Rosemary's Ramblings

JUNE BLOG from Nan.
For my blog contribution for June I decided to select items from my journal instead of writing anything out again. Just a few outings in our quiet life-style. I have been re-reading old letters, and found some the children and I wrote to Ray from Stratford, when Ray was already in Putaruru. They read like the accounts we get from Nathan and Vernice of the comings and goings and so many things we had to do. Incredible! These excerpts are not like that!

Thursday 9th June.
We went to Cambridge for an 'adventure'. Ray had spent time the previous evening looking at a Cambridge house for sale on the internet. We went on the main highway, which was not too busy. We drove through a few remnants of morning fog. We found Williamson Street right away, it was the first street on the left as we entered the town. At the far end, at the corner of Dominion Road and just across that road from Victoria St, was the house we had seen advertised, number 31. We left the car in the parking area of a skateboard park. There was, conveniently, a public toilet there.

We walked around and saw that the house was empty, so we wandered around the outside. A small section, shady with conifers at the back, sheltered, but nowhere for a vegetable garden. No real front door, but four ways in altogether. From garage, we went up rock steps to the front garden and the house. No likelihood of being flooded, even if the Karapiro dam breaks. The Waikato river runs through a ravine nearby, and under Victoria bridge. There is a door under the house, which I noticed but forget to look at close up. Japanese maples at the front, ideal for shade in summer and sun in winter. A young beech outside the French door which is the official front entrance, will overshadow the house years hence, unless it is a dwarf variety. We would take the house if we had to live in Cambridge. Especially if we were given it!

We walked around the block, back along Williamson to the highway, then back along Dominion. We had not noticed Dominion Road when we had passed it by a few metres to turn on to Williamson. It was no entry from the highway anyway. Along the river, went Dominion Road, then way above it. Some nice houses, and some steep empty sections for the wealthy. A nice circular walk for old people!

We walked into the town centre, which took about 10 easy minutes. We found where the supermarkets were, no more than another 5 minutes. As we walked along I think it was Asaph Street, we saw the realestate offices had held 'our' property. We went inside. As there were no tenants in occupation, we were taken to see the inside our house. Interesting, with potential if one did not have lots of possessions. Two new bathrooms, but neither had a bathtub. The only view was from the kitchen, over the roofs to the hills outside of town.

Then we walked to the chapel. We made so many interruptions and diversions that there was no way we could time it, but it was easily walkable. There was a dairy across the road from the chapel. We bought ice cream trumpets. Coming back Ray found side roads all the way to where we had to cross Victoria Street. As it was, we did not return straight to the car, but checked out the three Op Shops for knitting wool. None. However, we crossed the street to the Warehouse (5mins from 'our' house!) and there bought a ball of yarn for $3. Ray needs me to knit an added length on to a favourite sweater. Hence the need for yarn. At one of the Op shops I bought two little glasses, matching our big ones, to use for juice. Or lemon and lime bitters, as we did that evening!

It was mid-afternoon when we got back to the car. From the car we could see a place across the river which looked like it could be a pie shop. It was. Close up I could read the sign properly, Pies and Espresso. It was an Internet café. Clean and quiet. Ray parked in a parking area this side the street – which I therefore had to cross – and I bought two pies. Mine was mince, bacon and cheese and was without doubt the nicest meat pie I have ever eaten. After eating in the car whilst looking across at our house, we went for a walk along a track, with newly built steps, along the gorge above the river. When we got back to the car, I crossed that busy street again to go and tell the proprietor of the café how much I had enjoyed the pie. We were now in Leamington, where the streets all have poets' names. We turned down Shakespeare Street and got back to the highway without trouble. We left the highway to drive through Karapiro. As the traffic on the highway was quite heavy, I told Ray we could go to Arapuni by side roads. This is what we did. Back at Putaruru we went to Countdown to do the grocery shopping.

