NORMAL SERVICE WILL BE RESUMED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE

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Sorry for the peremptory sign but The Darker Curmudgeon took things a bit too literally when I asked him to draft something to tel all you los.. tosse.. readers that transmission will be disrupted until Wednesday.

Sorry about that.

PSALMS 40:17*

When we changed apartments back in late April The Old Girl discovered that the red couch that she bought when we were in Canada (and took to UK before bringing it to NZ) was too large to manoeuvre around a tight alcove into the new apartment.

The red couch

She asked the moving company to put it in storage and she arranged to have it delivered up north. Two months ago.
The freight company she contracted with mucked us around with vague promises for weeks. Two weeks ago on an agreed day for a pick up The Old Girl stayed in and worked from home but the freight guy didn't show. "Oh sorry bro" he said when she got hold of him "I couldn't do it because I had to move some family members furniture". Needless to say The Old Girl gave him a pretty graphic example of what he could do with his delivery contract and proceeded to contract with another company. Two weeks ago.

The new company collected the couch from storage in Auckland on Thursday and were supposed to deliver it to our Whangarei house yesterday. I stayed in all day even though, after the big storm, it was a glorious day. Guess what? No show from the delivery people. No phone calls. Nothing. I'm hanging around the house today hoping that it might come even though it's Saturday. They are uncontactable. If they bring it on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday next week it'll be no good as I'll be away. Bastards!

Meanwhile The Old Girl, last week bought a new couch for the apartment and had arrangements in place for delivery on Friday. "What time will it come" she naively asked. "We cannot give a specific time "was the answer so she (again) worked from home and stayed in all day. No delivery. No contact Nothing.

What the fuck is wrong with delivery service these days? Sure the population has grown in this country but so have the number of businesses and infrastructure. What's changed is attitude. No one gives a fuck anymore.

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*PSALMS 40:17

SITUATION NORMAL

The storm's gone and I've woken to a beautiful sunny day.

Deck furniture is back to normal:

The bay is calm as per normal:

The backyard is peaceful as it normally is:

In my small blogging world Richard is fiddling about and worried about getting fatter; Robert is looking up his genealogy in the Bible; TSB is abusing Jehovah Witnesses.

Situation normal.

NO TEACUPS WERE INVOLVED

Well we've had a hell of a storm here for the last day and a half and it hasn't blown itself out yet.

Remember this?

That heavy wooden chair blew over in a previous storm.



Now have a look at this.

We had some very fierce wind whistling around the deck last night*

The area has had trees blown over, slips, road damage and flooding.
I've been receiving reports from Civil Defence but fortunately no all-out call for volunteers to come in to assist.**

On my property the wind ripped off some very large branches off the trees at the front.

It's a pity the storm wasn't doing its thing last month as it would have saved me a lot of cutting and trimming.

In the bay I've seen water spouts and almost horizontal rain lashing the boats. One large yacht looked like it had toppled over at one stage with the masts almost touching the water. It must have filled up with water as the owner braved the storm and took his runabout out to it. He was out there for ages and I was about to call for assistance when he appeared looking a bit bedraggled.

Very unusual swell in the bay hid some of the moored boats

The miserable turn to the weather makes me glad that last week I got in a large trailer load of wood.

This trailer was (nearly) full of wood!

When I was in Canada the tenants of the house built this woodshed for me.

I cut up lots of small branches for kindling and, with the macrocarpa wood from the shed I'm all set to go.

Even with a trailer load of wood there's still plenty of room in this woodshed

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* Some creative license was taken in this photograph to demonstrate the strength of the wind.

** They haven't yet issued me with my rifle but I'm forever hopeful

NEW POST - THE MUSIC CURMUDGEON

TURNING IT UPSIDE DOWN

THE THINGS WE HAVE TO DO

I took my aged cat Willow to the vet yesterday.

