Returning home
We had planned to spend a couple of days north of Whangarei in Russell where much early European immigrant history was made, while we still had Vicky, but then along came our buyers and their genuine enthusiasm and our need to part with our trusty car were perfectly matched. With three pre-school girls Vicky’s wide back seat gave plenty of room for their car seats, and of course being a Volvo she is very safe with her SIPS and her (now) working air bags.
We had advertised Vicky on Trade Me and waited and waited. A local scrap yard had offered us $500, the previous owner, Carl went as far as $1000 so we were delighted when Tane agreed to $1700.
When Jeannie heard we had sold the car and so would not be going to Russell under our own steam she offered to take us for coffee instead to a place she had known for years just south of Russell. We stopped on the way at a pretty lake area, once an open cast coal mine and now a popular recreation area. At The Gallery and Cafe at Helena Bay in the tiny and charming garden the little green pond frogs make a noise that is in indirect proportion to their size. The cafe balcony looks over native woodland in a valley that leads to the bay below and in the gallery the artworks from numerous cultures made me wish I was a millionaire furnishing my mansion.
Next day, the wad of money from Vicky’s sale now temporarily deposited in our NZ bank account and Doctor Samraj Nandra’s letter allowing Rob to fly filed away safely, we went back to House of Travel and let Anne do the donkey work for us, so she booked our flights for the next week, just five days away. Before Rob was poorly and we were booked to fly home on July 18th I asked him if he was looking forward to it. “Not really, I’m so used to plans being changed because of business commitments.” Well his response this time was somewhat different, “Hell yes!”
Rob’s progress on the re-varnishing of the galley was coming along. All the tough old and now flood discoloured varnish was removed revealing fresh ‘new’ wood. I made myself busy Pfaffing about with my sewing machine making two hatch covers, two cockpit cushion covers and new webbing straps for my small travel bag. It had been a freebie from the French clothing company, La Redoute many years before but the fabric was tough and clean so I just used some webbing from Arthurs Emporium to make new straps in funky lime green. Rob just smiles at such exploits these days.
We had numerous wonderful farewell (temporarily) dinners with friends and spent a really enjoyable day planning our next cruising in Zoonie when we get back. We hope to do a triangle out to Great Barrier Island, south west to Tauranga to see Mark, Andrea and Luca in their new home and then up north to the Bay of Islands before we leave NZ finally in May 2018. We are so lucky to be making such plans but it hasn’t been blue sky for our friends Christopher and Sue Singer who, if you remember, own their elderly yacht Larry and with whom we met in Greymouth while we were in the South Island.
I opened up our Mailasail email account just before we left to find a message from Sue entitled “Sad News”. We knew they were coming to Tonga to charter a yacht for a holiday. We had hoped to join them there, before Zoonie took her drink of river water. So we knew they were coming to the area. Well while they were snorkelling on a trip in Tonga, which they had both been really looking forward to, Christopher had a fatal heart attack and Sue and their son Humphrey were arranging to take Christopher home. We just hoped that as we would be home as well we would be able to spend some time with Sue as we had planned to see them both. Again we quietly reflected on our good fortune at Rob’s expert care and recovery.
In for the long haul
Jeannie whizzed us up to the airport before setting off for her day’s work at the hospital. Her travel scales assured us that even with the books, wad of travel pamphlets I keep for future reference (another smile from Rob) and shell collection we were taking home our bags were within the 30kg weight limit. The bright and friendly check in lady at Whangarei Airport said she would label our luggage all the way to London so we wouldn’t have to find it and go through the process again.
We circled over Sydney in the sunshine and clearly saw the Opera House. In the wait for our connecting flight I used the 50 minutes free Wi-Fi to catch up on Scrabble with sister Sue as sparrows buzzed us. Sandwiched in between Bangkok and Los Angeles on the departures screen we awaited our call. I sushied through my hunger while Rob dined on double egg on rashers in a bun. I was reassured when I saw our Captain take a 5 minute walk around his plane, one of the numerous Airbus A380 Spirits of Australia.
