 
Delinquent Pipe Bands, Car Conversion by a 10 yr old Boy and a Trouserless Man in Kids Play Area

# IT'S A MAD, MAD WORLD

Paul Buckley

2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

ISBN 978-1-310147-88-3

Copyright 2014

# THINGS HAPPEN

## When Pipe Bands go Bad

The last thing I want to do is impugn the reputation of the Hawera Pipe band. The band is widely known in South Taranaki and much respected. For years it has loyally answered every call for its services, and performed admirably. However reporters do have a duty to honestly tell the news however unfortunate the consequences may be for the participants. Besides everyone likes a bit of gossip, especially if it's true. However do bear in mind that despite what reporters may claim about the nature of their role in protecting democracy, the truth is their job is to sell newspapers.

The Hawera Pipe Band has the sort of members who are referred to as the stalwarts of society, people who are respected throughout the community, people who have demonstrated their willingness to make personal sacrifices for the good of society. It would be mean spirited of me to attempt to criticise these individuals but if we must then we will.

One outstanding figure who is typical of the Hawera Pipe Band is Doug Hutchison. He played in the band for twenty-five years, before dropping out to give full attention to his increasingly responsible career in the Dairy Company that eventually became a foundation partner in Fonterra. After retiring from Fonterra, Doug took up his bagpipes again and once again became a central figure in the band. After all his good service it is a shame that he should be a central figure in the disgraceful Openaki Xmas Parade affair.

News of this whole sorry affair might never have been exposed to the oxygen of publicity but simply remained festering its way around the back streets of the small town of Openake, if Doug's son, Darrell, home on a Christmas visit from Melbourne, had not attended that fateful Xmas Parade. Let's face it, this could have happened anywhere in New Zealand, or indeed the whole world and Openake's good name mustn't be darkened. The town was simply the innocent back drop for the drama that followed. Let us go further and make a plug for the town of Openake. The town has a beautiful black beach on a coast more famous for its high crumbling cliffs. The cliffs were created when the lava flowed from Mount Taranaki. In summer Openake is a popular holiday resort, well perhaps resort is too strong a word, but at least a place that welcomes its visitors. It is true Openake also battles winter storms that send waves crashing down on the beach, and causing the visitors to flee to other South Pacific Islands, but each summer the same loyal visitors show up again. The fishing off the coast is very good and this pastime to has its adherents.

How I wish Darrell had invited me along to see the Xmas Parade. I knew nothing about the event until the next day when he let drop hints of what happened the night before. Like all good reporters it took only a sniff of the drama and I was onto the case. Darrell did not spill the beans willingly, understandably concerned for his father's reputation, he held out as long as he could but in the end under close questioning he revealed all.

In a nutshell events seem to have gone like this. Well before the official departure time, the Pipe Band members lined up into formation, began playing and marched off. The person driving the leading float did not hesitate he immediately set off after them and of course how could the driver of the next float not be tempted to follow too and so it went on down the line until the whole parade was moving down the main street of Openaki. There is nothing wrong with a band showing a bit of initiative, the problem is that the time for the parade to begin was 7:15 but the band led off at 7:00 pm. The driver of the Mayor's car was conflicted, He wanted to keep his position in the parade but the Mayor had not yet arrived. Making an instant decision he set off without the Mayor. So when the mayor did arrive punctually at 7:15, he discovered to his dismay his driver, his car and the parade had gone. The Mayor knowing the value of publicity in this an election year was determined not to be left behind and provide his opponents with ammunition to attack him. He took off at a run after the parade, or was that just a good fast trot, and before the parade reached the end of the Main Street, he was safely on board his mayoral car.

The clown, on the other hand, was running very late and didn't arrive until 7:30, at which time the band was down the end of the main street and about to turn to make the return journey (this is only a small town). Badly shaken by the position he found himself in and already seeing a headline in the paper about Clown Misses Xmas Parade he hopped into the back seat of a car, any car, and told the driver to take him around the back streets to re-join, or is that join, the parade. Unfortunately for him and fortunately for me, Darrell caught sight of the clown in his uniform in the car as he passed and was able to hand me this vital information on to me.

So that's how it appeared but what really went on that evening?" Why did the pipe band beat the gun and leave early taking the rest of the band and the whole parade with them? What was going on inside their fevered minds? I asked Darrell to investigate. Fortunately he loves a good story as much as I do and happily took on this unpaid job by volunteering to talk with his father and become our 'Deep Throat'.

Society has rules to try to prevent anarchy. What would the world be like if we never knew what time a pipe band will march off into the distance? How many small children would be permanently scarred by not getting to see a clown at the age of five? It is possible, someone in the pipe band was intent on destroying the mayor's reputation by leaving early, no doubt prompting unkind thoughts of an undeclared mistress, or perhaps a serious drinking problem. It has to be said there is a razor thin difference between a simple act such as leaving early and mob rule and complete anarchy. I realise there may be darker currents that I have no knowledge of and I find myself fearing for Darrell's safety. If he disappears, I know I will feel responsible but I quickly push the thought out of my mind. Darrell is a far more formidable adversary than his quiet relaxed, exterior appearance would suggest. The possibilities are endless but if this reporter comments further, he may be accused of malicious speculation.

Darrell's first report is brief and does little to clarify the picture.

"Dad said that it was because of the dark clouds coming in and the fear that it would rain.

Certainly rain, especially heavy rain, has a dampening effect on festival events such as a Christmas Parade. No one likes getting wet while they stand about watching a parade and the people on the floats will find it hard to maintain the expected light hearted mood when the rain is pouring down. So the black clouds have become the scapegoats but they can't speak in their defence. I need more information.

"Who made the decision the band would leave early?" I ask Darrell, "See if you can find out." he is enjoying his role as the lead investigator and looking forward to the chance to finger the person responsible for what is starting to be called the outrage of the early departure as much as I am.

Darrell returns exuding confidence, "The Police were concerned about the prospect of heavy rain and suggested to the Band Leader that he takes the band off early. The main street was closed and everything was, ready so why not start and avoid the rain?"

I probe further, "Did they give no thought to the fact that the mayor hadn't arrived. And what about the clown and his reputation in the community?"

Darrell runs with the idea, "Do you think it's a case of Police corruption. Perhaps they're trying to undermine the Mayor's chance of re-election?"

"We don't know Darrell but we need to dig deeper," and then another thought crosses my mind, "Are bagpipes damaged by rain?" In Italy when we attended an outdoor opera as soon as the first drops of rain fell, the musicians walked out and the opera ended. Expensive violins can be permanently destroyed if they get wet.

