BUMS AND BREASTS IN BONDI.

 BUMS AND BREASTS IN BONDI.

Hello folks

I hope you are all well, healthy and happy.  I hope you have all had a reasonable 2025 and that any bum bit were navigated in a successful way to get you through the other side in a decent way.  I hope 2026 will be a good one for you.

 

From our tree.

Our new friend fezzi the fezzant, who has just arrived and taken up residence.

Life in the slow(ish) lane

The old codger still manages the occasional ParkRun! I slothed around one with mild disappointment a couple of weeks back. It was a beautiful course through the woods and around the lake—black swans and ducks with their heads down and bums to the sky, having a grand time. The disappointment was only because I'd set myself a target of under 30 minutes (such is my state of declining fitness and rapidly increasing years), and I came in at 30:18! I'm sure there must have been a headwind. I remember the days when I had it all over and done within 22 minutes. It seems to drag on now! Still, I think it was enjoyable. I'm on 187 runs and want to get to 200.

I hope you're well and that most things are rumbling along in a reasonable manner. I'm sure there will have been some trials, tribulations and frustrations, along with worries and upsets, but I hope you've got through them okay. I'm currently reading the compulsive and dreadful book by Virginia Giuffre Roberts, about Epstein and his circle of grossness—including the guy who lives in that luxury "cottage" at Sandringham.

Life on the land

We live quite an isolated life about 20 kms from town, with our nearest neighbours 1.5 kms away. We've moved into groups and out of them as we've discovered bits and pieces about each other, and I think we've finally found 6-8 people with whom we've clicked and share quite a few common links. Most people are kind and friendly even if we have little in common. Our nearest neighbours are, we're sure, anti-vaxxers and Trumpists, but they're always kind, friendly and helpful to us, so we go nowhere near that territory. With our 6-8 good people, we had a wine tasting that was serious fun. The maker of one of the wines couldn't identify his own! Someone thought an Australian Shiraz came from Uzbekistan!

Despite all that, I'm actually pretty happy out here. I've always been a bit of a loner, and on our 8 hectares there's plenty to do.

The farm report

I've planted tomatoes, spuds, yams, yacon, beetroot, onions, turnips and aubergine. We're harvesting parsnips, cherries, leeks, asparagus, cauliflower, broad beans, beans and limes. As I tediously tell you, I spend too much time in therapy sessions with the lovely sheep, and I'm always so pleased when the chickens show such delight to see me. I know it has nothing to do with being a source of food—I steal their eggs, bad lad that I am.

This afternoon, Lambhorghini (who can only move like his namesake with brakes fully applied and full reverse thrust) kept calling to me. In the end, I realised he simply wanted to walk a hundred metres with me—he didn't want to go it alone! When I went to him, we just ambled across the field side by side. Nice, eh? Who would have thought it from a sheep?

Don't ask me why, but we got 7 more tiny ducklings, and I tried my hand at hatching eggs. From 10 eggs we got 3 chicks—the cutest bundles of downy fluff. In a way, I suppose it's silly because it probably means more work now and later, but it's fun. Often it feels as if there isn't enough time left to spend much with other people.  Does that sound awful?  People exchanged for a chicken and a sheep!!

  

 

A few weeks ago, we hired the great big log splitter again and spent a day splitting 4 of our 1500 pine trees. We've now got our winter warmth sorted for next season.

 

It's amazing what presents itself when wood chopping!

We're heading into summer, but we lit the fire once recently. The other annoying thing is the seemingly constant strong wind, which is sometimes cool—I guess it's popping up from Antarctica. A few weeks ago, very strong winds blew down 2 massive beech trees and my hat. Unfortunately, they're inaccessible unless we had a helicopter, so they're no good to us for firewood. They'll just join the ecosystem, so I suppose that can't be too bad.

Sadly, we're still catching too many nuisance animals: feral cats, rabbits, hedgehogs and possums. Poor things. However, we do think that since we started, bird life is more abundant this year than any previous year. The cats are more vicious than the lions that roam the Serengeti or snow leopards.