We had perfect seats, a row of three with only us in them and right by the loo. Rob watched two films and series six of Game of Thrones, (he is more of a fan than I am) and I watched, Life of Pi, Anna Karenina, The Promise, The Queen and Taken or was it Hijacked I can’t remember. The Emirates influence on this Quantas/Emirates flight to Dubai meant the food was delicious, in fact we were so well fed we had to turn down a second ice cream! At Dubai we disembarked while the plane took a good drink and then returned to the same seats for the 6 hour final leg to London. Twenty four hours flying time and three stops to England while Zoonie had taken 19 months and countless stops the other way.
Sometime during the long night, when all was dark and most people were asleep, I opened my eyes to see a beautiful young woman looking at me while holding a wicker basket full with shiny red apples. Now I know how the fairy tale Princess couldn’t resist. “Would you like an apple?” Actually it was just what I could do with at the time, something sweet, juicy and refreshing and I was lucky enough to awake later and find my Prince Charming right next to me, no hundred years for me to wait, just as well. Flying 40,000 feet up in a giant steady bird eating a shiny red apple from a round wicker basket, was I dreaming?
The UK was cold and grey and awaiting a hurricane when we arrived but all felt better when the coach driver proffered those magic words “Next stop Ringwood.” We were heading south to Emily, Gary, Henry and Ruby in Poole, home at last.
Chestnuts Dogs and Falling Logs
England in the autumn is a beautiful place on a sunny day. The six of us, three generations, travelled in the family Citroen along avenues rich in the colours of decaying leaves to Arne, a spectacular area of typical Dorset countryside on the shores of the natural Poole Harbour. We have walked there many times before with the children and Toby, spied on the resident deer herd with its famous white stag who were in hiding on this day.
Instead we walked straight into a lovely copse of sweet chestnut trees and between us filled all available bags and pockets with the bounty to be used later in two supper dishes. Henry is still building with Minecraft and has recently added vegetables to the garden of the house he has designed. We were strolling alongside a ribbon of green seaweed in the shallow waters edge when I astonished him by saying the seaweed is edible and if his Minecraft house is by the sea he could add to his diet this way. I don’t think he was impressed.
We drove back towards Wareham and as we approached the bridge over Wareham Creek I remembered how years ago, aboard Missee Lee our 20’ sailing boat, Emily and I had moored just inches from the same bridge alongside the quay for our 24 hour free stay with our friends Frank and Eva who were in their Kingfisher 22 footer. It was a baking day so we stumbled into the welcoming arms of a soft leather sofa in the Quay Inn for a very welcome drink. Emily whiled away the afternoon teaching a lady how to row in our dinghy. Happy days in lovely company.
That evening we baked puff pastry tartlets and filled them with shallots, mushrooms and the peeled chestnuts all of which had roasted in olive oil, balsamic and for the last ten minutes under a blanket of brown sugar. Rob made a Madeira sauce with vegetable stock, Madeira Sherry, chopped mushrooms and a touch of marmite and we served up with an accompaniment of Mediterranean cous cous. It was a mediocre success with the children but a resounding one when Henry and Ruby were in bed and we finished off the Madeira!
Next day we drove in Gary’s car down to my Brother Robin’s farm in Devon and were so busy nattering we missed the turn off the Okehampton bypass and had to detour through Launceston.
Robin has three dogs; Jack is a Jack Russell with a split personality. He is sweet with people but is a rat and a cat’s most deadly enemy. Even at eight years old he can fell both with a lightening severing of the jugular quicker than they can say “well blow me…..”
Bud and Jim are both Springer Spaniels who still enjoy a good walk despite Jim being deaf and recovering from having an infected toe removed. They lavished us with the affection afforded to long lost friends as only dogs can do, just as they used to welcome Toby when he came with us.
