We've Landed and Arrived.

 

We took a third of the time that our container by ship is taking, to get from Coventry to Blue Rock Road, and after several landings in Hong Kong, Auckland and Wellington, we have finally landed in Blue Rock Road.  It took 18 days.

It feels like it's taken a while.  Whilst we were in isolation we were given a bath bomb to celebrate International Bathtub Day, but Google tells me that the day is on October 7.  Maybe we arrived here in October and were there for 2 months and not 2 weeks.

I’m still not sure if soon I will wake up from a dream, or maybe I have woken up from a nightmare to be in reality.  However, being out here is almost like being in isolation all over again, except instead of being kept in doors for 23 hrs and 20 minutes, I'm allowed out for 23 hrs and 20 minutes.

Christmas day came, and I hope you all had as good a day as can be expected in the circumstances.  Oh, I’m sorry it is all so stressful.  We were invited to join our wonderful friends at 453 Blue Rock Rd a kilometre away without a house between us, for the day.  As I know you all wanted, there is little better than spending time with good people, chatting, taking the pee, having learned and astute conversations, drinking a glass of local wine and eating good kai.  I'm very sad and sorry for you that maybe you were unable to do the same.

People were threatening to pick me up and put my head in the bucket and start mopping the floor with my 6 month hair coiffured hair style. New Zealand have been good and taken in refugees, and as in England it now has a lot of very good hairdressers. A new start meant a new start, so I went to Mohammed, a wonderful Syrian with a sad story. How lucky am I that if I want to move country, I can chose to and then hop on a Cathay Pacific plane. Some dodge bombs, travel on foot by night, sit in over crowded dinghies with a carrier bag with their possessions, leaving their family behind. Mohammed has already started his hair cutting business, I was happy to help him tidy my mop up.

You know what?  I feel daunted.  Five months ago it was all such a great idea, a dream, an adventure.  I have now woken up to reality.  We have to hope for sun, which at this time of the year is not a big ask.  We're not sure whether there will be enough sun in the winter to keep us in light during the longer days.  To keep the place warm and the water hot we'll almost certainly be lighting our 2 fires.  That will require a daily walk into the woods to collect wood and fir cones.  

We'll need to keep a regular eye on the gas cylinders to ensure they don't run out during the possible snow which could easily close the road and ruin by latest cake.  I’m not great with cold tea.

Next up will be to decide how we keep the grass at less than a giraffe height.  Shall we get our own animals, maybe goats, maybe sheep or just ask the local farmer if he wants to put some sheep on our land.

It's madness not to get chickens, but like us, they'll need a house to live in and a run to run around in.  It'd be lovely to have them roaming totally free but we don't want them scratting up all the recently planted vegetables which we have yet to plant.

Where do we start?  We were pleased when our great friends down the road reassured us that it doesn't all have to be done in the first week; they've been in their patch of peace for 14 years and reassuringly they say that they haven't yet finished.

We haven't had any dimming of the lights in the evening yet but I am concerned about what will happen come the winter and we have need for more lights and heat.  I wonder if the batteries will last long enough after having been charged by less sunlight.  For more electricity so Ali can continue with her avid reading in the winter I am now thinking of a windmill, the hydro idea is running dry.

After 3 nights of cool to cold showers I think we have worked out the hot water and solar hot water system.  It seems that on days in which we have seen the sun for only half the time and the tank temperature falls below 49 degrees it is best to light the fire.

I feel as if I've learnt more in the last 6 days than I have in the last 60 years.  Maybe that's why I'm feeling a bit weary today.  Now I have a better understanding of that cliche 'steep learning curve'.

The house doesn't have a post box,  so our mail has been delivered to our friends down the road.  The requirements for a rural roadside post box are stringent.  Between 900 and 1200 mm from the ground on the south side of the road and in a place postie doesn't have to get of his van.  It took about an hour to dig a hole which very nearly reached Ajaccio in Corsica.  Look at that post. I will walk the 200 metres there and back each day to check on deliveries.

I wake up before Ali and take a pre dawn amble to look at the stars. It's a stunning starscape and I see Elon Musk fly past in his satellite.  I'm either drinking a lot more water than I did, it was too cold to get out of bed unnecessarily in Coventry or my prostate has enlarged the further south I go.  I have every intention of going back to sleep but the bloody birds are keeping me awake.  I'll have to bring forward my purchase of a shotgun (NOT).  Maybe predators are a good thing and we should be bringing our possum, rat and shhhhhhh (cat) trap in.

It becomes 6.30 tea o'clock in bed time, and whilst waiting for the water to boil I wonder who can see us from where, but anyway, even if they can, does it matter?  I can't see them. There is no one to see for miles. The novelty will soon wear off. Pj's, if we had any, are in the container going back to China at present.  I do hope the navigator sobers up soon. It is a bit disconcerting to see our stuff heading due north when it should be coming south.

