29th July to 5th August – Wade, Weather & Wasps

Time for another little update.

So what’s new?  Again, not a lot.  Still getting used to the helpfulness of people out here.  The ‘Can I help you?’, ‘Have a nice day’ attitude can be grating at times but I am getting used to it.  In the supermarkets they nearly always pack your bags for you.  If no-one is available to help then they apologise profusely and suggest that you should be getting paid for packing your own bags.  Petrol stations are much the same.  Petrol attendants will come scurrying over to help you fill the tank.  The pumps have a function that allows you to put in how much fuel you want and seeing as the amount is always rounded up or down then you may as well get 4 cents free fuel every time you fill up!

The price of lamb is still causing me some distraught.  Living in a place that has the most lambs per head of population in the world you would think it would be cheap.  It’s not.  Why is it that you can find NZ lamb in the Co-op Supermarket in Lerwick comparatively cheap yet you can’t in NZ?  Why is Shetland exporting its lamb to Spain and suchlike and importing lamb anyway?  Why is NZ exporting that much that it is keeping the price high in its own country?  Grrr, world commodities, imports/exports, blah de blah.  Think of the carbon footprint of that poor yowe bleating away at you next time you see it.

Anyway, on to my next rant…the weather…again.  Apparently we have had a terrible cold Winter out here.  I almost sprooted my coffee all over the screen when I read those headlines.

Yes, I will admit that we have had a few frosty mornings and it has been pretty cold some nights but…but…but most days seem to no less than 13 to 14 degrees C.  we have had highs of 19 degrees in July.  Hardly time to go out and buy a sledge is it?  God help me come summer.  I may need to invest in a hot-tub and run the motor in reverse, living in an icy cold tub for the summer months.

Tania is still doing a good job of breaking things.  While she was repositioning Heathers car in the garage she managed to crack the passenger side mirror casing into four pieces.  I have managed to glue it back together and inform Heather of the damage.  Currently on the lookout for a replacement if anybody knows of any breaker yards in or around Tauranga.  Not long after that she broke a plate.  Then a roasting dish.  She will probably break me now for posting this on here.

We had Wade staying with us on Friday night on his way back to Wellington from Auckland.  He treated us to lunch and a beer on Saturday at the RSVP restaurant at Cherrywood which was bloody good.  He might be staying with us again this weekend.

Speaking of Wellington, I am heading there at the end of January.  To see AC/DC!!!!!  Lowrie phoned the other night wondering if I fancied it.  Looks like it could be their last ever world tour so it would be rude not to go.  The lead singer is now 62 and not getting any younger.  Needless to say I have been listening to a lot of AC/DC recently.

Aidan is being his usual self.  I think he may be somewhat confused between football and rugby though.  While out chucking the rugby ball back and forth he has a habit of heading it rather than catching it.  He has got the throwing and catching pretty good now though.  Speaking of which, I persuaded him to hit the wasps nest with a broom the other day!  I didn’t think he actually would but there you go.  Upon investigating the nest we found a wasp.  Unsure whether it was dead, hibernating or had died from the shock of a broom handle coming at it with speed.  Turned out we had three wasps nest.  I removed the other two and crushed them.  Hopefully it will deter the little buggers from coming back in the summer.

 (Picture: Nasty buzzy stingy things homestead)

Aidan survived his attack on insect life and went out to do a spot of skateboarding down at the park.

(Picture: Skater Dude)

In an effort to encourage exercise and weight loss with a certain young fellow, I went out and bought a set of scales the other day.  Not your ordinary run of the mill ones, but ones that let you know your fat content, water content and suchlike.  Unfortunately this backfired on me a bit as it turns out I have put on weight.  So Aidan and I are now embarking upon a weight reduction programme, noting our weights weekly and hopefully seeing a reduction in fat content. 

We took a run down to Whakatane and Ohope today for a look.  Saw lots of big birds hovering above but couldn’t do much on the photo-taking side as we were hurtling down the Highway doing a tonne at the time.  I am going to have to return to the same area with some fresh roadkill and try to get some pictures sometime.

Another bit of good news came this week.  We got word that our boxes are en-route to New Zealand and should arrive in Auckland on the 16th of this month.  They are in a container aboard the ‘Hyundai Brave’ and after a bit of detective work I discovered that the ship left Kaohsiung, Taiwan yesterday.  The ship is a new build (2008) 339m behemoth.

(Picture: The ‘Hyundai Brave’)

If you look closely you can see our container third from bottom, six along….

(Picture: New Zealand – Land of the Long, Pinky, Purpley, Splodgy Cloud)

That’s all folks!