Infrequent Update...

Again it has been a while since I have written on this blog. Nervous tension has smothered my ability to focus on anything creative. I am now gainfully employed again (though we are still buying Lottery tickets just in case), and I have completed my first month (not an easy prospect after half a year of dossing about). The job is similar to what I was doing before but for a competitor company to my previous employer (making engineering estimates and generating quotations for industrial control and safety systems).

I had to spend some time up at the Manchester office recently for product training and sales meetings so I have been doing quite a lot of travelling and staying in hotels, living out of a suitcase. Not as much fun as it sounds.

The bonus with this new job is that I get a company car (currently a Saab 93), a phone (benefit or not, I’m not so sure) and healthcare, pension and share schemes. The disadvantage is that it is in Bracknell near Reading, which is at least an hour and a half drive away. But since we had already decided to move house, it just means we needed to focus on looking in the area around the new job.

On the subject of the house we but it up for sale and had one viewing in the following week. She subsequently put an offer in and we accepted, so we have sold (subject to contract) and have been spending several weekends driving around various parts of the country looking at houses. It would seem that you don’t get an awful lot for your money these days! We wanted a 2+ bed semi or end of terrace house with a good-sized garden (for the vegetable plot) and not too away far from the countryside. It would seem that we’d need to make some compromises along the way. We found a mid-terraced (middle one of three) house that is no bigger than the one we are leaving, but the garden is much bigger (it is about 200ft long), and it backs onto forestry commission land that stretches for miles. The gate at the bottom of the garden opens out onto a lane that is called the Devils Highway and is a former Roman road that leads off into the middle of the forest.

We have also been getting together with friends and family on a regular basis and, since the weather has been quite good, some of the time has been outdoors. We are in a drought-ban at the moment, which means there are strict water restrictions and we have to be aware of conservation methods. We have to water our vegetables with a watering can rather than a hosepipe or sprinkler, not easy with the size of allotment we have. Good news is that we are starting to eat some of our homegrown bounty and are picking salad, asparagus, rhubarb and now strawberries like they are going out of fashion (Sue has had to make several fruit puddings and jars of jam and chutney with the excess). Good news is that Wimbledon brought the rain with it as usual.

We met up with a couple of our Kiwi friends while they were over in dear old Blighty for holidays and hopefully we will meet others that are due to be up this way later on in the year.

We spent a long weekend in and about Suffolk as groupies to the Aldbury Morris Men as they danced their way from one picturesque village to another (pub to pub). Audiences were good and enjoy the more furious stick dances. The sight of these older men (who should know better) splintering shards out of sturdy lumps of wood is quite a sight. Luckily the ancient and protected art of dancing-with-hankies seems to be exempted from the usual Health and Safety regulations and they don’t need to wear goggles as the wood fragments fly through the air. One of the local hotels that we stayed in was happy for them to take over part of the bar of an evening so that they could play songs and sing into the night for as long as the beer flowed. Sue is trying to convince me that I am not too young to join their merry men, but I am not so sure.

Sue travelled up to Manchester while I was there and we went across to Hull to see Jamie and to help him move into his new digs. Most of the heavy stuff had already been moved by Jamie and a friend of his who has access to a van. Quite cleverly he arrange to stay at the new place to organise the furniture (plug in his computer), while Sue and I stayed at the old place and cleaned it (a serious job). We stayed over in a spare room and he took us out to his local with a couple of friends. After we had bought the shopping and routed an aerial connection up to his room, we left and returned home (the leaving doesn’t get any easier).

Home again…

Well, we have been back in the UK for almost one month now and to some extent it is as if we were never away. A round of dinners and parties has welcomed us back and everybody seems well and happy.

We were out in the allotment straight away and were surprised how little work was needed to get it back into order. Seeds are now planted and germinating and we are even enjoying some crops that have over wintered.

One thing that was immediately obvious when we returned was how busy and noisy it is outside our house. After having the peace and quiet in New Zealand it came as a shock to us. So we have decided to move. Our house is on the market with a local estate agent and we have been browsing the internet for possible places to move to.

We want to find a place that gives us an opportunity to enjoy the good life without forcing us to spend the next twenty years paying for it. For the same price as our small two bedroom terrace cottage in the suburbs, we can buy a three bedroom detached house in a rural location with enough land to grow our veggies on. The only thing we need to decide is what rural location to choose. We still want to be accessible to London and our family and friends so we would only be an hour or two away and preferably near a main line station. If we are canny we might be able to get all of this and not have a mortgage to worry about, thus freeing up more time for us to try and capture some of the quality of life we are striving for.

