Taiharuru

I heard a beach mentioned, thought oh yeah, I know where that is.  But when I came to think about it, I couldn't remember what it looked like.  I have a clear recollection of attending a Christmas party at a workmate's house there, around 15 years ago, can remember the house and everyone at the party clearly but not what the beach looks like.   Maybe I didn't go to the beach?

The day was warm and clear and the more I thought about it, the more I felt like going for a drive on a road that meanders along a narrow peninsula not far from Whangarei, past beaches and through very pleasant countryside, to Taiharuru.

Still waters of an inlet on the left

Waves crashing onto rocks on the right

I found the house where I had once partied and remembered catching a glimpse of the beach as I turned into my host's street. This time I got out of the car and had a good look around.  And consulted my map.  For years I've had an excellent map of Northland.  It's now been unfolded and refolded so many times it is in pieces.  I use Google Maps a lot, wonderful for finding my way to somewhere unfamiliar but you have to know where you are headed, right?  I had entered Taiharuru into my phone Maps but the street sign told me I was at Mc Gregor's Bay.  I now know it is also known at Taiharuru Bay.  Luckily, I'd stopped at the tourist information centre as I headed out of town and replaced my old map.  I was delighted to find a newer version of the same map.  Nothing can replace a paper map in my book for giving you the bigger picture, for seeing the lay of the land, the geography.

Looking left from the carpark

Looking right.  The little boy was obviously familiar with the beach at high tide.  He stopped and waited for a wave to recede before scampering around past the rocks.

My paper map told me I would come to Taiharuru Heads if I followed the road to the end and sure enough a few kms along the road, only about 50km from home, there it was.  Well worth the drive.

On my way back home I turned up one of the very few side roads, Mc Rae Road.  It was signposted as if it were a public road but only a little way along there was a farm gate.  It was open but made me think perhaps I'd come to private land.   I ventured a little further until I came to another gate.  The map shows the road runs down to the water on the inlet side.  I must find out if it's a public road and, if so, make another visit.

View from the second gate up Mc Rae Road

Thanks, Shubham

I'm going all modern today.  I have something to share!

I spent nearly an hour trying to get an online order to go through and even after all the fiddling around (I've resisted using a ruder word) the checkout used my old address, rather than the one I'd changed it to.

And you know how hard it can be to find contact information for some of these mail order sites, don't you?  I managed, this time, surprisingly quickly.  And within 5 minutes I had a reply.  

I was truly impressed.

Shubham must have found my email to her exceedingly old fashioned.

I was feeling my age a little after a busy morning and had a little nap.  Now I'm feeling positively ancient.

She replied:

"Hey Pauline, Thanks for reaching out. I hope you're having a good one! I've updated the address on your order and it would be delivered to the address you've shared.  Let me know if anything else. Cheers, Shubham"

Lost and found

I'm sure it happens to everyone at some time.  Something is not where it should be.  Because I've always been a little forgetful I have developed the habit of always putting things away in what I decree as their rightful place.  Well, obviously not always.  

I remember many years ago accusing my teenage daughter of taking my newly purchased black pantyhose.  I knew where they should be and they weren't there, so in my mind, someone must have moved them.  In this case I don't have anyone else to blame.  Although, I must confess I checked the deep freeze which is where the pantyhose were finally found - under the tub of ice-cream.  No ice-cream this time round and no missing album either.

When my third child was born I started a little album with the details of when each of my children reached their milestones - when they got their first tooth, first words at what age, when they crawled, walked, etc.  I had one for each of them but this one had all the info in the one place and it's been the one I've referred to most over the years.

Now that third child has reached fatherhood (a slow developer in that respect) and he's interested in how his child compares to himself as a baby - and I can't find The Book.  I know I've looked at it since I moved in July, so it's in the house somewhere.  (I also have some stuff in boxes in the shed.)

It's obviously getting at me because last night I had a dream of where to find it and bounded out of bed joyously this morning only to have my dreams dashed.

I'm so cross with myself but it's not helping at all.

I pray it is just misplaced, not lost.

To cheer myself I sat down and looked through my wedding notebook that I've kept for nearly 55 years.