Wednesday 15th June.
Yesterday I got up and had the guilty feeling I just had to go to the temple very soon. Later I read an email to his family from Dylan that he is going to the temple on Wednesday. Immediately I decided Wednesday was a good day to go also! If I did not see him, it mattered not, I was going one day this week anyway. So we took off at 6.08am and went by the highway. As we approached Hamilton Ray was put out by all the traffic. I think a lot of it was going to Fieldays.

Some missionaries were in first session but not Dylan. When I came down for the second session there were hundreds in the assembly room. Including Dylan, who turned around and saw me before I saw him. He was very much surprised. In the celestial room, Sister Porter, wife of mission president invited me to sit down and talk with Dylan. Pres and Sister Porter have just about finished their mission. Later, when the missionaries were boarding their bus to Auckland, Ray happened to be there and he and Dylan met and shook hands. A good choice to go in today. But the 10 o'clock session was packed to the rafters – let us say to the gallery! It took so long I had no time for lunch. In fact I had to leave Dylan in order to get down to the 12.30 session. Which was nice and normal. Bought lunch at Subway in Te Awamutu on the way home.

Tuesday 21st June
There still has been no real frost, and here we are at the winter solstice, or will be tomorrow, as this is the year before leap year and the solstice is pushed back a day. The ski-field operators suffer! No snow. Or not enough. We saw the top of Ruapehu glittering with fresh snow today. It was one of those days when I went to bed saying I had accomplished nothing. None of my self-assigned tasks, that is. Just to list the things we did makes it look like something was done. Lots of things were done and nothing accomplished perhaps.

I got up in time to do my exercises and read some of El Libro. Ray came in and said “Where shall we go?” “To see if Maungatautari is really closed?” We went, and it was. We drove to the end of the newly enhanced Tari road (which, incidentally, we saw was not on the newest AA map, although it has been on older maps when it was a poorly maintained dirt road) and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. That is where we saw Ruapehu to the south. We set a map on the picnic table (a new thing there) and placed Ray's new compass on it. But although we now knew where to look for Mt Taranaki, we could not see it. Someone had told us one could just see it. It was too hazy, or some trees had grown, or else it was just too far away, for we could not spot any white in that direction. We could see Mt Tarawera the other way, though it had no white.

True enough, the gate was locked. Perhaps the picnic table had been placed there as compensation. If people had come from afar, they could at least eat their lunch and look at the great views. We could easily have climbed the gate and walked the outer perimeter, or started up the mountain track, but our car would be a giveaway. If we had left it down by the school with the teachers cars, we could probably have trespassed unnoticed.

It upsets me that the Iwi have been mean enough to demand the public keep out of what I always thought was crown land. One excuse is that there are supposed to be some burial sites in there. How was it they did not remember this until millions of dollars had been spent and countless hours of labour donated to make the Ecological Island which was becoming widely known, even overseas? Until the pest eradication program had been successful and long-absent bird species re-introduced? Then some local farmers got into the act. They had originally agreed to have part of their land fenced off and included in the 'island'. Now they threatened to cut the fence, and I believe some of them actually did break the alarm system that runs along the top of the fence. All for a bit of forest, for which they had probably been compensated, though I do not know this. It is a sad step backwards for conservation.

We decided to explore two no-exit side roads we had not been on. The idea was to park the car and walk along the roads, but there was no place to park beside the narrow roads. So we just drove, and saw the country from a different angle. We did not realize there were so many deep valleys, gulches, Ray calls them, invisible from the highway.

We came back to Putaruru and continued up town to buy petrol and a few groceries. We went into a couple of Op Shops to look for a pots for plants, and bought some for 50¢ each. Then we had to go and buy potting mix which cost a lot more than the pots. Not that I had any immediate use for the pots, but might as well be prepared.