Although my first attempt at a novel was rejected by everyone I sent it to I am trying to be optimistic. I have some new ideas for it and I will make some changes, hopefully improving it, before trying some UK publishers. I also have ideas for several other stories that just require me getting some ‘brain space’ to start on them. Sue and her mother have bought me some more paints and canvasses so that I can also continue with my painting.

We are looking for jobs in the meantime too, as we still need to pay the bills, so Sue has started back at her old job on a part time basis, and I have been knocking on doors of companies in my old industry. I think I will have a few options open to me in the next week or too including my old job. Some of the opportunities are further a field, in Bath, Northampton and Middlesex, and if any of these come to fruition they may dictate which county we end up moving to.

As one summer ends, another begins…

We are counting down the days until we migrate north again. The clocks have gone back in NZ and forward in the UK and the seasons are changing. We have had a great time down under, but we are keen now to return to our own home and catch up with other friends and family that we left behind six months ago. We have learnt a lot from our experience of dropping out for half a year. If we were to do it again we would definitely do some things differently. There are many aspects of the trip we are keen to continue with. I hope to carry on writing and painting, and get back to doing more drawing too. We want to be able to have more of a say in how we work (working smarter – not harder). Time needs to be made for ourselves and others, it is more satisfying to do things you want with those you want to, than not. So if anyone has a job I can do part-time, from home or near to it then let me know.

So it is ‘see you later’ to those we leave behind and ‘hello again’ to those we will see very soon.

More of wot I have read...

This is an interesting concept for a book. The author revisited the tradition of serialisation of books in newspapers with the backing of The Scotsman. The only downside is that the book seems to lack a storng narative or plotline; probably a side affect of writing the book in short snipets for readers who may not get to read every issue.

44 Scotland Street - by Alexander McCall-Smith

‘When twenty-year-old Pat rents a room from handsome and cocky Bruce, she inherits some delightfully colourful neighbours: Domenica, an insightful and eccentric widow; Bertie, a five-year-old who's mastered both saxophone and Italian; and Irene, his overbearing mother. Pat's new job at a gallery seems easy enough. Her boss spends most of his time drinking coffee in a local café and discussing matters great and small, and Pat's duties are light.

That is until she realizes that one of their paintings may be an undiscovered work of a renowned Scottish artist and she discovers that one of their customers may be in on the secret. Add to this a fancy ball, love triangles and an encounter with a famous crime writer, and you have Alexander McCall Smith's entertaining and witty portrait of Edinburgh society.’

And the rain fell...

We took a few days off to visit the Coromandel Peninsular in the Kombi van. We drove to Thames on the first day and stopped for a tour of one of the gold mines that made this town in the 19th century. A guy who looked almost as ancient as the equipment he was talking about gave us a tour. He demonstrated the noisy stamp battery that crushed the ore, talked about the refining process using mercury and then he took us for a short walk through the mine. We had lunch on the Thames coast before wandering around the small town. We stopped the night at a nearby campsite that included a butterfly park (we gave the butterflies a miss, opting for a cold drink in the evening sunshine).

We heard that the weather was predicted to become wet as a low pressure system swept the north of the island so we decided to reorganise our plans to make sure that we fitted in a visit to our favourite tourist site in the region. In the morning we rang the booking line for the Driving Creek Railway and booked a couple of tickets for the morning train. We then drove up the slow coast road, made slower by road works, arriving just as the train driver rang his bell. New Zealand potter Barry Brickell set up the site and to get the raw materials he needed for his work out of the hills he built the original train. Now 30 odd years later the train ride is a booming tourist attraction and the site is constantly being improved with more things to do and see. The valuable work that was been done to retain and expand the native planting has been secured for future generations as Barry Brickell has arranged for the site to be gifted into trust for the community when he dies. Afterwards we had a walk through the small town of Coromandel before buying some local smoked fish and having lunch besides the sea again.

As promised the weather closed in and rain prevented us from visiting some of the gardens we had hoped to see in the area, so we drove on over the hills towards the east coast. The whole region is sparsely populated and has some dramatic scenery from mountain to coast. We eventually pitched up at Mercury Bay’s main town of Whitianga where we managed to get set up before the heavens opened up. We spent much of the evening in the TV room with other tourists who were sheltering with their dinner and bottles of wine.

