Oblivious

The Christchurch easterly pushed me effortlessly along the red cycleway. A morning mother was parked across it. I shimmied around her car, whizzing across the gutter-bridge into the traffic and then back around onto the cycleway. Meanwhile the driver got out and checked her letter box. I looked around, hoping to catch her eye reproachfully, but she did not see me.

It's such a marvellous word.

Ob-livi-ous.

Possie and the Psycholinguists

Why have I used this funny little word so many times in my blogs? It doesn't even rate a "Yes, OK" in the Scrabble word search box on the blog. Am I so delighted to find a place to park myself? or others? A safe little nest in which I can hide? I have possies; Book-Book has possies; what does it all mean?

Well, really, who actually cares what it means? Sooner or later, aand certainly after I have needed it to, the word "possies" will be allowed in Scrabble, and no doubt some irritating opponent of mine (possibly Helen or Tim) will earn vast credits by top and tailing it on two triple word scores. Might be better if Scrabble adopts the "pozzie" spelling - except - you'd need a blank to make that work. Hmmm.


Anyhow anyhow anyhow* Book-Book has got over her broodiness (see pic of her being broody). Ian takes the credit - whether deservedly or not would be difficult to judge. He was amazingly concerned about her well-being while broody, but I had discovered (Googled) that broody hens can starve themselves to death, and Book-Book was certainly showing the dotty signs of one who will subjugate all to the Good of the Offspring. So Ian set to and "gave her a bit of a rark-up" on several occasions. This meant picking her up and taking her a long way away from her broody spot amongst the ferns, then chasing her around the garden and prodding her into stroppiness.


Whether it was that or hormones or something altogether else (a passionate desire not to be chased by Ian?), Book-Book is now over the whole nesting thing, which means that my garden is once again under threat of attack. For once though, the chook is nothing compared with the savage two-day nor'wester. It's been really disgustingly blustery. The peas are all over the place, and the broadies are looking very bedraggled. Joy's plan is coming along nicely though; the runner beans like their possies and are lovingly embracing their strings. I hope they are finding good possies for their roots, as we won't be here to tend them during early Jan...]

* Excuse my Dawn Frenchism but it is a very useful device to introduce a non sequitur, I reckon

The Ghastly Infertility of Book-Book

No Tiger, I'm talkin' 'bout infertility. It's not the same, you bastard.

Anyhoo, Book-Book is broody. Somehow I know this is the correct term, in spite of the fact that I've never kept hens nor written a manual on the subject...

Her character changed profoundly overnight. One minute she was a perky, strutting, tomato-stripping lettuce-eater (and strawberry-pecker - the bitch!); the next, she was a strangely still, flattened version of herself. She has been sitting in a particular possie now for three days, blinking occasionally and turning two-dimensionally on her axis. Jack showed us how you can pick up a broody hen, pinch her eggs, and set her down again with nary a peck! I now have enough eggs (what with one thing and another, but it's a long and tedious story) to make 18 pavlovas.

Meanwhile, Book-Book sits optimistically on. She really, REALLY is not very bright. If she were my daughter, I would remain very supportive, but actually be quite... well... disappointed. Luckily my daughter is terribly clever, and can do remarkable things, such as get 100% in her grade 5 musical theory exam. Let's hope I never catch her sitting on her eggs...

Joy's Bean Dreaming

The weather has been on the improve this weekend, making it extra-specially difficult, on a sunny Sunday evening, to contemplate with anticipation the air-conditioned week ahead. I have covered all the green strawberries with anti-bird-netting, and planted more lettuces and tomatoes. George has just mowed the lawns, and the grassy aroma which is making him sniffle is giving me great joy.

Speaking of whom, Joybells visited earlier during the week and together we inspected the garden. I was thinking about where the peas should climb, now that they're at the top of their tower, and wondering whether tethering the washing line and letting them climb up to it might be a goer. But Joy trumped this emerging and somewhat humble thought by suggesting that I grow runner beans all over the line, like a big green vegie-laden umbrella.

This, like deep-fried camembert, was an idea that I simply couldn't resist. So I've assembled plants of three different varieties - some "fartin' losers" from Paddy, and some heirloom jobbies from the farmer's market. I nailed in a staple for each plant, then lovingly planted each one and gave them all a jolly good watering. The last job was to add the twine -a string for each plant.

We're not out of the frost-zone yet, even though it is November (November!); however, this part of the garden does seem frost-free - the tomato has been outside for a couple of months without anything nastier than Book-Book happening to it.

Still on a bean theme, my niece Emily and I harvested the first broadie this week. I don't think she was quite as excited as I was, however, she did say she liked her lightly-steamed allowance (one bean). She must have been telling the truth because my allowance (two beans) was HEAVENLY.

