A balloon birthday photo

You can visit Hottieperm here:http://homeperm.blogspot.com

Its her birthday today so I'm celebrating with colour

trade me table

A couple of months ago I purchased a table from a Trademe man who lives in my trademe region. Today he sat next door to me on the train. I found out he was a medical doctor. His wife is a manager of a health instituition. His wife reupolstered the chairs. Quite nicely. This would perhaps explain why they have not had time to post feedback. I've decided the feedback doesn't really matter because I got a good table table and chairs for the price that is in keeping with my house so I didn't raise it with him this morning. I guess I just like feedback.

The things is when the man visited and delivered my table I thought he looked familiar - but just attributed that to perhaps having seen him locally. He shook my hand and I attributed that to good manners- I have found my best deals are sealed with handshakes when the people introduce themselves. I had viewed his extensive listings on trademe which included among other things, a flash late model porsche, a flash motorbike and another flash car. From this I had deducted he was an IT professional.

He his leaving Wellington to go to Melbourne becasue he needs to move on from the Wellington health scene. I kind of felt for him. His story had a resonance for me. Just hearing him speak, pulled these enormous heart strings/triggers for me. We have different backgrounds but there were similarities in some repsects.

There is something about when people talk about health and their work in health that stirs me. You see, you can be passionate about health, about making a difference. It is easy. It is real.

Fantail in house

I have just googled this. "Fantail in house" - " Some tribes believe a fantail in your house is a sign of death. Others believe it is a sign of good fortune".

Why did I google this? because a few hours ago I had a happy fantail in my living room - moving from one lightbulb to the next. Then when I got the broom - to direct it outside it flew out of its own accord.

The Ngati Porou in me believes that fantails are not a good sign. But then again as I am not really Ngati Porou maybe I can interpret is a sign of good fortune - a signal of good change.


The thing is I take these signs seriously even if I don't know know what they mean. A fantail doesn't just fly into your house unelss it has something to say. Furthermore, a fantail is not even a common sight on my property little own the prospect of flying into my house.

It has unsettled both Ali and me.


I guess the fact that the fantail was happy could allow interpretation to be on the side of good fortune.

Neighbourhood watch

About 7pm I was visited by a local policeman. He asked me if I was at home at 4pm. Yes, I said. But then I had to concede I was at home but I was asleep. This means Imissed an act of serious violence halfway down my street. I asked if their were guns. No. It was the wrong question I realise in retrospect. I should have asked how injured the person was. I suspect they are either in intensive care or dead. The incident occured at this house were a group of young people hang out. In general, its far enough to really affect me, but at the same time it is concerning.

I seized the opportunity in my interaction with the policeman to tell him about the threatening annoymous mail I had recieved today. Basically I was left a handwritten note in my letterbox that said if I was real Carterton person I would leave my rubbish in my bin., But I am a real Carterton person and I do put my rubbish in my bin!!! IN fact in terms of environmental recyclying I rank myself pretty high. Thats what hurts! It takes a lot of effrot to chop up chooped down trees -for kindling - more so than taking them to the dump. Except the person spelt rubbish with one b (ok, I don't spell check these posts, but I do the written note). It was odd. If the person writing it was a real Carterton person they would have told me in person of their concerns. But seriously, I can't see what activity I udnertake that could possibly be offensive to any neighbours. Its quite puzzling. The policeman provided no comment or advice. I conceded he would probbaly have greater and more pressing issues to address - but that I felt the need to tell him in any case.

The annoying thing about the handwritten note about from its unwarranted implications are that it is annoymous and there is no opprotunity to press the reply button as in an an email. That for me is one of the most frsutrating things.

Went to Noel Leeming to buy a digital camera - but no one offered to serve me - so I walked out. Its part of my customer policy. Besides its only douple flybuys and I wiill wait for triple.

Oh and fyi, my flybuys purchases are coming one by one, day by day. This was ok for today because I was home. But when I am not home, this neccitates a trip to the local post shop.

I am in receipt of sectauers and a nlue frypan. pillows, lamp and house and graden to come.

Dream a little

Tomorrow courtesy of Flybuys I should be the proud owner of:

• 2 Danish Duck pillows
• 1 leatherman secetars
• 1 blue skillet
• 1 lamp
• 1 year subscription to House & Garden.