In the morning the report was still for unsettled weather, so we broke camp and headed further south, this time to another gold mine, this time at Waihi. The Martha mine is opencast rather than underground and is impressive for the big hole in the middle of the town. We saw an interesting video at the mine information centre that explained the process and how the mine was soon to close and would become a large lake. We had a walk around a nearby art gallery full of interesting pictures, sculptures and the like before we decided to carry on with our journey. The heavens opened again and drove us to seek shelter off the road, where we ate our lunch from the shelter of the van next to a river as the rain pounded down. When it let up we continued through Karangahake gorge and turned north head towards Thames again. We passed through farmland as we entered the Hauraki Plains, stopping briefly at a cheese farm shop to sample their wares. We continued on towards the Miranda Holiday Park that was adjacent to the hot pools. It is situated out in the middle of nowhere but it was one of the nicest appointed sites that we had visited, and it did have its own private 38-degree thermal hot pool.

The next day we travelled home up the other coast of the Firth of Thames, opposite the Coromandel and the weather improved as we drove becoming sunny and warm as we arrived home again.

More of wot I have read...

I absolutely devoured this book, a present for my birthday recently. The author’s style was interesting and the use of long and seemingly irrelevant footnotes gave the whole book a feeling that it was more of a historical documentary than a work of fiction. A very engaging story, nicely written…

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - by Susanna Clarke

‘Two magicians shall appear in England. The first shall fear me; the second shall long to behold me…

Centuries ago, when magic still existed in England, the greatest magician of them all was the Raven King. A human child brought up by fairies, the Raven King blended fairy wisdom and human reason to create English magic. Now, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, he is barely more than a legend, and England, with its mad King and its dashing poets, no longer believes in practical magic.

Then the reclusive Mr Norrell of Hurtfew Abbey appears and causes the statues of York Cathedral to speak and move. News spreads of the return of magic to England and, persuaded that he must help the government in the war against Napoleon, Mr Norrell goes to London. There he meets a brilliant young magician and takes him as a pupil. Jonathan Strange is charming, rich and arrogant. Together, they dazzle the country with their feats.

But the partnership soon turns to rivalry. Mr Norrell has never conquered his lifelong habits of secrecy, while Strange will always be attracted to the wildest, most perilous magic. He becomes fascinated by the shadowy figure of the Raven King, and his heedless pursuit of long-forgotten magic threatens, not only his partnership with Norrell, but everything that he holds dear.’

***

A very different book is a new one from Stephen King. I had not read any of his before, although I have seen a few of his films, and I didn’t know what to expect. The idea behind the story is interesting and I suspect it is the main motivation for the writing of the book. I was not so keen on the writing style hear which is obviously action pact and visual as horror stories often are. It was also difficult to become emotionally involved in the characters and the situation and the hugely earth shattering implications of the event were difficult to accept. Nevertheless it will give you something to talk about, even if it is not on your cell phone…

Cell - by Stephen King

‘There’s a reason cell rhymes with hell

On October 1, God is in His heaven, the stock market stands at 10,140, most of the planes are on time, and Clayton Riddell, an artist from Maine, is almost bouncing up Boylston Street in Boston. He’s just landed a comic book deal that might finally enable him to support his family by making art instead of teaching it. He’s already picked up a small (but inexpensive!) gift for his long-suffering wife, and he knows just what he’ll get for his boy Johnny. Why not a little treat for himself? Clay’s feeling good about the future.

That changes in a hurry. The cause of the devastation is a phenomenon that will come to be known as The Pulse, and the delivery method is a cell phone. Everyone’s cell phone. Clay and the few desperate survivors who join him suddenly find themselves in the pitch-black night of civilization’s darkest age, surrounded by chaos, carnage, and a human horde that has been reduced to its basest nature…and then begins to evolve.There’s really no escaping this nightmare. But for Clay, an arrow points home to Maine, and as he and his fellow refugees make their harrowing journey north they begin to see crude signs confirming their direction: KASHWAK=NO-FO. A promise, perhaps. Or a threat…’

In the kitchen...

Everyone here at Fylde Fields has been working very hard on new products for the shop and markets. Sue especially has been cooking up a storm creating new chutneys, relishes, jams and sauces out of the various crops we have been harvesting.

Since all of the olive oil has sold out and the new crop is not due to be harvested for a couple of months more, my folks have wanted other products to sell at the markets and from the shop.

