Nothing to say and just a single picture to show

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

Pictures of summer and Sprained ankle..

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

This get fit lark is bad for your health !!! It all started with a bruised damaged foot.. In the bone of the ball of the foot ... hurt hurt hurt wherever I walked ... then that subsides and I get cramp again ... in my ribs of all places ...So damned painful ....

Then this morning in the gloaming McD and I were walking the dogs along the path by the river and went past a spot where workmen have been sinking some posts into the earth .. Not sure why they want them there but anyway ... The earth and dug up river pebbles were still over the path and I managed to step on a pebble unknowingly and over on my ankle I went .....
Not happy ...... So now I'm stuck here with my foot bandaged and elevated and the day is sunny and the temperature is already in the mid 20s C ...Mid 70s F.... Grumble grumble grumble ................

Forgotten Graves.
Friday, January 19, 2007

I was trolling through my photos trying to find a suitable pictire for the picture Theme week on the Photo Challenge Open Diary site and came across these ....... They are pictures I took from an old Wellington grave yard .... Many were moved from their original site to make way for the motorway that feeds the city now .... These grave now have a semi peaceful setting albeit still beside the motorway .....
Life was hard in the 1800s & early 1900s ... many of these graves have young children in them.. dying of Flu or other such ailments ..... Many adults died way before their time . But there were some who survived well into old age as well .... Real survivors of the times ....
Life is a lottery eh ....

This shows the motorway and the CBD building opposite ... The graves also face out to the city ...... Co-incidently the office block to the far left of the picture is the building I work in .... But my desk is on the other side looking at our parliament buildings and out across the harbour.

Well I must be a stick insect by now !!

Maybe not ......................

But still on the diet .. Although the weekends are damned hard people .....
Dunno what happened to Saturday ... Went to bed late Friday night ...Well, really early saturday actually ...Played around on the computer far too long ...I can lose hours once distracted by something on the internet ... thats why its so bad for trying to learn anything from it ....

Woke up to the dog barking at me (she hates me sleeping in ) and McD bringing me a cup of tea .....Gawd bless the girl .......From then on it just passed away through my fingers like grains of sand .....

I knew the weekends would be harder ... Decided I would have three fairly large meals and hope that would keep me going ... which id did ..but this evening was very hard ...

At the weeeknds I'm used to having a cooked breakfast and a good meal at night ....Like a decent curry, rice and naan bread ....

Instead we made 'healthy' egg, chicken rashers and lite cheese muffins ... about 300 cals for one ... Yum .....I enjoyed them and they kept me going till about 2pm before we felt hungry again .... Then we grabbed a healthy subway ......\

Then this evening we made beef strips in a wrap with yoghurt and humus and colslaw (no dressing) .So really healthy food all up ... but my body is still shouting for curry and steak and chips .......

*Groan*

I found an article of the 40% who keep their resolutions ...and some pointer on how to keep going with the weight loss...
Click here

So of course food has dominated the day ... What to eat, What to eat, What to eat......... And not just today but for a good few days to come .... rather than hitting the big food places we did go to a smaller vegetable place and then to an actual butchers next door .... Both fruit,vegetable, and meat looked a lot better ... and it's all about quality at the moment ... If I have to eat like this dammit, it had better be top quality and damned good tasing muck thats for sure ...... Or there will be trouble!!.... And grumbles...I didn't get where I am today without knowing how to give a good whinge I can tell you .......

*Ahem*

Damn this diet makes me grumpy ........ And hungry ......I'm so hungry I could eat a ...A.... A Penguin !!!!!!

:O)

testing

It is fortunate for McD

Saturday, October 07, 2006

It is fortunate for McD that I am nearly always sleeping on my left side ... Due to a number of nose injuries (war woulds :O) If I sleep on my right hand side I can't breath well .... And since I'm one of those people that needs a breath or two of air in my lungs through the night I tend to lie on my left side and spoil myself with lots of air .....

However I am prone to violent movement in the night as well .... A few months ago I was dreaming about being stuck in a drain pipe ...(Please don't do the psycho-bubble analysis on me ) while stuck along came a big rat (don't they feature a lot in peoples minds ) anyway I awoke with a BAM_BAM as I did a double puch to the rat ... Safely absorbed by the bed and not McD all was well .....