Giving me the go-by

So we gathered up the pins, go-bys, net, bucket, sledge hammer, and all sorts of other essentials, including a picnic lunch, and set off, just the two of us, Vati and me.

We arrived at the Hokitika River at about 10:00 am and found a possie on a sub-branch of the main stream. It was 9 degrees, overcast, windy, and not raining, but only just. I managed fairly quickly to demonstrate to anyone watching that even at 42, I still can't back a blasted trailer. However we parked near the water and soon had all the bits and pieces deposited on the stony beach.

Paddy wanted to get our possie claimed sharpish, so there was a bit of a scramble into our waders and then we were into the water with the pins and sledgehammer. The first job was to make a sort of little fence out of the go-bys, perpendicular to the beach. It was hard yakka as the river bed was very stony, but Paddy put his back into it and also used cunning and angles. The pins are quite heavy strips of iron - not as chunky as warratahs. He used a combination of hammering and positioning to get the go-bys standing up neatish. We had to make sure that they were snug to the river bed with no gaps so that the whitebait couldn't sneak past us.

Then we installed the net, tucked in a bit behind the last go-by, with its mouth facing downstream ready for those earnest little swimmers. The last step was to bash in the bucket holder. This is an iron peg with a loop that holds the bucket in the river close to the net, so you don't have to keep bringing the net back to shore to unload the haul.

Then we sat down on our picnic chairs and prepared to dig out some rations. There followed a funny moment when I looked up and the entire go-by had vanished - subsided 'neath the waves without a murmur; I blinked but it didn't reappear. The maestro expostulated and raced over to set it back up, slightly more cunningly this time.

And so, the day rolled gently on. Paddy showed me how to splash up to the net from downstream and pick it up quickly, before the whitebait have a chance to exit stage left. We spent most of the day catching whalebait - these look like tiny cockabullies that you wouldn't really want to eat. Paddy kept looking in the net and saying "I don't know what these are, dammit!" but he found out after interviewing our neighbours on the river in his usual, incorrigibly social, way. I remained snooty, with my nose in a book, or watching the swallows, but the friend-of-the-world splashed back and forth, chatting to the locals and finding stuff out.

At one point, while I was away on a pit stop, Paddy had to move our possie because a fellow arrived at his registered "jetty" (a rickety construction of rough-sawn planks and uprights that stuck out into the river) and said we were too close to him. By the time I returned, Paddy had set us up further down the river bank, at a much less convenient spot. I kept giving the new fellow hard looks, for making my aged parent move his gear. My aged parent was grizzling about the rules, and the number of metres a go-by can protrude, and the required distance between possies, and what he was going to look up when he got home...

But his irritation subsided, and he explained how beautiful whitebait is when it's in the net - "all golden", and I thought yeah, sure, whatever. And then, blow me down, the next time I emptied the net I saw what he meant because we CAUGHT SOME! and they do indeed shimmer goldenly, and we tipped them into the bucket (which is a bit tricky because you have to kind of pat them out of the net and hold the net up and over the bucket all at the same time - without knocking the bucket into the river - and plus, to add difficulty, the net has little sticky-out bits of wire that dig into your hands and leave you with nasty septic little wounds).
So then of course we were all Excitement and Renewed Hope, and I scooted back to the car for the thermos and another cuppa, and we settled in for another hour or so. And every so often one of us would check the net and sometimes there was more gold and sometimes there wasn't, and by the time the Excitement etc. had run its course we had about 30. Although, they're hard to count when they're swimming around in the bucket. But it looked like a two-pattie haul to me.

By then, about 4:00, the wind was freshening, and most of us on this bit of river were starting to pack up. Paddy splashed back to the car with the go-bys and admired the other fellow's massive haul, while I made several trips with the net, the bucket, the pins and all. And Paddy loaded the trailer. And, in the end, we discovered that the other fellow was actually a very good sort of chap after all, called Danny, who gave us a decent wallop of whitebait to add to our 30. So we brought these home triumphantly and made fritters, and they were absolutely DELICIOUS, and we'll have some more tonight.

And I went whitebaiting with my Dad.

They'll make a killing!

It's bloody marvellous. Some likely lads fresh out of Victoria Uni have invented a re-setting stoat trap which will kill 12 stoats before human intervention is needed to re-set the trap. Humble though this may sound, it means that each of these new traps will eliminate 12 stoats a month - instead of the current tally of 1 per trap per month. The trap will also knock off rats, and the inventors are now developing a version for opossum.