Willow in a relaxed mood after ingesting some catnip

I needed to have her checked for a couple of things - she's getting a bit frail now at 19 years of age but principally I wanted the vet to check her eye which was weeping. I'd suspected that the neighbour's cat which has been sneaking over here  had scratched her eye.

The vet confirmed that she had an ulcer that could be the result of a claw scratch and applied some ointment. She also gave Willow an antibiotic jab and a jab of Vitamin B to stimulate appetite. The vet said that "this would sting a bit so hold her tight". She wasn't wrong - just understated. Willow jumped about like a thing that jumps about a lot.

I was sent away with some more daily medicine and a tube of ointment for applying to the damaged eye. Oh, and I was $190 lighter.

I usually have problems giving medication to Willow and we have our little battles. The same goes for clipping her nails and I have to hold her firmly in my lap, trying to keep all four paws  still.
Well, trying to put the bloody ointment into her eye was a real battle. This involves squirting a small amount in a line across her eyeball. Yes, across her eyeball! Three times a day for seven days! Well, she'd have none of that and after ten minutes of wrestling last night I gave up.

Needless to say it didn't go like this staged image.

Last night on our FaceTime call The Old Girl suggested that I wrap Willow up in a towel - kind of like swaddling which I tried today.

It worked and will make the next 20 applications a hell of a lot easier.

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Re the neighbour's cat, I checked on the web to see how I can stop the little bastard from coming across to our property (non violent remedies) and discovered that as cats don't like citrus that putting lemon pieces at 'the border' can be effective.

The neighbours on the other side have a big lemon tree so I collected a whole lot of wind-fallen lemons (and some from the tree) and cut and placed them on the wall by the driveway.

I hope this works as if I catch the neighbour's cat attacking my cat I'll disappear the bastard.

STRAIGHT TO THE POOL ROOM

THE CASTLE

My namesake (great uncle) was awarded the Military Medal and bar.

My dad had lots of campaign medals and mentioned in despatches.

I haven't accumulated much but here are some treasures:

25 yard swimming medal from Marist Brothers school (the width of the swimming pool).

Junior champion trophy small-bore rifle club 1966.

$120 on Lotto on Saturday.

Oh, and this which came today:

NEW POST - THE MUSIC CURMUDGEON

HERE

YOU BEAUTY (TUBE)

I've got a bout of diverticulitis at present. This usually lasts for about 5 days and happens once a year on average.

I'm taking a course of antibiotics for it which generally fixes it.
It's painful and annoying though and disrupts sleep and eating patterns. Also I don't feel like drinking any wine which is a good thing as alcohol  doesn't go well with the antibiotics.

Pain during the night is a problem and makes for sleep disruption. Last night I woke at about 1.30 and couldn't get back to sleep. I got up so as to not annoy The Old Girl and read for a while in the kitchen.
I'd been avoiding checking up on any news items on the iPad (Herald app etc) as I didn't know the score from the All Blacks vs France game and was hoping to find it on some TV On demand channel on Sunday. We don't have TV as such just having a Smart TV that isn't hooked up but gets broadband via WiFi. I use it for Netflix, Lightbox, On Demand TV and YouTube.

I had a thought though that YouTube might have some highlights of the game so at about 2.30 did a search and ...... bingo ..... there was each half of the game showing in full. I happily watched both halves (great result even though the red card event was a bit annoying) thinking that I'll do this again in the future.

After watching the rugby I did a search for World Cup Football and also found uploaded broadcasts of the recent games. I've been trying, with no result to find out how I can buy a limited subscription via any legitimate channel for the period of the tournament. I don't want a SKY subscription as we don't want to get locked into TV and the bad habits it generates. This YouTube find was just what I've been looking for. I watched the Portugal Spain match and saw the magnificent Cristiano Ronaldo get his hat-trick (plus Diego Costa's two goals). Great stuff. I'm looking forward to more.

This discovery made the inconvenience of the diverticulitis worthwhile.