I thought absolutely everything to do with my wedding was written in there.  I see the material for my going away outfit cost $12, my hat a further $5.50, shoes 70 cents (yes, really!)  The material for my Kitchen Tea outfit cost $8.12, another pair of shoes for 70 cents, and new gloves cost $1.25.  Isn't it odd that gloves cost so much more than shoes?   I made both outfits myself but had a dressmaker make my wedding dress.  I haven't recorded the details, I'd guess because the material was bought on layby a fair while in advance and the dressmaker was a friend of a friend's parents and made a gift of her services.

I've also recorded a list of expenses for the groom.  Church fees which I remember were not a set price but a donation to the church and was to be put in a plain envelope and handed to the priest without attracting attention, marriage licence ( £1/1/-) organist and church singer ( £1/1/- each), I was married in June and Australia introduced decimal currency during the previous February and some costs were still quoted in pounds sterling.  On the list was gifts for attendants, flowers for groomsmen and fathers, bouquets for bridesmaids and mothers.  However, my groom escaped the flowers costs as a cousin of my mother's gifted me the flowers and my bridesmaids and I made up the bouquets and corsages ourselves the night before the wedding.  I remember how we handled them so carefully on the Big Day, knowing they could easily fall apart.

There were a few blank pages at the back of the notebook where I wrote my first few weeks' housekeeping expenses as a married woman.  In the first week I spent $25.32 of my $27.95 pay packet and that included $4.25 for a gift and wrapping paper.  I wonder who received the gift?  I wonder what the equivalent of the saved $2.63 would be in today's money.  And yes, I banked it, the book says so.

What the missing book says remains a secret!

Long weekend road trip

Nothing better than a road trip with loved ones to visit more loved ones.  

For various reasons I've missed attending nearly all my grandson's birthdays but this year my son and his wife planned to attend Aiden's 10th birthday party so I hitched a ride with them.

My daughter pulled out all the stops, everything was perfect.  Except for the wind, even Justine can't control the wind.  There was plenty of sunshine but the wind made it quite cold outside.  Not that Aiden and his mates felt the cold, they didn't sit still all afternoon.  Apparently, nerf guns are all the go with 10 yr old boys.  I thought that funny - I remember very clearly being admonished for making a pistol shape with my fingers and blowing imaginary smoke off the end of it in front of the child when he was a toddler.  I try to be a good grandmother but it's been difficult at times.

The birthday boy and his dad enjoying a private moment.

Birthday parties sure have evolved.  It would never have dawned on me to go to so much trouble for a child's party.  Mind you, everything I would have given my kids to eat would be frowned upon by the PC brigade, whereas all the edible offerings here were healthy.  Pretty sure it was all lost on the boys but the parents in attendance were impressed.

Must share a few comments from his mates that I overheard when Aiden was opening his presents.

"If you've already read it, I strongly recommend you sell it." (latest Harry Potter book)

"My mother bought it, don't shame me." 

"Oh no, I don't have that one, wish I'd kept it for myself." (as he opened a set of soccer cards that all the boys collect)

The boys sleeping quarters

The wind may have been strong in Taranaki but we had two absolutely perfect summer days for both the trip down and the return.  And, although we were travelling home on the last day of a long weekend, we had very few traffic holdups.  We must have fluked the best hours to be on the highway.  And it was a fluke because if my son had a planned departure time I blew that out of the water when I slept late.  

Westhaven Marina and Auckland city from the Harbour Bridge on Friday

Can't remember the name of this little coastal holiday spot on SH 3 on Monday.

Hah!  You thought you were going to get away without we showing you the mountain, didn't you?  Never.  I love that mountain in all seasons.  The snow has all gone but this mountain loves to show off, he wrapped a pretty cloud around his neck and let it float away in the breeze.

Head down

I've been keeping myself busy with a little writing project, lifting my head from the laptop to watch America's Cup races which I find quite thrilling.  That's a big turnaround for me since the last Cup when I refused to watch any races or follow the event at all because I felt technology had gone too far and the vessels they had created weren't sailing boats at all.  I don't think anyone noticed my protest!  

I have to admit I'd still like to see a return to the elegant yachts of old but these hydrofoiled flying machines sure are exciting to watch.  Until they push things too far and flip over, which happened to American Magic on Sunday.  It wasn't the first boat to fall over and I daresay it won't be the last.  I will have to work on my terminology, I think of 'capsize' as turn upside down and these boats are designed not to do that but rather fall onto their sides, giving the sailors a much better chance of escaping the stricken boat.  Thankfully, all escaped unscathed this time although the boat is in pretty bad shape and will be out of action for a while.

