Muscle Men

There was another “Open Home”  happening on Sunday afternoon, so once again we had to leave home for an hour or so and let the Real Estate agent do her thing.  Friends Dot and Derek invited us around for afternoon tea, which we gladly accepted.  But there was a proviso.  Derek needed Robin’s help with a couple of small jobs.  No trouble, said Robin, anything for a bit of home baking.

Dot and Derek are moving house shortly and wanted some help in moving a couple of heavy items.  First job was to move a heavy couch from the spare bedroom, through the hallway and into the lounge.  Mmm, I remember now, Derek said, we had trouble getting it in here in the first place.  A quick tap, tap, tap and off came the door hinges.  That made all the difference, and they just managed to manoeuvre the heavy couch through the doorway.

Will it fit through the door?

The next job was to unscrew the dryer and lift it off the laundry wall.  That didn’t seem to take them too long to do.  There, that’s two heavy items all ready for the moving men to load up on the truck.

  Here comes the dryer

The door was speedily replaced back on it’s hinges, and after that bit of heavy lifting, the muscle men needed a pick-me-up.  It was time for afternoon tea,  with a fine selection of home baking, muffins, fruit loaf and cookies.  And very tasty it was too.  We chatted the afternoon away, imbibed several cups of coffee, and finally made our way home to see how the “Open Home” had gone.   Perhaps a prospective buyer had walked through the door today.

Something needs fixing.

There was a bit of home maintenance going on today.  Robin was  working outside in the hot sunshine, cutting timber and  banging nails with gay abandon.  The steps leading down to the back lawn off our wooden deck were getting unsafe, so they really needed repairing.  It wouldn’t be very good if a prospective home buyer took a tumble and broke a leg, would it?  It was the stringers holding the steps in place which needed replacing, Robin informed me.  He measured up, worked out what he needed for the job, and took a trip to the local hardware shop. 

The wooden steps had to be disassembled first.  Then the new timber had to be measured carefully, and cut to the correct size.  Having a skill saw made the job very easy, he told me.  I kept out of his way while he was doing this blokey stuff, just sneaking out now and again to take a couple of progress photos.

Cutting an angle on the timber

Nailing the new stringers in place

Ooops, he has lost his hat!  No wonder it came loose, bending down to bang all those long galvanised nails in place.  With the new stringers safely secured, the steps were replaced, and the job was finally done.  That’s better, the steps are safe now, so there is no chance of them collapsing anymore.

  

All done

With that job crossed off his list, Robin packed his tools away, and relaxed with a cold can of Tui beer.  He may have aching arms and shoulders from all that work, but that first taste of Tui soon put a smile on his face.  Now…….what else needs doing?

Land Cruiser’s had a Haemorrhage

Recently the trusty 80 Series Land Cruiser went in for a service which included a new timing belt as 200,000ks had ticked over. See blog entry for 18 September 2012.  Well 2 weeks have passed and the vehicle started making those expensive noises again and this time I looked under the bonnet (Hood) and notice what I thought was an Injector moving about and they are not supposed to.

Back down to the garage for an assessment. Bring it into tomorrow I was told we will take the tappet cover off and see what is going on. The result is that some foreign matter was left in the timing case which got under the timing belt and the belt slipped three teeth which put the timing out and the pistons drove the valves back up into the head and smashing the rocker gear, ouch!

Rocker Gear in Many Pieces

Our Land Cruiser being a 24 valve turbo model replacement parts, 2nd hand or new are not available. Therefore a new head has to be ordered and we await its arrival so the work can be completed and we get our trusty tow vehicle back. I hate to think how much this costing.

I am extremely grateful that the garage has admitted that they created the problem and are fixing at no cost (I hope) to us.

On a happier note that hat that I lost the other day was handed into lost property and I was able the retrieve it today using the “Gold Card”. The hat was a gift from friends in Cromer UK and is a memento of the RNLI Cromer Lift Boat and as such is not common either here in NZ or UK for that matter.