We have a large range now of familiar and more unusual combinations, all of which we have sampled and enjoyed. The produce is mostly grown in our own garden our sourced locally wherever possible. I personally like the Tomato & Passionfruit Jam, Cucumber & Mint Chutney, Ploughman’s Chutney, and the Diavolo Hot & Spicy Plum Sauce.

Yum yum…

More of wot I have read...

I have read a couple more of the Diskworld series of books that I am so fond of. These are written much as the all of the others and there are many ‘in jokes’ for the faithful, without distracting from the stand-alone nature of the books. More of the same and just as good as all of them…

Going Postal – by Terry Pratchett

‘Moist von Lipwig is a con artist… …and a fraud and a man faced with a life choice: be hanged, or put Ankh-Morpork’s ailing postal service back on its feet.

It’s a tough decision.

But he’s got to see that the mail gets through, come rain, hail, sleet, dogs, the Post Office Worker’s Friendly and Benevolent Society, the evil chairman of the Grand Trunk Semaphore Company, and a midnight killer.

Getting a date with Adora Bell Dearheart would be nice, too.’


THUD! – by Terry Pratchett

‘It's a game of Trolls and Dwarfs where the player must take both sides to win...
It's the noise a troll club makes when crushing in a dwarf skull, or when a dwarfish axe cleaves a trollish cranium...
It's the unsettling sound of history about to repeat itself ... THUD!’

***

I have been reading many books on history for background research into the Fencible soldiers of New Zealand. All very interesting stuff, but a bit dry at times. Sue got me the next book out from library on a whim, and I found it very entertaining both from a story point of view and from its construction. Very well worth seeking out…

The London Pigeon Wars – by Patrick Neate

‘Gunnersbury claims that the hostilities were commenced at the battle of Trafalgar. But the verity is that Trafalgar was just a skirmish, a starling-tempered flare-up of pointed beaks and posturing. Really, for everybirdy, the war began with its utterance, and that was later, after the murder of Brixton 23 above the Acre Lane Sainsbury’s.

The London pigeons are at war. They’re not sure what they’re fighting about. It could be politics or personality or territory or religion or maybe the ‘unilluminable nik’ called Murray?

Down on the ground, a gang of twentysomethings are facing up to the disappointments of adulthood: while their peers seem ‘so good at London’. These guys… umm… aren’t. The hatmaker can barely sell a hatpin, the IT whiz-kid’s gone bust, and the TV micro-celeb’s continually being stopped in the streets – mistaken for someone else. But then Murray comes into their midst. And he’s different…’

***

I have read this biography for more research and was taken with the sad, desperate story of this little known New Zealand heroine.

Jean Batten the Garbo of the skies – by Ian Mackersey

‘Jean Batten was on of the great aviation megastars of the 1930s. Her spectacular flights ranked with those of Britain’s Amy Johnson and America’s Amelia Earhart. Yet, despite her brilliance as a pilot, she remained the least well known of them all. For the dentist’s daughter from New Zealand built an impregnable wall around her private life – which was dominated, though few ever knew it, by the formidable influence of her mother.

Drawing on secret memoirs found after Jean Batten’s death and on hundreds of interviews with people who knew her, this biography of Jean’s sad and elusive life explodes the enduring myths of happiness and perfection that she created for herself. It also finally solves the mystery of her bizarre and lonely end. The real Jean Batten emerges as a fascinating woman, who combined bravery and ruthlessness with the stunning and seductive beauty she used so effectively to fulfil her great ambitions.’

Island life...

I had never been to Waiheke Island before and so after Sue had been earlier on in the year we decided to take a short break out their with my folks. The island is only an hour away from Auckland if you take the slow, and cheaper, vehicle ferry from Half-moon Bay or 35 minutes from Downtown on the passenger ferry. We took Dubbin, our 1974 VW Kombi with us so that we could tour the island in style. We rented a friends holiday home at Onetangi and we were settled in by midday and down by the beach enjoying lunch and a drink in the sunshine watching the waves gently roll in.

We toured the entire island seeing the Stony Batter rock outcrops and old WWII gun emplacements, visiting Olive Groves and Wineries to sample their wares. We took lunches with is in our van and stopped a many of the glorious and tranquil bays to eat them as we watched the scenery and wildlife. We went and a couple of walks through the bush and Sue and I were delighted to see some of the rarer bird life such as the Morepork owl, the huge Wood Pigeons, Tui songbirds and the charming little Fan-Tails that followed us through the woods chatting to us all the way. We saw some of the art that the island is well known for, attracting as it does a variety of colourful ‘artists’. Dubbin was quite a hit as we pottered around the island.