I had no intention of saying all that, strange what comes out when you sit down to type.

Yesterday I had a trip up to Kerikeri with my friend, Chris to visit old friends we used to work with.  I find it sad watching the effects of old age on others and am reminded that others are probably doing the same with me, trying not to shake their heads sadly as I try to remember what I ate for breakfast.  It certainly isn't the golden years for some.  A happy disposition seems to be the best weapon and our friends certainly have that.

Gillian has some lovely orchids in their sunroom

We stopped on the way north at Kawakawa to have a look at the new community hub.  It pays tribute to Friedensreich Hundertwasser, a famous Austrian visual artist who made Kawakawa his home (in the 1970s I think) and built the public toilets which have become something of a tourist attraction.  I've posted plenty of photos of them over the years but obviously didn't label them as toilets because I can't find them now.  Labels are great as long as you remember to use them.  Anyway, the new community hub is more of the same quirky art work.  It includes a public library, a council service centre, public toilets and showers, an art gallery, and an interpretative centre detailing Hundertwasse's connection to Kawakawa.

We didn't linger as we had places to be, people to see but will stop off for a longer look around next time, perhaps.

The town square

Waterlilies

Not sure if that is one word or two.  Maybe hyphenated?  The description of Claude Monet's painting uses one word, so I'm going with that. 

It's probably because of that painting that I'm reluctant to show you photos of the waterlilies I saw a few days ago.  I was so busy looking for the frogs I could hear that I almost forgot to take photos. 

But, I'm happy.  When I think of Monet's work of art, I don't imagine frogs and what pond is complete without them?

Surely, surely

That rain cloud must bring rain to someone, hopefully to these dry hills.

We had a 50 ml downpour yesterday for which I'm truly thankful. 

Right now the thunder is rumbling away in the distance, it's growing dark long before it should, could we be lucky enough to receive more rain?

Last tiki tour of 2020

Since my older daughter moved back to the north, I've enjoyed day trips with her to places that might be new to her, re-introducing her to Northland.  

On Wednesday we decided to have lunch at Helena Bay cafe and art gallery.  It was pretty busy with lots of visitors in the area and the food wasn't quite up to the usual standard, edible but not great.  And the view from the cafe helped make up for it.

We had a lovely 5 hour drive, calling in to the little beaches and bays along the east coast south of Russell.

Don't laugh - I can't remember how I straighten an horizon.

A perfect way to say goodbye to 2020.

💗

Kite surfing

There are so many different summer sports involving a board and a sail or a kite I'm not sure of the correct title of each.  Or it might be that different people use different titles.  Either way I had been watching a lone figure having what looked to be a wonderful time riding his board, harnessing the wind through a parachute type kite, shooting over the waves, propelled along at speed.  I call it kite surfing.

He'd been whipping back and forth across the bay, and then I lost sight of him.  A little while later he appeared trudging up the beach his kite/sail still flapping in the wind.  He stopped just short of where we were gathered to deflate the kite completely.

And then he trudged on past us.  Maybe I was imagining it but he looked tired but happy to me.

The weather has been sunny but quite windy, perfect for his particular sport.

 I'm linking to Betty's My Corner of the World.

 

Just add a child

There was a child in the house, just in time for Christmas!  My grandson arrived, oh and his parents too, but it's the child that had been the missing ingredient.  

I tell him Santa Claus was granted an exemption to come to NZ and he did try to look like he believed all that nonsense to keep me happy.  

He's a thoughtful child and I think he realizes how lucky we are to be able to relax with our loved ones, to be able to gather freely, go wherever we please, hug whomever we please.

Nothing better than being woken on Christmas Day to a hug from a young one before you've even combed your hair.  To be fair it does look like he's more of a hugee but he wasn't complaining.

We saw most of the family on Christmas Day but when there's a farmer in the family you accept sometimes other things take priority.  Water pump problems in summer can't be put off to another day.  Luckily a temporary fix was possible and it was a full muster on Boxing Day.

