not the midwinter blues, but the midwinter blackout.

 ........ I never felt more like singing the mid winter blues, June the 21st came and went.  We celebrated

the fact that from now on the days would be getting longer.  They don't have to get warmer yet, although

it would be nice, but a bit more sun is good for charging the batteries.

The party was in full swing.  Guy Mitchell was singing the first 2 1/2 line of his song, 

Well, I never felt more like singin' the blues

'Cause I never thought that I'd ever lose

Your love dear

and at precisely that moment we were plunged into pitch tar and coal black.  The usual star lit night was

switched off.  On the shortest day the batteries ran out of enough power to even give us a flicker or

charge the electric toothbrush.

But it didn’t matter.  One of the reasons we’ve decided to live off grid is to, single handedly, put the brakes

on climate change and have nothing to do with burning fossil fuels or adding to the tips of nuclear

weapons with the by-product of depleted uranium.  Oh, of course we also decided to live ‘off grid’ so

that we sound virtuous and ‘holier than thou’ when we tell people.

The party had to continue, just the two, thanks to Bill Withers, we can make it if we try, so I filled the

generator with 91 octane BP petrol, gave it a pull and hey presto, as if by magic, we had light.  It was

as if the sun had come out.  Magic.  You can’t beat a bit of petrol.

Actually the only problem was not either the lack of sun or the number of lights we had on. We don’t

iron, don’t use the dyson fan blade, don’t use an electric kettle, we don’t have a soda stream and only

have 1 piece of toast each.  Some of the problem was the inverter, so we were told.  A new inverter,

DC inverted to AC, some sun, switching things off and changing every light in the place to max 4 watt LED,

and we haven’t flickered since.  Maybe it's just because the days are getting longer.

Ali went on a ‘Prime’ 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th aid medical course for a week.  Working in rural NZ where

the nearest small hospital is 40 minutes away and trauma centre is 1.5 hrs away, it’s important she

knows how to resolve a pneumothorax on a farmer whilst he is in the wool shed delivering lambs. 

It’s important for her to be able to do a cricoidectomy after a car crash involving a drunk driver -

and yes the chances of that are high.  Drinking while driving is perfectly normal.   She spent the day

with the firemen going through her role whilst the firemen did what they do best.  I now feel very safe.

Whilst Ali was in Christchurch learning how to look after me in any event, I was at home all alone.

Ahhhhhh.  Except it wasn’t as straightforward as staying at home all alone.  Shortly after she left it

started raining, and shortly before she got back a week later it stopped.  In 3 days 230mms of rain fell. 

The saddest thing though was that an old ancient blinkin great beech tree got blown over. 

The irony being that it just missed the wood shed!  It may be tempting fate if I were to say if it had

fallen into the wood shed it would have saved us a job!  Let’s hope another doesn’t get blown over. 

What is usually a slow running river became a spate of water in which the Olympic white water

kayakers could easily have safely competed without going to Covid riven Japan and contributing

to the super-spreader games..  Stream beds which have been dry since we arrived were uncrossable

and if a dam could have been built I’d have generated enough power not to need the generator.. 

In these treacherous conditions I needed a resident Dr.

Maybe the torrents of rain were all because I accelerated climate change by firing up the generator.

Chopping up a fallen tree is a skill that I don’t have.  Our great neighbour Gary came and the first job

was to assess all the angles and weight bearing branches.  Chop the wrong one at the wrong time and

our wood shed wood is gone.  

I think the wind blew that night.

I went down to Christchurch to help Ali get through her second spell of comprehensive medical

training; the first spell took place about 40 years ago in Manchester.  The one big omission from the

Christchurch course was that there was no trauma counselling.  It was I who had to provide that. 

I found her in Christchurch in a state of exhaustion with PTSD, yes traumatised..  No one wanted to

know about my several near drowning experiences and dodging a falling beech tree.  It’s tough for the boys.

Having bounced out of Wellington airport as if on a white knuckle ride at the Blackpool roller coaster,

we decided to take the back to Wellington.  On the plane I was sat next to a guy who was a tad

alarmed when I grabbed his hand with one of mine and hugged him with my other one as  take

off resembled that roller coaster. Luckily for him it calmed down.  At least we didn’t have to put brakes

hard on and full reverse thrust as we did a year ago as we were taking off from Wellington to return to

the UK following lockdown.  Thankfully we hadn’t reached V1.

I’m sure someone designed us to stay on the land.

The train ride back from Christchurch was stunning, misty morning paddocks, snowy covered mountains,

basking seals and flooded rivers. 

Our planned 2 day stay in Picton for some relaxing and walking was cut short. 

We had to get the ferry a day early as rough weather was forecast and it was likely that our booking

would be cancelled, which it was.  We did actually get home along the normal road, we feared we

were going to have to take a 4 hour detour.

That bloody generator has a lot to answer for.  Too many carbon emissions.

Having been away for 4 days and no in-house fires the hot water was down to a bracing 23 degrees. 