A while ago bro Rob took on another Jack Russell he named Max. Jack became his protector and Max was settling in as his apprentice when one day Rob was in a hurry to see the cows in. He usually put the dogs in his car for safety but on this occasion just closed them behind the gate. Well Max managed to get through and was eyeing Rob up on the other side of the road when a fast moving car rounded the bend further up the road. Although Max was on the other side of the road the driver sped up and changed direction to make sure he ran over little Max. “He made no sound Barbara, so I don’t think he knew anything and maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.” I felt almost as sorry for Max as I did for Rob.
I had the joy of preparing meals for everyone while we were there in the new kitchen. The previous kitchen had been ‘fitted out’ back in the 70’s by my father who installed the cupboards he made himself. The tiles on the floor were worn through and the housing for the dual oven was outmoded and defunct. The new solid oak cupboards with self-closing doors make better use of the space and the centre of the room is now a clear space giving the room a nice airy feel. Chinese slates cover the floor as they are harder than Welsh slate.
Brother Rob’s daughter in law Philippa, who spends a day a week cooking for Rob and Christopher, had a ball throwing out masses of unwanted and unused china and knick-knacks that now assist the drainage in one of the farm gateways. I like a compact kitchen, like the one on Zoonie and bro Rob has been adept over the years in making sure there is no appliance, pan, utensil, gadget or dish lacking for the visiting chef.
The Westcountry is such a beautiful place that whenever we are there we try to do as many of our favourite countryside and coastal walks as we can and with three dogs to accompany us that makes it even better. The summer had been very wet so a walk around the farm, with its fabulous views of Dartmoor, on the clay based soil was impossible as it was too muddy.
So Coombe Valley, with its hundreds of years of agricultural history was our starting point. When our children were young my late sister-in-law Shirley and I would take her James and Christopher and my Emily and whatever dogs were around at the time down one side of the valley that lies between Kilkhampton near Bude and the coast and its stream which emerges at Duckpool Bay. At the stream there is a handy bridge used for Pooh Stick games and there used to be a rope hanging from a branch that the children would cling onto as they spun out over the stream and back. Great fun and happy memories.
Taking the path on the other side of the valley we did a loop back towards the car. The leet or millstream for the watermill runs parallel with the path and seeing it reminds one of how people lived out their entire lives in this valley and its surrounds, working the local farms. Folk being christened and marrying in one of the local granite churches or chapels, their leaning tombstones reminding us that the now silent valley used to be full with the noise of cattle, rushing water, the grinding wooden wheel recently restored by the National Trust, children playing and farmers and their wives passing the years in hard toil, joy and sorrow, compared to today, in isolation.
The Trust has renovated the old cottages up to modern sanitary standards and let them out to holiday makers all year round. We went down there one Christmas to the smell of wood smoke, the colour of Christmas lights and today’s generation of children having a great time welly paddling in the ford outside the thatched cottages just as they did in pastimes.
The last part of the walk would take us back up the road and as we had brought neither collars nor leads (!) hubby Rob went up the road to get the car while the boys and I went to explore the old dairy and shippen where the cows used to be milked.
Verdant grass and wild flowers grew everywhere and the field disappeared up the gentle slope of the hill. The boys were busy sniffing, Jack helping the other two in their investigations. There was a padlock on the shippen door but further inspection revealed the lock was not closed. The boys were with me as I pulled the door back, some interesting smells making their nostrils twitch.
I was amazed, the stalls were intact and there was just a light scattering of hay and other natural detritus over the floor and in the drainage channel. Alan who lead the construction of bro Rob’s new kitchen told us the waterwheel and farm buildings were restored a short while ago and looked as if I had just encroached upon the place in between milkings. I wondered if the site was used for educational purposes.
On a clear blue sky day such as we had the whole area is now exquisitely pretty, the once worn paths and work areas now a verdant carpet of green grass, nature’s brown field site.
Robin, Rob and I spent an evening with Robin’s oldest son James and his wife Philippa and their 4 year old daughter Poppy, Charlie the gentle Huntaway cross Collie and Alfred and Jake the guinea pigs. They have all recently moved into this roomy house in a typical Cornish village with a pleasing outlook across the valley to a fine wooded hillside.
