Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Rabbits
We went out to Ruth and Stephan's for a camp this week. Granddad shot a rabbit, so we had a stew for tea. Thanks, Ian. After that I went for a stalk myself. Last time i went rabbit shooting, I missed at 10 yards range. This time I amazed myself by shooting 3 in the space of 5 minutes using only 4 shots! That is the diffrence between a gun that is sighted in properly and one that is not. These rabbits ended up as bait for Stephan and his stoat traps.
We camped on the site of the ATC bivvy. I was not too keen on the nearby swamp, but assumed that all would be well because the cadets had camped there previously. As it turned out all was not well. The ground was sloping down hill at quite an angle so we all slipped downwards and needed to keep on returning to our start points several times throughout the night. Then there were the mozzies. Not just a few but whole squdarons of them whining around our bare flesh. No worries with the old spray liberally applied you might think. Wrong! These were no wussy town mozzies that could go and find another warm meal elsewhere. These were kickass Herekino mozzies that hadn't smelt fresh blood of this tenderness in many generations. they ignore the spray and sucked on any bit of flesh they could see. So we had to cover our heads with sleeping bags. It was very hot so I was soon drowning in sweat and aspyxiating at the same time. Further impediments to sleep were the moreporks that sat in the trees above our bivvy gossiping with the neighbours,followed by the persistent rain that started to fall at about 1AM. Stuart and I both agreed in the morning that it had been our worst night's sleep in years.
The bottom picture shows a moth on Ruth's arm. We called it the "snout moth" for obvious reasons. If anyone knows its real name let us know.
The top picture shows a red berry that looked a bit like a strawberry, but had leaves like a raspberry complete with prickly thorns. Again a name for this plant would be appreciated.
We camped on the site of the ATC bivvy. I was not too keen on the nearby swamp, but assumed that all would be well because the cadets had camped there previously. As it turned out all was not well. The ground was sloping down hill at quite an angle so we all slipped downwards and needed to keep on returning to our start points several times throughout the night. Then there were the mozzies. Not just a few but whole squdarons of them whining around our bare flesh. No worries with the old spray liberally applied you might think. Wrong! These were no wussy town mozzies that could go and find another warm meal elsewhere. These were kickass Herekino mozzies that hadn't smelt fresh blood of this tenderness in many generations. they ignore the spray and sucked on any bit of flesh they could see. So we had to cover our heads with sleeping bags. It was very hot so I was soon drowning in sweat and aspyxiating at the same time. Further impediments to sleep were the moreporks that sat in the trees above our bivvy gossiping with the neighbours,followed by the persistent rain that started to fall at about 1AM. Stuart and I both agreed in the morning that it had been our worst night's sleep in years.
The bottom picture shows a moth on Ruth's arm. We called it the "snout moth" for obvious reasons. If anyone knows its real name let us know.
The top picture shows a red berry that looked a bit like a strawberry, but had leaves like a raspberry complete with prickly thorns. Again a name for this plant would be appreciated.
Smoker
Week one of the holiday got off to a good start.
Stuart was invited out to Merv's boat to learn how to change oil and the filter.
A few days later he was invited out to fish on the boat and came home with a couple of feeds of snapper. We had fillets grilled for tea. It seemed wasteful to throw away the frames and heads so the next day I built a smoker in the back garden. Up until now we had been making do with a biscuit tin and a piece of chicken wire. Effective but slow as you can only do a couple of fillets at a time.
The newly built smoker will take a dozen fish at a time. At the moment it is powered by a gas ring with a hot plate covered with sawdust on it. It took about 2 hours to smoke the heads but they were worth waiting for.
The other picture shows our field after the mulcher had removed the chest high carrotweed. Our local tractor man, Bob, told me it would be easier if I did not leave it for 2 years between mulches. Now we can see where are going and can plan the next lot of tree planting.
Stuart was invited out to Merv's boat to learn how to change oil and the filter.
A few days later he was invited out to fish on the boat and came home with a couple of feeds of snapper. We had fillets grilled for tea. It seemed wasteful to throw away the frames and heads so the next day I built a smoker in the back garden. Up until now we had been making do with a biscuit tin and a piece of chicken wire. Effective but slow as you can only do a couple of fillets at a time.
The newly built smoker will take a dozen fish at a time. At the moment it is powered by a gas ring with a hot plate covered with sawdust on it. It took about 2 hours to smoke the heads but they were worth waiting for.
