Tea, Babaganousch and Chook Sammys

I have been fascinated by the angle of the railings on bridges since we arrived here - what mystifies me is not that the railings are angled, it's that some are, and some aint, and I can't figure out what determines which should be and which shouldn't.

We decided that although the weather remains decidedly wintery, cabin fever threatens so we thought we could do with a little sight seeing and headed out on Sunday afternoon for a wander. The world around us is definitely dealing with plenty of frost and wind, the leaves on the trees have long gone and everything is chilled and crisp.

The view from the 'lookout' beside the road. The railway line is a whole lot straighter than just about any road we have seen anywhere in New Zealand!

Late in the afternoon with the shadows lengthening, it was really cold up on the hill with the wind whipping around our legs, but the views were still quite spectacular.

We called in at a wonderful little roadside cafè for a hot 'tea' (being something substantial to eat and what we foreigners would actually call supper) and found 'chook sammys' on the menu. Just wondered if our dear blog followers would know that a chook sammy is a chicken sandwich. Just curious!

We had the best cheeseburgers and fresh hot chips - not the 'slap' variety - don't get none of thems here - and wondered if our blog followers knew that burgers in New Zealand have all sorts of things on them besides the cheese and mince patty - for example, most of them have loads of 'yukky green stuff' and most have beetroot slices on them as well. Some have grated carrot added and most have onion of some sort lurking as well. A complete meal - and generally very good value for money.

On the subject of 'wondered if you knew' - most of our dear blog followers in SA wouldn't know what size egg to buy - I mean, do you want eggs that are size 7? Or smaller? Or larger? How big is size 7 anyway?

And what's with the size of the dead chook - (the one you want to pop in the oven for Sunday dinner) - Size 18 chooks were on special the other day, but I've seen size 20's too.

Jo reckons that maybe eggs go up to whatever size and thereafter, meaning once the egg has hatched, we carry on with the numbers - a gigantic egg being say, size 10 and then size 11 being a fluffy little chick and size 15, say, a scrawny(for the Sunday lunch roast) fowl, but size 18 to say, size 20, a really yummy, plump, perfect for roasting chicken to be served with all the trimmings. Just wondering.

We've discovered 'babaganousch' hummus! Very yummy on crackers and less fattening than chips and dip!

The most common car in New Zealand is the Toyota Corolla (looks different here, same label) - and the most common colour for cars here is silver - I kid you not, they really do research about stuff like that and although we all know that manufacturers care about what colour of what people want and will buy - it's surprising that they tell us all on TV that there are presently 537,519 silver cars on the roads at the moment in NZ. (That's the number - not a thumb suck), but it was early this week so will no doubt have changed!

Good on ya Louis Oosthuizen on winning the Golf! Brilliant! The kiwi news readers can't say 'Oosthuizen' if their lives depended on it, but there you go. Only four South Africans have ever won the Open - Bobby Locke, Gary Player (of course ) and Ernie Els (just as of course).

Mr Tiger Woods failed to feature!

Fell about laughing the other day when someone here said " Tiger Woods het nou rêrig 'n groot gat in sy tjekboek gespyker" !!

Dis al!

Wanganui winter

We took these pictures during half time at the World Cup Soccer in South Africa - as you can see it was already Monday morning here and just about time for Jo to head off to work.
Winter is here in Wanganui - although this town claims to have the fifth most temperate climate in the world, it gets quite nippy on occasion in winter!
We've had quite a few mornings of frost like this one and although it's very cold outside and one needs to take care of the ice on the windshield of the ute, it's very pretty!

Randomness

There are 'landbou skou' type events here in New Zealand too - we spent an afternoon wandering around the 'field days' at Feilding and Marieta captured this moment - where all I could think about was how difficult it was painting the tractor wheels like those ones, when I made a couple of tractor clocks.














