23 January 2018 - Whau Valley, Whangarei

We have temporarily settled ourselves in the centre of the city, just metres away from a busy intersection of the main highway north and the main arterial route to Kamo. We intend to only stay little more than a week, readying this rental property for reoccupation; a little gardening, a few paint touch ups, the tightening of door handles here and windows there, the unplugging of drains, the sort of thing that landlords do when they have the opportunity to note there is a need and the time to personally attend to these sundry maintenance matters. Fortunately for us there is space to park our motorhome although we do not have the advantage of double glazing that graces the road frontage windows of the house; city traffic, even in this regional back water, is more than we are used to.

Having said that, we thought we would miss the wonderful birdlife of Parua Bay; the wood pigeons, the tuis, the silver-eyes, quail, kaka, fantails, pheasants and so on, but the garden at the rear of the property, surrounded in fine specimens of native trees is full of many of these same birds. And even here in the city, the possums create havoc;  I found the plastic rubbish sack holed after the first night and this morning discovered a road killed glossy coated possum cozied up against our road side fence, a rather dignified death scene although by tomorrow no doubt odorous. I did ring the council who expressed a willingness to come gather the corpse, but they have yet to turn up.

It’s been a strange month since I last considered posting. Christmas Day passed rather pleasantly as guests of our older son and his family. We ate well and enjoyed the family atmosphere and were still both sober and sensibly fed to enjoy a light evening meal with my parents. And while this all may have caused me to be drawn back into the family fold for future Christmases, I still reckon our best Christmases have been those spent in the bush, just the two of us cooking a chook in a dodgy gas oven, a few bottles of the  grape and no one else to consider.

My husband continued to procrastinate regarding the repainting of the Big House’s roof, and I felt as if we were hanging in a limbo state. Finally he took the plunge and risked his aging body on the multi-tiered roof, et voila! All was done. But while we have in the main enjoyed an excellent summer here in the north, we have also had a few extreme rain storms and these have played havoc with the drainage system of that same house. Some years ago we had similar problems and my very clever husband dreamed up a pump system to deal with the excess water, but even this has not been  able to cope with the extreme rainfall from a certain direction and I guess with all this Global Warming going on, it will only get worse. So this is an issue we are currently dealing with apart from luring a suitable tenant to caste us from our current camping spot.

The highlight of our recent life, having little to do with travel on our part but more to do with that of our children, was to arrange a get together of our entire progeny at this address, making the most of having a suitable venue, for the first time in more than eight years. Needless to say, the youngest of our grandchildren was not even born then, so we have grown by one in number since that last gathering and in size by too many kilos.

Our children, their partners and our grandchildren with us

We dug furniture and sundry chattels from under the Big House and engaged the assistance of a caterer to add a classy edge to the feast, and were duly rewarded. We spent two wonderful days enjoying our family and most of all for me, delighting in various members touching base with each other and hopefully rebuilding relationships that have sadly been neglected for too many years.

It all coincided with our daughter, the oldest of the tribe heading further north to enjoy a week in Paihia with her family, so it was not too much of an imposition to swing by us here in Whangarei. The youngest and his family came up and “glamped” on site with their fancy airbed and the middle “child” drove across town to complete the scene. On the Sunday when Larissa and her crew had moved on to enjoy their holiday in the Bay of Islands, my parents drove across town to join us for brunch so we had yet another family group together and a long overdue catch up there for the Auckland family and their grandparents / great grandparents.

The brunching brigade

This really was such a delight to both Chris and I, although marred by a silly accident in the week building up to the event. We were parked up out on our section, with our “front entrance” a rather steep affair with steps balanced on timbers and rubber mats. Our caterer called by to confirm certain points which we discussed over a bottle of wine, reminiscing past acquaintances and mutually attended events. Heavy rain started to fall and it was time for the lady to depart. My husband, always the gentleman, stepped out to help her down, and slipped on the wet mats and came down hard on the step. He had in fact broken a rib in his back, but he continued on over the next few days until the surgeries reopened after the weekend when pain and sleepless nights drove him to seek confirmation and a bottle of more effective painkillers. And in the midst of this, on the Sunday morning while sampling one of his delicious bacon croissants, he broke one of his front teeth. Alas he is falling to bits, which is all most inconvenient; we have so many places yet to go, too much living to do, and still a room or two here to repaint, and hedges to be trimmed at the Big House.

My adoption of the term  “Big House” has arisen from comments made by one of my dear friends who came for lunch subsequent to the Big Party weekend, to help us hoover up the leftovers. She referred to the home we previously lived in prior to taking to the road as the “Big House” and I thought this was all so very appropriate, because as the centre of our earlier family life and memories, and the fact it is at least three times the size of any other properties we own, it is so very appropriate. Hence I shall refer to the house on the hill at Onerahi as the Big House from here on in.

The last couple of days have been taken up with babysitting our local granddaughters, such well-behaved delightful children, who fill our days with their laughter and beauty. There is one day left of this “task” and we have volunteered to repeat the exercise in a couple of months. Our efforts are but a drop in the ocean compared to their other grandparents; I should feel guilty that we have so little input, but I am so aware that the years are slipping by and we have a diminishing number of years to pursue our travelling life. Hopefully these little girls, even grown, will choose to remember us. Thus speaks a very selfish grandparent.

So while we are yet to add to our travel diaries in any meaningful sense, we have progressed  beyond the stalled mentality we were suffering in our own ways, now intending to set off north as soon as this central city property is let and the residual problems and rampant flora at the Big House have been attended to. And of course we have yet to book our return flights for the northern hemisphere.