Never burn bread - Earliest Memories

I was talking with a friend the other day about our earliest memories. It is interesting to hear how far back some people can remember. Some say they don't remember much before the age of five.

My early memories are patchy, I can remember lots of incidents in my pre school years but have no memory of my first day at school.

But my earliest memory would be of being at my grandparents house. I was eating a piece of bread, didn't want the crusts, and moved towards the open fireplace to throw them in the fire.

My Grandfather caught my hand and said 'You must never burn bread'. And he said (as he often repeated to me and I learned off by heart later)

"Waste not, want not,
may I never live to say
how I wish I had the bread,
that once I threw away."

I remember being a little frightened as he was usually a quiet man, not given to chastising me.

But quoting poetry was a habit he had.

Another line from a famous poem he would quote was:

"the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world".

What are your earliest memories?

Earthquake!

We had a major 'shake' last night, way down in the south of the South Island. We never felt it here but it was recorded throughout the South island and as far north as Wellington.

GNS recorded the quake as 6.6 magnitude at 9.22pm followed 20 minutes later by a 6.1 magnitude.

The first of the quakes was 5km deep and was centred 90km north-west of the Southland town of Tuatapere. It began at 9.22pm.

No major building damage has been recorded but it made things fall from shelves and people ran outside in panic.

The quake prompted a Tsunami warning but nothing has eventuated.

Citrus season

Our little Mandarin tree is loaded with fruit.

Without Internet

Blogging has taken a back seat of late.

For two whole weeks we have had no internet access at home.

Some strange and bizarre happening made it a puzzle to all who endeavoured to rectify the problem
- a technician who sat here for 5 hours and threw his hands in the air and walked away,
-phone wire men who arrived in their van, went away and tinkered for a while then said yes they could get access and we should be able to too,(but couldn't)
- and our service providers who were very patient on the end of long involved phone calls which didn't seem to produce anything at all in the end.

We took our PC and laptop to other locations and they connected with no problems.

We became on friendly terms with a Mike, a Brian, and a Karl and an Albert but none could help.

We spent mega bucks on new equipment to no avail.

Then as suddenly as the problem arose, it was solved and lo and behold we are connected again to the whole world. I think that somewhere somebody flicked a switch on that had been accidently turned off.

Life was a little different -

- I suddenly had lots more spare time,
- I missed my internet buddies,
- I did crosswords, and read newspapers from cover to cover,
- and I have nearly completed my quilt.

A Sad Day

Yesterday was a miserable day, as days go they don't get much worse. I had to make the decision to take our dear old cat to the vet for her last time.

We had been struggling with the decision for some time now as she had slowly become more feeble and her health problems were getting to be more debilitating. It was so hard to decide when her quality of life was such that she needed to go. It was made all the harder by the fact that she could still purr and interact with us in her usual loving way.

Roxi came to our house 20 years ago as a kitten. She was our daughter's cat and introduced to our household when our daughter was 12 and adjusting to a new school, new friends, and the little cat seemed to know that she was special. We went and saw the litter when they were tiny and had just opened their eyes and S picked her then. We returned a few weeks later to bring her home. That was 20 years ago last month.

After all our children had left home Roxi missed them terribly, husband and I were not deemed to be interesting or lively company, good for providing food but that was all. So she began her wandering circuit of the neighbours.

She adopted the family across our drive who had three teenage daughters and made herself at home there during the day. She also adopted the people in the other house down our drive, an IHC home, and likewise they made her welcome.

When the family with teenagers shifted, another family with two teenagers arrived so she just switched her attention to them. Her nose was temporarily out of joint when they got a dog but the dog didn't stay for long and she was soon back enjoying the attention and parked in front of their fire in the winter. She would arrive at the same time each day, and like clockwork jump up and leave at the same time to return home.

Unfortunately we had to introduce another cat to the household which upset her a little in the last few years, However she mostly coped with this with her usual good humour

Inbetween her wanderings she still knew that this was her home and called by several times a day for food and attention. Until the last few months, although now stone deaf, she was healthy and fit.


Little Roxi, all you ever did in your life was dispense love and good humour to others, you will be missed sorely and remembered with love by the many humans whose lives you touched.

Today we are going to bury her in the garden in one of her sunny spots she liked to sleep.

Banker Helps Mother Duck and her Ducklings

Good to see some good news on the TV!

Winter Fruit

Here is some fruit that is ripe in New Zealand at the moment.








The red ones are Tamarillos, the green ones are Feijoas, there is a persimmon, and also a gold kiwifruit.

We have a Feijoa and a Tamarillo tree. Feijoas are prolific croppers and we tend to get a little tired of them by the end of the season. They are related to the Guava I think and taste a little similar.

Tamarillos have a taste all of their own. They were once known as Tree Tomatoes but dont share any characteristics of tomatoes other than their colour.

Persimmons are available around the world, and the gold Kiwifruit are becoming more widely known as the orchards reach maturity and they are exported to Europe and USA. They have a delicious honey/kiwifruit flavour and are my favourite.

An Annual Event

For those of you who have been following my blog for some time, I apologize for the repetition. The picking of our kiwifruit crop is of course an annual event, a big event in our lives, that can either be a pleasurable few days, or a disaster!

This year it was a very enjoyable four days work - beautiful weather, all went smoothly, and best of all it has been a bumper crop. A record crop really.

There is a great deal of nail biting as we juggle the uncertain autumn weather, the threat of frosts, and the availability of the picking gangs and packhouse schedules.

(Sorry the captions don't match the photos! I will be back later to try and fix the problem, it has defeated me for the moment)








Some photos taken during the weekend.





The fruit is given a 'pre picking' spray wash - a non toxic wash to clean up the fruit.



A view of the road leading down to the main part of the orchard.















A group of reject fruit - flats and fans, you will never see these on the shelves at the supermarket! This fruit is either given away or mulched.

One Crafty Animal!

However am I supposed to finish my knitting when I have a cat sitting on it!

My Latest Challenge

How do I turn these............



............into this.............



...........using this.............