A week or so back I deamt of a confrontation with some thug dude ..... That resulted in a karate style strike to his neck .... Several items cleared noisily from the bedside table beside me ...... McD awoken but again no damage done ...

Last night another confrontation with a dude on a boat ..... as we fought he messed up with his guard exposing his rib cage ..... BAM .... Finger tip strike into and between his ribs ...... Again I awoke .. This time a little pain ... As I had struck the bed but obviously my finger crumpled up in the strike and the joint is no somewhat sore .....

And McD sleeps on ..

And I don't even eat cheese !! so can't blame that ....

Bit of a worry for me really ... Probably a bit more of a worry for McD I guess ......
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It's just gotten very silly at work .... I'm swamped with work ... and a good percentage of it is stuff that shouldn't be happening or that our outsourcing vendor should be doing ..... The current Delivery manager with the outsourcer has resigned ... and Good riddance I say .... She's very very nice .. but just doesn't understand her role .... We then asked for a specific delivery manager and as it turned out they were able to assign him to us ..... We talk the same language and both know what needs to be done .... So thats a start ......

But I'm still too busy to do my real job ...

Had to do to Auckland Wednesday night (return friday afternoon) .. As is always the way when I book these trips, we had flights cancelled and big delays due to high winds and low cloud (almost fog ) .... So got to visit a few sights and meet with the Auckland division and Vendors ...and got grumbled at by far too many about issues they have with the IT systems ......

I've spat the dummy with them too many times in the past few weeks...But I did have the vendors national services manager with me at the meetings in Auckland ... thats like the delivery managers bosses boss .... It was really good of him to join me on this ... I hope he got to feel a little of my pain ....

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IT'S DIET TIME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I start a diet today ... Again .... I may start another diary to write about it .. .It can be a bit repetitive and boring listening to people's dieting woes ... But there again I want to dcument it and it's a diary I am writing here so where better to put it ...

So I'll think about that ....

I have a diet plan worked out .. Sensible (designed by scientist from the Ozzy CSIRO ) and have an exercise plan that is there but will need tweaking in the next week as I find whats sensible and whats not ....

Goals - to lose a couple of pounds a week over the next year ... 50kg or 110 Lbs loss...

Do you think I can do it - Bet you don't .........

But if I do lose it then I can get out into the wilds more .. and take pictures like this !!!!!

We Sleep Naked...........................

Some nights you can't be woken even with the house falling around you ... Some nights you hear a noise and you are awake and alert, just like that .... The first noise was the cat pat-pat-pat pat pat pat ing across the floor at 2am in the dead of night ... Not an unusual sound as George the cat often has a little play through the hall and into our bedroom ........ But then again the pat-pat-pat pat pat pat ing... Well thats too light for George so must be Mickey the cat for a change..... MICKEY !!!! Micky only plays if she has a mouse to run after ... AND She's in our bedroom ........

I just knew something was worse happening even then .... She suddenly bounded onto the bed beside me scaring the living beejeebus out of me ... .Pains in my chest turned out to be a pulled muscle from the reactive spasm as I leapt across the bed ...... "My heart !! The cats killed me" I'm groaning to McD as she's woken from her slumber ...

The cats not put off by this though .... Still on the trail she's now knocking books and stuff off the bedside cabinet as she stands atop looking down between the cabinet and the wall ..... Well .. no prizes guessing where the mouse is then ...

I crossed the room and put the main light on - I want to see properly for this exercise .... McD is now also up ... I'm back across the room again to the bedside cabinet .... As I start to get closer I grab the baseball bat thats coveniently handy beside the bed on my side... I peer down the gap beside the wall , eyes still a little bleery. Can't see anything at first and then realise I was looking too far down ... In beween the fallen books and water bottles there's a face with black black eyes looking directly up at me ...... It's a rat.... and my nose is little more than 6 inches from him ...........