RNLI  Cromer Lift Boat Cap – not lost any more

There and Back Again

We decided to have a rail adventure on Sunday, as another “Open Home” was planned at our place so we had to make ourselves scarce.  So down to the station we went, and boarded the almost empty Matangi train.  Quiet  “beep, beep, beeps” filled the carriage, making us sound rather like a submarine gliding silently along deep under the sea on a secret mission.  These new trains are very light and roomy, with bright blue upholstery and lime green painted railings and handles.  A row of folding seats allow for up to three bicycles to be carried, and long straps fixed to the back of the seats keep the bikes secure.   The carriage slowly filled up as we travelled down the line, including a cyclist who took advantage of taking his bike on the train with him.

  Plenty of rooms for bikes

There is also plenty of room for wheelchairs and baby buggies.  Another innovation on these new trains in the lift down access ramp making it so much easier for passengers in wheelchairs to get on and off the trains.

Access ramp on train

We arrived at Wellington station and had a little time before boarding our second train of the day to Waikanae.  A staff member on duty stopped to talk to us.  It turned out he was a fellow caravanner who keeps his van permanently on site at Himatangi, and recognised us from our last visit the the camp.   We chatted about the Matangi trains,  how comfortable they were to travel in, and the high tech features they are equipped with.  Such as the earthquake sensor, which stops the train when it detects movement in the rails.  Seems the sensor is very sensitive and in the early days of operation was being set off when the train travelled over a bit of rough track or a set of points, although these teething troubles were soon put right.

Boarding the train to Waikanae, we travelled through a couple of short tunnels, through farmland and past Paremata Harbour  chock full of expensive boats. 

Expensive boats in Paremata harbour

Mana Island lay out to sea, and is a scientific reserve holding many native animals and plants that are rare on the mainland.  The island is under the care of the Department of Conservation and has a policy of ongoing native tree replanting and animal release schemes.  The island’s name is an abbreviation of Te Mana o Kupe, meaning "the mana of Kupe".

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Then it was just a short trip up the Kapiti Coast and a few more tunnels before we arrived at Waikanae station.  Our friends Geoff and Eileen were waiting to collect us in their shiny new car, and took us back to their home.  As happens with any new car, the boys just had to take the obligatory admiring look under the bonnet.

Check this out

Our tummies were rumbling so it was time to go out for lunch to the nearby Otaki shopping area.  There was a new cafe that our hosts were quite keen to try out.  As expected, Geoff and Robin ordered a variation of their favourite meal, a Big Breakfast.  The menu had some interesting choices, Eileen chose bubble and squeak with black pudding, and I decided on Moroccan flavoured French Toast with bacon and mushrooms, absolutely delicious.

Big breakfasts for the boys

We enjoyed our tasty lunches, followed by coffee with a chocolate fish on the side.  Then it was time to get driven back to Waikanae station for the first of our return train rides home.  Kapiti Island, now a bird sanctuary, always dominates the view in this part of the journey.

Kapiti Island

Looking down on the highway and foreshore from the train

We backtracked along the coast line, passing by Pukerua Bay and we could just make out the faint outline of the South Island away in the distance on the horizon.

Pukerua Bay and the South Island showing faintly in the distance

Arriving at Wellington station we had five minutes to exit our train and jump aboard the train travelling up the Upper Hutt line to take us home.  Luckily we made it with a minute to spare, and relaxed in the final train trip of the day, our eyes getting heavy as the carriage  gently rocked us as it travelled along the tracks.  What a great day we had.  Four train rides each, all courtesy of our gold cards, and lunch with friends.  Not a bad way to spend a Sunday, we thought. However in our hurry to change trains we both lost something Robin left his best hat and Jenny misplaced a magazine – bugger!

Down Memory lane

The never ending clean out is taking still taking place.  My goodness, we didn’t realise that we had things tucked here and there, in cupboards and drawers, and it all needs to be checked out.  Then comes the decision, shall we keep it or chuck it out?

Robin has been going down memory lane today when he was going through some old papers pertaining to the house.  He was amazed to see what the house cost to build way back then.  But of course everything is relevant and wages were so much lower back in the 70s.  He found the receipt for when the carpet was laid, and for various items of furniture.  Was it all really that long ago? 

 

A file of his 30 year working  history at NZ  Post brought back memories too, and kept him quietly flicking over pages,  remembering long forgotten courses he had attended, and long forgotten workmates.  In the end he got ruthless, most old papers were shredded and discarded, with just a few needing to be kept.

So that’s another job done – wonder what’s next on the agenda? 

We are having another “Open Home” tomorrow, so we are going out for the day and leaving the Real Estate agent to do her own thing.  All we need is one interested  buyer – then we can go forward with our plans.