Julia has recently started guitar lessons - she's been in New Zealand since she was very little so we are spending some time learning some of the traditional Afrikaans folk songs like Suikerbossie.











The very best thing about electronic drums is that you can practise to your little heart's content without having the neighbours call noise control to complain - on the other hand, our neighbours are of the crumbly variety - either blue rinsed or bald so most of them are verging on the hard of hearing - so there you go it would not matter to them really. For my part, there is just so much one can handle of a 'mechanical drum kit' before threatening murder or suicide, whichever comes to mind first.


The drums belong to our friends Annelien and Carel Botha in Hamilton - (Annelien pictured below with Jo in the final stages of clearing out the booze cabinet back in May) and are on loan to us - thanks guys!

Mariaan decided that piano lessons where a little ho hum since she's about grade eight level so, in search of new challenges and things to keep her honest, she has taken up the viola (for those of you who don't know, a viola is fractionally bigger than a violin and consequently sounds less like a dying cat in the beginning stages).

This picture was taken a little while ago - just never got as far as the blog, but somehow it's a memory that I for one, would like to keep! Neither of these two are what one might classify as 'drinkers', but I'll have you know that we had a pretty marvellous weekend with the Bothas in Hamilton and all the bottles in the cupboards that had a few drams in them where finished and tossed out once and for all. Here's hoping that the cabinet will have been successfully restocked before we visit there again!

When we first arrived in New Zealand, Glenn and Tracey were pretty well the first 'real kiwis' that we got to meet and although Glenn and Jo worked together at MWH Hamilton (where Glenn still works) we became firm friends too. Tracey loaned me clothes to tide me over until our container arrived from South Africa and methinks that once clothing has been loaned and shared, friendship kind of becomes inevitable!

We had a lovely catch up visit and were thrilled to have our guest room used again! Little Dylan has to be the cutest, most well behaved two year old we have come across in a long while, maybe ever! Hopefully, we will get to see more of them since Glenn's brother lives in Wellington and if you drive from Hamilton to Wellies, taking a slight detour to the right off the state highway, you can't miss Wanganui! No excuses!

So I think I did mention that Richard and Pippa took a little flip over to Scotland and were around for the big sister graduation and celebrations! Here they are in the green hills of Scotland to prove it!

Naturally, we are hoping that the next time they are in the vicinity of green hills far away, those green hills are the ones found around our part of the world in the land of the long white cloud - now that we have a little experience, we can assure you that the scenery around here is as spectacular as any you can find anywhere and well worth it! We look forward to entertaining you here!

Dis al!

Happenings in June

On the west side of New Zealand, the beach sand is all volcanic and black - this picture looks like it could make quite a good painting once the snowscape I'm busy on is finished.

We thought you guys might like to see this picture of our friend Nelda returning from her successful visit to South Africa to run the Comrades - her first attempt and a magnificent time! We surprised her at our teeny little airport with loads of flowers and banners and things - a real local hero for a few minutes! She said she said Hi to Maritzburg and Durban for us! (Her husband, seen smiling broadly at his wife's return, is our GP and the one who is saddled with all our personal information that no-one in their right mind would care about but which Immigration need to have in graphic and minute detail) Frankly, for some of the questions on the form, one can fill in NA - not applicable, and for others, one could cheerfully fill in NOYB - None of Your Business!

We know that there are quite a few folks who have been following this blog for more than a year now - our adventure is an ongoing one and although we are starting to feel more settled in many ways, we are still, in other ways 'fresh off the boat'!

It seems like a good idea to keep the blog going - since we are in the process of applying for our Permanent Residence and until that is completed, we can't really close any of the chapters. Admittedly, sometimes there really isn't that much to say on the blog that could be even remotely interesting to anyone, but maybe we are just becoming more accustomed to things here and are less enamoured with things ourselves! Whatever the case might be, we know that there are folks who enjoy reading about life here in New Zealand from our perspective so we'll try to have an update at least once every couple of weeks for you!