Now I don't know if you've ever been in this position before, being face to face with a rat - I have on a couple of occasions - the one thing that always hits me is that this is an intellegent being looking back at me ... The other thing is that this intellegent being shows little fear in these situations ...... And then finally the "OOHHHHHH BLOODY HELL ITS A RAT !!!" explodes involuntarily from your mouth as your head recoils to a safer distance ......... McD is now fully awake and cursing in what I beleive to be many different languages and possibly many different voices too as the reality sinks in ....... WE HAVE A RAT IN OUR BEDROOM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A rat with pointy ears and long sharp pointy teef !!!!

McD is now saying 'throw the cat in' .... The cat on hearing this wants no bar of it and shoots off in the opposite direction and out of the house ... the catflap left swaying behind it as it exits the house ..... I think about using the base ball bat in a stabbling motion to pummel the beastie if not to death then at least an unconscious state... I peer back into the gap .... The rat's still looking back at me ..... no fear ...quite calm really - I know it's saying to me "Well we have a problem don't we...... You aint getting the chance to touch me and I don't know the way out ... So whatchya gonna do big guy ?? "

The chances of me getting a good shot with the bat are minimal to 'you have to be kidding' .... Sod it ...I start to reach down to move some of the debri .. .Rat retreats to behind the cabinet and then while I'm still moving things I realise he's just circled to the back of me and come in past my feet and arm to where he was in the first place ....... He might have no fear, but I do and again retreated hastily ..... Rat again made a move and is now under the bed ......... "Can you see him ??" I ask McD ... "No ! " " Well we have to get him out somehow...get down on the floor and look woman........" ...McD is now on all fours looking under the bed ....

"Well - That a little more of your posteria than I need to see this time of night" I comment to McD....as she's now head down and Bottom up as they say ...... "Oh very funny" ... "There's a rat in the bedroom you know" ..... (i've put McDs posteria picture in at the end....:O)

" I can't see him..." She tells me

I look around the room . No sign of him ...

"I'll lift the bed up " I announce

"He's still not there !!!

"Bugger......Where the sam has he gone !!!!! "

"McD will you see if you can get me a clear jar from the kitchen ...."

While waiting for Mcd I'm thumping around the floor trying to get the rat to flight again ..... Then I saw him ..Trying to get out from under the table but the gap there wasn't big enough ... (While I'm thinking how McD might react with a pointy toothed devil running down the hallway towards her the rat decides to abandon those efforts and take cover behind the bedside cabinet on McD's side of the bed !!!

McD returns with a clear plastic cookie jar ...Looks the part .... I take it and wedge it on the floor between the cabinet on my side and the wall at the back ..... Now again thumping around to make the rat run ....

He finally took flight and as predicted back to my side of the bed ...and Straight into the jar !!!!

"where's the lid !!! "

"Too late never mind " ...I make a rather brave dive I thought and upturned the jar with the mouth down on the carpet . Then seeing a sheet of paper on the floor (I do sudoku's before I fall asleep) I pulled the jar over the paper ..... I now have a trapped rat in a jar with the only thing betwen it and my hand being a bit of a4 paper !! .....

The rats now resigned to his fate and again showing little fear sits there looking out at McD and I .....

I could just put the lid on and suffocate him ... But with that not being an option just what else can a naked man with a pissed off rat in a clear plastic jar do ??

"I'll just let him go outside" I tell McD ... "He can beat the cat up another day" .... So off we go to the ranch sliders at the front of the house that lead to the decking ..... I didn't go to the back door ... I should have I guess but with Mickey the cat being out there that side I decided not to .....

As we passed through the lounge there was George the cat just waking up !! "This is your job!!!" I tell him as I thrust the rat in front of his face ...... The rat, on his hind legs as they do had started to clean his face and now all curious looks straight at George.... George got the fright of his life apparrently as the next thing he's stood high on all four sets of claws and then like a fat streak of grey he's gone ...out of the house ....the cat flap left swinging as he exits the house ......

Well we were impressed.............

So there I am at 2:30 in the middle of the night, naked as the day i was born heading outside onto the decking away from the door . It's raining and windy and barely above freezing......I lay the jar down and retire quickly ......

"you could have brought the jar back in " in McD complains....

"Yep - I could have........but the rat wanted to wait for the rain to stop" i replied.........