It is 3 years since I purchased my house to do. This incidentially is Ali's birthday too. These are little Flybuys gifts to celebrate.

I didn't really need the pillows, but heard this lady on the train rave about how nice it is to have nice pillows and treat yourself. Its a bit like having nice towels.

This does of course mean I will need to purchase digital camera by traditional means.

Further lift advice

If you are standing in a full lift and you are trying to avoid someone - someone you would rather forget and not be recognised by - do not drop your swipe card directly in front of them and face side up so that they can confirm your identity - especially when you work in an organisation that prides itself on identity. It does tend to draw attention to yourself - not only by the person you are trying to avoid. But the whole of the lift.


When waiting for the lift to go down - if it is full, let it pass. This risks the lift is overloaded siren going off and the cause being attributed to you. It also allows you to make conversation with the other person waiting for the lift who may possibly be more important than you - even if you only talk about the lift - it is conversation with someone you may not have had a conversation with.

Country charm

Today I went to get my loaf of (unsliced) white bread from Country Oats. Parking (a current interest of mine as you will know from my last posting) was at a premium, well at least by Carterton standards. The usual cars I see parked out outside Kircks duing the week taking up local parking becasue the owners are that little more adventerous and extend their day in the coutnry that little but further than Greytown and Martinborough.


So, I park a few spaces up from Country Charm. Its an antique shop and you may know it from the fact that it has two elderly manequins dressed up that sit outside the shop. Just as I pass the china shop (becasue that essentially what it is with a few expensive wooden pieces) this lady pushing an elderly lady in a wheel chair passes me. She zooms the elderly woman in the wheel chair up to the manequins and they laugh at the manequins and then zoom off. I turned my head around becasue I could hardly believe it. The wheel chair was stuffed with three - yes thats 3 - real live chiwawas (sp) coming out - one at the front, one at the side and one at the back. This is one of the most surreal sightings I have seen for some time.


I also saw a one armed man and one leggged man in the space of about 10 minutes. Each of the men were probbaly younger than me, and playing with their children in the local park. They rmindeded me that life is about the attitude you give it.


Oh, and finally I froze corn and roasted tomato mixtures. I was a pit disappointed with my tomato crop this year given its been a scorcher of a summer. I've decided its all in getting thehem at the right time to get early growth. Its an ok crop but not quite as bountiful as I had hoped for.

Colour coded car parking

Today I passed six cars in the street where Rumbles the wine merchant is adjacent to Midland Park. The name of the street escaopes me but you can enter it more or less off Woodward St and exactly off Lambton Quay. It is where the popular sushi place is that people que in quite some numbers at lunchtime. Anyway the six cars I saw were all red. Yes, I saw red I saw red I saw red to adapt an old Split Enz song. This made me think that about the prospect of desiognating certain inner city parking areas by a colour code. eg you can only park in Featherston St if your car is yellow. You can only park in Lambton Quay if your car is grey (the fact that my car is grey and parking is difficult to get in Lambton Quay is incidential becasue my car is currently unwarranted and unregistered - again and it is over 3 months since I drove it to Wellington in any case). I'm quite hooked on this town planning concept. Like it brings colour into the town - and in its way is a kind of sustainable option to parking by restricting parking through colour. I guess though while the concept is brillant I could be acccused of bias. eg preferring grey over yellow. Its probbaly not an eeo policy and clearly would result in differential outcomes. But that for me is the beauty of it.


In other parking observations, I have notice on the otherside of Midland Park early morning obseravtions and it it is this. In the street adjacnet to Midland Park and Kircaldies - Brandon St. Often in the morning it is parked up with expensive specimens of the modern day vehicle. Typically these can fall into the catergory of very late model - as in just been produced BMWS, Volvos, Audis etc. I notice this because sometimes I divert my morning breakfast from Astroia to Wholly Bagels for coffee. Its random. How is it that every morning the street at appproximately 8.50am is parked up with expensive cars. Are the owners having breakfast at Astoria? Have the owneres arrived early to go shopping at Kirks or to do their volunteer service and collecting for the day. These are possible options I have consdidered, but quite seriously I lack a definitive conclusion.

