Awards, Valentine's baby and a Woody Wagon

For those of you who didn't know, my sister Janet and her partner Dennis, are the owner/operators of the raptor rehabilitation centre 'Radical Raptors' in Plettenberg Bay, South Africa. How exciting it was to see this double page spread  published in the prestigious South African Airways in-flight magazine and in which the centre and the fantastic work that they do is highlighted for tourists and locals to see and hopefully, make plans to call in and visit.

We were so thrilled for you and hope that the article brings loads of visitors and new friends (adoptive and financially supportive ones especially!) to visit and spread the word about the incredible work that you guys are doing!

If you should happen to find yourself in the vicinity, do yourself a big favour and go and see them at 'The Heath' - situated beside the N2 highway, 7km from Plettenberg Bay (travelling in the direction of Knysna) You will have such an experience watching Dennis fly the birds and will learn an immense amount about these magnificent but sadly threatened creatures.

And then it was Valentine's Day - hugely financially positive for the florists who were charging so much for red roses - single, long stemmed in a pretty paper cone with a ribbon and a couple of heart stickers - average price $50.00 and a dozen costing anywhere up to $200.00! (Dis R1,000.00 mense!)

 Luckily for us, we don't care much for cut red roses - this picture of our grandson Estan made our Valentine's day very special!

Last night, the very spectacular and prestigious 'New Zealander of the Year' awards were held at a glittering ceremony in Auckland. Here is the 'Young NZ of the Year' - Sam Johnson who was the driving force and 'CEO' of the student volunteer army which rallied to shovel and sweep and load and clear streets and gardens and driveways for the folks of Christchurch after the disaster of the earthquake hit and the city was smothered in liquefaction. He was regularly featured on the news, standing atop an old ute (bakkie) with his gumboots on and loadhailer in hand, dishing out instructions to sometimes thousands of students who had arrived to pitch in. Eventually, these students were issued with brooms, spades, buckets, wheelbarrows - everything needed to make the job a little easier on the volunteers.

In his acceptance speech, Sam said he felt that young people could do repairs with a piece of wire just as well as their more senior citizens, they just used computers to set up the plan and facebook to 'gather the troops'

Well done Sam! Fantastic to have proven to the average New Zealander that not all young folk are lazy and self serving and there are thousands who are willing to roll up their sleeves and make a real difference. Good on ya mate!

How tragic the loss of such a magnificent voice.And how sad the circumstances of her death - in some ways her life seems to have been terribly sad too.

At this point it's still a 'nobody really knows' from the coroner so perhaps we will never know, but one has to wonder how different things could have been had there never been the scourge of drugs, abuse and alcohol in her life. Some of the published pictures of her most recently have been horribly unflattering - here is how I choose to remember her - forever young!

When timber for large projects is somewhat expensive and you really still enjoy pottering about creatively in the garage with wood, you send off to the USA for a pattern and gather up scraps of wood that you have and make something for someone!

Here is an approximately 80% completed 'Woody Wagon' which has kept Jo busy in the garage for a good few hours - once it is completed, we will post pictures for you to see.

 We are contemplating a pink construction truck as the next project to tackle.

Dis al!

Cruising down the river and 'no boys allowed'!

A while ago, our friend (and Jo's colleague) Allen asked if he would recondition the 'steering wheel' for his boat -  the woodwork experience and equipment was dusted off and this was duly done and delivered. Here is the finished product, prior to delivery and installation on the boat. Not too shabby, if you ask me!

And here is the 'wheel' in action on the Whanganui river.

When we were invited to take a little 'spin' on the aforementioned boat - of course we jumped at the opportunity to see the wheel in action. Allen has spent coutless hours reconditioning this boat (we even heard that he had been forced to hand her over to other experts in town for a while, so went to visit her while she was there!) and we were extremely honoured to be taken on a trip down the Whanganui river.

The caravans and motorhomes in this picture are at the Top Ten holiday park, where we spent some time with our 'new' caravan, testing the water as it were and parking our van in one of these very spots - this is the view of that same spot, from the 'other side'! A fabulous afternoon, zooming down the river, getting a hoot from the paddle steamer as she sailed by with her contingent of booze cruisers! 

'Girls just wanna have fun' - an evil plan conjoured up by my kiwi girlfriend Trudie and her kiwi girlfriend (and my new kiwi girlfriend) Gail, for a weekend of R and R. This pretty little home in Martinborough (South-East of Wanganui on the North Island - for those of you who are willing to get out a map)was rented for an overnight stay - no boys allowed! We spent an awesome two days relaxing in good company with wine, table tennis, wandering around the town and poking around in little boutiques and 'kaggel kakkies' shops, playing cards, riding bikes and doing an all-girls barbeque!

