Shouts, brillos and the Bokke!

You no doubt have realised that there has been very little time spent on this blogspot over the past couple of weeks! It's good news really in that all our belongings are now basically de-boxed and de-crated and most have a 'home' in our home! The heap of empty boxes on the back deck was starting to look like they multiply of their own accord while we are asleep, but we were very pleased to hear that Pickfords will be collecting the last of them in the course of next week. There is some damage and some loss in the form of a couple of broken plates and a few 'missing' items - these we will try to claim from insurance for (since we paid so much for the compulsory insurance) one does have to wonder how 'compulsory' the compensation will prove to be though.
Since we have now transferred all our broadband etc over to our desktop computer, the laptop is now sitting quietly in a corner with all our New Zealand photographs on it and so this entry won't have any pictures attached - sorry to all of you who don't ever read any of this and just check out the pictures! Here's hoping we make the time (and remember) to transfer all the photographs over in the next day or so - there are some new pictures to see so there is something to look forward to right there.
We are getting better with the lingo here - initially Jo was battling with the accent as well as the lingo, but he's a real fast learner and the guys at work can no longer fly anything past him for too long!
"Grab your brillo and lets head down for an ale, it's my shout" doesn't faze us anymore - need a translation?
OK - it means: The weather is looking a little inclement and could rain, so make sure you have your umbrella with you and we can meet at the local public establishment for a drink - and I will be prepared to pay for the said drinks."
"We are putting up a roast for tea, but you can bring a plate" means: Please join us for the evening meal which we will supply the main course but bring along an appropriate plate of something else which will go with the said roast" It does NOT mean - bring your own crockery.

There has been a lot of rain recently - not unusual since it is winter and in winter in New Zealand, it rains - it appears to rain in summer too, but that is to be expected when you take into account that the whole of the country is green - VERY green - all year round. The disadvantage to all this wonderful greenness, is that the lawn needs mowing all year round!
Our garden is sadly in need of our attention, but we have been too busy to keep up with this blog, so you can just imagine how much less time there has been for pottering about in the garden! Now that there are really only a couple of boxes to re-organise, it looks like we will be waiting for the next good weather day and hit the garden with a vengence!
Our pianos are still in Auckland - the required 'cites' certificate has apparently been issued and we are doing our best to get the pianos released without the original document - if we are unsuccessful on that front, we will have to wait for 'snail mail' to get the document to the right folks in Auckland and then wait for the pianos to finally be delivered here to us in Wanganui. By the way - the town name is pronounced - wonganooee.
We have been holding the South African flags high - literally. With the rugby last weekend, the guys at the office had stuck a picture up on Jo's door of a Springbok (the deer variety) with the crosshairs of a rifle superimposed. Jo had a LARGE South African flag rolled around a long stick and on arrival at work whipped out the flag with huge aplomb. On Monday morning, after the brilliant win by the Bokke, the office conversation was devoid of anything rugby for at least a few hours! Later in the day apparently, it was conceded that the All Blacks 'made so many mistakes' and all the kiwis would have to keep to their side of the bargain and provide the 'shout' on Friday. In this case, the 'shout' is cake all round - some to celebrate and the rest to mourn. YAY THE BOKKE!!!
It's just so interesting to note that the previous weekend we had been yelling like loons for the All Blacks when they played against Australia - suddenly in the space of a week, we are against the All Blacks with a passion! YAY THE BOKKE!

Happy Birthday Allan! and huge CONGRATULATIONS on your graduation! All of you guys who are reading this and know that Allan is Jo-anne's hubby (the chappie in the family wedding photographs in a skirt) can raise a wee dram with us - we are so proud!
We are going to be going over to friends this evening for a 'barbie' - taking a plate and looking at the weather will no doubt have to have our brillo close by.
Dis al!

Most of our belongings!