Lift activty

I randomly logged onto the Radio Live site and Marcus Lush to hear a prerecorded chat about the Carterton wheelbarrow races held last weekend. Then I decided to listen to the archived chat about lifts. Brillant.

In essence it provides reccommendations on when you are in a lift. Basically, if you are the last person in the lift you press all the buttons for the floors below so that the next person who hops in has to go to all the floors. I don't know why I hadn't thought of this before.


What I have thought of and quite often do is pretend I am pusing the door open button when in fact I am pushing the door closed button and then look extremely disppointed when the door slams in front of the person.


Anyway, today I tried out the lift button thing. It was strangely empowering. I still have some way to go to perfect it. And the fact that I am the 7th floor doesn't mean I can quite get the full effect of it but nevertheless I'm going to be practicing and perfecting my lift movements.

I think my building has 5 lifts and about 18 floors so there is some scope in this activity.


Apparently like trains, this type of activty appeals to those with autistic tendencies.

Anyway, its giving me some pleasure, its free, it may inconvience a few people, but it doesn't actually do any harm.

All my colleagues in my seating area have been away for the last two days, so instead of being geographically located in "south pod" i have been an i-pod. But my other colleagues keep calling me a me-pod. Apparently, its more gramatically correct - this maybe so but it defeats the purpose of the rebranding - retards!

Late train

Tonight the late train was very late. Train logic goes like this: The 4.33 breaks down and gets cancelled and towed back through the tunnel back to Upper Hutt. The 5.33 loco has to join up to the 4.33 so is carrying twice the load of passengers and therefore goes slower. The 6.18 has to wait for the 5.33 to clear signals before it can proceed. Consequently, the 6.18 gets in to Caterton at 8.53pm.

The train gaurd loves it. She has soemthing to talk about in great detail and advises all passengers to complain to Toll. She also advises that the train will be late and she's keeping it in Wellington so passengers can hvae the choice of going to New World Metro or Trax for a drink. She has asked the driver to toot his horn so passengers know when to come back. Unfortunately, I had already been to New World and was to anxious I would miss the toot if I went to Trax. Besides, I am trying (and suceeding - well at least this week, but today is only Monday:-) to keep weekdays, with the exception of Fridays, alcohol free). Its not conducive to a lot of things.

The guard also mentions it's good enough to be be a reality programme. I think she must have been watching the UK version of the tube reality TV. The thing is that she (the gaurd) is good enough to justify her own TV reality show.

Grapes

My favourite grapes are in season and cheap as chips at the Masterton Farmers market. The black type that taste of homegrown grapes. Unfortuantely, this means Autumn has arrived.

Purchased another load of macrocarpa and it was delivered today. I love wood and woodstacking. But must remember I now have enough wood probably for this winter and next given I have priced woodburners and I don't think I will be buying a new one this winter. Wood people are a good breed of people. example: they post their feedback rapidly on Trademe and place excellent feedback. Trademe is the way to go for purchasing and having delivered wood from local suppliers. It does however leave me with a dliemena about my neighbour the wood man who has supplied me with pine. I may have to buy some more pine from him but make the point that if he had elevated me to his priorty delivery list I would have actually purcahsed my macrocarpa off him.

Anyway why pine and macrocarpa - well according to my neighbour you get the best burn when you mix the two.

I have chopped the red hedge down the side of my border with my neighbours basically in half. They have been dropping gentle hints for some time. It was a hedge that had turned into trees but now I have turned it back into a hedge - well it will be once it gets its Spring growth back. In their absence I relented. It lets in a considerable lot more light in to my house - and I suspect their house too. Hopefully, this solar solution will help my winter heating.

I can see why men get excited about chopping trees. A chainsaw would have made it quicker but it is more rewarding with a handsaw.

A public service conference and a funeral

Today I went to to this conferernce organised by the State Services Commission at the Westpac Stadium. It was on "influecne and persuassion" in the public sector or something like that. It was marketed to senior public servants and managers. Most of my team went. Because heck that's core business to our team. Most of the ex managers from my ex employee also went. I sort of enjoyed it becasue it made me realise a number of things.