I reckon that this invention makes sliced bread look very ordinary. Let's give these lads some more problems to solve...

Bless the journalists though - they tell us that... "The self-setting trap ... uses a ground-breaking, gas-powered mechanism to automatically reset itself after activation". I have seen the video and I'm pretty sure the ground stays intact. But the trap is innovative, that's for sure!

Bugger, Book-Book's Back

At first I was thrilled to see her. After a torrid winter it was lovely to be outside in the early spring sunshine, and Book-book's presence seemed an extra bonus. Even a couple of holes dug in my vege garden did not bother me - she hadn't dug up any of the broadies. The artichoke was still happily growing away in the gentle sunshine that reaches into the top eastern part of our estate at this time of year, unperturbed by Book-book's nearby crater. I looked for eggs, but without suck-cess.

Encouraged by the fact that a couple of lettuces survived the entire winter without being frosted, I decided to cast caution to the winds, and possibly money, by planting a tomato plant AND some basil plants outside - in September! We then had a couple of frosts; and on each frosty morning, on my way to collect the paper, I anxiously investigated the health of my optimist's experiment.


I should have known I was looking in the wrong direction for trouble. The tomato and basil said Pooh! to the frosts (they are snuggled into a warm corner of the vege garden with sheltering pittosporum looming leafily over them). However they were helpless against the ravages of the evil Book-book. She methodically stripped every single leaf off the tomato, leaving stalks so clean they were smoother than those of a swan plant recently visited by 500 marauding monarch caterpillars. I have now wrapped the poor little skeleton in protective netting, and am hoping for a full recovery.

Naturally I looked to Ian for sympathy. He seems, however, in favour of Book-book receiving some form of recompense for last year's eggs. He's not that keen on tomatoes, either.

I think it's only a matter of time before he sees what Book-book has done with the grass clippings, though - and then...

Goaded...

Cressida said "I was prepared to be delighted by a new blog post (the first from you or mama for ages).... But now I'm not... since I see it's the outcome of boredom and misery :-("

Dreadful but much-loved woman. Me? Bored? Miserable?
OK: "let me-eee, enter-tain you!"... or at least try...

I have to be a bit careful with this story; the fact that my blog only has one faithful follower (thanks, dreadful woman) doesn't change the fact that in theory, at least, it's available to the world.

Among the myriad other things he does (he's doing the veges as I write), Ian is the custodian of a website intended for Canterbury general medical practitioners, to keep them informed of latest "best practice", clinical management guidelines, statistics, etc. relating to the influenza A (H1N1) pandemic in our corner of der Welt.

However, someone told someone who told someone in Tonga - both the URL of this website, and the user name and password.

Without doubt, this good Tongan, who has responsibilities ranging from Emergency/Disaster Management to Education and Women's Affairs, has every reason to be concerned about the preparedness of the Tongan authorities and people to cope with an illness which can range from mild to dangerous, and nothing I say here is intended to mock this person's concern.

However, in her anguished and apostrophied reply to Ian, she copied in all of Tonga's public service and some of the WHO, because Ian happened to mention that G and C have the dreaded lurgy... "Please your prayers for Ian's children to go back to the road of full recovery!"

Of course, we couldn't help but be amused (read: very very amused); in New Zealand the 'flu is unpleasant but we have the reassurance of first world medical back-up - and our kids are healthy with no underlying conditions that are likely to polish 'em off.

However, all hilarity aside, I get fed up with the conspiracy theories and the widespread cynicism. Anyone who speaks lightly of the 'flu hasn't had a nasty dose - or has forgotten what it felt like. As Alistair Humphrey (Medical Officer of Health for Canterbury) said recently on NatRad "no 'flu is mild or moderate". And his counterpart in Auckland said "anyone who stands up for the first time after the 'flu is looking for the bus that hit him".

How true...

At least we can smugly rely on the prayers of the Tongans (thank you).

And on an irreverent finish; a touch of Flanders and Swann:

"Oh, it's hard to say: 'Hoolima Kittiluca Cheecheechee'
But in Tonga that means: 'No'
If I ever have the money
Is to Tonga I shall go
For each lovely Tongan maiden there
Will gladly make a date
And by the time she's said 'Hoolima Kittiluca Cheecheechee'
It is usually too late!

Various...

Shitty, shitty Sunday afternoon. Cold and bleak midwinter outside. Two children with highly infectious flu decorating the place with their limp bodies and their spray and spittle. Get the picture?

