JUST A COUPLE OF GRIPES ......

....... I don't want to get a reputation of being a moaner.

I shopped at Pak n Save last week and parked sensibly in the allocated parking only to discover when I was about to leave that some bastard had rammed my car with something.

I do't know what caused this but suspect it was the bull bars on some fucking behemoth that  idiots drive nowadays - especially fucking idiots who could hardly drive a Fiat 500 safely.

It's a bitch of a dent in that it won't respond to the old 'boiling water and pop out' treatment.


Bastards!

****************

On an unrelated matter - although I did buy the item at Pak n Save, what the hell is going on with the size of food items nowadays. it seems that every time you buy something it's smaller than the time before. The 'smart' marketers think that they can hoodwink the consumer by saying that they are holding or even reducing prices but don't tell them that they are getting less.

I bought a pack of Oaty Slices and when I opened it at home saw that the once fist-full sized bar could now almost fit into my wallet as evidenced by the cinema buzz card in comparison.

SHRINKAGE

Bastards!

THE POOR OLD GUY

Richard seems obsessed with the fact that it's cold in Nuova Lazio.

Did I mention that it's even colder in Canada in winter?

4 VESTA

No, 4 VESTA isn't a vanity numberplate bought for someone by an unimaginative partner, it's a massive asteroid that's close enough to Earth to be seen by the naked eye.

NOT THIS

THIS

ASTEROID

I looked at it last night. It's the brightest thing in the sky at present after the sun and the moon - brighter than Venus and is yellowish orange. They should call it 4 TRUMP being that it seems to be hurtling out of control and could destroy civilisation.

No doubt Robert and his christian mates are chanting implorations to their various gods and mythical creatures asking that Earth be bypassed and, if not, that only the non christians, atheists, agnostics and Weltec managers be squashed.

************

It's been a while since a big asteroid has come so close to Earth - 66 million years ago in fact. This was the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.

This current asteroid, 4 VESTA which measures more than 310 square miles (800,000 square kilometres) in size – is 50 times wider than the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs!

PACK OF WIMPS

I've just got back home after being down country for a few days.

I spent last night in Auckland and left first thing this morning on the bus. It was quite cold in Auckland - cold enough to put on that extra layer of clothing BUT WASN'T THAT FUCKING COLD!

Maybe I should put this in context. Sure it was chilly and in fact Auckland had the coldest morning for over 60 years - see:

RECORD COLD IN AUCKLAND

 .... but there was no need to overdo things.

People reportedly stayed home from work and school or carried hot water bottles with them on the way to work . CARRIED HOT WATER BOTTLES ON THE WAY TO WORK!

What kind of people are we breeding nowadays?

I lived in Canada and UK for a while and that was cold - particularly Canada where we had minus 40 degree days. Now that's cold and sure we did have to wear hats, gloves and coats but ,carrying a hot water bottle? Give us a break.

NORMAL SERVICE WILL BE RESUMED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE

****************

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.

*****************

*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

****************

* 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.

*****************

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.

..... NUMBER NINE

Man, what a great weekend.

I got back home tonight  from Auckland where I spent the last couple of days.

We went to see NZ Opera's production of Donizetti's The Elixir of Love on Saturday.
This was superb - great fun. I don't have any clips from the actual opera (bel canto comedy) but here's Darren Pati singing it in 2015. This guy is good. I believe that yesterday he improved on this.

UNA FURTIVA LAGRIMA

The production was superb being an Australian one from the nineties with the setting being outback Australia at the outbreak of WW1. There were lots of clever scenery creations depicting the setting and the choreography of the supporting cast of farmers, farm girls and in particular the troopers was superb.

************

We pondered why the opera was at 5PM and then Lynn asked if there was a major rugby game on in Auckland yesterday as the apartment building we bought the new apartment in doubles as a hotel and she'd seen lots of guests arriving dressed for a sports event.

I said "yeah - All Blacks vs France at Eden Park" secretly wondering where I'd rather be - Eden Park or Aotea Centre when Lynn said "do you know that we get free Sky Sports in the apartment".

You beauty" I screamed said as we dashed out of the apartment to go down Wakefield Street to the Aotea Centre.

We had planned to go to a restaurant afterwards but with the promise of test rugby on TV we stocked up on Burger Fuel burgers and chips and ate with a bottle of pinot noir while watching the game. Magic.