The other picture shows our field after the mulcher had removed the chest high carrotweed. Our local tractor man, Bob, told me it would be easier if I did not leave it for 2 years between mulches. Now we can see where are going and can plan the next lot of tree planting.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
School's out
That is it for another year! Patrick had his prizegiving today, held during continuous rain. It was a jolly affair with the DP Ms Quinn keeping up an amusing commentary about proceedings. The kids whooped their mates when they won prizes. Paddy won a special teacher award for his work. He seems to have had a good year.
So now we have 6 weeks of lie-ins and messing about. Margaret and Ian fly in from Oz tomorrow and will be with us on Saturday. They have broken the drought which is good for us and hopefully not too disastrous for them. It had been pretty dry for about 2 months and on inspecting our rainwater tank, I found that we were down to the last 1/3. We had got in touch with the water carrier to arrange delivery of 10,000 litres to keep us going when the forecast changed. It started rainingg at about 4am this morning, and it did not stop for about 8 hours. I reckon we got about 30-40mm of rain. Our roof has a catchment area of about 400 square metres which equates to about 4,000 litres of water by my reckoning.
I have not been very good with updates recently so there is lots of stuff that has gone unreported.
One major for me has been the saga of my eye. Back in September I was scything down a very tall gorse plant. It whipped back and a spike got behind my glasses and poked me in the right eye. I thought at the time "I should not have done that!", like you do. I experienced some blurred vision for a few hours and it gradually went back to normal. Some 5 weeks later after having had no further ill effects, my sight started going blurry again. It looked like the lens of my glasses needed cleaning. It quickly became very painful and inflamed and a visit to the doctors and then casualty was needed. For quite a long time, I thought that it was the symptom of some horrific degenerative disease. The internet was full of possibilities and I was pretty worried. Numerous visits to the opthalmologist and about a gallon of eye-drops later, he decided that he could see a site of damage in the lens that suggested that the gorse had caused all the damage. A cataract op (lens removal and replacement) was required. The inflammation had to be brought under control first. That did not happen and my eye ended up with a pool of pus in it. I thought you might enjoy a picture so it is shown in the post below.
When Mr Watt saw how bad it had gotten he told me that he would remove the lens anyway and then continue to treat the infection. That is the situation now. I am on eye drops containing aantibiotic, another that has steroids to keep the inflammation down and a third to keep the pupil open. I will go back in January to see if it is clear enough to havve a new lens inserted. In the mean-time I have verry blurry vision in my right eye, have problems with depth perception and bright lights. I have to wear dark glasses or an eye patch hen I am out. This causes witty people to ask me where I left the parrot etc. Hahaha. And I am not supposed to go swimming ... in the hot Northland summer, when I had decided to really get into snorkelling!
On the other hand ... it is pretty amazing that I am not permanently blind in one eye. My disability should be temporary and if all goes as expected,by this time next year, I will probably take my full vision asmuch for granted as I have done for the last 43 years of my life. Not for the first time, I am really grateful that I have access to very, very good (and free) health care. That along with my vision should not just be taken for granted.
So now we have 6 weeks of lie-ins and messing about. Margaret and Ian fly in from Oz tomorrow and will be with us on Saturday. They have broken the drought which is good for us and hopefully not too disastrous for them. It had been pretty dry for about 2 months and on inspecting our rainwater tank, I found that we were down to the last 1/3. We had got in touch with the water carrier to arrange delivery of 10,000 litres to keep us going when the forecast changed. It started rainingg at about 4am this morning, and it did not stop for about 8 hours. I reckon we got about 30-40mm of rain. Our roof has a catchment area of about 400 square metres which equates to about 4,000 litres of water by my reckoning.
I have not been very good with updates recently so there is lots of stuff that has gone unreported.
One major for me has been the saga of my eye. Back in September I was scything down a very tall gorse plant. It whipped back and a spike got behind my glasses and poked me in the right eye. I thought at the time "I should not have done that!", like you do. I experienced some blurred vision for a few hours and it gradually went back to normal. Some 5 weeks later after having had no further ill effects, my sight started going blurry again. It looked like the lens of my glasses needed cleaning. It quickly became very painful and inflamed and a visit to the doctors and then casualty was needed. For quite a long time, I thought that it was the symptom of some horrific degenerative disease. The internet was full of possibilities and I was pretty worried. Numerous visits to the opthalmologist and about a gallon of eye-drops later, he decided that he could see a site of damage in the lens that suggested that the gorse had caused all the damage. A cataract op (lens removal and replacement) was required. The inflammation had to be brought under control first. That did not happen and my eye ended up with a pool of pus in it. I thought you might enjoy a picture so it is shown in the post below.
