Trees. Sheep's bums and bombs.

 Do me a favour,.  It is lovely to get comments to these missives but it would be lovely if you didn't post anonymously,  I could then at least reply.  I really would like to know who the comment has come from.  It has happened twice.

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The few highlights of the last few months include one little low light which I don't really expect to affect us much.   I'm too old.  We've have lived here for 3 years in blissful serenity of the country side with open fields or paddocks as the kiwis prefer to call them.  Space and even more open space.  We walk to the top of the hill from our front door and see expansive views of snow capped mountains and little tarns with mirror like reflections.  As we walked down, Ali bent and pulled out a little pine tree seedling and cursed "bloody wildings, I'll get rid of that", as she yanked it out and tossed it over the fence.  Then we looked up and the entire hillside was intensively planted, with a pile of sacks neatly stacked for the next days planting.  The hillside is now planted with thousands of pine trees.  At present they are about 30cms tall.  By the time they are tall enough to be a nuisance and will shade our solar panels I'll probably be underneath one of them, but I wont be fertilising his trees.  I don't know how much they grow per year; maybe a metre or a bit less.  What is disappointing though is that the neighbour is an apparently nice guy.  Always friendly and affable.  He is happy for us to use his tennis court, is always happy for us to have access across his land to get our fire wood.  We could do nothing about his planting but we just feel it would have been nice if he'd told us what was going on.  You know; simple courtesy and a bit of respect which is clearly too difficult for some.

 

All these hillsides have now been planted in '000s of pines

To try and combat the eyesore that either the trees or possible house will be we have planted about 140 indigenous trees, or as they like to call them here 'natives', the days of the colonisers rumble on.  Digging all those holes was daunting, although there were 4000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire, but we don't have enough to fill the Albert Hall, so we thought about getting a trench dug, and then a friend said 'hire an auger'.  WELL! It was a revelation and addictive. At 139 20cms wide by 50cms deep holes later we had to stop to take it back.  Our garden now looks like a piece of Swiss cheeses.  Sadly the pines ('exotics') will grow faster than the natives and anyway I may well be fertilising one of the trees by the time the natives are annoying us, which we are told is about 10 - 15 years.  You may think there is an odd irony in complaining about trees and then planting more, but ours will be nicer.

 

  

                                                                    Our friends came to watch; they often do!

In this country there is no obligation to tell people what you are doing, whether it be planting a pine forest, or building a house or developing a go-cart track.  As long as you fulfil the council requirements you can do it and there is very little chance to object.  But heh ho.   What can you do? Nowt!   I suppose if we lived in a peaceful suburban cul de sac and someone decided to build a brewery with all its accompanying smells, waste, delivery trucks and more, with out a whisper of a mention, I maybe a bit fed up.  The only difference is hectares of space and about 30000 trees and no beer.  It doesn't really matter.  It's important to maintain a perspective.  First world problem.  The poor Palestinians would do anything to have 3 square metres and some trees.  A house would be like winning euro millions.

They have to be at least 10 metres from our boundary and 35 from our house.  We'll take great pleasure in ripping a few out, you know, like those irritating little hairs that itch away up your snout.

In July I spent way too much time watching the euro football and getting up at 04.00 am to watch the England walking football team fluke their way to the final by a very dodgy penalty followed by simulation which should have got a yellow card, the injury was clearly so severe that all metatarsals were smashed in Kane's foot until he got the penalty and then he had a miraculous recovery.   We wont mention the handball by Saka which preceded it all.  Clearly football is a religion. Suddenly everyone loved VAR and suddenly every one loved Gareth Southgate after having hated both and showered the latter with the last of their beer.  Then I got up to watch the Slug and Lettuce walking football Club play Spain at the Royal Oak in Balmain, Sydney.  To show loyalty it all started with 'English Breakfast' Tea but by half time the only thing that could improve things was a pint of Harbour Bridge Bitter and a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich.  Suddenly things improved even if the beer was Aussie cold and the sarnie far from scrumptious.  I asked for mushy peas and chips but he gave a me look that suggested I may have been bonkers.   Spain really were very good.  I expected tapas.

  

05.00. On my way.                          English breakfast                          The Royal Oak

 
1 pint & cheese and tom toastie.        Looking optimistic!!