In hindsight it was a ridiculous suggestion and on his return Darrell soon demolishes the idea, "Dad says you can march across rivers without bagpipes being damaged." I knew bagpipes are used to rally the troops during battles in Scotland, and if they are rendered silent by the first shower the Scots would not have won many wars.

But Darrell has more, "There is a young drummer in the band. He was drawn into their plan. Surely this is involvement of a minor in an act of doubtful morality." I liked this angle; nothing will sell the newspaper faster than a story about minors being pressed into immoral acts by adults.

I have another thought, "Is the Band's excuse for the early departure basically the same as the excuse used by citizens in Germany who after the Second World War claimed they were just obeying orders?" But not wanting to be accused of drawing too long a bow, I drop the idea.

Darrell adds a touch of pathos, "At the end of the parade, I saw Santa on a farm tractor driving away in the rain." That's a good angle but I still need more

Desperate to salvage something for the paper, I ask Darrell for details of on what was in the parade. "The floats were of a good quality, there was farm machinery (here I stifle a yawn) and lollies for children but no marching girls (these went out years ago) and the Dairy float sprayed foam over the crowd." The story is slipping away. There is nothing to focus on if we discard the salacious aspects of the story.

I want to give Darrell the opportunity to end the story in an upbeat mood so I serve up something I know he will enjoy, "Do you see yourself as a whistle blower?" I ask, "Perhaps Hawera's Edward Snowden?" This gives him a good long laugh.

But then looking across at me, he gives a wink and says, "Why not?" and I know it's game on again.

## Easy to Assemble?

I know I know, they all say it, what do you expect them to say? If they were honest and said, "It may take a bit of time, and you'll make lots errors that slow you down; errors which won't be all your fault, but for heavens sake what do you expect. Perfection? Grow up, no one is perfect, humans aren't built that way, we're machined to make a certain number of errors, it's how evolution progresses, this is a process where only the best survive. So you, or in this case Rose, buy(s) this damned shed which comes to you in carefully machined bits and pieces and you are left to assemble it yourself. How else do you think they could sell a shed for $156 including GST?

The suppliers should wish you good luck (because you will need a bit of luck); while omitting to point out that only the very best will survive and end up with a serviceable shed. You may be one of the lucky ones.

It was Dr Rose Motion who bought the kitset shed. She had an urgent need for more space. The rooms of her spacious three-bedroomed house were bulging with a mixture of books, all the bits and pieces needed for her active hobby of making miniatures and modelling things like dragons, other interesting bits and pieces acquired through a long life as a squirrel, as well as things stored for future uses that may never come. The garage is packed to the ceiling with the over flow from her house, and her grandchildren are coming to visit. Somehow more space must be generated, and urgently, the kids will be here next week.

At our annual One Present Xmas Party Rose broaches the subject with me and Mark, two people who don't know the meaning of that little word "no" let alone when to use it. And in this case why would we? Rose is a lovely person, somewhat diminutive in height but generous to a fault. Despite the fact that I know there is not the slightest chance I will be able to stand upright inside the yet to be assembled shed, and in the full knowledge that Rose is given to over optimistic estimates of how long anything will take to finish, I say yes and so does Mark. When Rose warns us, "I will need more people to assemble the sides and join them together," we know we must help

Although both Mark and I have PhD degrees in science, and we are skilled in laboratory work, neither of us have a great interest in, or experience of, building, so we bring almost zero experience to the assembly of this shed

"Come around at 4:30 on Tuesday, but not if the ground gets too wet with the predicted showers. I don't want to get the floor of the (not yet built) shed wet," Rose tells us, this despite the fact that the shed only has a dirt floor. Well of course it does get too wet on Tuesday and we are shifted to the same time on Wednesday. We now have no extra days up our sleeves, so we have to get things right the first time.

Our first job is to prepare the ground for the hypothetical shed's final resting place. We have to remove a number of bricks from the paving that edges the site and dig out some soil which is riddled with tree roots that must be cut with a spade. I immediately wonder why we didn't prepare the ground on Tuesday, after all the showers weren't that heavy. But I don't point this out to Rose, no one needs a smart alec on a building site. After an initial attack by all three of us, it quickly becomes clear what our different skill-sets are, so I will continue digging and smashing the mortar between the bricks while Rose and Mark study the plans and start joining bits together. Left on my own I enjoy all the hammering and dismantling and am disappointed when it is ruled I have done enough. Showing some initiative I clean the bricks that will serve as the floor with buckets of water before I stop.

The assembly of the shed is being done on the lawn. Obviously there is not enough room inside Rose's house to assemble a shed and in any case common sense tells us that even if we do assemble it inside, we couldn't get it back outside after assembly. You see we have the ability to do a certain amount of forward planning.

Rose and Mark have made what could be called steady progress on building the first side wall. Then we hit our first crisis. Mark briefs me on the problem, "We can't find piece numbered F5". The numbers are on small squares of white paper which are stuck on with what looks like cellotape.

"If we lose these labels we're lost," says Mark. None of us disagree with him on that.

To help with the search for F5, I assemble the bits into small piles based on the first letter on the label. Needless to say there is no F5 amongst the F bits. But there is one piece left over that it doesn't have a label. The conclusion seems obvious, a child of five could have joined the dots but these three adults with PhD's in science don't. Rose and Mark are in complete agreement, "That can't be F5, it's the wrong shape, the piece should have a cross section like this," and this is demonstrated by some hand motions. Clearly the hypothetical and the real piece are not the same. We quickly reach what we think is the obvious conclusion, namely that there has been an error in the factory and the wrong piece has been sent to us. It is satisfying to be able to place the blame on an anonymous person in China but it doesn't advance our cause.

Fortunately about now sister Kay arrives. She brings fresh thinking to the problem. In rapid succession she finds the label F5 on the back door step and then the unlabelled bit. She does not accept as readily as I did, Mark and Rose's assertion that it is the wrong shape. She draws attention to the general similarities ignoring the shape.

"It is the right length and it has the right number of holes, namely three and they are in the right place, it must be the piece you want."

Mark and Rose hold a quick conference. The act of being forced to abandon their previous unexpressed assumption, that equivalent bits at opposite ends of the wall must be the same, removes the road block in their thinking, and frees them to find ways in which the bit will fit, and of course it does."

My problem is that I too easily believe what I'm told. By doing this I am condemned to make as little progress as the person with the problem. In hindsight I realised that this is a classic case of Pam Blackwell's mouse. (See the 2005 book in this series). I should have realised this immediately but I didn't.

I am booked to go to a movie at eight and I leave Rose and Mark to their own devices at seven.