The basic thing there was I realised I used to belong to a community (my ex employee). While I have left that community I do still have "networks" to it - even with people I remotely knew. It was the realisation and this is a bit new age (or maybe its just adpadted from tv 3's survivor programme) but i am going to use it anyway, that I left my old tribe and belong to a new tribe. And now it is up to me about choosing what tribe I run with. For now it is my current employee. I learn their skills, their way of workinng, and then at the year I reassess my next move. It could be a fun thing and a really healthy developmental thing if I make it that way.

Here's a few highlights/lowlights from the day:

• Meeting Mr "Homeperm" again. He's so endearing after a short abscence, and actually I think his conversation has more substance and his enquires than some.
• Hearing one of my current tribes describe basically how a lot of the people were plonkers. She'd seen them drunk at parties and heck who the hell did they think they were fooling and do they think are are
• Kind of agreeing with this assessment that a lot of the people in the room were "career public servants" but heck they were quite ordinary
• Meeting My Gayboy and him leaving me with Homeperm. My respect for Mr Homeperm increased immensely and concurrently my respect for mr gayboy decreased proportionately .
• The familarity of Dr MSD explaining to the audience that she was Dr MSD, not really having a question to ask but putting on a nice eloquent and executed accent anyway in her cosndierable and unjsutifed floorspace.
• Most of my current team/tribe arriving late as if they very busy/important have other thinsg to do. Thats not good enough.
• Having a chat to one of the esoteric members of my team and beginnning to warm to her. That was good. A need to make her my best friend - its all about working toegther. NAd heck, she is a potentially a very good and strong ally - even if she is a cross btw the Canberra public servant I once worked with and a principal analyst I onced worked with.
• Seeing this manager from a a govt dept who I think is a prat who I had dealings with at my job inbetween my last job - and seeing him think: heck shes here at the same level as me - sucker!
• Final lowlight was being stuck at table with ex DDG - who gave a whole presnettaion on working for two agenccies - I did't use that opportunity quite as best as I could have. And personally while I think full credit for rebradning I kind of think its like the magicians slight of hand. Its just a perecepotion thing

I so need to keep on this "profefssional development" gravy train.

On the way home there were these two young - say early 20s guys. They appeared to be cousins coming to Carterton for their grandma's funeral. They were cathching up on what they were doing for work, and whether they had girlfriends, houses, intended getting married. One of them says hes not ready for marriage and heck all the girls who knows keep having kids and he's definitley not ready for kids. "They just keep popping out - heck about about four chicks I know have had kids sicne Christmas - they just keep popping out. One I was with not this New Years Eve but last. Man she was model, like you know, she made everyone's head turn. Only 18. And she's popped out this kid. Stunning but I'm glad its not my kid,

Rain

There is a difference how city folk describe the weather. They say "It rained". The country folk describe it further: "How much rain did you get? - we got 5mm." It is much more exact because it matters a lot more.

Sheep and the Golden Shears

Last night I went to the final of the Golden Shears held at the Recreation Centre in Masterton. It is what Masterton is known for. If you can google Golden Shears you can watch it on webcam.

There were a lot of sheep. More than I expected. This is explained that the finalists don't just shear one or two or three or four or five sheep each per final. NO! Each finalist shears 20 sheep. Some are marinos, some are lambs and some are cross sheep. And there were about 10 finals.

This means that the night did not end until past midnight. This was compounded by the fact that you had to listen in some detail to all the sponsors giving their credentials, plus the MP for Kaikorua who is an ex winner of the event giving what could have been an inspired political speech, but not at 11.55pm at night.

One of the highlights is the event where the "woolhandlers" compete and sort the wool. The lady that won it had 19 children. Yes, 19 children! I'm not sure what the connection is there. But basically those wool handlers work like crazy sorting the wool and throwing it and its very rhythmical and musical like they are doing a dance.

Some lady from Martinborough broke a world record for shearing over 650 sheep in 10 hours. The MP for Kaikoura ntoed how this was amazing because she was so attractive.

There were Harley Davidsons and band from Wellington called "No Idea" that played 80s rock.

For those with stamina there was a "Jamboroure" afterwards which could have been self invited too for all the competitors, guests ect. I suspect it would have been a dam fine Tui party.

It was a good night out and I'd highly recoomend it. It was real.