All the fun of the Fair

Saturday was cloudy but warm, with just a hint of a breeze, good weather for the crowds of people that gathered in Upper Hutt for the Spring Festival. Main Street was just a hop and a skip away from where we were rallying at the local school, so we walked up to see what was on offer. People were everywhere, with baby buggies, toddlers, and dogs on leads making it imperative to check where we put out feet so that we didn’t get tangled up. The Wellington Vintage Machinery Club had a display up and running with all sorts of machinery puffing away. These old machines always create a lot of interest with the men.

Being a bit of a laundry buff, I was interested in seeing a couple of vintage laundry implements. A couple of youngsters pushing hard on some levers to make the washing machine work. After a few pushes, they had had enough of that sort of hard work.

Early washing machine

Standing right next to the old fashioned washing machine was a huge clothes mangle – no doubt that would take an awful lot of hard physical effort to get the clothes through. Just as well things are so much easier these days.

Old fashioned clothes mangle

There was plenty of entertainment for children, with a bouncy castle, and kiddie sized bungy jumps. Children and adults alike were fascinated with the Punch and Judy Show. Take that, and that, bang, bang, bang. I have to admit that I had never seen a Punch and Judy show before.

Punch and Judy Show

We wandered slowly up and down the street, taking in the sights and sounds. Several buskers were spaced along the street, each playing their own very different type of music. Stalls were piled high with goodies to temp the passers by, with everything from clothing, to food and drink, and bric-a-brac. Even goldfish. Standard sized goldfish were swimming around the tank and their giant super sized cousins looked like they were on steroids. We noticed some children hurrying away clutching their plastic bag full of goldfish, just hope they had a tank at home to put their new pets in.

Gold fish for sale

All this wandering up and down was making us peckish so we stopped off at the hot Donut stall. Let’s buy some for lunch, we decided. So we did, and took them back to the caravan to enjoy. Sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, they were just delicious.

Queuing up to buy hot cinnamon donuts for lunch

Happy Birthday Robin

It’s Robin’s birthday today so we planned a celebration evening meal. We invited our friend Rex, who also celebrates his birthday today. The three of us drove down to the Petone Workingmen’s Club, to share a birthday meal together. We ate in the downstairs Bistro, and the never ending stream of customers certainly kept the staff on their feet. What to have? Plenty of choice, and all the meals were very reasonably priced. We finally decided on crumbed scallops and prawns for our starters. This was followed by roast lamb for me, tee bone steak for Robin, and Rex chose pork chops. It’s not often that a girl gets to dine out with two birthday boys.

Happy Birthday Robin and Rex

Only 4km to this Rally

It didn’t take us hours to get away for our weekend rally on Friday night. It was just a matter of hooking up the caravan and driving 4km down the road to a local school. We were meeting up with the Wellington Area of the Motor Home Association for the weekend to take part in the Spring Festival Rally. Thirty five motor homes (with a sprinkling of caravans) were parked up in the school grounds for the weekend.

We all gathered in the hall for fun and games on Saturday evening, and were put into teams for a quiz competition. The brains went into overdrive as we tried to remember which Prime Minister was in power during what particular years, and try to work out which town was the first in New Zealand to get electric light. The answer to that one was Reefton. As I said to my team, the questions are easy if you know the answers! We did very well on the TV questions, 10 out of 10 for that round. Robin’s team came in at 4th overall, while my team was 5th.

Pondering over the answers

The highlight of the evening was when each team had to make a bikini out of newspaper for one of the men to model. The men could hardly wait to be fitted into their bikinis so that they could “strut their stuff”. It was all good fun and the laughter was ringing loudly around the hall. The evening concluded with a “bring a plate” shared supper.

Check out this bikini, complete with beach bag

One of our camping neighbours was rather perplexed during the weekend. He came up to Robin and wanted to know about our TV reception. “How come”, he asked, “your TV dish is pointing that way while all the others are facing the other way?” The answer was quite simple. It wasn’t hooked up!

TV dish was facing the wrong way

We met up again in the hall on Sunday morning for morning tea and the raffle draws. We did particularly well with raffles over the weekend, starting off with winning a meat pack on Saturday night. Then on Sunday Robin won a dozen beer, and I won a box of chocolates. Beer, chocolates and meat, that should make for a balanced meal, don’t you think?

