (and spirits) that I haven't consumed or sold. I did think though that, a few months ago, I'd relocated the rest of the cellar from the basement to the kitchen at the rear of the house. I haven't been buying 'keeping' wines for some time preferring to buy good wines on special at our supermarkets.
A couple of days ago, as part of the decluttering we are doing I started to empty out the basement in order to take rubbish, and the other stuff there (detritus) that I hadn't before identified as rubbish, to the tip. When moving a couple of empty wooden boxes I found underneath them an unopened case (of 6) of Novum Pinot Noir 2019.
This outstanding boutique Marlborough winery makes beautiful Burgundian-style pinot noir and we've followed it for a few years now. For the life of me I thought that we'd consumed all of the wines that we ordered on-line - happily not so. Yesterday I opened one of the bottles and, not surprisingly as it's only 5 years old, the wine is alive, bright, and very delicious.
Hey! Don't just trust me:
"A rich and robust style that speaks of the soil and the place the grapes were grown. Abundant generous fruit greets the palate with flavours of raspberries overlaid with subtle meat and hints of leather and spice. Wonderful tannins coat the inside of the cheeks bringing harmony, balance and length to the palate. Very stylish from whoa to go.
- Vine on-line
"A complex and very captivating bouquet with scents of sweet oak and baking spices, a core of myriad red berry fruits, heirloom roses, soils and minerals. On the palate - equally complex, layered and captivating with fruit, barrel, floral and mineral flavours that reflect the bouquet. Fine tannins with a chalk dust texture, medium+ acidity and lengthy finish. A delicious wine. Drinkable from today and through 2028+. 96 Points. Outstanding."
- Cameron Douglas (wine writer).
OK, I could find lots of other reviews that support my opinion but trust me, this wine has French (Burgundian) savoury characters counterbalanced with lovely fruit flavours and flower and herb aromas. Delicious. Did I say that earlier?
So, you've no doubt heard that expression: 'One man's trash is another man's treasure' - believe me, it can be true.