This is the Rat...In the Jar....Camera must have been asleep at the time as all the piccs were blurred...........







Oh!!! I lied about the picc of McDs posteria........:O)....But if you really want to see it let me know. I'll see what i can do :O)

30 centigrade Vanuatu - 1 Centigrade New Zealand

It’s cold !!

Now I know our 1 degree of frost in Wellington will be laughed at by some of you living in more extreme climes … I have no doubt that our balmy 8degrees C would have many of you rushing to the beaches for an afternoons sunbathing and swimming …And god knows I used to be one of them when I lived in the UK …. But after 15years in New Zealand I’ve gotten soft … Its cold. I’m cold. The dogs and cats are fighting for space as close to the fire as they can get in the evenings and come the mornings the cats are huddled up against the radiator looking like fat round balls of shivering fluff.

It’s cold

But even by New Zealand standards we have it pretty damned good here… the centre of the North Island have had much colder temperatures and a good dumping of snow !!! The south island had even lower temperatures and even more dumpings of snow And no electricity !! In some places no electricity for weeks !!! In the past 15years I’ve touched snow once I think … And that was on a trip back to the UK !! I hate snow ….

And that’s why I live no further south than Wellington …. Mcd’s Family live on the south Island .. Their idea of fun is to live as far south as possible … I’m sure it’s Character building … and There are some real characters down there that’s for sure :O)

Not that living further north protects you from the weathers effects. The center of the north island is a plateau and fairly high above sea level and usually prone to winter snow … They based their army camp up there – More of this Character building stuff I’ve no doubt … Then there are the volcanoes in the middle of the plateau ..No not t extinct things … They are barely dormant … With one popping its top within the last 10 years ..I know cause I drove up to it !! Well had to get a better look eh … Now where are those pictures ?? Anyway – There was snow on the volcano then so I lied about not touching snow in NZ ……. They even have ski fields on one of them … fast getaway perhaps when they go pop …….

Auckland is further North again … they don’t get snow … by the time the snow falls in Auckland it’s already melted … They get lots of rain in Auckland. And despite Wellington being the so called “windy city” Auckland does get its fair share of wind.. Gale force winds at times … cyclone winds at times…. Tornados even at times …… I tell you this because despite all this weather we have, Almost the entire metropolis of Auckland lost electricity for a day … It was windy …. A single earthing wire in a substation no less broke loose in the wind and Auckland and the better part of 1.4 million peoples houses and businesses went dark …….

Now despite living in Auckland for 8 years and loving the place, I usually take the same stance as all other New Zealanders south of the Bombay hills (where Auckland’s reaches end) which is something along the lines of a compassionate “oh dear, what a pity, never mind” said with the slightest hint of a grin that betrays any real feeling for anyone living in our major city. It’s unfair, but there you go … Aucklanders are routinely referred to as JAFAs (just Another F#$king Aucklander) everywhere except north of the Bombays .. Course I’m sure the Jafa’s have some choice words for anyone South of the Bombay’s too …. And I’m sure Kiri et.al. will tell me what they are too :O)

But now I digress …

Last Monday Auckland Lost their electricity and the South Island got well and truly dumped on with a metre or so of snow down to sea level ….

The Sunday night before I found out about the south island having problems. I was due to fly to Auckland along with my boss and some managers from our 3^rd party vendors . The flight was Cancelled due to the weather down there … I was pretty happy about the fact … next flight was 9pm I’m there in the airport at 5pm …now way I’m sitting around that length of time. McD’s daughters birthday and everyone off to have Thai food … Now I get to join them … So I got a flight change for the morning at 8am ….We were to go the night before to beat the weather (fog etc) but the weather had countered that by choosing Sunday night to play up … So I might as well sleep in my own bed that night ….. Rang my boss and the vendor and told them … they could of course do what ever they wanted …. Which meant some went up that night ..My Boss went up at 6am the next morning and another vendor manager went up at 7am the next morning …And all arrived just fine …….

Not me … I wait 3 hours for a flight up to Auckland ... When I get there I have voice messages telling me not to try and get into Auckland Central ...An power blackout has caused Chaos with businesses and buildings in darkness and all street traffic lights out......I'm told to go back home ..... So thats what I did ...Walked from one airline to another queued for an hour to get my flight time changed while also berating my travel agent for not trying hard enough ...She got a flight for me about 6 people before the ticketing counter after an hours queuing .... And then caught a vey bumpy flight back to wellington .....

