My Christmas present to myself was to read the six volumes of
The Earth's Children books. Of which you may or may not have heard! No great loss if you haven't! I read the first five volumes in December and
the final volume early in January. Each
volume has about 700-800 closely printed pages, so I had to watch I did not let
my eyes get too sore. The books are the
continuing saga of a girl living in Eurasia in the inter-glacial era. The author
had done painstaking research, but I cannot believe that she really got it
right. It makes a good tale though.
We have not had many of our little 'adventures' lately, but I'll
record those we did. There is nothing much else to record anyway, just the
usual working in the garden and our favourite walks. I could tell you about the
Grape Mistake. I found a lot of grapes
growing along the fence. The vine had
originally came over from the neighbour's when Mike lived there. He thought it was my vine and I thought it
was his. It never mattered because it
did not have any grapes to speak of.
This year there were quite a lot of unripe grapes, so I bought some
netting and made a sort of frame to keep the birds off. I cut off many leaves to give the grapes
air. Big mistake. We had a couple of hot days and most of the grapes cooked!
One day Ray suggested
the Rapurapu Stream Walk. The destination was decided after we left home. I did
not have the footwear for river crossings, neither my hiking stick which I
depend on in the water these days. I
picked up a makeshift stick we had in the car.
It served me well enough on the sometimes slippery track. This is
the track that crosses the river eight times on its way to a small group of
Kauri trees. Then of course there are
eight crossings on the way back.
When we got to the first crossing, Ray decided not to go
farther. I was glad. Ray would not want to get his feet wet, and I
would hate to see him rock-hopping with his less-than-perfect balance,
especially as he has no fat to cushion a fall onto rocks. As we stood taking photographs of the river,
a young couple caught up with us. The
girl, about to cross, seeing me with camera poised, wanted to retreat out of
the way. I said, “No, I want you in the
picture. Especially if you fall
in!” She was much too agile for
that. On our way out we met quite a few
people going in. There were several with young children. It would have been interesting to stay by the
stream and see how everyone crossed.
It was Cerian who introduced this walk to us many years ago. We
took a couple of sister missionaries there once. One kept falling in the water,
and the other just walked through the water. We had asked them to bring a
change of clothing, not only in case of accidents, but because we thought
it might rain – which it did. The change of clothing did not do them much
good, because unknown to us, instead of leaving it in the car they carried it
in their packs. Which also got wet.
We took David and Laurie there in 1986. David carried Olivia in a backpack. The track
has changed a lot since those days. The first part used to go through grazing
land. That is now almost all in bush
that is regenerating well. They had
planted the pines for this purpose, as nursery trees, and also tree lucerne to
entice birds so that birds might drop seeds of native trees.
It is
always an intimidating adventure to drive into Hamilton. Ray had an appointment at the Eye
Clinic. Because we were nervous we left
at 8 am for the 10.30 appointment! This
time everything went smoothly. We got to
easily to Bridgewater by finding Grey St at the last moment. We were early enough to get the best parking
place. Then we went for walk along the
riverside cycle-way. Ray wanted to go
over the bridge, walk on the other side, and some back over the next
bridge. I did not want to cross the
river. For one thing the noise of the
traffic on the bridge was unnerving, and for another I wanted to be sure we
could turn around and get back in time.
We walked as far as the Sky City complex. Ray went in to talk to the receptionist. I stayed outside. We did not get back to the clinic much too
soon.
Ray did not have a satisfactory talk with the eye surgeon, and was
disgruntled at having to pay $65 for the privilege. His has another appointment a year from that date. He does not think he will take
it. The unfortunate thing is that his
eyesight, as it is with his present glasses, is only border-line above the bar
for getting a driver's licence.
Another day Ray was looking for an excuse to go to Matamata. He could not think of one, but we went
anyway. I thought of a purpose, if not
a reason, and suggested we eventually walk along all the streets of Matamata.
That should give us reasons just about into infinity! My idea was to begin with the middle triangle
which contains the south Centennial Drive, so we could park in our usual shady
place. We started walking along the Drive.
My idea was to explore every road to the left of the Drive, and every
road leading off it. We did not get
very far. On the third road Ray stopped
to talk to a man working in a very nice garden the corner of Rata and
Fitzgerald.
After a minute or two I walked off to the end of the side street and then
came back, so we could figuratively cross that one off. There was nothing interesting down there
anyway. Ray was still talking and did not look
like he was about to move on any time soon. He made some remark to the man concerning
me, and I said something in
return. That made the man look at me. He must have recognized my voice. He said, “Do you know me?” I looked at him, and to Ray's astonishment,
said, “Garry!” and gave him a brief hug.
Ray could not believe I would have known him, and what is more,
remembered his name. Garry Soames joined the
church in Putaruru in 1980, but soon moved away. I had met him
briefly twice in the intervening 30 years. We
left, with an invitation to call in sometime when we were back that way. We did not do more exploring that day.
Another day we went to Cambridge to look at a house in Leamington
that Ray had admired on the internet. I
was willing to go along because the write-up stated that there were rural
views. We had no difficulty in finding the house. It was in a relatively quiet cul-de-sac, in a
pleasant area. Even if we had the money
we would not have bought it, it was too high-class for us. And I had seen better rural views.
And that was about it for January.
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