A catch up with the missing sibling, my younger son in Brasil.  We all miss him so much at times like this.  How we'd love to have his little family with us one day.

The cooks allowed a brief respite from kitchen duties to say hello to their brother.

Cricket on the lawn before lunch.

Uninterested in cricket, my great granddaughter, Lexis has some quiet time in the garden clutching on to her favourite gift, a toy guitar.

 Cricket at the beach after lunch.

Time to strike a pose and point the toes for family photos.

And for little Lexis to learn about the annual silly photo.

I love Christmas.  I wonder what the year between this one and the next will bring.  My prayer is I will get to meet my 8 month old Brazillian grand-daughter and get to hug my younger son again.

This is my favourite Christmas photo.  My younger daughter playing a happy tune on Lexis' toy guitar.  Oops, I should have cropped out that pair of feet.  I think they belong to Rose, my grandson's girlfriend.

Two more sleeps

I often I think the best part about Christmas is the anticipation.  I've never lost that joyous tingle of anticipation that I had as a child.  Although, as the oldest of a large family (there were 12 of us), I was expected to curb my excitement and help keep the younger siblings from getting too strung out, to get them settled in bed at night, counting down the sleeps.  I might have suppressed it, but, believe me, it was well and truly there.  

It was never about the gifts because what we received wasn't very impressive when compared to some others but we were aware that another family in our street received the same sort of gifts that we did but we had a father and they didn't.  So we knew we were better off by far.  We knew their presents came from Legacy, a wonderful Australian institution that supports Australian Defence Force families to carry on with their lives after the loss or injury of their loved one.  We remembered being told Mr Cook had died from injuries suffered during the war and the sorrow we felt for the Cook kids.  We knew something was wrong when the nuns asked the Cook children to return home as we finished our morning assembly at school.  We didn't call it that, can't remember what it was called but it happened at the start of the school day and it had never happened before for children to be told to go back home.  Imagine those children, I think 4 of the 6 children had started school, walking the mile back home.  Surely they wondered what was going on.  I often think about that.

(Getting off the track a bit but my father became the Cook kids' substitute father figure when one of them played up.  Mrs Cook would send one of her brood up the street with a note for Dad telling him what the naughty child had done and expecting him to provide the discipline she found difficult.  Dad hated doing it but saw it as his Christian duty.  He was a very good man!)

Somewhere along the line I must have been gifted a doll.  I don't remember that happening but I do remember opening a gift of hand made clothes for my doll, made from the same material as one of my grandmother's dresses.  I adored my Gran and couldn't have been more thrilled.  I can imagine my mother and Gran having a chat and Gran offering to lighten the load for my mother by making me some doll's clothes.  I don't know if my daughters realize how I loved making the time to make clothes for their dolls, I always thought of it as the biggest possible expression of love.  I was a busy mum when they were young but at least I still had good eyesight and could sew after they were in bed at night, something that would be out of the question now.

Today I did my grocery shopping for Christmas. Such a tame build up compared to when I was a child and the excitement would go up a notch on Christmas Eve as Gran called for volunteers to help catch and kill the ducks and hens we would feast on.  It wasn't really volunteering, when Gran said, "Who's coming to help?" it was like a royal command and I just can't imagine anyone refusing.  Gran would be prosecuted by SPCA these days.  First of all there would be mayhem in the chookhouse as we chased and caught prospective victims and took them to Gran for inspection.  I swear she vetoed the first five or six presented to her just for the fun of it.  The final decision made, she'd then have one of us hold the duck or chook over the chopping block while she chopped off its head.  I was glad when one of the others was old enough to undertake that task, it seemed like I'd had to do it forever.  Then she'd let the bird free to run around without it's head until it dropped, by which time we would have scattered far and wide - up on the shed roof, down the gully beside the house, out into the cow paddock, up the back to the cow shed.  And Gran would be having a great old laugh.  

When we felt it was safe to return, we'd get on with the plucking and gutting of the birds.  I didn't mind the gutting, it was easy enough to close my eyes, pretend I couldn't smell it and get on with it but I absolutely hated plucking.  The monotony of it!