Social life and silliness

Most Sunday evenings we go and "play" pool with Geoffrey and Carol. "Play" is used with reservation. It often feels more like chance and luck, but it's fun, following on from my usual style of radiography. Carol is renowned for her "Carol specials," where she just whacks the white with more ferocity than an IDF soldier's AK47 equivalent. Often something goes in. Geoffrey and I take our time, line it up, look at angles, see where the other balls are for the next shot, and go for the gentle touch. And miss. Geoffrey and Carol look confused when I pot a ball and ask, "What would I do if Wigan scored?" The Doctor (the clever one) just pots the balls seemingly without even needing to concentrate, looking around the room and carrying on irrelevant conversation. When Geoffrey provides the wine, it's generally pretty good. When we do, the standard drops, as if we may have watered it down. Last night I was offered a whole new experience: Grappa. I'm sure it was lovely, but as far as I could determine, its best use would be either fuelling a rocket or clearing ice from the windscreen. It was about 18 degrees yesterday and there was no ice. Definitely not my kind of thing.

Geoffrey and Carol

We still play tennis every Wednesday with a social group called "Wednesday Whackers"—a nice bunch of people. We're all at our own similar standard: very good at our level, which is not very good at the serious people's level. 

Match referee

The TEAM

Something or other.

"Work" will start again soon down at the vineyard—putting nets on, then taking them off, then picking. They're another really nice couple. We've put the "bottle an hour" rate on hold. We've got enough wine to open a bottle store in Willenhall, and we're drinking less and less each year. It's getting to the state of almost having enough to provide good insulation—the bottles are stacked so high! Come and drink some with us!

Keeping busy

I'm pleased with all my efforts at doing what little I can down here for Gaza—3 fundraisers raising about $9000 and instigating weekly flag waving in 4 of the local towns. But as you know, I'm pretty thin-skinned, and I've got bored of having abuse shouted at me by an absolute minority. That's silly, because being told that I support murderers and abortionists is nowhere near as bad as having your family killed and living in a tent because your house is a pile of rubble. We get a massive amount of support.

Audience at a Gaza fundraiser to see 'The Dr's Wife'.  (truly wonderful film).

Shop window display in Wellington

Wellington Phoenix goalkeeper!!

Ali was delighted with the present I gave her for our wedding anniversary.

and pleased with the firework display I arranged.

On that uplifting and cheerful note...

Take care. Keep safe, be healthy and have some fun. I really hope that 2026 is going to be a good year for you. There's an old Kiwi belief that in years where all the digits are even and the sum total is also even, the even year will be even better than the odd year.

I really, really hope that this will be the case for you good guys.

For all of you, I hope 2025 was okay without too many trials, tribulations and travails, and if there were any, that you got through them in a reasonable manner.

I hope for you that 2026 will be good, fun, safe and healthy.

From Leo, who looks like a lion and myself who looks like a shrew.

As for the catchy title

Last October we went to Sydney.  At Bondi there was an outdoor sculpture exhibition, so we had to go and look at it.  Unfortunately we got there a week too early, so we took the coastal walk from Bondi to Coojee Beach.  We saw another type of sculpture being exhibited.  Oh my hec!  Body sculpture.  It is clearly a requirement that to go to Bondi you have to have a perfect shaped body and expose all you possibly can.  I could make a lot of money by buying small handkerchiefs, cutting them diagonally and tying them together with a piece of dental floss.  Two for the front top and one for the front bottom.  Interestingly, the roles have reversed.  Gone are the days where the females had full cover cozzies and a modesty flap and the boys had weeny speedos.  Role reversal. The boys now wear half length board shorts, budgie smugglers have gone.  I assume that all those that don't have TicTok figures and have half an ounce of fat and a roll of skin just stay at home.  I hope there is a normal persons beach for them.  Any more detail would be too much detail.

Concorde flew over our house.