Yesterday, 29th June, Jo-anne was 'klapped' on the head by one of the bigwigs at Edinburgh University and is now (after an incredible journey as an 'older student'-wife-employee-part time cook and bottle washer) a real, dinkum, genuine attorney. Maybe they call her a barrister over there, but whatever the case is, this is one puffed-up-chest-proud-mama who sat here in New Zealand with her PJs on and a blanket over her knees at the computer and watched the live feed of the graduation ceremony in Edinburgh!!! What was even better was knowing that Richard and Pippa were in the vicinity to share all the excitement and celebrations of a sister's graduation and a dad's birthday -all quite unexpected and not altogether planned too much in advance! (Rich and Pips being there, not the graduation or the birthday, which were both planned quite some time in advance - the birthday more than half a century ago!)

OK, it wasn't as good as actually being there in the Great Hall, but being somewhat of a crumbly and seriously technologically disadvantaged, I was still gobsmacked to be able to sit here and watch the ceremony live, thousands of kilometres away! As Jo would say - "die witman is 'n wonderlike ding"

It was a different sort of graduation to ones I've attended before - in Scotland, there is no kneeling before the gowned academic for the cap on the head moment - there's just a sort of 'fly by' with a gentle 'klap' with a mortar board and there is no spin around while the academic colours are draped over the shoulders - all the draping was done beforehand and Jo-anne's beautiful blue 'stole' with a fluffy white trim was perfectly spectacular!

CONGRATULATIONS Sweetheart! We are SO proud of you!

Of course the male graduates in kilts with all the trimmings are not too thick on the ground in South Africa or in New Zealand and made for an even more spectacular event - I know that the kilts are worn in Scotland a whole lot more than we who live elsewhere imagine, but it just looked so grand! and in keeping with all the Scottish names being read out. Plenty of Mc's and Mac- something or anothers and loads of Fionas and Roberts.

Just brilliant! Jo and I so enjoyed our long-distance attendance!

We are in the process of applying for our Permanent Residence - as with all things 'departmental' this is not for the feint-hearted and we have had quite a few irritations and frustrations up to this point - and we are only at the very beginning of the process! (in theory that is). As we suspected, the goal posts tend to shift regularly and without any prior warning and so we have done plenty of 'wrong' things en-route to establishing what the 'right' ones are to do! Hopefully, ALL our documentation including full medicals, blood tests, x-rays and their respective reports, all our work experience and qualifications and all our financial affairs since pa fell off the bus will be finally in one envelope and sent off (not for the first time either) to the department of Immigration offices in Wellington before the end of the week. We are still waiting for our Police Clearance certificates to arrive from South Africa (we need to prove that we haven't been involved in any criminal activity in SA in the past six months even though we have been living here???) and although these were requested and paid for on the first of May, we have no idea when to expect them to arrive. Fortunately, we both have our unabridged birth certificates to prove we were born when we say we were and where we say we were and to who we say we were!

I am thrilled to say that I will be doing some knitting in the near future - more details as they become available.

Dis al!

Summer is over!

With the weather turning colder and wetter, there has been more time for things indoors - this painting is of Waverley Beach, just 'up the road from us' and is one of my first attempts at working with acryllics on canvas. As a result of this painting, I have a commission and will be working on a snowscape for friends of ours - a bit scary really, but all part of the adventure!

If any of you have any idea what sort of price a painting like this one should go for, let me know. The photograph above the painting is A4 size so that should give an idea of the size.

On some of Jo's trips out and about, he has come across a place that sells wood - I have been fascinated to see these logs transformed into neat square blocks and then literally turned on the lathe into artistic 'legs' for a new piece of furniture. Here are the legs of a new coffee table being clamped and glued before the final construction of the frame. At the moment, we don't have the wood for the top so the 'legs frame' is hanging about waiting for that to arrive, before Jo can make the top and we can sport a new coffee table. For now, we just have an 'offee able'.