With a really enormous truck parked in the street outside our house, the inventory was laid out in numerical order on the kitchen counter so that each and every item could be checked off as it entered the premises! There were only a few instances where a number would float in from outside which had already been marked off and then we would have to see who had done what incorrectly! I secretly believe that one of the fellows doing the carrying and yelling of numbers is slightly dyslexic - which could be why he is making a living loading and unloading furniture and isn't some high powered executive-in-training somewhere.

The dining room seemed to decrease in size rapidly as the furniture arrived! However, now that it's all unwrapped and set up, it looks good with the wooden floors. We took this picture because it was quite interesting to note that even though everything isn't unloaded here yet, one of the guitars was unwrapped almost before it got put down on the floor! We were told that all the guitars would be crated together after they had all been wrapped and prepared, but as you can see, this didn't happen for some unknown reason. One of the classical guitars has a 'pressure dent' on the front, which is disappointing, but trying to be very philosophical about it, it now just has another 'character' mark on it.

These two pictures were both taken in the living room - one looking towards the dining room and the other towards the front hallway.

I think that the reason that Jo is fiddling about with the fridge in the garage is that he is actually measuring it to see if it will fit into the allocated space in the kitchen, before we move the one we bought on Trade Me out - it doesn't! Unfortunately, there is a fitted cupboard above the gap for the fridge and our fridge/freezer is a couple of millimetres too tall. We were hoping to be able to adjust the feet of the fridge, but with maximum adjustment, it just doesn't make it! The Trade Me fridge can stay parked there for now, and our one has been relegated to the laundry - not a train smash!

The chap on the left of the picture is the 'chief in charge of operations' - the guy in the 'bum apron' glow in the dark jacket is the truck driver who assures us that the pianos are safe and sound in the store in Auckland - we have no idea what more we can possibly do to have the pianos released to us - both of the pianos have ivory keys and although we were informed SPECIFICALLY about this in SA before we left, now, apparently, there is a huge issue about importing protected species (in the form of ivory) into NZ and exporting it from SA. The fact that the elephants who provided this particular ivory, did so approximately 100 years ago and the pianos were both built in Germany, seems to carry no weight whatsoever! It is extremely frustrating when you think that maybe the ivory didn't even come from Africa in the first place!

The motorbikes were both delivered on the following day - the chap who collected them and drove them in the back of a truck from Auckland to Wanganui tells us that it is extremely rare for any motorcycles to arrive from South Africa that are not damaged. Most of them are evidently quite extensively damaged, so we are fortunate (we have to suppose) that the damage to both the bikes is not quite as bad as we initially feared. The difficult thing to deal with is that everyone has someone else to blame and so we don't know if we will ever be able to claim for the repairs which are going to have to be done. We attended the local chapter of Ullysses Motorcycle Club meeting last week with the view to joining and have discovered that there is in fact a 'paint-job-specialist' here in Wanganui who should be able to match paint colours for us, so that's good news.

I think that although the facial expression doesn't say much, Jo is really pleased to finally have the bikes here! We can't take them out for a spin as yet - too much red tape to wade through in the form of licenses, registrations and so on. In any event, it's generally not 'bike weather' at the moment - plenty of rain and wind about most of the time. We are looking forward to being able to take a trip or two once the weather improves and see new parts of New Zealand.

Most of the mountain of boxes have now been unpacked and things are beginning to feel more normal. We were even organised enough to entertain friends of ours from Hamilton last night and not sit on the floor amongst heaps of boxes, so progress is being made! Thanks Annelien and Carl for taking the 'garage for destitutes' stuff back to Hamilton for us - no doubt all the things that saved our lives when we first arrived can now move on to the next lot of folks who arrive here with a couple of suitcases and have to do the camping thing for an indeterminate amount of time!

Someone asked us the other day, very tongue in cheek, what had brought us to Wanga-Vegas! And we discovered that we reside on Snob Nob - by necessity and not by design!

Dis al!

