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.
* But not about The Holy Spirit, The Trinity or that other Catholic nonsense.
No, I'm talking about house staging.
When I mentioned that we will sell our snooker table prior to listing our house for sale, Robert suggested leaving the table as a chattel. I responded that it will suffice as as a feature to help to sell the house but we would sell it beforehand.
This may not now be an option so I guess we could add it to the chattels list.
It does look good in the spare room at the end of the house and. if say someone bought the house as a holiday destination then a family snooker or pool room is a good idea.
I've been doing a bit of Trade Me selling over the last week.
First I listed the snooker table (as my sister doesn't think that she has the space for it in her holiday house). There's been a phenomenal interest with over 500 views, 44 watchers and 10 bids. All OK but it aint over until the fat lady sings. (I'd put an image of a fat lady singing here but, you know me, at The Curmudgeons Inc.ⓒ we don't make fun of people and never resort to cruel jokes). Two guys were booked to come and view but bailed out because their wives kiboshed the idea. A third actually visited on Thursday and tested the table. We agreed on a price of $2000 and I told him how to make a fixed offer on the Trade Me site. I haven't heard from him since. I think that when he got home and told his wife she kiboshed it. The Old Girl said that the wives should have contacted her as she would have told them how much family fun we've had from playing snooker and pool over the years. It was her that bought the table in the first place. I've put a fixed offer of $2300 for 3 days to the 44 watchers and, who knows, the '$2000' guy might still come through. He told me that he'd got a quote for professional dismantling, transport and reassembly and it was to be $1700 which is obviously the sticking point with people.
I put the Muck boots on Trade me as well. These are the ones I posted about some time ago.
I bought these in a Muck Boots clearance sale for $100 (delivered). The normal rice is about $220. I've never used them and the original tags are still on them. I listed at $120 with free delivery thinking that at most the delivery cost in NZ would be below $20. Sure enough they sold for $120 but, to some guy in bloody Fiordland. The cheapest postage/courier cost to there is $50. This leaves me with $70. Bugger!
I have two other listings - an adjustable golf club and a photograph printer but don't expect these to sell.
******************************
It's crappy weather up here today and maybe through the holiday weekend. I had planned to stain the decks but will have to put this off, and washing the house*, to next week.
Robert wrote quite a good post this morning with only minimal mention of churches which is promising. He seems to be living in a Mongrel Mob gang environment though so probably needs to say some prayers.
Richard devoted more than 70% of his new (at last) post to talking about violin and double bass practice. Maybe he needs a Mongrel Mob chapter in his neighbourhood.
It's a pain posting on my laptop at present. I downloaded a Google photo-editing app a couple of weeks ago and ever since have been getting error messages and pop-ups that are annoying and intrusive. I checked on-line and millions of other people have been complaining as well. Getting pissed off with it I uninstalled Google Chrome and then reinstated it. Unfortunately the easy access settings I had which made posting and generally using the web have gone and I can't remember how I set them up.
An example is that previously I could be posting on my blog and, if wanting to search the web for quotes or photographs I would just click on a new tab without losing the tab I'm currently on. Now I have to bloody close down the tab after saving and start again. Bloody internet. Bloody computers. Bloody Chris Luxon and his stupid National coalition government ..... but that's another story.
* It may seems strange to say that I won't wash the house in the rain but I'll be using the Stihl water blaster which is electric and don't want to risk ruining it.
It's a gorgeous day here. I'm off to play tennis soon.
I wonder if some of the oldies will complain that on Tuesday afternoon we took a bookcase there and left in the shed with about a hundred books? It makes the tennis shed look tidier but on Tuesday morning one member was grumbling that it looked more like a library than a tennis club. I guess that you can't please everyone - just visit Robert's and Richard's blogs for proof of that.
This afternoon will see me (well, hardly) under the house to finish off the digging exercise. The plan is to level out the mounds of dirt and get everything back to normal. If there's time after this I'll have a go at washing the outside of the house.
Looking out the window while typing this (in the lounge) I can see the harbour is like a millpond and ideal for kayaking. It makes me wonder why we want to move to Wellington quite frankly. Oh well ..
Tennis this morning and it's been a delightful day.
One of the woman there asked me if I'd miss them when I moved. I said that I'd miss finding someone to argue with. She laughed. She and another woman surmised that if I join a club in Wellington* I'd probably start out all nice until I got to know them and then be 'cheeky' - their word.
I took some books with me to tennis where there's a kind of bring and take library in the clubhouse which is a grand name for the old tin shed we use. I looked around and decided that, with a bit of reorganising, I'd be able to install one of the bookcases we have. It's fairly large being over 2 metres high and two and a half metres wide. This afternoon I emptied the shelf and cajoled The Old Girl into helping me put the unit on the trailer to take to the tennis club along with about a hundred books - mainly paperback novels. I moved some chairs, a china cabinet and a table and installed and stocked the bookcase. Job done. Another problem out of the way. Over the next couple of weeks I'll sort through all of the remaining books we have on three more bookcases and take a lot more to the tennis club. We're taking these bookcases - solid wood, rimu I think, with us and all of the solid 'keepable' books.
Here are the two in the hallway. They are a bit cluttered and untidy but there are some good books here.
* I looked on-line for tennis cubs in Wellington that cater to the elderly. There are a couple and the one I like the look of is in Newtown. It has a Tuesday and Thursday morning seniors fixture which is exactly like we have up here. Beudy! I'll check it out when I get to Wellington. Maybe the Prowse boys want to come and have a hit.
No, I'm not comparing my posts to those other bloggers.