We had a nice break in the sunshine, eating a drinking too much again. Sue will miss the daily swims in the clear blue water.

Taking to the rails...

For my birthday treat this year Sue and I went on a train journey through New Zealand on the Tranz Scenic Rail network. They have three tourist routes through the North and South Islands, each different and spectacular in its own way.

The Overlander took us from near Auckland down the North Island to Wellington and takes in the Raurimu Spiral as it climbs up onto the volcanic plateau through the National Park and past the volcanic cones of Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro. The scenery changes again as it crosses the Rangitikei River with its deep sided gorges and towering bridges. Later the tracks run beside the coast providing views of Kapiti Island and glimpses of the South Island in the distance before it runs through a long tunnel and into Wellington. Don’t expect the trains to run on schedule. We were delayed for a couple of hours with various problems including a tree on the line.

Wellington is one of our favourite New Zealand cities and although our stay was short we were not disappointed this time either. We stayed in the Shepard’s Arms Hotel on the pretty Tinakori Road not far from the Botanical Gardens. The hotel was reasonable and had all we needed (accept a plug for the bath) and looked quaint, based as it was on the original hotel of the same name that was established in 1870. The next morning we strolled down to the Parliament Buildings and took the very interesting free tour around them before having a quick look at the delightful Old St Paul’s (a weeding practice stopped us from spending more time here). We wandered around the waterfront and had lunch at a rustic food hall at the Wellington Market. We spent a good few hours in the Te Papa museum particularly enjoying the Golden Days, Passports and New Zealand in Bloom exhibitions.

We took the ferry across to the South Island and joined the TranzCoastal train at Picton bound for Christchurch. As the name suggests this route took us mainly down the east coast of the South Island after cutting through the wine-growing region of Marlborough. All of the trains have an exposed viewing area to allow a better opportunity to take photos without the interference of the glass windows in the other carriages. Running so close to the sea was a breezy experience and we had to come back inside for a break and to clean the salt rind off our glasses.

We arrived at Christchurch later in the day and walked to our Best Western Motel in Riccarton, near Hagley Park. We had been given vouchers for this chain of motels and we were very impressed with the facilities and service that we received at the Annabelle Court on Riccarton Road. We had a few of days here in the Garden City, although one of those would be taken up with our TranzAlpine excursion. We explored the beautiful Botanical Gardens as we walked through towards the centre of town. Worcester Boulevard with the tram, entertainers and Arts Centre Weekend Market were lovely, and throughout the small city everything looked enticing. The Cathedral Square with its market, the Avon River and the punts. We ate in New Regent Street looking at the faded glamour of the terraced buildings and pastel colours. We took a bus out to the Mona Vale Gardens, which were nice (though we were put off by constantly stumbling over various wedding parties). I had been given tickets to see a gig that night as a birthday present, so before the event we returned to New Regent Street and ate a fantastic evening meal at the Six Chairs Missing restaurant. The tickets were to see Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy at the Creation club at 8pm. We arrived a little early, but the doors didn’t open until around 9pm and then we had more than an hour until after the support act finished until the main act came on. Needless to say, after a long day walking around the town, we were starting to flag. As we had an early start the next day we left the club before the gig finished. Christchurch at night is a very different place full of drunken yobs, not attractive at all.

We took the day return excursion on the TranzAlpine from Christchurch on the east coast to Greymouth on the west, and back again. On the way the train runs across the wide-open Canterbury Plains before winding its way through the Southern Alps up to Arthur’s Pass over more dramatic river gorges in the shadow of the tallest mountains in the country. Through the 8-kilometre tunnel from the dry and arid plains to the wet rainforest of the west coast, the train journeyed down to Greymouth. After a short break we returned again to Christchurch. All of the way on each train we had most entertaining and informative commentary from the crew pointing out places of interest as we passed them by. Out of all of the trains the TranzApline is the biggest and most popular by far, next was the TranzCoastal and lastly the long Overlander journey.

We returned the way we came with an evening in Wellington where we walked through the Botanical Gardens and took the Cable Car down into town where we ate on the fashionable heart of town.

The journey was very interest and we saw some amazing scenery that you wouldn’t see by flying or driving, even so we were glad to step off the train at the end of it. We still think Wellington is our favourite city, but Christchurch is not too far behind.

Writer's cramp...

Although the Blog has not been updated as frequently as it used to be I have still been writing. I have actually finnished my first novel to a stage where I have been happy to send it off to several publishers for their comments. So fingers crossed.