Moon Cakes and Chapattis

My workplace has many different races on the staff, and I was having morning tea with Gloria, from Hong Kong. She very generously shared out slices of her Moon Cake, and related how her family celebrated the Moon Festival when she was growing up in Hong Kong. Gloria told us of the legend surrounding the Moon festival. Overrun by the Mongols in the thirteenth century, the Chinese threw off their oppressors in 1368 AD, passing along plans for the rebellion hidden in their Moon Cakes.

Robin’s Indian customers are particularly generous when he calls for their orders. Sometimes his customers make him a cup of spicy Indian tea, or wrap up some Indian sweets for him to take home for us both to share. Now and again he is urged to try a dish of curry, and he is particularly fond of a hot buttered chapatti.

Interaction with other cultures is very interesting, and sharing food is a universal sign of friendship.

Wild Weather

It was certainly a wild day. It started off with the Met Service issuing a severe weather warning for Wellington. North-westerly gales, strong enough to bring down trees and power lines were forecast in Wellington and the Wairarapa. Police also issued a warning to motorists in the lower North Island especially around the Wellington, Kapiti Coast, Wairarapa and over the Rimutuka Hill. Severe winds gusts reached up to 140kmh on the Rimutaka Hill. There were reports of flooding in the Manawata. Due to exceptionally heavy rainfall in the Tararua Ranges, Civil Defence activated their emergency plan concerning the Hutt River and rising river levels. The hills were barely visible with all the rain falling.

Local hills obscured by the rain clouds

By mid afternoon the wind gusts had dropped, and the rain had stopped falling. Robin arrived home safe and sound after driving his truck around in the bad weather. Surprisingly, he reported that once he had reached Kapiti, it was dry and so warm he soon took his rain jacket off. Luckily here in the Hutt Valley, we were relevantly unscathed by the bad weather. Weather – it is certainly changeable, isn’t it!

Earthquake in Christchurch

It was 7.00am on Saturday morning and we were still in bed, luxuriating in the fact that it wasn’t a workday so we didn’t have to get up with the sparrows. Then the phone rang. Who is ringing at this time, we wondered. It was son Michael, now living in Christchurch, ringing from his cell phone. There had been a big earthquake in Christchurch, he told us, in the early morning. His home had no power and no water. Thankfully there was no damage to his property. We quickly turned on the TV news, and saw the devastation in the central city.

The 7.1 magnitude earthquake caused widespread damage, including the collapse of some buildings and power outages. The Civil Defence ministry says the national crisis management centre has been activated. Scientists have described this morning's earthquake as the most significant since the 1931 magnitude 7.8 Hawke's Bay earthquake. Luckily no loss of life has been reported.

Officials survey a severely damaged building at the corner of Manchester and Worcester Street, central Christchurch. EPA/DAVID ALEXANDER

The Mayor of Christchurch reported that electricity was being slowly restored to the city but there were still concerns about the situation with water and waste water. Several large aftershocks have already struck the region, and wardens dressed in high-visibility gear are asking people to stay well clear of buildings because of the high risk of further collapses. The city centre is now officially closed. Christchurch Hospital is being inundated by residents arriving with broken limbs, bruises and cuts. Christchurch Airport is closed and all flights have been cancelled while the safety of the runways are checked. Panicked residents have been queuing to buy water as uncertainty surrounds the stricken city's water supply, but many businesses are unable to open their doors as the massive cleanup gets underway.

A car which sits under fallen debris following the early morning New Zealand earthquake.

Here in Wellington we live with the knowledge that our city is overdue for the “Big One”, the earthquake that is sure to hit sometime in the near future. Let us hope that when it does strike it will be in the early hours of the morning when there are less people about, like this one in Christchurch. They don’t call New Zealand the Shaky Isles for nothing.

There’s a Mouse in the House

After years of use, our elderly desk top computer needed a new mouse. Robin replaced it with the much newer mouse from our lap top. No problem with that, but then the lap top computer was the one in need of a mouse. So he went out and bought one of those fancy “wireless” ones. This seemed a bit of a misnomer to me. Wireless it may be, but it still needed a plug in contraption, (known as a wireless mouse receiver) that looks surprisingly like another mouse to get the wireless bit to work. The new mouse in the house certainly works well, and Robin is happy with his bit of new technology.