Knowing that there’d never be 2.5kW in the batteries on went the Honda generator, imported from

Japan.  But what really did the trick and made our house feel less like the freezer we haven’t got

was our new big fire, with ‘wet back’ (back boiler) and oven.  Toasty!  If we want a shower in the

evening my first job of the day is to light the fire and my job for the rest of the day is collecting

wood and sawing it up.

Anyway, we keep toasty warm and use less gas with our new wood burner and oven.

Now then.  Any one who does obstetric ultrasound.  Prick up your ears and take note.  A few weeks

ago the obstetric u/s clinic took place over in the woolshed.  As ‘oh baby baby it's a wild world’ bleated

out of the speakers, silencing the generator, the mum’s to be lined up in the channel, usually patiently,

but occasionally clambering over the one in front, she clearly had a trip to Aldi planned.  Their scan took

about 35 seconds each.  Multiple lambs went one way, nothing at all went a different way presumably

to be rammed again.  As you can see the gate was ingeniously foot operated by the sonographer. 

After the scan the ewes ran out with joy into the paddock.  The NHS waiting list is unnecessary. 

2000 sheep were scanned in about 5.5 hours and everybody went home happy, including of course

Mum.  As usual Dad was either not there or not known.

The ultrasound room

In the queue

The foot pedal operates the gate one way out, one way for further ramming.

Just look at these.  Cool eh.  We went to a light spectacular in Nelson where, throughout the town

centre were creative and colourful light phenomena.  These are projected onto the trees in the

botanical gardens and if you stand in front of the light machine and wave your arms it changes

faster and slower.  Interactive they called it.  Blinkin clever, these kiwis, eh?

Light fantastic with beach combed plastic.

Home back to Welly.

The irony of Nelson, not least the vegetarian butcher, but also in the market were ‘anti-vaxxers’. 

Initially it was amusing but unlike members of the flat earth society these people really can have

an adverse effect on people's lives.  The vaccination apparently has killed many many people, it

hasn’t been tested on animals, it is full of toxins and so it goes on.  On asking what the solution

was I was told to both stay at home and get vitamin D.  Problem solved!!  Anyway I’m off for my first

fizer tomorrow so according to some I may be dead because of it 48 hours later.  This is all evidence

based.  I was shown a list of 47 Drs who are against it.  On looking up their credentials 16 have been

struck off for poor research methods.  A few are irrelevant Phd Drs with research in the epidemiology of fungus

on the big toe nail. The fact there are many millions who are for the vaccination

didn’t seem to hold any worth.  Oh yes, we are all being experimented on, as well.

I took out a 7 day free Sky Sport trial to see if I enjoyed it and so that I could watch the semi final and

final.  At the very real risk of being blocked by all of you I’ll just say I was pleased with the result.  For

me it was good that Marcus, Jaden and Bakayo missed their penalties.  It has brought to the fore a

much more important issue than a cup.  The undercurrent of racism is being highlighted and about

time to.  The hypocrisy of those who really do play gesture politics by doing speeches with a kipper,

the vile words of picaninees, watermelon lips and letter boxes are shown to be exactly what they are. 

The clown's rhetoric about banning people from football surely means he will never be going to a

football game again.  People!!  Let’s not forget ….. These 3 lads didn’t score, the white goalie let in

several penalties and a goal during the game, and for there to be a paper published saying that the

country doesn’t suffer institutional racism.  (Don’t worry, it is alive and well over here as well).  I was

pretty unimpressed with Sterling's simulated foul for the penalty v Denmark, it was an undignified win,

but he got no prejudicial rhetoric for that..  I’ve cancelled my free trial.  Even though Bill Shankly

said “football is not a matter of life and death, it is more important than that”, on this occasion I think

there is something way more important.  The message I saw on distinctly ‘anti-social’ media -

unrepeatable, has haunted me.  Just how oh how can someone have so much irrational prejudicial

hate in them?

The world is in such a bad and odd place at present and I can only imagine how difficult it is for you all,

especially with being guinea pigs being experimented on on 19 July, which according to the Nelson

anti-vaxxers is against what was agreed at the Nuremberg trials. .  I have a mixture of feelings -

relief that I am here, a definite sense of 'survivor guilt' and a sense of fear that the virus will find its

way into this country.  But for you guys it must be so so difficult.

On that note, I’ll stop before I start a rant.  I close by saying I deffo miss you and the associated things

that we shared whether it be tennis, football, the allotment, work or laughing.

BTW I stroked and alpacca today and wasn't spat at. (I woke up this morning, was bitten and spat at. I know,

I know, I should never have bought an allama clock).

I never did get to find out how the song continued after the first 2 ½ lines.

(and if you want some more pictures and a different perspective without a rant you can look at Ali's version

of the same events at; https://richetal.wordpress.com/2021/07/14/famous-last-words-on-power-winter-floods-and-out-of-my-comfort-zone-in-christchurch-lots-of-medical-stuff/

STOP PRESS.

I've had my pfizer first dose and never got a sticky plaster on my wound.