On Thursday Rose and I arrive on site promptly at 4:30 but there is no sign of Mark. Good progress has been made while I was goofing off at Downtown Cinema 8. In my absence, as I soon find out, building standards have slipped. No longer is there the same excessive respect for getting the holes lined up precisely on top of one another as required by our instruction manual, rather there is now an expectation they won't. To overcome potential blocks to further progress, Rose has pulled out her trusty battery drill. If there is no corresponding hole available, then after a quick tap of a punch to give the drill a start, and after a sound disconcertingly like a dentist's drill, a replacement hole appears. Fortunately the whole shed is held together by screws that bite into the flimsy metal and provide a tight grip. Although screwing screws in is a skill I do have, albeit in a clumsy way, drilling is not in my skill set (I hate this expression but after the repeated use of it by commentators in every sport I am familiar with, I have succumbed and now welcome any chance to use it). Rose seems anxious when the drill jams and struggles to pull it out again. Fortunately not too many holes have to be drilled before Mark arrives, full of apologies for his lateness. From then on we leave all drilling in his safe hands.

Certainly the drill makes our lives easier. Assembling then becomes simply a matter of reading the plans using the exploded images to remove any ambiguities and then start the drilling. Both Rose and Mark have good three-dimensional visualisation skills, and after staring at the explanatory pictures, which I can only imagine were deliberately inserted in the drawings to amuse the people assembling the shed, they make all the correct calls.

I expect by now you will be wondering what my role has become. Well I am the support person, the gopher who is on hand when needed, the follower not the leader. Or is it just that knowing they will need three or four people when the final assembly takes place they want to keep me amused? I take the time to devise ways to make Rose and Mark's jobs easier. For example I preassemble the screws and the plastic washers and have them available at their elbows when they need them. I help find lost tools and by Saturday I have even brought a tray so all the essential tools can be shifted to the next place they are needed together and easily. These I count as my major contributions.

When I text Bruce at 7:15 to ask him when we are eating, he shoots back the disconcerting reply, of "When you've cooked it." It is my cooking night but I was hoping there would still be enough of Bruce's lovely curry dish left for us get by, but no such luck. I stagger home at 7:30 and struggle to decide what to cook but with a bit of help from Bruce we make it in the end.

Saturday at 10:30 is the agreed time for the final assembly. Kay is off doing a half marathon in Whanganui, but she offers Ross as a replacement if a fourth person is needed.

Today Rose is determined to get the shed complete. Her family are coming for Christmas and two of her grandchildren even earlier and the house, the shed and the garden must all be ready. And all this at a time of the year when Rose is very busy at Massey University.

The front, back, sides and roof are brought out from inside the house and studied to work out what to put where. The door must go on last and this side is easy to identify because it has a gaping hole in the side. The back too is easy to spot but the sides are more equivocal. During the first anxious minutes nothing seems to be right. Rose or was that Mark, worries whether one or other side must be dismantled and reassembled, something none of us would wish on our worst enemy. Then one of them points out that the door is upside down, and a simple rotation corrects the problem. After that things go fairly smoothly. The drill is often called into action, but this is now situation normal. I am beginning to wonder whether the metal was machined by a programmed robot and has never been assembled by real human beings into a shed. When the bracing is fitted into place, surprisingly a couple of them are level. If the middle one isn't quite, well who cares, we just want to finish the damned thing.

When we need a fourth person, I pick up Ross and he, not only holds a corner, but makes many useful suggestions.

There is a minor crisis, when Mark finds his drill not working well. We are not surprised after the amount of drilling it has done during the last three days. Mark has to push hard to make even a small dent. Rose produces another slightly bigger bit. Mark fits it and tries again. Progress is if anything even slower. Finally, and not too soon, Rose comes over to take a look. She flicks a switch and hands it back to Mark. He has inadvertently switched the drill to reverse. They put the old drill back and it continues to provide the same valiant service as before. Mark says with a mixture of pride and amazement, "To think I managed to make a a hole when it was drilling backwards."

Wouldn't you know it, the simple sliding lock they provide barely bridges the gap between the door and the wall. Rose rightly regards this primitive lock as an impediment to the secure locking of the shed. A bit more drilling in a very tight space solves the problem. But with the lock screwed on the outside, a determined thief can simply unscrew the lock and bypass the padlock. Well to be honest an old fashioned can opener could probably allow entry just as easily.

Rose tells me, "I plan to paint the shed a dull green to camouflage it from the road." I think it would be better to make it completely invisible but this technology is not currently available at The Warehouse.

With a bit of wiggling and twisting, we finally fit the shed into its place close to the side of the garage at a point where it is hemmed in by an edge of bricking. The project is complete by 3:30 and I hurry off to join Bruce and Neville in our regular Saturday afternoon walk.

I wish I could pretend my contribution was greater but I can't.

## Something to Crow About

Have you ever dreamt of owning a few chooks and never again having to trudge down to the store to buy eggs? Have you ever plucked a warm egg from a recently vacated nest and eaten it for breakfast? Have you ever enjoyed the contented cackle of a hen that has just laid an egg and is very pleased with herself? Then it is time you bought some chooks for yourself and enjoyed these pleasures every day.

First buy a few hens and take them home. You will then discover you need a shed to house them in but by then it is too late to return the hens. It would break their dear little hearts. Never mind, your nearest hardware shop will willingly sell you a hen house of their design, or, if you have the confidence, you can build one for yourself (not recommended unless you have the necessary skills). Please don't at this stage think about the escalating costs you are incurring, just focus on the warm eggs and the pleasure of the proud hen who is laying them. (fortunately hens can't count, so they will never know you are stealing its eggs as fast as they lay them).

As Judy Mollot found out when she arrived home with her hens, the purchase of the hen house and the hens is only the first step. You must also get the hens safely inside their house, and this is no trivial task. Judy in a moment of inattention allowed some of her hens to make a dash for freedom and of course she immediately dashed after them. A long chase follow as Judy strove to direct the chooks back to their new henhouse, while the hens remained determined to retain their hard won freedom. The hens, uncertain about Judy's intentions, carefully maintained what they considered to be a safe distance between themselves and the pursuing Judy. During the chase Judy only succeeded in driving the hens ever further away from their new hen house. If Judy slowed down, the hens slowed, if Judy sped up they also sped up but the hens had a distinct advantage, they were wing assisted. In the end Judy gave up the unequal struggle. However after sunset she discovered to her surprise that when left on their own the errant hens returned to their new home, presumably seeking out the friends they had grown up with (who says chooks aren't social beasts, despite the rather evil looking faces all hens have).

