Mother

I wrote this prose in 1982, when I was 14 or 15. For the mild amusement of my siblings, who are pictured in this page as they were 5 years before I arrived on the scene, I will retype it here without any of the adjustments I might like to make (not many, in truth), in lieu of a fresh blog:

Mother, with the tellers of coarse jokes. 1962

Mothers are fascinating really. I actually love my mother, and I'm sure she loves me. I take great pleasure in just observing her - for example, it's sweet seeing her and Dad together - I mean, they've been married for nearly thirty years and Dad has been clicking his false teeth for at least ten of those years, but Mum still seems to be fond of him.

What I really love doing is watching Mother when my elder brothers get together. They tell rather coarse jokes* and Mother sits in the corner trying to look stern and doing her best not to laugh. It's surprising how Mum changes when the older family is at home. I think she has given up trying to make them all respectable citizens, because they have left home. Unfortunately, when I am the only child at home, Mum thinks there is still hope. (There isn't.)

I don't know whether all mothers get soft in their old age; it's hard to tell. Sometimes I believe mum is getting positively modern, but it is a hard idea to get used to. She is thoroughly suspicious of new-fangled gadgets, or so she says, but it's my belief that if left in a "model" kitchen complete with a Ralta Kitchen Wizz, Mother would have a ball. Sometimes she almost plucks up the courage to buy a dishwasher (apart from me) but then - the fatal question - where will I put it? Of course no-one can ever answer... and so it goes on.

Mother can be extremely witty sometimes, frequently through no fault of her own. For example - Mother brought a very nice and hugely overpriced raincoat for herself. One rainy day I met her in town - she was wearing her old and tatty raincoat!! So I asked, foolishly, "Why aren't you wearing your new raincoat?"

Mum replied, "Good heavens, dear, I wouldn't take it out in weather like this!"

Well, I ask you. What sort of logic is that?

* phone me. I haven't forgotten them...

Life of Pi-wakawaka

Where Piwakawaka was meant to be
on Wednesday morning

Call her a gin palace, party island, floating lounge, or whatever, Piwakawaka is in disgrace after parting with her mooring the night after a somewhat stormy New Year's Day. OK, it was very very stormy, but Pi was certainly not authorised to take what Ian had judged to be a perfectly splendid mooring and break it.

The first we knew of this was the following morning. We had woken several times to rain, hail and wind in the night, so as soon as it was light Ian did a visual check from the verandah to make sure Pi was still at the mooring. She wasn't visible, so he jumped in the car and set off. I can only imagine how he must have felt when he got down to Hans Bay and there was no sign of her anywhere. (Sick, he says.)

We leapt into action and spent the next hour or two searching through the gusts and torrents, up and down the eastern side of the lake (where we expected and hoped to see her). The lake was too dangerous to take the jet boat out, so we had to wait until the late afternoon for a brief lull. Two boats set out to look for our errant miss, and they sighted her on a rocky western shore. Ian's frustration and misery when our jet boat overheated 200 metres from Pi was slightly mitigated by knowing that the pontoon boat hadn't turned turtle and sunk in the deepest part of the lake. He was smart to have taken a mate with another boat who could give him a tow.



 Hedley and Tim preparing her for the trip across the lake

Alex delivering lunch

Next day, kind friends helped on the salvage operation. Getting her off the rocks, and making sure that she would float, was a major piece of work. The local farmer (Pete) and mechanic (Harry) were both incredibly generous with salvage equipment, and the team was ingenious and persistent, with many hours spent labouring in the cold water. As soon as she was floating, albeit wonkily, the wind came up and the decision had to be made to start for the eastern shore, wind or no wind.


Damaged, but safe in Pete's paddock

The nearest landing point with vehicle access was the farm, and there was great relief that they made it, cold and tired. George and I arrived just in time to see Pete and Sean attach the mooring rope to the Massey Ferg and pull Pi out of the water and into a paddock, where she rested for a couple of days.




Man plus machine equals
bloody marvellous

On a very hot Sunday afternoon, it was time to return to the paddock and find a way to get Pi back onto her trailer. Pete and Sean and the tractor were there, and after a couple of false starts they had her safely in position and ready for a slow drive back via the Kokatahi valley.

It goes without saying that we have several people to thank and there will be one hell of a recommissioning party!


Postscript:



Waggling the tiller to get across the bay

Several spiders were startled this week to find Cormorant at sea again after several years under the verandah. A stiff nor'wester and mild temperatures encouraged us to go sailing. Ian took XTC out for the first time and found that this 16 foot catamaran is more fun than the 14-footer when you're a big chap.

As usual I managed to get myself tangled in Cormorant's main sheet at least twice but had some good sailing, tacking up to Canoe Cove and then running back with a successful gybe into Hans Bay and a tidy sail back to the beach. Sadly I forgot the mast was still up when I towed Cormorant into the tree tunnel next to the bach, so my feeling of general awesomeness was short-lived. The incident gives a whole new spin on grief and half-masts...

Our photographer (Claudia) was shore-based so there are no
pictures of us travelling at astonishing speed once we cleared the islands