I wonder what it is that makes me want to watch 22 overpaid fellas and underpaid women kicking a ball about, but I do enjoy it.  I played for the school under 13s and under 15s and loved it, even though we were completely useless and lost all games by an average of  0 - 6 goals per game over the term.  I was delighted to score one of the very few goals of the term as well as an own goal from a corner.  A goal is a goal. The highlights of my team sport career.  I remember that 1 goal well, from the right wing, long looping ball over the 'keeper into the top corner.  A bit like Hugo Rodallega at Villa.  Well, that's how I recall it anyway, only 55 years ago.  Now, the 'nearly goal' was a bit more spectacular only 20 years ago.  The cross came in from the right, pirouetting on a six pence I had a perfect connection from the back of the penalty box, almost Zaki-esque.  The ball fizzed its way goal wards for a near certain winner.  It was at that moment that I thought that goalposts were a nuisance and should be done away with.  Following such disappointment it was at that point that armchair football took over.

I'm sure some of you will have picked up that I am not very supportive of what the Israeli government is up to at present.  In an attempt to help the Palestinians just a weeny bit I organised a fundraiser:

I THINK IT CAN BE CALLED ‘A SUCCESS’.  The Medical Aid fundraiser at the Village Café.

On Thursday 1^st August at 6.00pm the doors of the Village Café opened and 130 people filled The Village Cafe in Martinborough for a fundraiser for Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF), Medical Aid for Palestinians and The Red Crescent. 

VERY FULL HOUSE.

What is clear is that the relatively small and geographically diverse community of the Wairarapa has an immense sense of social justice and is incredibly generous.

After five days of constant rain and drizzle, the bridges into Martinborough and the Remutaka Hill thankfully all remained open.

At the start of this project, I hoped for around 50 - 80 attendees.  People came from Tinui (100kms), Masterton (80Kms), Carterton, Greytown, Featherston, Petone (90 kms), of course Martinborough and all places in between (including the USA).  Like a Rolling Stones concert, it was a full house, so much so that another table had to be brought in and more seats found.

 In saying thank you there is always a risk of omitting someone, but I want to say a huge 'thank you' to the three speakers who gave their own personal graphic and detailed descriptions of their visits to The Illegally Occupied West Bank and what they actually saw. A massive thanks for the stunning music from the Martinborough String Quartet.  Huge appreciation for the dulcet and melodic tones of John Monro.  To the hugely entertaining local lad, Sam Auger, singer, musician and songwriter extraordinaire, big gratitude  More time went into preparing for this event by all these people than we are aware of.  We experienced real quality.

 

  

MARTINBOROUGH STRING QUARTET.                          JOHN MUNRO

 Massive thanks for the amazing gifts for the raffle so generously gifted by local businesses, stunning work by local artists and craftspeople and supporters, for which the recipients of the money are all very grateful.

 The plentiful tasty food prepared by The Village Café was greatly enjoyed with many going back for more. Acknowledgements to the good team who looked after us so well. Vivek at the Cafe was very generous to us in his charges amounting to a useful donation.

 Thanks to all the hardworking people who helped on the night with managing the merchandise table, selling raffle tickets, and selling and checking tickets at the door.

 Finally, thank you to all who travelled from far and wide on a cold and wet miserable night.

 In conclusion, together we all raised more than $4500 towards medical aid for those in need via MSF, Medical Aid for Palestinians and Red Crescent, as well as hear graphic descriptions of people experiences and listen to class music.

 MILLIONS OF PALESTINIANS ARE HUGELY GRATEFUL.

 This cannot be considered to be "virtue signalling".  This last comment is relevant to a letter to the editor of the local newspaper.  Undoubtedly a zionist who said that we should be collecting for a worthy cause rather than just 'virtue signalling' by waving flags.  If she'd walked 50 metres up the road she'd have seen that we were indeed collecting a reasonable amount of money.  I love judgements that aren't based on fact.

The 'virtue signallers' every Wednesday morning.

Apart from joining in with various fund raisers through sponsorship, for example cycling from Wigan to Amsterdam for prostate cancer, a sponsored silence at a Wigan game for CALM and a few others, I have never actually been a part of organising the event and then hoping it all goes successfully.  I think it was a success, people seemed happy and we raised a decent amount.  I was a tad anxious and then tired after the event.  Of the complaints the most serious was that the food came out a bit late and a few items were sold too cheap, so my reply was 'tell someone who cares'.

Our years creep on and as they do I slowly develop more and more of a pace reducing to a creep.  I read in Medical News Today that "The average age of people at the time of their first heart attack is 65.5 years for males and 72 years for females. The risk increases as a person ages.  I'm on borrowed time. With that in mind Ali has been instrumental in getting an AED installed at our local Community Hall, so I have to travel 3kms to arrest.  Training is on Wednesday so I'm holding off my arrest until Thursday.  I'm trying to get one installed at the tennis club, but there is a general malaise about the idea.  That and a First Aid kit, the present one is locked away so no one can get to it (I kid you not).