Judy was one of a hand full of Auckland People who were chosen to be in a book documenting the lives of city hens. She related the story of her fleeing hens and this was faithfully recorded in the book, along with some attractive photographs of Judy and her hens. (Urban Chooks by Renee Lang and Trevor Newman Page 84-85)

Judy was a gentle and caring boss of the coup. She fenced off a section of the back garden, away from her swimming pool, where the hens could free range happily during the day while being fed all her food scraps and garden waste to pick over. It was surprising how much they found palatable. In return the hens diligently supplied eggs, apart from the occasional mute protest about the futility of a cycle where despite the production of eggs not a single chicken appeared. Roosters are not allowed in Auckland city, and short of artificial insemination (a difficult procedure I imagine) her hens could never experience the joy of mother hood.

Nevertheless in the end this sort of life can get the most devoted hen down. Judy came out one morning and noticed that one of her hens was walking around with its head drooping down from its normal erect position. When a day later, the same hen's head has drooping down even further, Judy waited no longer and took her along to the vet. Her regular vet, (Judy's not the hen's) disclaimed an interest in treating her, "We don't deal birds here," she told Judy and gave her the name of a vet who did. Judy took the bird into the clinic and showed the vet the hen's drooping head. The vet studied the head for a while and he (or she) may have done a few tests but when she (or he) fronted up to Judy the news was bad.

"Your hen is depressed."

"What do you mean the hen is depressed!" Judy said disbelievingly.

"Just what I said, this hen is depressed."

Judy looked (I imagine) to some kind of treatment to be recommend. Perhaps she could go in each morning and make hen jokes, or alternatively perhaps medication would do the job.

If so she was soon enlightened on the matter. The Vet is nothing if not decisive, "This hen must be put down. It's the only humane thing to do."

Now Judy must have been touched with the first fingers of guilt. "What," she asked herself, "Am I doing wrong? How should I act differently in the future? Will more of my hens fall into depression?" If so this was not the not time to grapple with such thoughts. The vet takes charge.

"I'll put her down now."

Judy, presumably in a stunned state, obediently hands her beloved hen over to the vet and waits for the executioner to do his job. It only took 3 or 4 minutes and then there is the question of the vet's fee. If Judy was stunned when she heard the diagnosis, then she was doubly stunned when she read the cost, $98.

Forget Judy, I was lost for words when she told me. My father would be a millionaire if he'd charged $98 for all the hens he killed, admittedly only so the hen could be roasted and cooked. The procedure he used was subtly different from that of the vet. Instead of the hen drifting gently off under the influence of an anaesthetic humanely administered by injection into a sleep it never recovers from, my father's hens simply had their heads chopped off with an axe and then he left them to make a final sprint around the farm yard with blood spurting out of a neck without a head. As a kid I never had to have the expression, "You're running around like a chicken with its head cut off", explained to me, I had it demonstrated to me in the most graphic way possible. It's something once seen is never forgotten.

About a year later another hen's head began to droop. Judy was not going to make the same mistake twice and this time a friend killed the hen for free

When I told Bob Lambourne the story of the depressed hen, he collapsed in extended laughter. During our winter months he lives on a farm in Shropshire, and during this time he helps with the hens. The idea that any hen would get depressed and get taken to the vet was just too much for him. Of course the hens in Shropshire have roosters wandering around with them and perhaps there is no time to be depressed when you spend their life being pursued by randy roosters.

Judy as an urban poultry farmer, knew that she was not allowed to have roosters on her property, and she didn't have roosters. There is no way you can hide a rooster, every morning at the crack of dawn he gives himself away by staking a claim to the property and the hens by crowing vigorously.

Then one morning a neighbour called Maxime phoned Judy and accused her of owning a rooster. Judy didn't have a rooster and of course vigorously denied the charge. When on subsequent mornings a rooster signalled its existence by crowing Judy knew it wasn't hers

The crowing continued and finally two burly City Council Inspectors arrived as a result of complaints by neighbours and asked her to remove the rooster that was disturbing the sleep of decent Auckland citizens in the neighbourhood. Judy only bought hens, Judy didn't buy roosters, hence Judy doesn't have a rooster, Q.E.D.

Just to be sure, the next morning very early, Judy went out behind the garage and waited. As soon as she heard crowing, Judy put her head around the corner and to her great surprise the beautiful black chook called Paua (yes the same hen whose photo is published in the book Urban Chooks) was crowing. Somehow a quiet, peaceful hen had morphed into a rooster, one that could crow even if couldn't fertilise hens. The hen was dispatched into the hands of the inspector and peace once again reigned in Mt Albert. Subsequent literature research provided a possible explanation, an older hen when it undergoes hormone changes can indeed begin crowing. The mystery was solved.

A final rooster story; many years ago in Palmerston North at a time when roosters were allowed in town, a man who lived close to a crowing rooster finally snapped. When the rooster crowed yet again at around 4 a.m., the man picked up his phone and called the neighbour. When the neighbour finally answered the phone, the man simply said, "I called so you too can enjoy the dawn chorus." There is no record of whether this strategy led to the removal of the rooster.

## The Break in

While not wanting to be critical of someone working at their trade, as Break-ins go I have to say this one was singularly incompetent. A lot of largely gratuitous damage was done to a window and given the effort involved in entry, the robbery yielded nothing of value. I suppose this is one of the disadvantages of working on a job in the middle of the night, without good lighting while trying not to be noticed. If you insist on doing this sort of work then inevitably you must come across some duds and this was certainly a dud.

Whether you consider the burglar was incompetent, stupid or just unlucky, the returns on this job were negligible. The same risks of arrest are taken whenever you go to the trouble of breaking into a house whether you make a profit or not, but to take such risks, when it should have been obvious, the house was totally empty is foolish at best. Why else do you carry a torch but to peek through a window before attempting entry to see whether the house is worth the trouble, although as Bob Lambourne pointed out, the white net curtains might have made it difficult to see inside.

Palmerston North is well known for its daylight burglaries. The rationale I imagine for choosing the middle of the day is that most houses are empty then. These days both partners of an average couple need to work in order to maintain a reasonable standard of living. With children off at school or at play centre, a robber has a good chance of finding no one at home around the middle of the day. You take the precaution of tapping on the door first to see if anyone surfaces but if there is no response then it is game on.

The main ally of the day time robber, is speed. You must force entry quickly, identify what is valuable quickly and exit quickly. Then even if someone sees you there will usually not be enough time for the Police to arrive before you flee in your car.