We didn't land the first pass .... having slid and skewed and bumped our way to the runway we over shot it and the pilot had to throttle up the engines and get us out of there !!! That does heaps for the old bodily functions I can tell you ...... "The wind change is right over the runway" we are told ...... "So we'll circle here for a few minutes till it's done its thing and try it again" the pilot tells us .....

Oh Joy !! We are all thinking .......

Holday Snaps ....... I love Markets :O)

This is Taro ..A white root crop bit like a lite potato ....

Thats Sugar cane in the foreground

These contained fish ..Big ones like baracuda etc

A busy day in vanuatu .......

Answers to questions of last entry

Strange looking picture is of a Spiders Nest !!!! Can you imagine it !! Its about the size of two fists together … Full of thousands of baby spiders .. Don’t know where mum was and no – I didn’t get that close !!!

The Tree with small fruit is a pepper corn tree !!

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I’ve had this damned cold for over a week now … Struggled for 4 days at work feeling like crap. Not sleeping right and generally feeling demotivated and fed up …… McD telling me off for not taking some sick days ………

So, with some fantastic spring weather on us both McD and I decided to take some time off .. I took last Friday off and return Wednesday, McD has taken the Monday Tuesday off.

It’s been well worth it … A chance to recharge the batteries and enjoy some much needed sunshine and Boy has it been warm !! Forget Spring has Sprung ! Summer has Gatecrashed the Party people :O)

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I didn’t get the Job I was after …. But it was a lot closer than I had thought, having lost out solely on not having as much commercial experience as the chap who got it … The Interviewer was highly complementary when discussing their decision etc .. So that’s left me feeling down that I didn’t get the Job, but good that I was up there and in the running till the end ….

But try getting back into your old job after that …especially when your not well too… .

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Garden is starting to look different …Friday saw me finally pull down the Brick BBQ completely leaving only the concrete base … We now have somewhere for a seat.. It nearly did me in as I rushed around to get it done before McD came home … I picked up an old wooden seat from the top of the garden and plonked it onto the concrete base …. And then took a picture and emailed it over to McD at work :O)










The Borders have bark mulch over them ...In another month or so they will be covered with Dahlias which are burried and waiting to sprout forth :O)



Notice in the l;ast picture McD has been graffitying the lawn !!! With the aid of the hose pipe !!!!!

Saturday we did some err Retail Therapy :O) McD needed cheering up after my not getting the Job :O) Oh Alright – I’ve been hassling for a new TV for some time now – Years !!! and since it’s our 5 year anniversary on Wednesday McD finally gave in and off we went and bought a 42inch Plasma TV… Woof Woof !!! :O) That took us the best part of a day!! In between breakfast and a late lunch :O) We’ve also upgraded the Cable TV to digital so our view pleasure will increase multifold when the TVs delivered tomorrow !! Just something else to make our getting exercise and getting fitter and losing weight all that much harder !! We will have to discipline our selves McD !!

Sunday we cleaned up the area some more and planted some standard roses in the area … Today we spent far too much time trying to make some free form planting areas as the idea is to get rid of the much suffering lawn and have some nice perennial gardens instead. Adding pebble pathways around them … However the plan has changed a little as we have now decided to have one large planting area and have large river stones as stepping stones through it …. We’ll see …



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We’ve had 2 BBQs this weekend !! An unknown this early in the season but Yum :O) I hate uncovering the BBQ after the winter .. This year it was covered in snails and snail Poop !! So that’s where the little sods are hiding !! Little deceased ex-sods now . Anyway BBQ all cleaned up and firing nicely …. Yesterday we had a seafood BBQ with Prawns in the shells, Salmon steaks and scollops …. AND While getting the seafood they they were selling Mutton Birds so we’ve gabbed a couple of them. McD will spend tomorrow morning boiling them 3 times to get the salt out and then roasting them ….. They are a bit of an acquired taste but I like them ……

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Spring in New Zealand