When Mr Watt saw how bad it had gotten he told me that he would remove the lens anyway and then continue to treat the infection. That is the situation now. I am on eye drops containing aantibiotic, another that has steroids to keep the inflammation down and a third to keep the pupil open. I will go back in January to see if it is clear enough to havve a new lens inserted. In the mean-time I have verry blurry vision in my right eye, have problems with depth perception and bright lights. I have to wear dark glasses or an eye patch hen I am out. This causes witty people to ask me where I left the parrot etc. Hahaha. And I am not supposed to go swimming ... in the hot Northland summer, when I had decided to really get into snorkelling!
On the other hand ... it is pretty amazing that I am not permanently blind in one eye. My disability should be temporary and if all goes as expected,by this time next year, I will probably take my full vision asmuch for granted as I have done for the last 43 years of my life. Not for the first time, I am really grateful that I have access to very, very good (and free) health care. That along with my vision should not just be taken for granted.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Saturday, November 20, 2010
November
Boys exams over and some results are in.
They are enjoying being able to kick back.
We have been pretty the last few weeks, with Chantelle's and the Stuart's birthdays to celebrate.
For Chantelle, all of us apart from Eric went down to Auckland to watch the rugby at Eden Park. We sat in the new South Stand which has been finished ready for the world cup next year. It was a league match - actually 2 matches in the 4 nations series. England made short work of Papua New Guinea beating them by a lot to a little. We were sat pretty close to the pitch and it was fun to see all the action without an editor. I cannot say I am a big rugby/ sports fan, but it was quite a spectacle. The crowd were having a great time, knocking back the beers and cheering every time PNG got the ball. We were in a bit of a minority cheering for the motherland, but the people around us were pretty good natured.
The second match was NZ vs OZ and was the real crowd puller. There was a lot of support for the Kiwis as they ran on the field and for their national anthem and haka. The ozzies are not much liked in NZ, in fact that is a pretty mild way of putting the hatred that most kiwis feel towards their bigger, richer neighbours. The papers are full of soul searching comparing life in Oz to life in NZ. On the sports field the ozzies are seen as cheats, brash and they must be beaten. The girls beat the ozzy netball team in the Commonwealth games and there was widespread celebration. If Oz beats us at any sport, it tends to be glossed over or if it cannot be ignored eg when the Wallabies beat the All Blacks there follows a period of nationl mourning.
Anyway back to the game ... the Ozzies were booed during and after their national anthem. The game started and the ozzies took the kiwis apart. Lots of mistakes by the kiwis were seized by the opposition and the score got higher. After half time, it carried on and the crowd suddenly seemed to give up on their team. A Mexican wave started in the stand next to ours and it gradually spread round the whole stadium. A few bright sparks took the opportunity of standing up to get rid of their bottles and chips. This slowly took off as well and by the time of the third circuit, we were covering our heads because so much stuff was flying! A fair amount was landing on the pitch and apparently, the ozzy team were getting a bit of a barrage. Add to that there were a few scuffles in the crowd. Quite a few people were drinking pretty heavily including a few people around us. It certainly gave Stuart a new perspective on what was a lot to drink as he thinks my few bottles on a Friday night is over the top!
We left before the end to get the free bus back to town before the crowds all left. Later on it was interesting to see the media reporting the "drunken chaos" that bodes ill for the World cup.
They are enjoying being able to kick back.
We have been pretty the last few weeks, with Chantelle's and the Stuart's birthdays to celebrate.
For Chantelle, all of us apart from Eric went down to Auckland to watch the rugby at Eden Park. We sat in the new South Stand which has been finished ready for the world cup next year. It was a league match - actually 2 matches in the 4 nations series. England made short work of Papua New Guinea beating them by a lot to a little. We were sat pretty close to the pitch and it was fun to see all the action without an editor. I cannot say I am a big rugby/ sports fan, but it was quite a spectacle. The crowd were having a great time, knocking back the beers and cheering every time PNG got the ball. We were in a bit of a minority cheering for the motherland, but the people around us were pretty good natured.