This is exactly what happened when Bryan Anderson's burglar struck. No one answered his knock, so the burglar went on to stage two of the operation. After this things did not go as planned. When he smashed a pane of glass in Bryan's back door, unbeknown to him there was a crowd of cars and people in the adjoining church parking area as parents waited to pick their children up. Hearing the sound of breaking glass, one of the parents peeked through a hole in the fence and seeing it was a break in and not a domestic dispute, called the Police.

A minute or two after getting into the kitchen the burglar to his great surprise triggers an alarm. You see unlike most people, Bryan Anderson does not put a warning notice about his alarm on the outside of the house. Instead he prefers to surprise and hopefully entrap the robber. He succeeded in surprising the thief but not in the end catching him. The man is already running for the door even as the police car leaves the station in the centre of the city and heading for Bryan's house.

Unfortunately for our anti-hero, this is the time of the day when, with school out for the day, the Girls High School girls come streaming down Te Awe Awe Street. By now Pam Blackwell has had a call from the company monitoring the alarm and is also hurrying down Te Awe Awe to see if a crime is being committed. The good guys are closing in.

When one of the High School girls sees a man running around the side of the house holding something inside a trouser leg, she realises a crime is being committed. Being quick witted and having her smart phone on the ready, she takes a photo of the escape car as it races away. Unfortunately the photo isn't clear enough to give the license plate number and in the end provides no useful clues as to the identification of the man.

However, since I have no idea when the break in to Bruce's rental house took place, I will assume for greater dramatic effect it took place around midnight.

I can describe with confidence how the robbery was discovered. Bruce set off on his bike as usual on this the second Monday in December, but he was back in the house within a couple of minutes with the bad news, "I need help, my rental house has been broken into. Can you check to see if anything has been stolen or damaged and organise repairs to be done as soon as possible." Of course I immediately agree and he cycles off, if not exactly totally reassured, at least hopeful I will be up to the task.

Gentle rain starts to fall as I walk down to number 6 Waterloo Crescent with the keys to the house. As I turn down the drive I see immediately why Bruce noticed the problem as he flashed by on his bike. A side window along the drive has been ripped off the house and is leaning there like a signal flag with broken glass scattered around it. I search through the bunch of keys to find the one that opens the sliding door. It takes me a while to find a key that fits the lock, but I might as well not have bothered, I can't get it to turn no matter how much I jiggle and twist.

Nothing lost I go around to the back door. At first I can't find a key that will fit that lock either. After much searching, by a lucky fluke (and after displaying my supreme stupidity), I finally try the key that I so ineffectually tried on the sliding door and alleluia, not only does fit the lock, but it turns in it too. Unfortunately in a fit of over zealousness Bruce has slid the security chain in place and it is impossible for me to enter the house through the back door.

I have to face the fact I too am locked out. So I must enter the house the same way as the thief, namely through the window that is without a window. There was no way I can climb directly in (if the thief did he must have been an athletic individual and in this at least he must be applauded), so I go home and get the step ladder we salvaged from Betty when she was going to dump it. I return, put the ladder in place and managed to get up to the window sill but am not confident enough (or short enough) to squirm around so I can safely step inside (I did not want to try the tumble backward method, it seemed too risky).

So I go over to Betty's place and borrowed her new step ladder which has one extra step. She gladly loans it to me, after all we almost took ownership of the thing during the weeks that Kay was painting our kitchen. Using this I make my inelegant entry, with the maximum of awkwardness and the minimum of finesse.

As I inspected the house for damage, I am confronted with exactly the same sight as the burglar, namely that the house is completely empty of everything except fittings such as the shower, toilet and stove. There was nothing to steal, the five tenants moved out last week.

I exit through the back door, being careful to leave the chain off. I don't want to have to enter through the window again.

Normally I would have made a quick call to Hire a Hubby and got them to repair the window, however since they put the insulation in our house, the firm has imploded. Both the loyal hard working Jason and the equally hard working Mark have been suddenly fired. Nic told them he could not afford their wages. Mark was supposedly hired to manage the firm and be in charge, but Nic continually interfered, accepting new jobs that Mark knew nothing about and did not schedule. So naturally as loyal fans of Jason and Mark we did not want to call that franchise again.

I called Jason first, and although he agreed to do temporary repairs he was frantically busy meeting the demands of Work and Income as he searched for another job. Then I called Mark and he agreed do the job the next morning. Bruce was satisfied with this but wanted me to ask about prospects for putting insulation under his house. With Mark off to the UK with his family in two weeks time I don't like his chances but we'll see.

I ask Bob to come and have a look at the house post burglary and tell him of my difficulty in getting a key to open the sliding doors. I handed him the bunch of keys holding onto the only one that fitted the lock.

By way of explanation I tell him, "It's strange but this is the key to the back door too."

Bob fiddles for a while and makes no progress. This key will definitely not open the lock. But he does not give up, with a lateral thought he goes back to the beginning and tries fitting the other keys into the lock, completely ignoring the fact I have already shown that no others work. A different one slips into the lock and in a moment the sliding door is open. The triumphant look on his face is hard to endure. At least one mystery is cleared up.

Bob inspects the damaged window. There is big hole in two of the plates, the frame is cracked at one point but not fatally and the screws are either missing or have tips pointing into empty air. He thought for a moment and then described how the crime was committed.

"The man," (burglars are always men, women have more subtle ways of making money), "has obviously smashed the glass so he can reach in and open the catch." So far so good, then Bob continues, "However the window did not open fully because of the side catch. So he ripped the whole thing out." The explanation made sense to me and I good naturedly reply, "You're amazing Holmes, how did you work that out."

He responds to the opening I have given him with the appropriate response, proclaiming, "Elementary my Dear Watson."

Mark, ex-Hire a Hubby boss, after inspection agrees to repair the window that night in his garage and departs with the frame. I measured the gap and then Bob and I buy a piece of hardboard that is wide enough to fill the gap, just

Everything goes smoothly from here. Acting like a good neighbour, I warn Brian at Number 10 and Michelle from number 15 and of course Betty from number 19 about the robbery. There's not much they can do to prevent a robbery, except worry, but who doesn't want to feel important by doing what is right regardless of the consequences for a timid house owner.

Mark arrives back with the repaired window frame and I call a glazier to replace the two panes of glass. He does comment on the battered nature of the window frame but Kay with some putty, some builders bog and a touch of paint smartens things up. The case seems closed but there is a final twist in this tale of crime. On Tuesday evening Bruce was over at number 6 when the people renting the house directly across from his drive see him and come over for a chat.

The neighbour has news to tell him, "Your window was open for five days until it was finally blown off the house by big winds."