She's a bloody star!! Such a carer

I wish I had had one of these wonderful machines available to me at the Hugh Masekela concert at Warwick Arts Centre.  In the foyer, out of the corner of my eye I saw someone fall like a felled pine tree.  Like a cheetah in the Serengeti I was too him; no response; no pulse = cardiac compressions apparently sung to "Staying Alive" by the BeeGees, but I forgot that.  After a pulse check I started again only for him to tell me "that bloody hurt"!  Ungrateful sod, but at least I could stop, I got the hint.  It was a bit like a voice activated AED.  Someone found his ticket on the floor and kindly offered it to him, but sadly it wasn't much use to him.  He was off to UHCW, stents and he was up and going enough to send me an email to say thanks which made me cry!  The best bit was that WAC gave Ali the fridge of ice cream and me the wine cabinet, they were so grateful.  Clearly the cliche, WinWin.

It was the week of yuk jobs for our best friends, Loppie who nearly died, Jennifer Eccles Covered in Freckles, Lambneh (because we were making Labneh when he arrived), Lambert, Lambrusco and Lamborghini.  At this time of the year when it is wet and the grass is lush the faecal matter gets stuck to surrounding wool.  Slowly it accumulates and if it gets really bad the worms and maggots take up residence and our best friends get an incredibly painful bum called flystrike.  The job is 'dagging', whereby Ali does surgically precise trimming of the region and leaves a beautifully clean bottom.  A spectacular 'bummi-cure'.  The sheeps seem to know it is good for them and generally, with a bit of persuasion, just stand there and let it happen.  Basically I do nothing except stand there, chat to them, have a nice woolly cuddle and whisper sweet nothing baaaas into their ears.  As you know it seems to calm them.  If you aren't sure what I am describing, imagine either something that simply wouldn't happen to anyone you don't know, or 3 months of chunky cling-ons.  Nuff sed.   Too much detail.  It takes us about 45 minutes per sheep.  The farmers have about 45000 sheep, so it takes them about 4.5 seconds.

NICE BUMS!

A study of lovely cared for sheep bums          Jennifer Eccles covered in Freckles

                                                                        Lambrusco

Lambneh                                                            Lamborghini

I still surprise my self at how much I have come to enjoy animals.  After 3 years it still feels like a  wonderful revelation, such a nice discovery after 64 yrs of indifference after formative years of no encouragement to like them.


Some of you may remember that we have done 'Glamourous Gumboots'.  A local good person set it up to raise money for food banks.  You glam yourself up, and/or your gum boots take a photo send it in and pay your entry fee.  It's all good fun and you can see the entries on their Facebook page 'Glamour & Gumboots Wairarapa'.  What a shame food banks are needed but it does mean we have to partake in this trivia.

 

Victorian Glamorous gummies                    The queen with her corgis            Glamourous gummies

  

Glamorous Gumboots pool championships

In the Toga

Post harvest celebrations.

My Mum said on more than one occasion that I spent too much time "mucking about" and indeed a few others appear to have found my 'larking around' a bit trite, annoying and even pathetic.  Clearly I got it wrong, my Dad once said to me "you need to get a sense of humour", which was a bit alarming as I thought we spent a decent amount of time having fun together.  He was glad when I left his house on his birthday after I had wrapped almost everything up, his comb, toothbrush, toilet roll, piece of toast, pub lunch, pint of beer and the rest.  I think he enjoyed it when we had another birthday supper at breakfast time (including wine), afternoon tea at 11.00am, and so on.  I then had to get the train so I left bacon, eggs, toast and muesli for his dinner.

I had a smile a short while ago when outside the local bookshop a local author was advertising her second memoir. I wonder which of her memories are most accurate?  Or had she just remembered a bit more?

"THIS COUNTER IS CURRENTLY UNATTENDED"!!

REALLY!    

Evening walk.

Nice, eh.

Soon to be invisible house.

Very effective lawn mowers at work.

Breakfast view.

                                                  Loppie.

Do me a favour, I'm pleased that my musings are getting read by a few people.

It's lovely that some of you email, as a reply to them.  I love to hear from you and I endeavour to reply.

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There is an opportunity for people to comment directly to the edition you are reading on the blog page.

It's lovely that some of you do.

Here is the request: 

It comes through as a 'no reply' email address, and if you post as 'anonymous' of course I don't know who has sent it and then I can't reply.  It displays as 'unknown' on the comments page.

The last 'unknown simply said "Thanks for the update. I hope you both stay well and warm!"

Please can you NOT reply as anonymous.

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Hahaha, I used to do it on a message board and my Dad identified me and told me off!!  I was told that if I was going to make comment I should have the 'balls' to take ownership.  Fair comment, I say.