This young guy is a star

****************

For Sunday we'd booked for a tour of The Civic Theatre which we went to at 9.30.

The Civic (corner of Queen Street and Wellesley Street) built in 1929 is an Auckland institution that miraculously survived destruction at the hands of those greedy fucking 'entrepreneurs' of the 1980s who knocked down some of Auckland and Wellington's nicest buildings, some of whom were imprisoned (and too many more of the cunts went on to become billionaires).

This is a wonderful building that lifts the spirits of residents and visitors and was supported by Auckland Council to the tune of about 50 million when renovated 18 years ago.

Well today we went on the tour and saw this building from top to bottom with a great tour guide who recounted its history. We've been to many shows, concerts and films there over the years but seeing it from different perspectives ( back of stage, roof, basement, secret rooms, green room, dressing rooms etc was marvellous. We learnt about its construction and wartime popularity (Freda Stark's naked performances) and got close up with the great plaster features like the elephants, sultans and especially the panthers. The tour was supposed to be for an hour but as we and some of the other 'tourists' showed interest and asked the right questions we got a couple of hours of fascinating history and anecdotes.

The Old Girl with one of the Civic's panthers.

JUST SAYING

SITTING

SITTING ON THE DOCK OF THE BAY

It's a great day today now that the wind and rain have gone so I went for a long walk around Little Munro Bay and the Reotahi Point.

I stopped at the site of the historic freezing works and looked across the water to Marsden Point where the oil refinery and timber port is located. We don't see or hear this operation from where we live so I enjoyed sitting for a while watching the operations.

I was fascinated by the unloading of sawdust where a huge conveyer was distributing it on to the existing mountain of pulp.

It was very pleasant sitting on a wooden seat in the sunshine so I sat there for at least a quarter of an hour watching.

****************

This got me thinking about how, throughout my life I've sat somewhere daydreaming about being able to do exactly as was just then doing - nothing.

At school I used to drift away looking out the window. At university I did the same with the magnificent view of Wellington Harbour seen from the university library. At work in all the different positions and offices I occupied I'd dream about one day being able to just sit somewhere and drift away.

Now don't get me wrong, I was good at my job and very successful it was just that I got bored very easily and just wanted to get away.

This morning here I was, in a lovely setting on a beautiful sunny early winter's day virtually self-actualising. All I'd need was to be a bit younger, a bit richer and a bit fitter and life would be perfect.
But, I thought, I have a nice life, a lovely woman whom I love and who loves me, good friends and a wash-hose   and no employer putting demands on me.

Magic.

Tomorrow I'm off to Auckland as we are going to the Donizetti opera (bel canto comedy) The Elixir of Love. Should be fun.

NORTHLAND ELEGANCE

Well the Muck Boots finally arrived and I must admit that they were worth waiting for.
They are a good product - I've had another pair that lasted me 15 years and I've given them quite a beating. Both pairs I bought were also on a deep cut special and only cost $130 for both with free delivery (which it turned out was from Oz).

Here's what the fashionable Northland gardeners are wearing this season.


First we feature the Muckster II Ankle boot.
Fully waterproof with breathable  airmesh lining this boot  has a comfortable topline and high traction rubber outsole. Ideal for any time of year gardening these boots will be placed at the back door.

Next we have the Muckster II Low boot which has all the features of the ankle boot but the low cut makes this boot ideal for boating and kayaking.
These will be left at the front door ready for access to the beach.

 Note: The polka dot shorts were a recent addition to the wardrobe, bought from Farmers last week.
Unfortunately these brought derisive laughter from fellow tennis players who suggested that they were pyjama bottoms (philistines) so they will now be part of the gardening ensemble.

*****************************

*** AN UPDATE***

There was one of these stickers in each of the boxes the boots came in.

They are 'Anti-Mold' stickers for I assume, preventing mould growth while the boots are stored before sale.

I looked up the internet as I'd never seen one of these before.  I learned this - written in rather garbled English (is Robert moonlighting as a product description writer for the packaging industry?).

Principle: In an airtight packaging environment, the herbal essential oils that attached in the anti-mold stickier would volatilize, inhibits as well as eradicating the growth of the mold or bacteria. In that case, the objects can be protected in their air-tight packaging environment.

I guess I can throw them away as they will serve no future purpose and must remember NOT TO EAT THEM!