Like a tower made from cards, our whole robbery scenario tumbles down. To be honest and give credit where it is due, Bruce did say this was a possibility, but a crime fighter like me does not allow a story as exciting as a break in be deflated by a plausible explanation like that. But in the end of course it is.

I don't have the nerve to go back to neighbours Michelle and Brian and tell them the truth. Why shouldn't they be encouraged to make their homes more secure? In fact I find myself unwilling to tell the story to anyone. But there is something about writing that demands truth from the writer.

Let Bruce have the final word, "The tenants must have left the latch off when they moved out last week."

And there it is, "crime" solved. Oh that it could always be so easy.

## Getting to the Bottom of Things

I heard it first from Serena Richdale. Her laughter rang around the room as she spoke of a children's slide and a man with his trousers down around his ankles. Then she turns to me and says, "You must write about this." I didn't need a second invitation.

In the 21st Century a whole industry has been built about the dangers men with their trousers around their ankles pose to children, so it is refreshing that someone as broad minded as Serena can see the humour in the situation. As a serious reporter I don't base my stories simply from hearsay. I talk to the central figure and get his explanation as to what really happened. Besides I have no desire to slander anyone, especially a person as good natured as Pete Murphy. A few days later at the birthday party for his grandson Lincoln, I get my chance.

It turns out Lincoln is the small boy who is central to the story. However unlike the oversensitive sensation seekers who, while searching for potential perverts where none are, make the innocent child the victim by their intrusively questioning, I regard Lincoln as too young to be interviewed so I am left with Pete. Without any scruples as to timing, I tackle him on the matter, even when he is at this large family gathering and Lincoln is present.

Pete's partner Glenys is standing just across the kitchen bench from me, so naturally I begin with her.

"Glenys where were you when all this happened?"

"Drinking coffee at an adjoining table. I didn't see a thing."

Either she is lying as part of a cover up or I have to accept this is a dead end.

So it's back to Pete. As I expect Pete laughs out loud when I bring the topic up. He is happy to fill in all the details.

Let me set the scene. Pete and Glenys have gone to MacDonald's with Lincoln and his older brother Aidan. After the compulsory fast food bust, the boys head for the play area, which in this case consists of a complicated tunnel system which the children have to find their way through, rather like a maze but one you negotiate on your knees. Pete and Glenys settle down on an adjoining table and enjoy a coffee. So far everything is as you would expect for an innocent trip of grandsons and grandpa into town. The adults enjoy their coffees while the small children are diverted by the play area. There is no hint of what is to follow

Now while Aidan (at almost five years of age) and baby Edison (about five months of age) are calm children who generally don't make a fuss, Lincoln can only be described as a drama queen, in the best sense of that word. When something happens to annoy Lincoln or threaten him, he does not hesitate but lets everyone in the world know in the most dramatic way and his performance is impossible to ignore. The sound is sufficient to cause people at quite distant tables to turn around to see who in the restaurant is brutally beating a child (or given the amount of noise Lincoln can produce perhaps these on lookers assume several children are being beaten). Since no parent or grandparent wants to be the centre of such attention, extraordinary efforts will be made to quieten the child and restore order.

Sipping their coffees, Pete and Glenys suddenly hear the terrible screams of a child within the maze who is in mortal danger. Pete checks to see what is happening and finds Aidan has been calmly enjoying the challenge of escaping from the maze but unfortunately has left his young brother to his own resources, and they are not enough. Lincoln is lost and doesn't know what to do. So he uses the only weapon in his armoury, and uses it to great effect.

Pete sensibly sends Aidan in to rescue him. Unsurprisingly the appearance of Aidan is insufficient to quieten Lincoln's rage at being deserted. So the noise continues. Clearly Lincoln is not going to be talked out by a small boy and no matter what amusing or diverting conversation Pete attempts, he knows it will not be enough either.

What would you do in this situation? Call the manager? Call for the police? Well Pete is not the sort of person who will put the responsibility for rescuing his much loved grandson in someone else's hands. He knows he must go inside the tunnels himself.

Now Pete is not a small man. His physique could never be described as weedy, in fact in recent years he has moved even more towards solid or perhaps burly and the tunnel Lincoln is lost in is quite small. Despite the obvious disadvantage this gives him he does not hesitate. He curls himself into the smallest ball he can manage and squeezes into the start of the tunnel. The screams continue. At least locating Lincoln is not going to be a problem.

No, it is the negotiation of the tunnel that is the problem. Along the straight sections progress is quite good but every now and then the tunnel abruptly changes direction. At such points there is a small box to allow the little children to reposition their bodies before proceeding. As you can imagine negotiating a small box is not going to be easy for Pete. Let's be honest the tunnel is not made for adults. But driven by his desire to rescue his grandson Pete is not about to turn back, even supposing this is actually physically possible. Ignoring the physical constraints Pete searches for a way to improvise his way through. He squeezes first this way and then that way before by a combination of luck and skill emerging pointing in the right direction.

Pete must be wondering by now if Lincoln will ever tire from his continuing protests. When Pete does finally reach Lincoln he quietens down. The appearance of a rescuer in the form of his Grandpa has done the trick. Pete discovers Lincoln has almost completed the maze and there is only one obstacle ahead of him, a slide. Pete talks him down and he scampers away to safety.

As to Pete, he has few options. Turning around is impossible and in any case the thought of re-negotiating the tunnel in the reverse direction holds no appeal. He quickly reaches the conclusion that the only sensible thing to do is to follow Lincoln down the slide.

This is where everything begins to turn to custard.

In the confines of the tunnel Pete can't turn around, so he must go down head first. Nothing risked nothing gained, Pete pushes off and in a short time his head hits the bottom (control in this situation is not an option for Pete.) About now you might be tempted to think Pete's troubles are over but unfortunately they are just beginning. There is a lip at the top of the slide, and when you are told his belt was only loosely tightened, you may guess what happened. The lip hooked over the trousers bringing them to a dead stop while Pete slid on unimpeded to the bottom. So you can picture him upside down at the bottom with his trousers hanging at the top.

Thank heavens there are no child-abuse Nazis around, no one to point the finger and leap to quite the wrong conclusion. Otherwise the Police would undoubtedly have been called and in a very short period of time Pete would have been hauled before the courts and jailed for exposing himself before small children. He undoubtedly would have lost his job at UCOL and his reputation would have been in tatters.

Two things saved Pete from this fate. The first, at least the one I place as first, was the fact that he was wearing underpants and they were still in place, and the second was that Pete was still partially inside the tunnel and it was not clear to the casual passer-by that Pete has no trousers on. Not expecting such an unlikely situation no one will look for it and instead pass innocently by without panicking.

