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Monday June 25, 2001

Joan went off into town with Joanna, so I carried on with the office work and paper shuffling. I was just sitting down to a microwaved mug of home-made pea & ham soup that had been left for me, when Joan rang for a pickup. Down went the soup, and into town. We stopped at the library to pick up a few book tapes for our car trip tomorrow. I can recommend this to readers as a great way to pass the time on a trip. I would think most public libraries will have audio books, as they are essential for the blind and partially sighted; ours has a whole bookshelf bay of them. Next call was at the optician to leave my 'computer glasses' to have new lenses fitted (my eyes have altered a bit over the last 18 months).

On to Dick Smith Electronics to look at new phones for the office and kithcen. The existing ones were el cheapos, and have been starting to give trouble. I wanted speakerphones; bought what seemed to be a reasonable pair and took them home. I plugged one in, tried the speaker, and rejected it as unintelligible. So it was back to town and a trawl through the catalogue to find something better. I ended up with a cordless Panasonic with good speakerphone volume for the office; a Uniden with fixed handset would be right for the kithcen -- but they were out of stock, so that will wait until we are back.

The boys came in at 5 pm while Jo and Rebeccah were at ballet, so we had 90 minutes of uproar until they were collected again. They look forward to Monday nights with Gran and Grandad -- non the least because they get to have tea before they leave. Gran's food is always approved of. I spent a little time going through my toilet kit and travel bag -- rather depleted after our trip -- and organising clothes.

Tuesday, June 26, 2001

Up, dressed and breakfasted by 9 am; finished packing clothes into cases and transferred them to the car ready to go. I had time to clear emails and read some daynotes before morning coffee. We had hair appointments at 12 noon, but needed to go into town first to pick up my computer glasses and get Joan's new cellphone. She wanted a white-panelled one, as the gray or black phones disappear into the depths of her handbag and she can't see it against the dark lining. This is a pre-pay phone; it comes with $20 of airtime loaded, and you buy $20 or $50 cards with a (concealed) serial number. You connect with Vodafone and enter the serial number, and the card amount is loaded into your account. This has cost me $NZ109 (about $US 45) for those interested.

Over to the hairdresser to get hair attended to, then on our way south at 1 pm. The C-RV felt a little strange in its handling, so after a while I was sufficiently concerned to pull over and check the tyres. Sure enough, one rear tyre was badly under-inflated with only about 12 pounds pressure. Some fast work with a foot pump (yes, I DO carry a pump...) got the tyre pressure up to normal, and the car handling was back to normal. OK, I know I'm supposed to check the tyres before leaving -- but I forgot; and also omitted to fill the screen washer reservoir. Mea culpa.

The volcanoes at National Park had some snow on them, but not really enough for the skiers to get excited about yet. We arrived in Wanganui just after 5 pm and drove to the funeral home to check on the arrangements. Everything seemed well in hand; and we went on to our motel and checked in.

I had arranged to meet a friend, Bryan for an evening meal in a club restaurant at 6 pm; we were there shortly after 6 and found him waiting with another old friend, Ailsa. We had our meal and chatted until 8, then returned to the motel.

Wednesday, June 27, 2001

Up and out at 9.30 am; first job was a short run into the country to see Dawn, one of Nana Clay's nieces who has been backup for us as a local contact for the hospital that looked after her. We talked over Dawn's memories of her aunt to give me some more material to give to the minister who will be taking the service. We drove back in to see him at 11 am; a very nice man who discussed the form of the service and gave some suggestions on hymns.

Lunch at an hostelry called the Rutland Arms; a pub which has been a Wanganui landmark since the 1800s. I had a delicious pie which was obviously made on the premises -- it had big pieces of meat and real vegetables; much different to the commercial meat paste in soggy pastry that is the usual fare. Later in the afternoon we went in to see the lawyer about the will, which I had a copy of, as I am the executor of the estate.

Then we went to friends Vince and Lesley for tea, before going to the Wanganui Camera Club to attend their meeting (I am a life member). It was good to renew friendships, and see that the quality of photography has improved out of sight over the last couple of years. This is what we are hoping to achieve in Rotorua.

Thursday, June 28, 2001

Joan, not having a good night, slept in until 9 am. However, we got ourselves out by 10.15 am and drove up to Kowhainui Hospital to collect the few effects (actually only photos) and thank the staff for the wonderful care they took of Nana Clay. We then called round to Lesley & Vince for me to help her with transferring files from the old gear to the new one. Unfortunately, Lesley had gone out and Vince had no idea if she had any empty floppies for me to use, so we arranged to come back later.

We went down town and called into a friend's sweet shop to stock up with chocolate delicacies, had an early lunch (at the Rutland Arms again), and then drove out into the country to a district named Okoia. Joan had a desire to see some of the places that she used to go out to and stay, when she was a young girl. Many of her family relations had had farms there, so we drove down a number of dirt roads and took some photos.