While waiting out the commercials during the news (either before or after my snooze!) I read the following in a book on trees.
“The circle is closing! The green forests delight our eyes; more than that, they have given us oxygen to breathe and used light to create flowers and fruit; the heat of the sun has purified the air, driving off the perennial clouds of unbreathable atmosphere that enveloped the earth. All this we owe to the green plants and not to man's knowledge and intelligence. Neither philosophy nor science, neither splendid cathedrals nor the masterpieces in the museums, neither great captains' dreams of glory nor great idealists' visions of Utopia have done as much for our planet as a dense forest, now reduced to carbon and ashes.” That book was first published in 1977. Nothing has changed.

Then I read some of the book Hunting for Pirate Heaven by Kevin Rushby before going to bed. It seems even pirates dreamed of a Utopia, and sought it on islands off the coast of Africa. If they found it, it soon became Paradise Lost. A couple of quotes at the head of a chapter are mildly interesting.

“Without the utopians of other times, men would still live in caves, miserable and naked; ... Utopia is the principle of all progress, and the essay into a better world.” Anatole France.

“An acre of Middlesex is worth a province of Utopia.” Thomas Babington Macaulay

Thursday 30th June
Ray suggested a trip to Whakamaru. It was a lovely day. We did not get an early start, left at 10.40. Drove up the back way to Tokoroa, but instead of turning off to Tokoroa, continued on Old Taupo Road to the junction of the Whakamaru Road, and then the old familiar road 'home'. Some changes in the forest, but generally the same. Pleasant to see Kaahu appear, but it no longer seemed like coming home. I think any remaining roots have been detached. Pleasing is the aspect from the village of lake and forested hills, and also the other way past the school up towards the near hills of Kaahu. But I would not want to return to live there again. The era of the Hydro village has passed. The houses are privately owned, or owned by a symposium of people who come in the summer to water-ski on the lake. I have seen places of greater beauty since that place was my home. Then I thought it exceeding fair of aspect, and desired nothing better. It was a great place for the children. There was the lake for parents of little children to worry about, and the river beyond the jungle. The older children got bored in teenage years, but it made them think of things to do for entertainment, which was not a bad thing. I would not have wanted them glued to computers or TV games.

Ray spoke to the owner of the Dam Lodge, who was working in the old outside workshop. He owns that and several houses. Quite the going concern in summer. They cater to work gangs during the week, and 'tourists' at weekends. Ray had thought of booking a place for a family gathering on his 90th birthday, but today we decided against it. The village is not the same, and we would have do it on a weekend, when all the water-skiers were in occupancy. Besides, his 90th birthday is over 5 years in the future. How much future does he – or I – have?

We drove down to the other village, and up the road (4km) to visit Denis Wright. Whether he was pleased to see us or not, we knew not. He is still the good-looking little elf of a man, but his limp is worse. Ray said Denis had got to look a lot older. What does he expect in 40 odd years! So have we, more than Denis, I reckon.

Next we stopped at the service station that used to be Dooney's for an ice-cream trumpet. Ray thought he had won a free trumpet, but the date of the offer had expired. On through Mangakino, and on to Waipapa. The hydro villages of Maraetai and Waipapa of course are gone. We were fortunate to live in Whakamaru when we did. I hope the Waikato River Trails extend from Jones Landing to Whakamaru before I get too old to walk them. There will be 100 km from Lake Karapiro to Atiamuri.

We came back via Arohena to Arapuni and home. If we leave Putaruru, it too will become home no more. I shall miss the Waikato River Trails and the Blue Spring walk. Will I miss my garden? My large garden at house 14 Whakamaru has gone as if it never existed. Does it sadden me? No, not really. I created it, and it existed for the six years I lived there, and I enjoyed it. I worked hard at it, and it produced vegetables and fruit for the family. It existed for that time only. But somewhere in the eternal spheres that garden still exists! I shall probably feel the same about my present home, pleasant though it is to me now.

....Perhaps this was not such a good idea. It got very long! Oh well, a slice of my life for posterity if posterity has the slightest interest in it! All the best, everyone, the Rambler.