Pete upside down on the slide, by repositioning himself again and wriggling around can reach back up a slide that is built for small children, and free the top of the trousers from the edge of the slide. He then yanks them down which in this inverted world means he is actually pulling them on.( Draw a diagram if this is not clear to you). He then fastens his belt securely and wriggles free with modesty preserved.

I ask Glenys why she hadn't come to Pete's rescue.

She calmly replies, "I was enjoying my coffee." And not a further word will she say on the matter."

A very clever woman, Glenys knows that the story will be funnier if she takes a laissez-faire attitude to the whole affair.

## Trapped in No Man's Land

Perhaps this story should be regarded as a parable, one that teaches us not to leave things too late.

In this parable it is difficult to sheet home the blame to any of the five people involved. Each had the opportunity to reverse events by the simple expedient of applying for an Australian entry permit earlier and none took that opportunity. Afterwards it is Stina Lindstrom who takes upon herself all the blame for their inaction. This is probably inevitable for someone who holds the rank of Professor at a University, although I know of many Professors who will go out of their way to thrust the blame on some quite innocent party, such as the nearest graduate student, but I know that Stina would never act in such a cowardly way. Besides Stina is the mother of two of the participants and mothers often believe the responsibility falls on them to ensure their children have a smooth passage through life, unhindered by decisions about such mundane matters as visas or entry permits. Unfortunately they will soon all be up to their necks in such matters.

It was Kristina, Stina for short, who decided on a trip to New Zealand but of course the detailed planning was done by all five; a collective consisting of Stina's daughter Lisalott and her partner Erik, Stina's son Lucas and his partner Miriam and of course Stina herself. At the last moment one of the collective learns they will require a visa to enter Australia, or at least be able to provide evidence that they have applied for a visa. Fortunately in the age of the internet making such an application takes only minutes and this may have been a very last minute but they do get the documentation and they can relax once again.

Having come so far to visit New Zealand, they naturally want to visit Australia at the same time, and they add a four day stay in Sydney to the itinerary. In order to provide a break in the long plane journey (23 hours in the air) they will stop over for a couple of days in Shanghai. For visits to China of less than 72 hours, Finns do not require a visa, so they enter China without problem.

The difficulties start when they try to leave again. These problems are not caused by Chinese Immigration; all they want to know is that Stina and party are out of the country within the two days How then you may ask can there be any problems?

The problems arise from the New Zealand immigration end after they depart Chinese soil. Well actually they arise with the airline they are flying to New Zealand on, namely Air New Zealand. In order to enter New Zealand Stina et al are required to show a valid airline ticket for their departure out of New Zealand. If they don't have such a ticket they will be denied entry and the airline that flew them into New Zealand would have to fly them straight out again. Air New Zealand has no desire to bear the cost involved.

When they come up to the desk to check into their Flight to New Zealand they are asked to show their tickets out of New Zealand again. Expecting everything to go smoothly, they hand their tickets over. The Chinese man working for Air New Zealand, looks onto the computer to check the tickets, he frowns and says "Only one of you has applied for a visa to enter Australia."

Without proof of this application they will be denied entry into Australia and their ticket to Australia will be invalid and worse Air New Zealand will not fly them into New Zealand. Miriam is the only one who has the correct documentation.

"But," Stina points out, "I have the automatic reply from Australian immigration, stating we have applied for the visas on my mobile phone." And she produces it.

Now bureaucracy takes over, "Your names are not in the system," the man says as he peers into the computer screen.

"But this is proof that all of us have applied," Stina continues pointing to her mobile phone.

The man continues peering at his computer screen, "Your names are not in the system."

And whatever they say, he will not shift from his belief that his computer is the ultimate and only authority and everything else might be faked.

As Erik told me later, "I couldn't believe anyone could be so stupid," while Lisalott said in a tone of voice that told me she meant it "I felt like punching someone," and who wouldn't? Lucas kept quiet and given his fury when he lost several games of cards in a row to his sister and Miriam this was probably for the best. As to Stina she says, "By now I had a serious head ache but I knew I had to sort things out." Miriam, far from being delighted that she alone could board the plane and fly on to New Zealand muttered, "I'm not going anywhere. I'll stay here with the rest of you." Call me a rat leaving the sinking ship if you must, but in the same situation, I would have been off on the plane without a moment's hesitation.

Stina and her party are in an invidious position. The Chinese official behind the Air New Zealand will not allow them to board the Air New Zealand plane until she gets confirmation from Australian Immigration that these Finnish people have applied for an Australian visa. The flight will be departing in about two and a half hours and if they are not on board they will become over-stayers in China. If they do fly to New Zealand they will not be able to enter the country because they do not have valid tickets to fly out again.

Given the choice of detention by Chinese Immigration and detention by New Zealand immigration service, they all would have chosen the New Zealand service, but we all know that NZ immigration officials too are not famous for showing flexibility when it comes to visas. It is bred into them, something to do with the genes, and in any case the power of affecting someone's life is a heady pleasure that it is difficult for anyone to resist.

Stina's party check with the intransient Chinese official again and he provides a possible escape, "You should go to the Air New Zealand business desk and talk to them."

While Stina et al are trapped in a frustrating position, poised as they are between the devil and the deep blue sea, we must sympathise with the Chinese man too. He doesn't want to fail in his duty and risk getting fired. He probably needs the job to raise his one child and why should he risk this future for the sake of our Finnish friends. In China it may be culturally OK to attempt to deceive officials by fabricating false texts and pretending they are real. Finns and Kiwis don't play that game and until there is evidence to the contrary, they trust what people tell them. Or perhaps the Chinese man does not want to risk annoying his superior by calling for help. Better just send them off, and get them out of his hair.

So Stina leads her party off to the business desk at Air New Zealand and immediately get help. They there allow Kristina to call the 0800 number they have for immigration in Australia but this does not connect to a call from outside New Zealand. They still have to pay for the call, and when Stina passes over 20 yuan, the official insists on giving her change. But what Stina wants is more time not more money.

They are put on a computer but when they try to go through the application process again on line they find the computer is hopelessly slow. They only have two hours left before departure and this time is being frittered away.

So thinking laterally they sent an email directly to Australian immigration department for confirmation that they have applied for visas and hit the jackpot. Confirmation of their claim to have applied for an Australian visa is promptly received.

