April 19, 2013

  • Thursday 18th April

     

     

     

    I had to have Mahalia in at the orthodontist at 8:40am so I had pre-warned the kids that they had to be up and packed and breakfasted and ready to leave by 8am.

    I have been caught in the morning commuter traffic enough times to know that I have to allow extra time at that time of day.

    I was up and packed, had the bed remade, car packed up and the kids were still very much in morning grumpiness mode - obviously suffering from late night-itess whatevah

    I gave them a kick start and got them into the car and we were away just on 8am.

    We must have hit it right because we had a good run into the city with no holdups.

    In fact we got there way too early!

    I tossed up whether to leave Mahalia to wait while I went to do a job or two but she wasn't keen on that option so I ended up just waiting with her.

    We were there a while, but she got a good report and her braces tightened.

    So when we left she was feeling a bit sore & tender, hungry, but unable to eat for a while.

    I dropped the kids off at the $2 shops so they could suss out stuff to add to their holiday camp costumes.

    I whizzed crossing things off my list.

    Burnsco at the port to pick up stuff for Seb, TV repair pace to pick up my new dvd player that they unlocked so I can now watch my 'other' zoned dvds, fueled up the Terrano, then parked up and walked for the rest of the morning.

    Picked up some things at Postie as I walked through to go meet the kids.

    Then discovered they were in Postie looking for me.
    Right! How on earth did we miss each other?
    I went straight down Bridge Street from Postie towards the $2 shop, whereas they detoured along Trafalgar, through the arcade and into the carpark and into Postie's back entrance!

    No accounting for kids senses of direction at times

    I had to go to Vodafone so they met up with me there.

    Frances came swooping out of the shop and gave me a big hug and then Libby walked along to meet her.

    She had a dog with her so sat outside and waited.
    When the kids arrived I sent them out to sit with Libby.

    'Who's Libby??'
    Only Frances & John's daughter whom you have never met but should've by now - so go talk and make up for lost time.

     

    I got Marah's new phone all sorted and then had time to chat with the ladies for a few minutes.

    Then we wandered back to the $2 shop and made a few more purchases.

    Had an 11am appointment with Roni at Harvey World Travel and were way early so we sat in the shop front and chilled while she finished with her client before us.

    It is always such a pleasure to go do business there with Roni - she's a great friend and takes all the stress out of traveling.

    I picked up Seb & Phoebe's tickets and holiday agenda.

    Roni walked through it all with me so I can impart the information to them.

    Looks great - I think I want to go now

     

    Mahalia's teeth were still sore but she was getting hungry.

    We said our goodbyes and headed straight to Hanger 58 for an early lunch.

    It was nice to track Nathan down and find out that he was actually somewhere other than work during his non-work hours.

    He tends to almost live there!

    We found food Mahalia could eat, enjoyed our lunch and then headed to the supermarket.

    Azzan hung out at the library while we got some groceries.

    Then we picked up Etienne from France who was waiting at the YHA for us.

    Unbelievably we were out of town before 1pm!

     

    It was raining all the way home.

    Not massively heavy but frustratingly enough to have to keep turning the window wipers on and off.

    I was taking it pretty carefully because I knew the road would be greasy.

    We stopped for a few minutes at Tim's cairn.

    It was drizzling quite heavily but Mahalia & I had bought some flowers and wanted to leave them there so we braved the weather.

    She chose them.

    She discounted the bunches of chrysanthemums because 'they are too boring, everyone gets those' and instead chose these beautiful large orange lilies cuz they were special.

    It was lovely to see someone had put some roses in Tim's gumboots - I am suspecting it was Sandra xxxx

     

    We traveled safely until I was half way down our own road.

    The guys had been using the road and it was churned up a bit and very slippery.

    I slid a couple of times towards the gutter and then nothing I could do stopped me sliding and I ended up in the ditch and decided to stay put.

    I had just enough battery power in my phone to call Anson for help and then it died.

    He and Graham came up, I hopped in with Anson and Graham drove the Terrano down to the house for me.

    It was so greasy I could barely walk and stay upright.

    I was in my high heeled town boots so they needed a good wash when we got back!

     

    Seb & Janis had called in so there were lots of hands to unpack the Terrano.

    Then all the wwoofers donned jackets and headed out fishing with Seb.

    Shoshannah had dinner ready when they returned empty handed.

    Marah & Anson ate here too.

    Gave Marah her new phone - she was pretty excited pleased

    After dinner the wwoofers wanted to watch the Country Calendar dvd, Azzan had been watching it before dinner.

    So Anson sat with them and watched it - again.

    It is like we cannot get enough of it.

    Such a gift to have, a memory to treasure.

     

    While they watched that I talked to Marah about Tim.

    We were looking back at photos that people have given me and just talking about how much I had noticed that he was aging in the recent years.

    The kids just kept seeing their very strong capable Dad, but I was seeing him getting older, slowing down and getting frail in a sense.

    He wasn't capable of carrying 6 fence posts anymore, he was only carrying two or three.

    Which is way more than most people do normally so others weren't noticing it.

    I see a tiredness in his eyes in the photo.

    I also see his beautifully rugged craggy handsome face.

    And I miss him so much.

    I hadn't cried in several days and I was scared I was moving on - but the tears are very definitely still there.

    This photo more than any other right now makes me cry.

    This was exactly as he was the day he left home, the day he said goodbye and drove away.

     

     

    This came up on FaceBook last night and I just had to share it here.

    It was so true for Tim and us.

    He didn't need pubs and parties silly

    Where-ever he went he always had a box of matches in his pocket.

    He would light a fire for any reason.

    A fire was always a good time to burn rubbish, burn off weeds, toast marshmellows or fry fish or sausages.

    Before we invested in our fancy BBQ he always just made a fire on the lawn with a few bricks and a steel plate and that was our bbq for years.

     

    The last decent sized fire he enjoyed was on 8th December when Cat lit up a fire on the beach.

    It was huge - far too hot for the kids to toast their marshmellows so they had to light a smaller fire down the beach further.

    Tim's method of lighting their fire was to transfer the flames with blazing paper.

    Here laying low to get under the heat and then he is rolling away

    and running down to light the small fire.

    And sitting watching it burn with Cat & Leeann.

    There is something mesmerizing about a fire.

     

    Everyone finally headed off to their respective quarters and I tucked the kids into bed.

    M&A were both very tired and we had a few tears.

    Eventually all was quiet and I headed off to bed.

    Called up Estelle and we had a good natter.

    Decided that we both really did want to go to the Joan Baez concert in August so why shouldn't we just 'do it'!

    So I pushed the buttons and bought the tickets.

    Great stuff!
    We are off to Wellington on August 31st to spend an Evening with Joan Baez.

    laughing