The second match was NZ vs OZ and was the real crowd puller. There was a lot of support for the Kiwis as they ran on the field and for their national anthem and haka. The ozzies are not much liked in NZ, in fact that is a pretty mild way of putting the hatred that most kiwis feel towards their bigger, richer neighbours. The papers are full of soul searching comparing life in Oz to life in NZ. On the sports field the ozzies are seen as cheats, brash and they must be beaten. The girls beat the ozzy netball team in the Commonwealth games and there was widespread celebration. If Oz beats us at any sport, it tends to be glossed over or if it cannot be ignored eg when the Wallabies beat the All Blacks there follows a period of nationl mourning.
Anyway back to the game ... the Ozzies were booed during and after their national anthem. The game started and the ozzies took the kiwis apart. Lots of mistakes by the kiwis were seized by the opposition and the score got higher. After half time, it carried on and the crowd suddenly seemed to give up on their team. A Mexican wave started in the stand next to ours and it gradually spread round the whole stadium. A few bright sparks took the opportunity of standing up to get rid of their bottles and chips. This slowly took off as well and by the time of the third circuit, we were covering our heads because so much stuff was flying! A fair amount was landing on the pitch and apparently, the ozzy team were getting a bit of a barrage. Add to that there were a few scuffles in the crowd. Quite a few people were drinking pretty heavily including a few people around us. It certainly gave Stuart a new perspective on what was a lot to drink as he thinks my few bottles on a Friday night is over the top!
We left before the end to get the free bus back to town before the crowds all left. Later on it was interesting to see the media reporting the "drunken chaos" that bodes ill for the World cup.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Exams
Boys in middle of doing them.
I am in the middle of marking them.
More when we have finished with them.
I am in the middle of marking them.
More when we have finished with them.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Erics Gliding Experience
These are just two pictures of a gliding day I attended on labour weekend with ATC. The two gliders in the picture is the two ones that we were using that day. The one furthermost to the camera was the one i flew in, it was a tight fight as you can see in the photo showing the seat just before i climbed in, and bumpy landing finished my first gliding experience which i really enjoyed. The picture you see of me is when i won a free trip in a two seat er powered plane, i took the picture myself just before i took over the controls until we were on final for the airstrip. All over i really enjoyed it and hope ATC plans to do it again. We are hoping to post some clips on YouTube of the plane and we will publish the links when we have done so.
By Eric Bryan
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Christchurch Part 2
These pics were taken on our day off after the chess comp in Christchurch.
We made the decision that we would do some extra fundraising so that we could take a day to explore the city. Last year we were in a hurry and had no spare money, so we finished the chess and were straight back in the van for a 13 hour drive. Not fun.
This time we had time to go exploring the city at night, take in a movie and have a meal and then had a whole day with a hire car to get out of town. We headed south to the Port Hills. These are the site of a huge volcanic eruption some considerable time ago. I am quite pleased with the picture of the lamb surveying the city. Over to the west we had uninterrupted views of the entire range of the Southern Alps all covered in snow.
After a bit of a walk we headed off to the port town of Akaroa. This was originally settled by the French and it cultivates a french atmosphere that certainly does it no harm as a tourist attraction. Lots of brightly coloured wooden houses and other buildings. Tres beau n'est pas? I was showing off my rusty French to the Chess Team and pretending that I was French, when one of them pointed out that I was wearing my England T-shirt!
We flew back home on the Tuesdy morning and had a leisurely drive back north.
Eric was on the B-team this year and he has become quite obsessed about chess. He is very keen to make the A-team and to go on a similar jaunt next year.
We made the decision that we would do some extra fundraising so that we could take a day to explore the city. Last year we were in a hurry and had no spare money, so we finished the chess and were straight back in the van for a 13 hour drive. Not fun.
This time we had time to go exploring the city at night, take in a movie and have a meal and then had a whole day with a hire car to get out of town. We headed south to the Port Hills. These are the site of a huge volcanic eruption some considerable time ago. I am quite pleased with the picture of the lamb surveying the city. Over to the west we had uninterrupted views of the entire range of the Southern Alps all covered in snow.
After a bit of a walk we headed off to the port town of Akaroa. This was originally settled by the French and it cultivates a french atmosphere that certainly does it no harm as a tourist attraction. Lots of brightly coloured wooden houses and other buildings. Tres beau n'est pas? I was showing off my rusty French to the Chess Team and pretending that I was French, when one of them pointed out that I was wearing my England T-shirt!
We flew back home on the Tuesdy morning and had a leisurely drive back north.
Eric was on the B-team this year and he has become quite obsessed about chess. He is very keen to make the A-team and to go on a similar jaunt next year.
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