Tuesday 29 January 2019

Paddock diary

It saddens me to confess; I'm not a gardener. I get no joy from aching fingers, being hot and sweaty and dizzy. Even when I had full health, I didn't enjoy it. I love flowers, when someone else has grown them and arranged them. I love fresh vegetables, dug out of the earth fresh, chemical free, but not if I've had to do all the work, the weeding, the chasing away of chickens etc. But occasionally, grubbing around in the earth really gives me pleasure.

This morning I have been attacking the vegetable patch. It doesn't have any vegetables planted in it, just an olive tree, which loves it 'thank you very much'. I could no longer bear to see the foot high grass, mangled and tangled clover and goodness knows what else in it. Of course, my motivation would happen on the hottest day of the year so far (31 degrees expected). By 9am I'd had it, and was about to shift the very full wheelbarrow when I heard an argument progressing. In digging furiously, I'd dislodged a weta and a cricket who were discussing putting a complaint in to the management. Initially I couldn't see them amongst the weeds, but it wasn't long before voices were raised and lawyers were being threatened. They wanted to be returned to their accommodation or travel arrangements provided for their family (who had been left behind) They protested that once the wheelbarrow had been emptied in a different part of the garden, it would take them months to find each other. This means that I will need to recommence my digging at dusk to find their relatives and no doubt be bitten by mosquitos in the process. This was not how I intended to fill my day.

But as I love little creatures and wouldn't want to make them refugees on our two acres of paradise, I suppose I had better get on with the job.

Oh, and we have a strayberry who has also been separated from her cousins.

Saturday 26 January 2019

Ninety years on, and things they have a changed


Not much to say, other than I wish some of the qualities in this Sunday School photo from the late 1920s were demonstrated / practiced today. My grandmother was from a small village in N. Yorkshire where she taught and participated in the local church school. It is my great grandfather Abraham on the right of the picture.

In the insanity of current world politics, some of our politicians could learn a lesson from these children.

Wednesday 23 January 2019

The ears have it

We frequently joke that when there is quarry to be had (pheasant, rabbits, hare, chickens, hedgehogs, garden birds), there is not a moggy to be seen; thank goodness! But I really wonder sometimes if our cats are REALLY cats, or just overfed townies with a penchant for warm beds and comfy laundry baskets. The princess is currently guarding the apple mint on the back verandah.


The boys are snoozing, a corner each, on our bed.

Meanwhile, I'm watching wild rabbits play on the driveway, long ears poking above the grass and hedgerows, greenfinch hop on the lawn, and three fledgling blackbirds on the verandah hollering at me to throw out more food.

It would appear, that bar rats and mice, New Zealand's wildlife is safe on our two acres. The ears have it!

Friday 11 January 2019

Ginger theologian

This morning I had occasion to use the guest bathroom/laundry (aka Mango's room). He loves to sit on the sink and watch birds out of the window. He also has a secret passion for clothes pegs, which can be found on top of the washing machine (which also has a bird viewing platform behind it). So this morning when I heard scratching and a thud, thud, I realised I was going to have to get out of the shower quickly before he sourced a battering ram to access his play room.

I'd closed the door, but could hear the handle rattling. Now, the ginger is tall when he stands on his hind legs, but I'd never seen him try to turn door handles before.

When I finally dried myself and dressed I was ready to see what mayhem had ensued on the other side of the door.

Big boy had climbed a bookshelf next to the door and was busy peering at birds in the paddock through the hall window. He had tried the handle, but as it is a round knob rather than the push down variety, he'd given up and decided to make himself comfortable on the books. He had picked a row of theology books which wobbled because several had been removed from the top shelf. By the time he had greeted me with a head bump, his back legs were crammed between a book on Talmud and another on the Tabernacle.

Alas, I doubt he will ever be a student of any lofty subjects, let alone a theologian, but in the affection and silliness disciplines, he has no equal.

Wednesday 9 January 2019

Phone home

In 1972, I moved with my parents from one part of the north of England to a county even further north. The novelty of the house that was to become our family home for 46 years was that it had a phone. Our previous house didn't have one. The phone was a huge novelty for me. In my teens we would call to hear the Top 10 records in the charts, call to hear the weather report, or thrill of thrills, the Talking Clock.

Our phone was a standard GPO rotary dial phone in ivory. It felt very glamorous to be able to call friends and we called my grandparents weekly to check they were OK. Two years after we became phone owners, there was the terrible call that my grandfather had died suddenly. For the first time I associated it with something bad and brooding and avoided it for a while after that.

I wish I had a dollar for every kind of trashy Chinese push button phone I have had since, as well as the dreadful multi-line phones of work with their infinite number of extensions and horror of horror the intrusion of mobile phones. Don't get me started on that one.

So it was with a bucket full of nostalgia that today we installed a reproduction GPO rotary dial phone from a local interiors shop. It is not an authentic colour I don't think, but has the REAL ring tone, so evocative of the 70s. I am thrilled.

Me calling home from a friend's house 1976.


The new turquoise rotary.





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Saturday 5 January 2019

When a cat is not a cat

This morning before it was too hot, I started to tackle and tidy the mess under our Empress tree; we lost a lot of branches in a recent (and rare) heavy storm. They were impeding the mower so it was definitely time to chop and sort them ready for winter.

As I huffed and puffed away I heard a sound I thought I recognised coming from the boundary with our neighbour's driveway. It was loud and remarkably like the sound our tabby cat makes when he is about to throw up. As I hadn't seen him since late last night I was a bit concerned he might be ill, so started to pull and tug the forest of tall grass and weeds where the noise was coming from. The noise changed to a snorting, gurgling sneeze and wheeze, again quite loud and definitely not the sound of a slumbering moggy. There was no sudden rustle of startled cat or streak of grey stripes flying out of the undergrowth. Then it went silent. I pulled away yet more grass, but couldn't see what it was.

I went back to sawing wood.

A few minutes later the same sound, but more urgent. I tugged away again at the direction of the sound, but no sign of anything feline. I became alarmed as I thought perhaps I was about to disturb a grumpy and fierce possum.

Then I saw the movement of a prickle, then a paw, then a pair of nostrils. Miss Tiggy Winkle was having a bad dream and was rolling herself in a pile of dried grass cuttings, obviously fleeing an unknown enemy.

I tucked her up again and she snuffled contentedly, not missing a somnambulant beat.