Poppy was delighted with her vocal kiwi soft toy, just the right size for her little hand to clutch and squeeze. Alfred and Jake rested upon my lap while James, torch in hand went into the back garden to fetch them some fresh dandelion leaves. These were enthusiastically consumed, then both little pigs settled down for a snooze.
We were chatting about this and that when I felt a warm, moist feeling spreading over and down my leg. I knew the situation could be contained until we got home and the family enjoyed the historic event, you can hear them in years to come, “Remember when Alfred peed on great aunty Barbara, Poppy?” It wasn’t until I got up to leave that two little pointy bullets fell onto the floor from Jake’s environs. “Got with both barrels!”
Our days with Robin were either exquisitely lovely or bitterly cold, but that’s life eh, the rough with the smooth. We took the dogs as far as Jim’s recovering paw would allow and also re-visited Widemouth Bay where lots of families were relaxing on the wide expanse of sand at low tide, on the last day of the school holiday. Robin had a virus and was struggling between spells helping Christopher on the farm and collapsing into his chair for a rest so sadly he didn’t join us.
On our drive back to Broadstone, just behind Poole where Gary and Emily live, we stopped at West Bay. I wanted to show Rob the area where Broadchurch and a previous series with Nick Berry were filmed. We had coffee and cake in The Watch Tower Café on the beach and wandered around the not so old quay, “Would we ever bring Zoonie in here, I don’t think there would be enough water at low tide so it would be a quick stopover with a tricky exit.”
Halloween as a commercial festival has grown in the two years we have been away. Emily took the children off so Henry could join his cub pack and they all went for a torchlit (if they worked) scramble over Badbury Rings, a hilltop site of human activity since the Iron Age, and probably much earlier.
They all turned their sparklers in fiery mini circles at the end and arrived home exhausted. “They went at such a pace mum I could hardly keep up!” “There was a disgusting smell in the car on the way back, I think one of them trod in some dog poo.” Three out of their four wellies required the granny with a loo brush treatment, but small price to pay for teaching youngsters not to fear the dark.
Rob and I enjoyed doing what we could around the house, re-upholstering the dining seats, after finding B&Q were selling staple guns for which neither they nor anyone else had any staples! Fixing a broken bedhead support, that was easy, the chap at Dreamworld just gave us a new wooden support and Rob adjusted it with a saw to the correct length.
Just before we left with Gary for Oakham (Gary was driving himself to Leeds on a business trip) tree surgeons turned up at the house and gave us a very entertaining time. The one surgeon sprung up the trees one by one as if being chased by a bear. Branches small and not so small covered the lawn and when safe another chap sent them through the mincer, reminded me of the odd fictional media murders where it wasn’t wood chips that flew out the other end.
All the while Merv has been keeping us informed of Zoonie’s condition in a very light and humorous way. I’ll paraphrase a few of his repeatable comments, “I noticed under your radar up the mast what appears to be a surveillance camera? I’m guessing these cameras are all over Zoonie inside and out! Are you watching my every move?? Gees talk about MI5.”We have just the one camera, to Merv’s relief, designed to assist forward vision around coral reefs and coral heads.
Merv delights in giving Zoonie’s bow thruster a run to prevent weed build up, “Love that bow thruster – contemplating hauling her out and transferring the entire thruster to MP (their yacht Meridian Passage) but the queen bee (Jeannie) said it would strain our relationship with the Zoonies, so I just content myself with a few short bursts when the engine is running – nice!”
Not at all happy with the idea of being spied on, Merv comments “I shot the camera out with my AK47, sorry about the mess to the rigging and the mast!”
Lastly I can report, as many of you have asked, that Zoonie’s engine is in fine form, Merv tells us “Gees she’s frisky in forward gear at 5000rpm, a real test for the mooring lines as she attempts to mount the dock!!!”
What would we do without friends?
Oakham in Rutland Through Darcy’s Eyes
“I know why you are looking at me like that boy, just a minute.” I really like Sid, he understands me. I also like the smell in his shop. He has lots of men’s shoes on shelves and they make my mouth water, “Here you go, gently now.” I would only ever be gentle in taking the beefy chew from his hand as he holds it over the counter to me, I’ve been told I am a gentleman. I had come along to Sid’s with Rob and Barb because she needed to have her boots resoled for their trip to London.