The Far North...

Our first ‘holiday’ away in NZ was to northland for a few days. We travelled up in our camper van, Dubbin, and stayed in Kamo (the campsites are virtually empty in spring and so we had no trouble with space or facilities).

The next day we travelled up to the Bay of Islands where we stopped at Paihia and took the ferry across to Russel, the first capital of New Zealand. Here we had a look around the lovely small town and stopped for lunch looking out across the bay. When we returned we travelled the short distance north to Waitangi, the site of the Treaty between the native Maori people and the English government.

The weather started to become more unsettled as we travelled on to Keri-Keri, where some of the country’s oldest standing buildings are to be found. The Stone Store and Kemp House are part of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, which allows free access to National Trust members from the UK (as long as you remember to take your card).

We continued on up the coast until we teach Kaitia where we contacted Nick and got directions to their place. Nick is an old friend from when I went to school here in NZ, and he lives in an old converted country farmhouse with Carol and their eight children, the youngest having been born only a few months earlier.

We spent the weekend here and joined in with the family activities around the home, walked up into the hills and bush, played football, and fished for eels in the river. They have a wonderful family atmosphere and everyone pulls together sharing chores and responsibilities. Carol is a superb home keeper and teacher and Nick can make just about anything with his hands. We had a lovely time and we arranged to visit them again as soon as we could.

After leaving our friends we travelled down to the beautiful Hokianga harbour where we paused to admire the stunning scenery. From there we entered the primeval Waipoua forest to camp the night at the DOC site. The next day we walked to visit some of the magnificent Kauri trees before continuing on our way.

Our last stop was at a coastal campsite at the Mangawhai Heads where there a large spectacular surf beaches.

We had a great break, even if it was too short.

Kombi heaven...

We have been enjoying the ups and downs of owning a 30-year-old vehicle.

I have always fancied a Volkswagen Kombi, and we had one in the UK for a while. So when I was looking for a car to purchase for the time we were over in NZ, I was drawn to a 1974 white Kombi that was on an Internet auction site. We were still in the UK at the time but my folks managed to contact the vendor and checked it out for us. It looked pretty good for an old vehicle and several days later we were the proud owners of Dubbin.

The first time we saw Dubbin ‘in the flesh’ was when we were picked up in her as we arrived in the country.

It has its quirks and is not perfect, but we can live with the idiosyncrasies for the fun a pleasure driving around in it gives us. It costs way more than we needed to spend for an ‘ordinary’ car and we have spent even more to keep it going, but as long as there are no major problems it should retain its value.

My brother and father are both good with their hands and both have experience with cars. Dad built my first car, a kitset Lotus Super Seven replica. So they have proved invaluable in the general maintenance of the old girl.

We took her away for our first holiday recently and we found the whole experience very enjoyable. We are looking forward to more trips in the future.

Keeping busy...

We have been keeping ourselves busy while we are in New Zealand with a few projects.

Around Mark’s Mum and Dad’s place we spent a good few weeks when we first arrived tidying the land in preparation for a local community Garden Ramble. This entailed extensive weeding until Sue lost the sensation in her fingers, weed eating using a serious metal-bladed, petrol-driven cutter. Mowing everywhere using both of the ride-on mowers, and planting out seedlings. The weekend event went off well and plenty of people came around to see the gardens and the selection of classic minis that Gary had organised to be on display.

We were also busy preparing and planting the vegetable garden. Digging over the earth by hand (Mark broke the rotary-hoe in the first 5 minutes). Sowing seeds in the ground or in seed trays, and planting out seedlings as soon as they were ready. Much of the land is given over to those plants that could be used to make produce in Mum and Dad’s preparation shed to sell at market. We have planted loads of tomatoes, plum varieties for sun drying and beefsteak varieties for sauces. We have planted lots of cucumbers, a small variety that can be used for pickled gherkins. We also have a large number of chillies, courgettes, beetroot and basil along with variety of other vegetables for day-to-day eating. We are now starting to reap our rewards with bowls of courgettes and cucumbers and plums ready to be turned into preserves, pickles and chutneys.

Mark has been working away on his children’s novel and has now completed the first draft. At 39,000 words and approximately 200 pages, it will need more work. But for now family and friends are reviewing it before we send it off to publishers for their comments. At the moment is going by the title of Specific Gravity.