 The area around Martinborough is literally overgrown with vineyards and we were hard 'pressed' to decide where to do a spot of tasting. Ended up at a lovely cellar and bought a couple of bottles to take home with us.

 Martinborough has a great cenotaph in the centre of town, surrounded by a lovely park/square - we enjoyed a fabulous Italian icecream sitting on a park bench and then noticed that this was a big white 'monument' to those who fell in the Boer war in South Africa. Who knew that Martinborough had chappies who had fought in South Africa? (and lost!)

And here they are - Trudie on the right and Gail on the left - armed and dangerous, wine in hand, sunglasses donned, brolly erected and lasses ready for a couple of hours of all-girl 'conversation' about everything .... and nothing!!  The lone glass of red wine waiting for the photographer's attention!

It was a terrific weekend - and went a long way to proving that gals are gals wherever you go and we are all capable of laughing till we are weak at the knees about the most ridiculous things when there are no gentlemen about, forcing us to be 'ladies'!
Roll on the next one!!! And thanks Ms Pickle for the original idea! A stroke of genius!
Dis al!

Wanganui Classic and Vintage Cars

For our blog readers who are interested in Classic and Vintage Cars - here are a few photographs of some which were on display in Wanganui - apparently there were about 800 vehicles on show in total - some of which were brought into New Zealand especially for the occasion from countries as far afield as Canada and the USA.

(Remember that you can click on the photographs and they will appear in a slideshow format and will be enlarged so you can enjoy all the detail!)

My personal favourite!

Dis al!

Buskers, Bubbles and Beauties

 Wanganui Vintage and Classic Cars weekend began with an extra special River Traders Market - the market is on in our town every Saturday morning, this one being a little larger than usual and boasting many more buskers and stalls than we are accustomed to.

These two ladies (one on the guitar, the other on the dessert spoons) entertained passers by with their renditions of old favourites like Swanee River and Country Roads!
Other buskers included a south american named 'Julio' on the panpipes (with a pretty good backtrack) and a very grubby looking guitarist who played with immense passion and kind of ignored the other half of his act - a bohemian lady on the violin. Certainly different. We thought these two colourful ladies warranted a photograph - especially given their advanced age!

There was a huge gap in the market though - this spot is always where the South African Boerewors Stall happens - glaringly absent! Junè has been on an extended visit with family back in the 'old country' and so the spot was allocated to a chappie selling soap bubble 'stick and string' contraptions - which he demonstrated and which seem to work really well - with the right knack I suspect! The lassie in the picture had loads of fun leaping about and 'catching' the bubbles as they emerged - some of which were truly spectacular!

Later on in the day the main street was closed off at one end and a stage set up for a rock band to entertain for a couple of hours. We spent some time enjoying the old favourites and although it was only a three piece band - (guitar, bass and drums) the variety and quality of the music was pretty good. Some of the more adventurous in the crowd got up and danced in front of the stage - the usual one ballroom dancing school couple doing their best to show off all their moves while the other more ordinary dancers had to do their best to avoid them on the floor (or in this case the tarmac).There was a particularly furiously-out-of -time lass who wiggled her tail and tugged mercilessly at her miniskirt all the while making wafting motions with her lily white arms - it was hard to watch anyone else! I guess she was having fun - God bless her!
In the end though it was really all about the cars which graced our streets, parking beside all the modern ones and looking simply fabulous in preparation for the big show which was held all day on Sunday at the racecourse.

As you can see, we took this picture from across the street - co-incidentally, once we put the pictures up on the screen, we noticed that the chappie in the striped shirt walking along over there happens to be our friend Andrè!

We live in a very small town!!

This beautiful old lady was parked outside one of the coffee shops for a while

 Big 7 was parked in the high street and is fairly dwarfed by the luxurious red number beside her. Everywhere we looked, there were fabulous old cars being oohed and aahed over by passers by. Needless to say, quite a few had notices on them asking folks not to touch them! A few had owners who were dressed up in the fashions of the day - depending on the vintage of their car - so although it was a scorcher of a day, there were ladies in full length gowns with hats and feather boas and the like ambling down the high street on a Saturday morning! 

Wanganui looked just as gorgeous and the feedback has been marvellous - Dis al!