Looks as if we'll be sticking around at home for the next week - and then it's the holidays. Of course the children are devastated by this; they're not sick enough to be completely and unutterably miserable, but are not well enough to go out, and are especially unwelcome at school. We're pretty sure it's A(H1N1) because we all had the 'flu vac this year, and also because 4 children in Claudia's year at school have tested positive for it. Health authorities are no longer bothering to swab everyone who gets it, so there's no need for us to notify anyone that we have it, nor indeed to seek medical help.

We've had a series of visitors arrive today and stay firmly outside, unwilling to share the love. I feel like Nancy Blackett, semaphoring down into the garden (sans the moon face and jaw-ache).

On a more cheery note, Ian is at home today. It's the first day in 5 weeks that he has taken off - no exaggeration! He's not much company; but after two and a half months of intense work, I don't think further demands on him are warranted. He's having fun thinking about entropy, man, which is one of his ways of relaxing. Yeah, well, takes all sorts!

The year of the squeeze-box

Ian is such a copy-cat. I bought my Italian piano accordion on Trade Me just before Christmas. Ian bought his gadget, called the squeeze-box, several months later.

Each squeeze-box has its plusses and minusses.

Mine reliably makes noise - we never have to reboot the media server or muck about while it looks for ip addresses...

His doesn't smell musty... well, why should it? It didn't arrive in an antique and very dodgy suitcase.

You might say that when his makes noise, it's gorgeous in all its digital clarity. Claudia would say that when mine makes noise, it's hideous. I think she's being harsh - it takes time to master! But it sure is loud, I have to agree. And it doesn't serve up radio stations from Paris and the US.

Still, I cling to the vision of being able to lead the sing-along at the beach, or on the house-boat. Ian will only be able to use his machine in this way if he's organised a satellite connection to his media server. I suppose it's only a matter of time; and yet - for reliability - I choose mine any day.

Neighbour red in tooth and claw

I proffered the hand of friendship yesterday, only to withdraw with a bleeding stump. 'Twas like this. I thought it would be a good idea, and rather fun, to meet the parents of my son George's pals. Some of them I already know, but there are loads I don't know at all. So my plan was, and remains (I think), to get together for a "getting to know you" picnic, so the parents can gang up on the children and win the battle of parenting stroppy teens.

So George texted his friend, who for the purposes of this blog, we will call "Susie", and asked her mum to call me. At 9:40 pm yesterday, the father phoned. Ian answered and explained his understanding of the plan and its purpose, and then passed the father on to me. "I don't want to offend you" he said, "but we have 8 children and we're very choosy about our activities". I explained that it wasn't a big deal but we thought it would be nice to know the parents of our children's friends. "There's no point really; now that "Susie" is moving into her senior years at high school she won't be socialising - she'll be focussing on her academic progress".

Yeah, right.

There's a rumour going around that another of their daughters has eloped with someone to Aussie. Assuming that it's true, do we find this surprising?

Making money

I've been very entrepreneurial lately, and have made enough money renting Ma and Pa's bach to pay the bills and cover some minor improvements. I have to concede, though, that the recent big improvements (I can't keep track of older improvements) are entirely thanks to the generosity of certain parties:

Robyn, for spring-cleaning and helping me to de-clutter
Edwina and Ian - beds and all sorts of furniture and other useful objets
Helen and Tim - bunks
Robyn and Nige - a decent telly and cabinet to hide it (from Mum) in
Raewyn - a water filter to end all water filters - and with luck and sufficient water pressure - to make the water potable
Phil and Kay - a sexy lounge suite complete with lazyboy recliners x 2
Craig - cleaning of aforementioned suite
Julia - expertise designing the kitchen
Imogen - for expert family-meeting-chairing
All Dad's friends who have wired things and generally been jolly useful
etc. etc.

But the Oscar goes to Ma and Pa, who had the foresight to buy a property and build and maintain a building thereon! doing endless jobs around the place and spending vast sums so that their dreadful children and their friends could benefit...

but not just us!! check out Paddy's Pad and see how others are in there doing that :-)

Two dykes and a stopbank

The emptiness of our nest was brought forcibly home to me yesterday, when we went for a picnic and I only needed to make sandwiches for Ian, Janet, and me. Teenagers have their own agenda; sad but true!

We went to the Ashley River, and drove along the stopbank until we reached number xx (I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you) groyne. The pozzie was magic, the sun relentless, and the willows accommodating. We joined our neighbours, who have expert knowledge of the best holes, and swam in the balmy waters. Ian went on his usual intrepid exploring mission across the river bed. Janet was content to watch the action, although she fretted a bit about the suitability of the branch which supported the rope swing. Rightly so; I suspect that sometime soon, someone over 30 kg will drop gracefully in to the gently flowing water, and then be topped off by the branch itself...

The dykes were enjoying a beer.