Just along Gaol Street, across the High Street and up a ways along Church Street we walk into Fords of Oakham, (the family’s department store) one of my homes from home where I used to spend many happy hours in the office snacking on sandwiches that Tracey and Ingrid had kindly brought in for me and left for me to collect from their bags (!)
I had a friend then called Toby and we would play and snooze together as the others tapped on machines and talked on the phone. I haven’t seen Toby for ages and he is no longer with Rob and Barb when they visit. I often think of him.
I am attached to Barb, and Rob is with us and we are making our way to the park for something to do with nuts. They start to rummage amongst the leaves and come across little round things with nasty sharp prickles on them. So Rob kindly ties my lead to the rail so I can sit comfortably on the smooth pavement and watch things.
They fill small bags, I believe they are the ones that are used to clear up after me, and then we walk on and I suspect we are on our way to see granny. I like her too because she always has something tasty for me and she leaves things around to entertain me like her pile of dusters on a low shelf in the kitchen.
While they are busy chatting I slip away, choose my prey and march back to where they are sitting. That usually rouses one of them to chase me into the kitchen where we play ‘catch me if you can’ around the round kitchen table. They haven’t managed to get my prey out of my mouth yet but I always fall for being offered a treat when I have to drop what is in my mouth so I can eat the treat!!
Time to wander back home past the road that we used to take to Rob, Barb and Toby’s home. Charly, my gorgeous mistress, used to drop me off there early in the morning so she could go on to spend the day talking to a lot of children. I would slip through the open doorway and run upstairs where Toby was ready with a warm welcoming kiss and then we’d go wild around the upstairs while Rob and Barb showered and dressed.
“Darcy where’s my shoe,” was a cry that often came my way,
“It’s probably in his bed Rob” would come Barb’s soothing response.
Just like Sid I’ve always had a thing about shoes and all my friends understand now that I will take any available shoe to my bed, or just leave it somewhere to find later. I am better at finding it than some folk but as I don’t harm them everyone who knows me now knows where to find their shoe too. At least I don’t smoke!
Toby and I didn’t stick together much on walks though as we both had different ideas of what we liked to do. Toby quickly became a liver and white spec in the distance putting up any bird he came across. I could see the big black birds were teasing him, dropping down just infront of him and making him chase them just for fun. For me the fun was finding the biggest, fattest, longest stick possible and running past people just that little bit too close to test the reaction. I used to like running after the sticks if they were thrown for me but Toby never could see the point of that.
However one aspect of walking we shared was WATER. The stinkier and muddier the better. There is a long, straight pond where we used to walk and Toby would lower himself so carefully into the water, do a circuit and then climb out again, cool and soaked. For me the dramatic element was much more fun, a big splash that hopefully would reach everyone. The other day Barb had me out for a walk up Manor Lane where there are wide grass verges, not many moving boxes with windows and a really dirty, big, muddy puddle that smells wonderful.
I leaped into it as I always do because I love the reactions it causes, “Darcy you mucky pup!” Pup indeed, I’ll show her ‘pup’, so I started from that puddle like a racehorse from the starting gate and sent rather a lot of mud and water up behind me. Well if Barb hadn’t been quite so close she would have escaped, anyway she didn’t seem too bothered, nice hanky by the way.
Have you noticed the strange goings on lately? Lights over the roads, rustling paper, lots of happy people in the house but strangest of all, the appearance of instant trees. Not only on the pavements but even more oddly in OUR HOUSE. It happens every so often and Charly tells me one of the trees is for ME! Well I know from times past the two forbidden ‘P’s. First I must not Play with the tree or any of the things hanging from it and the second ‘P’ is..….. well I am far too mature for that anyway.
I think instead I will just collect one of my soft friends from my box, retire to my bed and have a nice snooze until Charly and Tom come home. Happy Christmas!