The thrill of Christmas was about having that special sit down hot feast in the middle of the day (in the heat of Queensland summer) with all of us and our grandparents, uncles and aunts and cousins.  Christmas pudding with coins to be discovered and Gran's homemade icecream.  Doing the dishes after the meal with everyone in good spirits, then a quiet time before a swim in the creek - if we were lucky and there had been recent rain.  Cricket in the paddock beside the house followed by the first watermelons of the annual crop.  Other relatives arriving during the afternoon to visit for a while, laughter, happiness.  And the perfect end to the perfect day was one of the uncles playing the mouth organ (harmonica), the farm dogs howling their objection noisily and then, if we were very lucky, we'd hear dingoes howling back up in the mountains at the back of the house.

I don't think a Christmas has gone by since those wonderful days of my childhood without me remembering the dingoes howling.  It's a sound I've never heard since but one I carry with me still.

I took a photo on the way home from the supermarket.  It was a dull, overcast day.  The freshly mowed hay paddocks add a patchwork effect.

And look, fresh tomatoes for Christmas.  I am now enjoying the first of this year's crop.  Not quite the same as watermelon!  I got a bit over-excited at its size of the first one and picked it too soon. 

I send Christmas greetings to you all.  I do hope you have a happy day wherever you are, especially if your celebrations are effected by Covid. 

We cannot change the direction of the winds but we can adjust the sails.

I'm linking to Betty's My Corner of the World. 

Colours of the season

My blog is turning into episodes of, "That was the week that was." I'll try to channel David Frost and be entertaining.  That, in itself, is funny.  

Can you believe that show was taped in the early 60s?  The episode I just watched on You Tube would be seen as dreadfully offensive these days.

I stretched my corner of the world this week to include Warkworth and Matakana, about a 1.5 hour drive from here.  Except the return journey took an extra half hour because of roadworks on the highway.  we are learning to live with roadworks lately, there sure are a lot of them around here.  One day we might end up with some decent roads.  Some hope!

With the coming of the warm weather of summer our farms are starting to look a bit dry but we aren't as dry as around Matakana.

If you can ignore the dry grass, it's a lovely time of year for flowering trees and gardens that have acces to plenty of water.

On Monday, to avoid the roadworks, I came home from town via an alternative route and stopped at a little cafe I like in Maungatapere for a late lunch.  The Office Cafe is in the building which once housed the office of a dairy factory.  I remember it from its operating days. It closed in the mid 80s and now houses a car museum and several other businesses.

On a wall outside the cafe sits this cute, brightly painted little children's book exchange.

Just up the road from the cafe I pulled off the road to take a photo of this jacaranda.  I can never see a jacaranda without thinking of where I grew up in Brisbane, Australia.  You'd think jacarandas were native to the area the way they thrive there, the climate must be very similar to that of south-central South America.  They don't grow quite so profusely here but still catch the eye.

 

While I was stopped taking the photo I noticed a street off the highway I'd never ventured into before so took another detour.  And was rewarded with another sight that reminded me of home except this Bougainvillea was very well behaved.  My favourite memory of them is an old abandoned farmhouse on the roadside going to my grandparents' farm and watching it being devoured, year by year, by a riot of red until there was no sign that once there had been a home there.  It's another native of South America that found Queensland to its liking.

The agapanthus in the foreground originally came from southern Africa and floourishes here.  I made the mistake of planting some years ago, then being told they are an invasive weed and a major threat to native plants.  It took years to get rid of them and I once broke a spade trying to dig one out.  They do look lovely, though, at this time of year when they line the roadsides for miles on end and when they can be kept under control in a lovely garden like this one.

I'm an old misery, talking about things that come from somewhere else when all around us at the moment are flowering pohutukawa our very own New Zealand Christmas tree.  Note to self - stop next time you go past the school and take a decent photo of one.

 Linking to Betty's My Corner of the World. 

Abundance

'Tis the season of abundance.  In the garden and in the fields.  I don't know how much lettuce I thought one person could ever need but I just know if we'd only planted one or two plants they would have died.  Luckily my daughter in law has a few catering jobs at the moment so can use most of the crop.  The rest goes to our little community Sharing Shed.

Everywhere you look along the roadsides there are bales of hay and silage.  This scene caught my eye during the week as it has so much more than usual going on.  The cars in the middle ground are at the rifle range, the cows are totally ignoring the sound of gunfire.

 

 

I'm linking to My Corner of the World.