A taste of South Africa

The larger supermarkets usually have a section which they call 'International' and there you will find products from countries other than New Zealand. This picture gives you an idea of what's on offer - the South African section is only the right hand half of the picture - so as you can see, the selection is not spectacular! The Ceres juice, Ouma rusks and Robertson spices (limited) are always there and you will generally also be able to get your hands on some Ricoffy - if you really want to! I was pleased to note that my favourite chocolate - the good old Tex bar, is usually available and this picture shows the Chocolate Logs too. We have seen Mrs Ball's chutney - but to date have not found the hot one, only the fruit one which we are not particularly fond of. Beside the Ouma rusks there are Nik Naks - I think of you Allan, every time we see those! There is Aromat and small packets of Jelly Tots. Here and there you might be lucky and be able to lay your hands on some of the more popular Koo products in cans, but we have found the local canned goods to be a lot cheaper and just as good.
Of course there is Rooibos Tea - even more than one variety to choose from which is really great, although the kiwis have caught on to it and now offer other brands of Rooibos tea on their own shelves. There was an advertisement on the telly the other day for the stuff and we were half expecting something like 'Redbush tea'. Imagine our surprise when they used the correct name and even got the pronunciation mostly right! Amazing things the kiwis!
The South African butcher in Hamilton also kept a few 'goodies' at his shop - one of which was Rennies! so we will have to find another source of those here in Wanganui since they're not available at the local chemists or supermarkets. To be quite honest, other similar products work just as well so it's not too much of a train smash!
Generally speaking, one would really have to have missed something really badly if you actually buy things from these shelves - the prices are spectacularly horrific! The other day, Marieta (who has been in New Zealand for about two months) couldn't resist a couple of cans of Sparletta Creme Soda - the first time we had seen it here - and paid in the region of twelve Rand per can!
Since I have never been that fond of 'green soda' there was no way I would shell out even half that for those two cans!
It would probably not be a good idea to go into the things that we really miss - most of the time though, it is a question of 'out of sight, out of mind' so we are just fine! There are plenty of new and exciting things to try and putting on a bit of weight appears to be the easiest thing imaginable in this part of the world! There are times though when a Bertrams and Litchi flavoured sparkling water would just hit the spot!
Dis al!

Birds of the feathered variety

About a ten minute walk from our house, there is a beautiful lake which boasts a few families of swans. The black variety are rumoured to only really breed in the springtime, but here and there they produce offspring at other times and fool all the experts. This little family appeared a couple of weeks ago to the immense surprise of all and sundry - especially given that the weather has been extremely cold. There was even an article in the local newspaper warning that Mama black swans tend to be extremely aggressive and will protect their cygnets fiercely - to this end, people have been advised to keep their distance since you don't want to take one of these on!


The white variety of swans that are also found at Virginia Lake were cruising around in the very cold looking water, seemingly unaware of all the fuss being made of the new arrivals in the black camp.

These guys are found wherever there is any decent sized puddle - they abound at places like lakes, but it has been amazing to us that they are EVERYWHERE! In spite of being so 'common' their plumage is still singularly spectacular. This one was apparently fearless, marching right up to our car and faffing about looking hungry - we assume ever hopeful that we would toss some sort of titbit in his direction. His entourage of females kept a little way back, but were no less eager to see if we were going to be worth the effort or not!
This fellow attached to the entrance at our back door, is a Pukeku - pronounced 'poo kair koo' - and has the most incredibly large feet! They feature on one of the television advertisements here and their walk is unbelievably comical since they have to lift their feet up so high to avoid stumbling.

We had never even heard of them before we got here, but folks we know in Hamilton toss bread bits over their balcony each evening at about 5 - for the family of Pukekus that live in the gorge beside their house. Evidently, from about 4.45 every day, they are strutting about glancing hopefully upwards in anticipation of the bread bits!

Here is a real Pukeku - huge feet and all! The picture doesn't really do the amazing blue colour of the bird justice. This guy was ambling about at Virginia Lake the other day when we took a stroll around - although it looks as though he is about to take a dive into the lake, he decided against that idea so we don't yet know if they are fond of the water or not!

Dis al!