Back through town to have a short rest at the motel, before driving to the airport to meet my sister-in-law Priscilla, who had flown down from Auckland. We took her back to the motel, then went back to Lesley's home to do the file transfers and give her some basic tuition. Soon it was time to head back out to the airport to collect daughter Sue, who could only get a seat on the later plane. We then went straight to a Chinese restaurant for a very tasty banquet: chicken corn soup to start; sweet & sour wontons; then various rice dishes, mongolian lamb, crispy chicken etc. The whole meal cost $NZ 82 = $US 34 for the four of us.

Back to the motel, and then to bed.

Friday, June 29, 2001

Surprisingly, we all slept to 8 am -- probably needed a good sleep all round. Got dressed, breakfasted, and packed; then I paid the motel bill and sought permission to leave bags with them in the office. With Priscilla's and Sue's bags in the back, and them sitting on the back seat, there wasn't enough room for all our junk as well. We left for the funeral home just before 11 am, and were on hand to welcome some of the early arrivals after 11. Jeremy (Sue's husband) arrived and changed into tidier clothes -- he'd worn comfortable ones for the trip up from Wellington. There were a lot of people I'd not seen for many years; it takes a funeral to bring us together these days.

The funeral service went very well; Sue spoke for the family with some well-chosen anecdotes, and a nephew of Nana Clay also remembered his early memories of her. We had catered tentatively for an attendance of 60, and were gratified to get just under that number. The funeral home have their own catering unit in a separate lounge, and we are able to go there straight after the service for a cup of tea and sandwiches. Then after 40 minutes or so, we announced we were moving to the cemetery for the interment and ahepherded people to their cars. The cemetery is about 5 miles from the city centre, so it's quite a drive -- threading your way through city traffic.

We had the interment; the wind was bitter and most people didn't stay very long afterwards. We went over to the Rose Garden and left some flowers on Leola's and Bruce's plots then went back into the city for a warming cup of coffee. Sue and Jeremy took Priscilla to the airport on their way out; we turned up the road north beside the Wanganui River and headed towards home at 3.30 pm. We arrived at 7.15 pm so had a good run -- we only stopped for a few minutes to eat a few of the surplus sandwiches we had been given.

So that's another chapter of life closed. We won't need to go to Wanganui quite so regularly now -- but there are still plenty of friends there to see, so I guess we'll still be visiting at least two or three times a year.

Saturday, June 30, 2001

As always after being away, there are the chores of putting things away, storing cases, and tidying. In mid-morning, we went over to Jo's house to give her a set of drapes, which Sue had replaced because her colour scheme was changing. School holidays at the moment; so Rebeccah was still tucked up in bed, and there were several extra boys charging round the house. Off into town to pick up the cord phone that I had ordered for the kitchen; then to the supermarket to stock up on food.

Back home, I unpacked the phone, plugged all the various cords in and attached the 9v plugpack. Everything worked fine; the autodial worked, I talked to Jo to test, then tried the speaker. Clear reception, BUT she couldn't hear me :-[    So I confirmed the built-in microphone is stuffed, packed it all up, and will return it tomorrow. Feh. What has happened to quality control these days? The phone is a Uniden of reasonable quality, and cost $NZ 149.95, about $US 62. For that sort of money, I would expect a phone to work properly out of the box. I suspect that quality control of everything has now finally passed to the consumer to save costs. After all -- maybe the purchaser doesn't need to use the speaker, so won't complain and cause trouble. But it so happens that I consider that to be a prime requirement when purchasing this phone and am annoyed when it doesn't function correctly.

Not long after lunch, we had a ring from Joan's cousin Eris from Wanganui, who is up in Rotorua staying with her daughter-in-law. They came round for an hour or so, walked round the garden, had afternoon tea, and talked about our trip. After they left, I started once more on the office shambles and managed to make some order out of chaos before tea.

After tea, was TV time: we watched the rugby football game between the All Blacks and France. This was predicted to be a hard-fought, close match; but the French were out-played 37 - 12 so we were satisfied. The French have beaten the All Blacks several times over the last few years, and revenge is sweet. When I left the TV much later (we watched a videotaped episode of The Bill) the British Lions were trouncing the Aussies -- also very satisfying, remembering that our current catch-cry is "If you can't join them, beat them". If you ask what rugby teams we support, the answer is: "All Blacks, and anyone who beats Australia". So there, Jonathan Sturm. For those North Americans who don't know what rugby is: it's a bit like gridiron on turbo, no stops for ad breaks, no thick body protection and no hard helmets, flat-out for 40 minutes per half, with a 10-minute break in between.

Sunday, July 1, 2001

A good frost this morning, and another to come tonight if the temperature inside is any guide. A nice sunny day to follow, though. Joan got busy outside and snipped things and scratched in the dirt and swept up leaf drifts. My contribution was to man the lawn mower. Mowing lawns on 1 July in mid-winter??? But the grass HAS grown since I mowed last (before we went away in May) and I filled the catcher twice -- and in the process vacuumed up the leaves that Joan had missed. It was good to get outside and do something physical.

Managed to get my Visa and bank statements up to date, although there is still a Visa statement to come with the overseas purchases. This will be a busy office week, as I have to get tax returns away on Friday to avoid penalties. Joan's niece Deirdre is down from Auckland and staying a few days with Joanna. We are hoping she will move down here.