The two tea-chest boxes we sent on ahead finally turned up, but not before we had to pay extra money we had not accounted for them to clear customs. It was a very frustrating time and we would not recommend sending unaccompanied baggage to NZ without thoroughly checking out if there are no other alternatives.

In the boxes were some of Mark’s painting equipment and so he has finally started on a couple of pieces. A small area in the garage acts as the temporary studio.

We are still trying to get our glass-working project off the ground. We borrowed an old kiln from a family friend and have had it installed, but the controller seems not to be working. We have also discovered that raw materials are hard to get hold of and are expensive. We are going to see if we can use recycled glass, as there is always a ready supply of that at our place.

The migration south…

I have finaly got around to putting a few words together about what we have been upto over the last few months.

To start with with travelled half way around the world, stopping breifly in Malysia. After our previous visit here we were so emamoured with the place we decided to have a longer visit (I didn’t hurt that Malaysia Airlines had the cheapest flights – though thay have lost our reward points for the last visit).

We booked everything over the Internet this time and were a bit nervous about how successful we might have been, but we needn’t have been as everything turned out fine.

We stopped in Kuala Lumpur at the Le Meridien. Picked for its location at the Sentral Station (We stayed in the neighbouring Hilton last time – prices in Malaysia are so cheap). The best way to transfer from the airport To KL is via the supurb KLIA Express train. (When you leave, the station also allows you to check-in before you even get to the airport)

The next day we took the Malaysia rail from KL to Singapore. It takes longer than be road, and even in First Class it lacks some sophistication, but it nevertheless is very cheap and offers a different view of the countryside.

In Singapore we styed in the heart of Chinatown at the sweet boutique Hotel 1929. The rooms were small but perfectly formed and the décor was delightful. We had two days in Singapore and enjoyed it immensely. We took a trip down the river on a ‘bum-boat’, had a drink at Raffles, walked all over Chinatown and the historic centre and had a lovely walk around the botanical gardens.

We took another train from Singapore back to KL where we changed to an overnight train to Butterworth where we took the ferry across to Penang Island and to our favourite hotel of the trip. The Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion (The Blue Mansion) This place is a stunning historical treasure. From here we explored the small city of Georgetown, took the funicular railway to Penang Hill, had tea at the Eastern & Orient Hotel and walked around the botanical gardens here too.

We took the overnight train back to KL where we took the bus (this was the only part of our journey we couldn’t pre-book, and we had to go by bus as the train didn’t run there) to Malaka (The busses are great and even cheaper than the train - everybody uses them). We stayed here at the lovely Hotel Puri and we walked around the delightfully quaint and hippy town.

This was our last night on our all too short trip to Malaysia and Singapore and the next day we flew on to a happy reunion with my family in New Zealand.

Malaysia is a beautiful country, and the people are lovely too. Since it was once a British protectorate it is easy for us Brits to navigate our way around (they drive on the left, most of the signs are in English, and nearly everybody speaks English too). It is a very cheap country, which at times just brings home the crushing poverty that some of the people are subject to here.

Ready for take off…

We are now eager to be on our way now. All this build up and anticipation is getting too much. It is bit like when as kids you see the first signs of Christmas during October.

We have been catching up with as many people as we can before we go and have had some lovely evenings with friends and family with more yet to come.

Sue spent a lovely weekend with the girls shopping, eating, drinking and generally cavorting around.

I, in turn, spent the weekend with a couple of buddies playing RPGs and getting set up for playing our games via the internet. We tried a couple of VOIP systems and found that, while Google Talk was easy to use it only seemed to allow you to talk to one person at a time. We also tried the Gizmo Project, which although it was a little more complicated it did seem to allow party line conversations quite successfully. We now have to see if it will work as well from one side of the world to the other.

This is our last week at work now, so we are focusing on the important things, such as our leaving ‘do’s.

We are planning to have most things organised at home by the weekend. This will mean that from then on until we settle in down under in mid October, that we will be without our computer and possibly incommunicado.

After the weekend we have almost a week to pack and sort those last minute details out before we fly on Friday the 7th Oct. We have a few days in Malaysia and Singapore before we land in New Zealand on the following weekend.

For all of you we leave behind, farewell and we will be back before you know it. For all of you we are about to meet, put the white wine in the fridge and have the glasses ready…

More of wot I have read…

Recently I have read a couple of books by Ken Follett, the Hornet Flight and the Night Over Water. These books were given to us and had been lingering on the shelves for a while, so I thought I’d give them a go.

Both books are set in the time of the Second World War and involve a boys-own style adventure that includes airplanes.


