a long and very warm weekend

Not really in a writing mood ...We have a long weekend ...Last Friday was Waitangi Day. A public holiday here to celebrate the signing of the treaty between the Maoris and the Poms ....It has a great deal of significance over here. Especially to the Maoris due to the inneficiencies of the Pommy lawyers who left huge tracts of the treaty open to 'grey areas' and 'open interpretation'...

Still we all get a public holiday and to make it even better McD and I booked Today, Monday, off as well...

 

So thats good then ...

 

Except it's in the 30-34C heat range (high 80s-low 90sF for those baby boomers out there) ...I spend most of my week in an air conditioned office ... So these temps are pretty much like climbing into a medium oven for the day .... 

 

So Friday I thought I would do a bit of work around the garden ..The vegie plot in the main... Heaved up a bag of compost and trudged up the hill to the plot... The spuds are now all dug out so its time to add compost and then the autumn/winter cabbages and broccoli ... 

 

So having carted said large bag up the path to the back of the house then along the back of the house and up the pathway through the copse to the vegie plot I then carefully plodded my way up the vegie plot to the bare soil bed ....

 

Except, almost there, I slipped on some rubbish and spent a small slow motion lifetime trying to keep my balance, not do the spilts in both directions at the same time and keep a 30kg bag of compost from crashing on top of me or the occupied borders !!!..... 

 

Which I did manage successfully albeit very un-gracefully... Not much swearing !! As I was also working hard after that climb to get oxygen into lungs and blood stream .....

 

I did pay for it on Saturday though when my back seized up with muscle strain .... 

 

But we had already planned to go over the hill to the Wairappa and look at the antique shops and do a couple of 'Geocaching' hunts (hide and seek using a GPS system to find the treasure left by others )

 

Turned out the two 'hunts' we chose were in areas we wouldn't have visited other wise which is great..treasure hunting and exploring at the same time:O) ... The first was a general council park for dog walking etc ...There was sposed to be a large pond in the middle of it but with high temperatues and no rain ..No pond ..Just a white wooden bridge over a dip in the ground ..... We found the treasure under the second bridge a small bottle crammed with little treasures such as small toys , a marble, a dice (die?) etc and a note book where past finders log there successes ...people from around there world had been there .....As per the rules we left a small plastic bear (from a previous find) and took a dark coloured marble ....Left a note that the dinzies had found it ; hid the treasure again exactly as we found it and happily went off to find the next one ....

 

 

 

The next one was hidden at the back of a small Forest and Bird reserve ... The reserve is significant as it holds a colony of brown mudfish within its wetlands ...If they can survive the drought we are having.... We had to do a bit of a trudge up hill through the reserve in the heat ..Like mad dogs and Englishmen we just can't seem to help ourselves ...Mad Dog McKenzie leading the way as usual .... 

 

It was fun though and we got to see some fine vistas of the wairappa valley ...And then in the forest we were visited by a family of Fantails eager to catch any insects and small moths we put up with our feet as we walked by. Flitting around they would often sit on a branch close to us and chatter back to by quiet whistling through my teeth at them ..... Just too fast to photograph properly ......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today is the last day of my holiday ...Tomorrow it all starts again .. Work work work ....McD and I are to get back into the gym again as well so next week will be a shock to our systems ........

I've been continuing my family history work ..I'm trying to trace my real GGG-grand parents ...It's proving a little difficult ...... GG-Grand parents had the same surname when the married ! my name is not that common a name but there you go two separate families tied by blood some 300 + years previously I'm told ... So ... GGG-granparents are William and Ann D' and George and Ann D' ..no issue there really except that there are also in the same villiage another two families William and Ann D' and George and Ann D' of about the same age ...... All with kids and all married etc just before the censuses began .....

I think I have the right william as when GG-GF married they used a church that marked a parish that GGG-GF William attended ...... So the link I think is there and strong enough to use .... Would like more evidence though .....

But try and sort out the Georges !!! no chance ........................The two churches in question are about a roads width apart from each other and the 4 families lived in the same villiage ...Probably even drank in the same pubs together ......

I've not just stuck with my surname either I've worked along my maternal line and along the maternal lines of my grand parents .... All nicely packaged in a database but Oh Boy it's getting complicated and time consuming ...

My next plan is to host it all on a web site ... I've been scouring E'bay and the like buying up old pictures and postcards of the Norfolk area and portsmouth and Fettercairn in scotland .... one day I'll get time to do it ......

Pictures are from Mt Holdsworth again ....in the main .. The others of from a reserve created utilising the old railway tracks in the area ... It's a very peaceful place when not overly visited as can happen at times .....

My ankle is letting me know it's there... It's sore but only when I walk on it (kinda gives the hints to me not to be upright)... Although I did manage to turn it rather quickly when wandering about the house and causeda loud 'Pop" to come from the ankle ..... No damage though I think ....
Emerging frond of a tree fern

It's sooo Hot !!!! Another 30C 86F day in the making and the humidity is now up as well .... the north of the island have just experienced torrential rain and floods ... I hope it's wandered off to sea now .....

My McDinzie hard at work with her stylish new camera.....

And now the cicadas have started to emerge.. They won't be as plentyful as other years but there are enough to be noisy around the place..... One of the disadvantages of living beside the native forrest is that we get heaps of cicadas ...greens and browns, big and small... And the forrest creates a sound shell for them so the noise is amplified even more ..... Last year when watering I sprayed the trees around the front garden .. .For a few seconds only there was a pleasant silence... until they resettled and started their rapid clicking again ......

The upper reaches of the Hutt river.. Big trout reside but are hard to catch

Another pleasant surprise today when the man we hired to sort out the overgrown lawns arrived ... In less than an hour with the right tools and they are looking pretty damned good again .... Edges to the borders all trimmed properly, grass picked up ...Its looking good again ... Well by our standards anayway :O) AND he closed the gates after him as well .... He can come back :O)

A native Rata tree.. Covers itself in orange/red flowers once a year

Where does the time go in the day??? I've sat at the computer all morning (with my foot up and resting) doing some work work (I can dial in and acess everything from home.) And also doing some research on my ancestors in Scotland ... Some frustration as to getting certain census entries but otherwise have found a few things of interest especially around where they lived ... All my family on my Dads side were country folk ...Farm workers or Gameskeepers and the like ....

Swing bridge at kaitoki. From where you can see the trout....Sometimes

Now I have a heap of people I can take some interesting stats .. Like the oldest any of my family lived was 88 years Female and 87 years male. But the average age is 67 for both male and female .. Of course that would include infants who died within 1 or 2 years of birth...

The maximum number of marriages to any individual is 3 (my grandfather.. 2 wives died in child birth) but the average for the whole family is only 1. The average age being 22 for getting married the youngest being 16 (Female...)

Mature tree fern

I'd love to make the trip back home to see these places now ..I've been to Norfolk ages back but only managed a day in Scotland ...Would be good to see where they all lived...

Stream at Mt Bruce reserve full of eels