I've started the decluttering and clearing in advance of putting the house on the market.
It's a big job and while daunting it seems that it won't be as great a job as I thought. Last year I decluttered the basement and the shed quite a bit with trailer loads taken to the tip. On checking today it seems that two or three trailer loads should do the job getting rid of junk and those things that I saved 'just in case'.
I was going to hire a skip which would be dropped at the bottom of the drive and picked up 7 days later at a cost of $580. It looks like I won't need that and will make do with using the trailer at about $60 a pop at the tip for each load. This also is a bit more flexible and takes away the risk of 'fly-tippers' putting stuff in the skip overnight.
Yesterday, when browsing Neighbourly (Facebook) I spied on the local site a woman's request for a queen size bed in good condition. I replied that we had one in excellent condition and put The Old Girl on the case. The woman and her husband came around the next hour, took away the bed and left uswith $350. All parties were pleased. To be honest, the bed from the spare room was going to be surplus to requirements (if we get a 3 bedroom apartment in Wellington the third bedroom will be used as a study with the couch that folds out to a bed in it). I was going to give it away on FreeStuff.
I listed the snooker table on Friday and it is generating a lot of interest already so, even given the moving logistics is likely to sell soon and at a price greater than I expected.
I've been sorting through the cupboards and placed two more Trade Me listings, both for new and unused items - the Muckboots I bought in February and an hp Sprocket Studio photograph printer that for som reason I never used. There will be quite a few other items to go as well.
The Old Girl and I identified most of what we have and designated as Take, Sell, Give Away or Dump. Today Under Give Away or Dump I sorted through electronic and computer gear and filled six large boxes with keyboards, mice, computer cables, two printers, an old laptop, speakers, phone systems, WiFi routers, obsolete gadgets and devices, earphones and earbuds - Uncle Tom Cobley and all - this time not going to Widecombe Fair but to recycling depots.
I'd checked on the internet as to where computer and electronic gear could be disposed of and was advised that Noel Leeming and The Warehouse (Stationery), out of the goodness of their hearts (or heart seeing that they are owned by the same company) were accepting obsolete gear for recycling. I loaded up the car and. after a long wait at Noel Leeming was told that their bin was full so they couldn't take anything. They suggested the rubbish tip!
I drove across to the other side of the very large shopping centre to The Warehouse and, after another very long wait was told that they don't accept recycled material. After reminding the assistant that their very own website indeed said that they did she told me, after checking, that their recycle bin was collected by Noel Leeming so maybe I should go there. This seemed like the old circular runaround I get on Robert's blog so I told her that I'd cut out the middleman and take the stuff to the tip. My cynical side suggested to me that this is just a marketing and PR bullshit exercise that these companies put on their website to make themselves feel good and to hoodwink their buying public.
As I was heading out to go to the tip I spied the RSPCA Op Shop across the road and so went there. The helpful young woman told me that they don't accept printers (including the near new and operative one I was giving away), phones or phone systems, videos and internet gear. She did say that they take computer cables and, as luck would have it the biggest box of items I had contained dozens and dozens or computer cables and connections. I left that with her and went to the tip - or, as it is called nowadays, the resource centre.
It cost me $22 to leave my valuable stuff at the E-Waste section of the tip, piling the printers, phone systems and other computer and electronic gadgetry on top of other very valuable looking items. Job done.
I was pleased to have emptied several cupboards and storage boxes in the attic with this stuff but was also distressed at the waste of resources that our modern age has forced on us. There is too much planned obsolescence all in the name of increasing sales and demand. No wonder the earth is fucked.
Tomorrow, as the weather forecast is great (typical that - as we've decided to move Northland is turning on stunning weather). I'll go under the house and level out my 'diggings' and then stain the deck. I'll go to tennis first though.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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 ... "
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?
Believe in and honour God
Respect your parents
Don't murder.
Don't steal
Don't lie
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.
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.
I had my teeth inspected and x-rayed today. The dentist said that all teeth and fillings are sound. He gave me some Sensodyne toothpaste to use for the sensitivity I have been experiencing though. That's the trouble with us curmudgeons - we are too sensitive.
😇"Sit down and tell me about your day. I really would love to know."😇
I'm off to the dentist this morning to check out a 'grumbling' filling.
Not by these dental nurses though. They probably caused the need for fillings in later life.
My teeth are generally OK - not pretty like American ones but they do the job. I haven't had a check up for a couple of years though so I'm well overdue.
It's important to have regular checkups on our bodies and functions, although it doesn't always prevent problems. Yesterday I received a call from a good friend who has been given an awful result from a medical check-up. It's very disturbing.
I mentioned that I had a 'mole-map' procedure last month and will be visiting the doctors for the removal of a superficial basal cell carcinoma soon which is fortunately non-melanomic. It can give peace of mind by checking these things.
I regularly, on advice from my doctor, have blood tests to anticipate potential problems. I might ask her to add in a few other checks considering my friends experience.
Richard has been commenting a bit on other blogs but hasn't yet made an effort to write a new post.
Robert has, as per usual, been copying and pasting a lot of Catholic nonsense without any editorial input.
I've been a bit lazy only posting three times over the last couple of days. I have been busy doing other things though like further excavation under the house, golf yesterday and tennis today. I also 'battened down the hatches' by clearing gutters, double bolting the basement doors and putting in some timber to block the run-off of gravel down the drive - we're expecting a big rainstorm tonight and tomorrow.
At 2:30 tomorrow* I have to go to the dentist so might be a bit limited in my blogging then as well.
Hopefully those other jokers will have found some inspiration by then and can keep the show running.