Jo has been having to fight, beg and plead for a vehicle on many of the days when he needs to be out in the field - OK, not really that bad, but stand in line for sure, and often has to postpone the trip to the following day when there isn't a vehicle hanging around with nothing to do. Those days are over with the arrival of the new bakkie - er, that's a ute here - and this one is kind of Jo's - I say kind of, because other guys can also use it if it's hanging about with the aforementioned nothing to do! But for the most part, this is Jo's bakkie!! This picture shows her in her virginal state - before the addition of the MWH stickers on the side and before the flashing light bolted to the roof. She has made a huge difference to our planning of our weeks, since it no longer matters whether the weather is fine or whether the weather is not, or whether the weather is cold or whether the weather is hot, - Jo can drive to and from work in comfort and style and our little car is here for me to use if I need to. In the recent past, Jo has been taking the motorbike to and from work every day, except if the weather is foul, then he has taken the car, leaving me without wheels for the day! So all in all, things are a whole lot more organised for comfort and I no longer have to feel guilty if the weather turns nasty in the course of the day!

A fairly large contingent of 'boertjies' made the trip from Wanganui to Feilding (yes, that is the correct spelling, although it's still pronounced Fielding!) to attend a little concert. For the most part, the big stars from SA don't perform in the little towns and limit themselves to Auckland, Wellington and maybe Christchurch on the South Island - so when they agree to perform at a school or church hall in the sticks, us 'plattelanders' are happy to support them.

Steve Hofmeyer remains popular amongst the South Africans here in New Zealand - we try to attend as many of these sorts of concerts as we can - great to hear some good old South African music, humour and often hear about how things are really 'back home' - after all, the 'stars' were generally there last week and are quite up on the latest news. Jo has a real soft spot for vehicles DKW and this one, pictured on the screen behind Steve had to be captured for posterity!

We don't suppose that Steve would perform with a South African flag at one of his gigs in South Africa, but lets face it, here in New Zealand, the folks appreciate seeing 'our flag' up on stage!

It must be very satisfying for a performer to travel 13,000 kms and find that the great majority of the audience sings along for most of the songs you put out there! There were plenty of moments when Steve turned the mike around, stand and all, for the audience to sing 'uit volle bors'!

The really unusual thing about South African performers coming over here is the fact that they are available for autographs and a chat with the audience after the show - very personal and much appreciated by the die hard fans. I took quite a few photos of folks with Steve to send on to them for their 'brag files'!

Dis al!

Sunday afternoon on Kai Iwi beach

From the barbeque area and parking along the top of the ridge beside Kai Iwi beach, you can look down on the beach itself and one of the smaller rivers that flow into the sea from further inland. After some initial concern about how to get the quad bikes down onto the beach, we discovered this fairly new bridge over the little river and having taken a fairly roundabout route, were able to access the beach via the bridge. It is a very tight squeeze but the quads made it by millimetres. From the end of the bridge we took a right turn - and barring being trapped by an incoming tide, one can ride for miles and miles.

This is the terrain beside the beach - here you can see another one of the small rivers which empty out into the ocean along Kai Iwi beach.

Hennie and Marieta have two quad bikes and a scrambler and invited us to join them for the afternoon. Our bikes are somewhat inappropriate for this kind of adventure so we were most appreciative that Hennie hauled out his scrambler for the afternoon, freeing up a quad bike for us to share. It was quite a different experience to be flying along the beach without a helmet on and hanging on for dear life behind a sworn enemy of all things quad bike! We absolutely stand by our contention that quad bikes have to be banned from motor bike rallys, but for a 'jol' on a deserted beach on a late summer Sunday afternoon - they do the job very nicely thank you!