Tea Room with a Past

Yesterday we enjoyed a day of free travel using our Gold Cards.  These are given out when NZ citizens qualify for NZ Super.  Robin has only just reached the grand old age of 65, along came his Gold Card in the mail, and the Govt coffers now deposit money for him regularly into our bank account.  With our business completed yesterday, we discussed where we would go for lunch.  How about upstairs in the iconic Kirkaldie and Stains Tea Rooms?, I suggested, I always enjoy going there.  It is very popular and there was a long queue of customers waiting to order their lunches.  No problem, I’ll put my cardigan and shopping bag on a chair to reserve a table.  Robin was horrified.  What if someone pinches my things?   It won’t happen here, I assured him, this is Kirks! (Don’t trust anyone I say!)

The Tea Room is always busy

Kirkaldie and Stains is one of New Zealand's oldest businesses still trading under it’s original name.  The business was started by John Kirkaldie and Robert Stains back in the 1860s.  The bustling Tea Room is hung with photos from the early elegant days when shopping was quite a different proposition. 

Kirks in the early days

The Team Room has a past, it seems, and was the scene of a notorious shooting of 1898.  The headlines of the day read “Three shots fired, one advantage of wearing corsets”.  Frequent customer Mrs McWilliam entered the Tea Room with her daughter and a friend.  She then drew a revolver from under her cloak and fired three shots at manager Mrs Dick, one struck her in the side and the other two hit the door.  Whether her two lunch companions knew of the intended killing was not reported.  The long standing feud was not over a straying husband, but over a money venture gone wrong.   Mrs McWilliam rightly or wrongly believed that Mrs Dick had robbed her of thousands of pounds.  Subsequently, the manager tried to keep a low profile whenever Mrs McWilliam entered the Tea Room.   Mrs Dick’s doctor later confirmed that her corsets had deflected the bullet and saved her from injury.  Luckily we can report that not a single shot was fired in anger yesterday while we were were lunching upstairs in KIrkaldie and Stains Tea Room and presumably no-one was wearing a corset!

Ladies of the era

Travelling on our Gold Cards

Thanks to our “Gold Cards” and the generosity of our government, pensioners like us can travel free on local bus and train services during non peak hours on weekdays, and all hours over the weekend.  We enjoyed a day out in the big smoke today and boarded one of the new “Matangi” trains.  This fleet of new 48 two-car electric trains was built in Korea for Greater Wellington Regional Council.  The Units have roomy sleek stainless steel bodies, plenty of room for wheel-chairs, buggies and bicycles, air-conditioned cooling and heating,  doors operating on demand,  open movement between a two-car unit, hearing loops in all cars,  a public address system, and information systems with automated visual and audio next station information. 

Interior of the new trains

Our train trip coincided with the school holidays and the carriages filled up rapidly with kids, parents and grand-parents as the trip continued.  Once past Petone we travelled alongside the Wellington harbour and watched an Inter-Islander ferry coming in to the terminal.  We imagined that it was filled with South Island families enjoying the start of their North Island holiday.

Inter-Islander Ferry coming into Wellington harbour

The new trains deliver a very smooth and comfortable ride, and before we knew, we had arrived at the bustling Wellington Station.  I had to wait until all the passengers moved on so that I could get a photo of the new sleek and shiny Matangi train we had just travelled in.

Matangi train at Wellington Station

Walking around the waterfront we came across a new sign – “Electric Car Charging Station”.  This was right outside the Meridian (Electricity Company) building, and sure enough, a dinky little new fangled electric car was plugged in and being recharged.  Now that’s something we have never seen before!

Recharging the electric car

The delicious smell of roasting coffee beans tickled my nose further along the waterfront as we walked past the Mojo Coffee Roastery.  Mmmm, it’s a shame they were not giving sample coffees away to the people passing by.

A whole lot of coffee beans

With our business attended to, and a leisurely lunch it was time to leave the bright lights of the city behind us and head back home.  We boarded one of those big orange buses, the Airport Flyer, which conveniently travels all the way back to our home town.  Robin used to drive these buses during his stint as a bus driver, and rather enjoyed chatting away to the airport passengers.  We had a good day out, travelling on our Gold Cards.

Home via the Airport Flyer