I decide it's time for a treat, and put the muesli on to soak with some coconut flakes.  That wasn't a great idea. 'I don't like coconut, you know that'.  I find it delicious. Good lord woman why did you buy ......oh for effs sake, ... never mind).

Ian comes charging across the next paddock, yes, paddock, not field in NZ, on an undercover quad motorised golf buggy kinda thing, chased by 203 sheep.  He takes a look at me and says to Ali ``How did you end up with him?”.  I say I played hard to get.  But felt instantly worried; I was glad I had done my adult safeguarding mandatory training! Kiwi men seem to be pretty forthright. Should I worry?

It was a kind of rhetorical question, "Yous said yous wanted your grass down, ok?".  "Errr yes".  "I'll put these on'' On came the sheep.  He seemed delighted when I said I was now a proper local kiwi sheep farmer with "stock in my paddock and now I've got the sheep I'll get a hat like yours, then I'll know exactly what to do ''. "Errr yeah, maybe but I dunno what to do".  I am reassured.  Ian is a really nice friendly fun guy and I sense we'll get on quite well.  He's going to lend me an electric fence, tell me how to put it in and then probably disappear under a cloud of dust down the road, before I have a chance to reset my arrhythmia with a self serve cardio version.

That's the highlight of the day.  Other than that I planted another peach tree and weeded a bucket full of dandelions from the garden path.  Being in self isolation I have no idea why.  Apart from Ali and my self it is hardly going to get M25 volume of traffic.

The nearest shop is 19 kms away and fruit is nearly in short supply.  Even fruit encased in chocolate,  fermented, distilled and bottled are running low.  Next shopping day is Wednesday.  Moods will improve but it may be a double run.

We have dinner and look at the view and the sheep and bask in the glory of a productive and successful day.  The sheep appear to be enjoying their gourmet grass as much as I enjoy mine, after which I pretend to be a contented labrador, I lie on the floor, roll on my back and hope to get the kind of belly rub our friends labs always get.  It didn't happen.

70% of the house is glass and Ali decided that today was the day to give them all a clean of the months of bird splat.  She should give up her day job when it starts.  I walked out of the door, or so I thought and broke my nose!  Not really, but it adds to the story.  They are flippin clean.

To wind a busy day up I just hope there has been enough sun today to give me more than a tepid shower.  Oh, such a first world problem.

What makes a place? ..... maybe some of things I've previously described.  But I think most of us will agree it is good, good people.  Wherever you are: at work, tennis, Wigan Athletic or here, a lot is added to the good experiences by great people.   I was so lucky to work amongst the nicest team at Warwick, we had fun.  The tennis crowd were a bundle of joy to be with and the Wiganners added a lot to an afternoon away from Coventry to see another defeat.  We drank some good beer and laughed a lot and had almost passionate embraces when we scored.

So it has been an added pleasure when the most enthusiastic people in the world came to visit us yesterday.  Ken and Claire were the first 2 good people to invite us out for a meal 26 years ago when we arrived in NZ, the last people to invite me to a party 13 years ago when we left and they were the first non Blue Rock Roaders to come here, and exuded so much enthusiasm for our place that I felt we may have got it right.

Another great guy comes tomorrow for 2 nights to escape a turmoil and difficult time he is having, so it is nice to be able to offer peace, tranquility and respite care.  As they say in 'The Castle' that wonderful Australian film, "It's the tranquility I like".

Darlene and Dave live down the road and are so wonderful.  Good fun, 3 nice labradors, lotsa good chat and help.  As you can see we need all the help we can get!

Mike and Colette come tomorrow, 2 more good 'uns from 13 years ago. 

And before long another wonderful guy with his lovely wife, famed for many things as well as being goodies, making cider, generous to good causes and the owner of a Delorean car or 2!  In New Zealand!  Why not!?

It's great, but with all those people I will run out of things to say and have no time to count 'my' sheep.

When are you coming? 

You may have to come. 

Katerina, in answer to my previous post says 'speak soon'. Some chance.  We've got wobbly satellite internet which I think only really works when the satellite is above us, no satellite induced landline, maybe because the line would be too long, and no mobile phone coverage.  I'm having to get used to isolation all over again!  At 4 o’wee’clock I did see the satellite pass overhead but I couldn’t be bothered to start typing.

There is a sense of relief as well as excitement.  In a way I wonder if I feel a bit like one of the few survivors of an airplane crash.  Pleasure, but a sort of moral guilt or survivor guilt bought on all the more by the pleasures that New Zealand has to offer - howling north-westerly wind, local wine, 4 earthquakes so far, cold southerly wind from the antarctic and delicious bloody expensive fresh fruit and vegetables.

If you are interested in a different perspective Ali is describing the same thing at:

richetal.wordpress.com