We found that for the most part, the beach is completely deserted and you can stroll or ride or whatever you feel like for miles and miles without coming across another soul. It was a particularly lovely day and although the wind got up a bit later in the afternoon, the weather was good enough for us to decide to host a 'farewell to summer' barbeque at the same beach the next weekend! Like all good things, we knew the lovely weather would be coming to an end and wintery, cold and blustery days would soon be replacing the idyllic days we have enjoyed for the past couple of months.

There were a couple of scrambler bikes in the group and the yellow one featured here, has just emerged from a complete dunking in the ocean after the driver failed to anticipate the possibility of the water hiding huge holes into which a bike can easily fall! Needless to say, the bike needed quite a bit of coaxing before the engine would fire up but to our amazement, it wasn't too long before the rider was buzzing along in his very wet, new boots! We happened to witness the dunking of rider and bike and admit that although we were slightly concerned, the disappearance of the rider, and I really mean total disappearance, was actually hysterically funny! This yellow scrambler is not Hennie's one - it was Ruan who took the dunking on his almost brand new out of the box yellow 'submarine'!

Kai Iwi beach is about 15 km out of Wangaui and is where we first thought about renting a house - in fact, if you squint at this photograph, you should just be able to make out a few houses perched on the top of the 'mountains' in the distance. The one we very nearly took was 'second from the front'! In retrospect, it was the best decision to live in town and we were right in assuming that folks aren't too eager to travel the 15km for a music lesson each week.

All in all, a marvellous relaxing afternoon.

Dis al!

Random stuff!

We are busy and happy with life here in Wanganui and know that an update on this blog is somewhat overdue - here are a few random pictures taken over the past couple of weeks and which we thought might interest you! Winter is fiercely en-route and we are now in the process of putting away all the summer gear and hauling out the winter woolies and hunting out the hearty beef stew and hot pudding with custard recipes! In between, we have our documentation for Permanent Residence to get in order, so there is plenty to keep us busy and out of trouble!

Jo and Allan chuckling about something or other - Allan works alongside Jo and has been really great while Jo learns the ropes - although the work is much the same as he is used to, things are CALLED different names and are regularly reduced to acronyms which can be most irritating and very frustrating for the new guys on the block. As you can see from this photograph, Allan is a fair bit taller than Jo and he has to be one of the very few people in the world that Jo looks up to!!!

Is it just me, or does that product name and country of origin sound somewhat suspect? We have no trouble believing that this is the world's most durable outdoor clothing, but to be very honest, we haven't had much occasion to see any swazi folks complete with what look like zulu shields wandering about here.

Admittedly, it's a very striking and eye-catching product label - it certainly caught our attention!

These fluffy, tame and very domesticated alpacas (I thought they were all llamas) are quite a big deal here in New Zealand and people farm them for their wool. Apparently they are of the camel family - I suppose if you look at their mouths, that makes sense - and they are incredibly hardy and cope well with the cold weather in winter here. They do however, spit vehemently when provoked! Not a pretty thought.

This particular one fascinated me, since I wonder how he can see through all that fluff over his eyes!

Now there are 'starter packs' and 'starter packs' - let's be honest. It was just interesting to me to see that if this is a route that I chose to explore, having abandoned the idea of teaching music, I could acquire a couple of young heifers and a bull and would have all the support and expertise at my beck and call! Although, practically speaking, our 'garden' here in Tawhero isn't up to scratch for this sort of enterprise - we would have to move again!!!

We thought that this limo (had it been red or purple of course) could well have been Melinda's first choice for her wedding last month. The interior boasts every gadget and luxury known to man and we surmise that hiring it would cost a few dollars.

The cafe on the corner with tables on the pavement is very popular with tourists and bikers alike - this view of the centre of Wanganui is taken from the window of the conference room where we hold our SA church services each week. If you look really closely, you might just be able to make out the hanging baskets of flowers which adorn each and every building in town - when they are in full bloom the picture is really quite spectacular. This idea was apparently started in Wanganui some years ago and has been adopted by many New Zealand towns.

Dis al!