Hornet Flight by Ken Follett

This is an interesting story for the setting and background as I was not aware of the situation that Denmark and its citizens found itself in during the war.

It is June 1941, and the low point of the war. England throws wave after wave of bombers across the Channel, but somehow the Lufwaffe is able to shoot them down at will. The skies – indeed the war itself – seem to belong to Hitler.

But on a small Danish island across the North Sea, Harald Olufsen, a bright eighteen-year-old with a talent for engineering, stumbles across a secret German installation. Its machinery is like nothing he has ever seen before and he knows he must tell someone – if he can only figure out who.

With England preparing its largest aerial assault ever, what Harald has discovered may turn the course of the war – but the race to convey the information could have terrible consequences for everyone close to him.

For his older brother Arne, a pilot in the grounded Danish Air Force and already under suspicion of the authorities. For Arne’s fiancee, Hermia, an MI6 intelligence analyst desperate to resurrect the foundering Danish resistance. And most of all for Harald himself – because as the hour of the assault approaches, it will all fall to him and his friend Karen to get the word to England.

And the only means available to them is a derelict Hornet Moth biplane abandoned in a ruined church, a plane so decrepit that it is unlikely ever to get off the ground.

Pursued by the enemy; hunted by collaborators; with almost no training, limited fuel, and no way of knowing if they will survive the six-hundred mile flight, the two will carry with them England's best — perhaps only — hope of avoiding disaster.


Night Over Water by Ken Follett

I found the most interesting character in this story to by the flying boat. I would have loved to have flown in one of them.


In 1939, with war just declared, a group of privileged people board the most luxurious airliner ever – the Pan American Clipper, bound for New York: an English aristocrat, a German scientist, a murderer under escort, a young wife escaping her husband and a charming, unscrupulous thief. For thirty hours, there is no escape from the flying palace. Over the Atlantic, tension mounts and finally explodes in a dramatic and dangerous climax.

The end of one summer…

All signs are that the UK is in transition from summer to autumn. The nights are drawing in, the temperatures are cooling down and it is picking time in the kitchen garden.

Several other signs confirm this change too; England beats Australia at cricket in the Ashes series, and Harvest Festivals are happening in villages throughout the countryside.

We have been very busy on our run up to our departure. The allotment has an abundance of produce which we are gorging on, clearing areas in preparation for the fallow winter time. We have been packing items for storage, selling unwanted items at a local boot-sale, and delivering unsold items to charity shops. Before we leave we are trying to meet up with as many friends and family as possible that necessitates much eating and drinking – it’s a chore, but someone has to do it.

We noticed a strange apparition whilst driving through the local village of Carshalton. Many brightly coloured and strangely clothed individuals were playing music and cavorting around a whirling haystack outside a local hostelry. Intrigued we returned to investigate and found that it was a harvest celebration called Straw Jack. This was the events second year (and so it was now a tradition) where a group of musicians (largely very enthusiastic drummers) and dancers escorted Straw Jack around all of the local pubs from 11am until 7pm where up Straw Jack was put to the torch. It was a very entertaining spectacle that I hope is continued for many years to come.

More of wot I have read...

Balance of Power by Richard North Patterson

This is a ‘big’ book in both size and in the subject matter it tries to cover. It is obvious when reading this book that the author knows his subject very well and that he has done some very detailed research to ensure that the book is both accurate and detailed. Unfortunately, unless you are an avid political geek, all that detail might just get in the way and slow down any building tension. It is another one of those books that appears to be more about the message than the story. The author does develop interesting and believable characters and writes very good dialogue and character interaction. It is worth the effort if you can dedicate time to wade through the convoluted Machiavellian machinations to the pay-off.


“An epic story that moves with force, passion, and authority, Balance of Power begins when President Kerry Kilcannon and television journalist Lara Costello at last decide to marry. But the momentous occasion is followed by an unspeakable tragedy—a massacre of innocents by gunfire—that ignites a high-stakes game of politics and legal maneuvering in the Senate, the courtroom, and across the country, which the charismatic but untested young President is determined to win at any cost. But in the incendiary clash over gun violence and gun rights, the cost to both Kilcannons may be even higher than he imagined.“

Countdown…

We are counting down the days now until we migrate south for the winter and set up nest in New Zealand for their summer. Everything is pretty much organised now except for the packing up and the last one or two small details.

We are excited and nervous in equal measures, but everyone is very supportive and keeps telling us that we are doing the right thing, which I’m sure we are.