They returned to the check in desk, and joy of joys a new man is on the desk. He is prepared to show a bit of flexibility. No he doesn't take the email as official confirmation but he does call upon his boss to make the decision. The Chinese woman (yes this time it's a woman) calls Australian Immigration for confirmation of the confirmation and gets it. They can board their flight and head for New Zealand.

When we last visited Stina in Finland, Liselott was barely out of nappies and Lucas not much older, so their visit to New Zealand is very special. It is over thirty years since Kristina was in New Zealand working as a Post Doctoral Fellow, making her arrival equally special. We did many things together but two things were particularly special for me.

One was the early evening walk we did together beside the Manawatu River. For the first time, Stina is able to pick the flower of the Goat's Rue plant and get photos of her holding one. Goat's Rue is the legume Stina studied while she was at Massey University, the plant she continued to study back in Finland, and the plant we used to have fun picking seed from to send back to Helsinki for her research.

The other was a trip down to Foxton Beach. If there is one thing Finnish people escaping from the their cold winter enjoy doing, its swimming in the sea. Today the sun is shining but there is a stiff westerly wind blowing, and what you don't want if you're sun bathing it's a wind. Escaping wind is not easy because it intrudes into every nook and cranny on this wide open West Coast Beach. My only hope is to find a quiet spot in the high coastal dunes. There has to be a calm sunny spot there where there is no turbulence sneaking its way around the corners. Stina, Lukas and Miriam want to read and enjoy the warmth of the sun while Lisalott and Erik head off down to the beach to run up the coast. I tie my polypropylene top on a log so they can find the correct point to re-enter the dunes. I take the chance to search amongst the dunes for a way across to another trail I know about further inland.

Afterwards we walk along the beach to the mouth of the Manawatu River and back. Then we have to decide if we want to swim. The sea is blue and the waves dazzlingly white and despite the wind in the end it is only me who opts out.

There is a tail piece to this tale of frustration. When the party tries to board their flight to Sydney, they again have difficulty in establishing that they applied for Australian visas before they left Finland. They finally learn the reason for this frustrating mix up, they have applied for their Australian visas under their given names but the tickets were only issued to Miriam and Kristina, hence the computers did not recognize their party. This mix up led to more hassles in New Zealand again involving calls to Australia by airport officials before they were finally allowed to depart from New Zealand.

It must have been a relief to arrive in Sydney, with their immigration problems finally behind them. However I am acutely aware that their problems stem from the parsimonious attitude of the New Zealand Immigration Department toward overseas visitors. It is strange we fear visitors so much.

## If Only You'd Waited for Me!

It never fails to amaze me the way the gentle rolling hills of the coastal land of South Taranaki changes from the Shire to the dark threatening mountains of Mount Doom over just twenty kilometres. As you drive up from the coast, for a long time nothing changes apart from a slight increase in altitude. Then at some magical turning point, you pass through an invisible mirror and find yourself driving along a gravel road confined to a narrow ridge with dizzyingly deep valleys on both sides. As you drive on, the wild if beautiful New Zealand bush increasingly encroaches on the pasture until only small patches of grass remain. The houses are few and smothered in by the enclosing bush and there seems no legitimate way an earning can be eked out of such unproductive land.

How did this sudden shift in terrain happen? How did the gently rolling land change so abruptly into a raging sea of sharp edged peaks whipped into huge waves which could so easily tip over your slight dinghy. I find myself wanting to return to the soft paradise of coastal hills but there is no place to turn. Besides we are up here to go walking, and everyone else in the car is keen to carry on.

Bruce's Dad, Graeme, has a way of finding interesting walks for us to explore. The first time he took us into this high country was on Boxing Day a couple of years ago. This year he discovered the Waitahinga Trails inland from Kai Iwi, a tiny town north of Whanganui. On the phone he tells Bruce he saw the trails advertised in a DOC brochure, and he has even been up and walked the shortest. But when we are ready to go and take a look, he is unavailable and we are on our own. We invited Mark Patchett and Neville Honey to join us, but Mark has family visiting and Neville has jabbed his foot on a sharp stick and doesn't want to risk it on a five hour tramp.

This time I am mentally prepared for a wild terrain of crumpled hills but like last time we will be walking on a canyon-type track; you know the sort where you spend the first half of the day going downhill and then the return leg is all up hill. I prefer to climb first and enjoy the downhill later. This time from the high ridge we turn onto an even narrower gravel road, but we only have to drive one kilometre before we reach the quarry, the starting point for the walk.

I soon discover that this far south, the hills are not so steep or high, which is not surprising, given we are only a few kilometres north of Whanganui where the hills end and the plains begin. Naturally we choose the longest of the Waitahinga Trails, the one which will lead us down to where there is a concrete dam and lake that for decades provided Whanganui with all its water. We will drop 270 m in height.

The tracks are colour coded so we can't get lost. The undergrowth is sparse, and the ridges dumpy and broad, so without the markers it would be easy to lose the way. But the walking is easy and we make good time. Still it is a surprise when we round a bend and find ourselves beside the nail tree, its trunk peppered with large nails to allow the more adventuresome to climb to the top. By turning off the track and climbing slightly we can see down to where the dam must be and it doesn't look far.

Bruce spends time examining the big nails and photographing them..

Knowing it is going to be quite a scramble down this last very steep part of the hill, I tell Bruce I will wander on ahead, knowing he will soon catch up to me. The track is there, he says pointing off toward our right and I instantly see it heading off into the trees. But this trail doesn't drop sharply. In fact the walking is relatively easy and I hurry on, already looking forward to lunch. But Bruce doesn't catch me up as quickly as I expected. Usually it is no time before he appears. I listen and then call out but the bush smothers my voice and I get no response.

Worried I turn back, expecting to meet him at every corner but I don't. This is strange and unsettling. On the way back to the nail tree I notice again a point at the track where a big slip drops sharply down the hillside and I hope he hasn't gone to peer over the edge, at the same time knowing this is something he can never resist. The unsettling thought grows that he has slipped over the edge and even now is unconscious at the bottom of the slip. I don't go over to peer down. I just continue to worry.

I get back to the nail tree but he is nowhere in sight. I have been calling out his name the whole way but he hasn't responded. Not knowing what else to do I climb up to the top of the hill and am pleased to find I have cell phone coverage. My imagination may run wild but at least I know I can call the rescue helicopter if it's needed. What I can't do is phone Bruce from anywhere except here. There is no cell phone coverage in the valley

I pause to think what to do next. I don't have many options and I don't know how long I might have worried if I didn't hear a voice responding to my pathetic bleating of Bruce's name. It is a fit young woman.

"Where have you come from?" I ask.

"Up from the dam," is her heartening reply.

Then the big question, "Have you seen anyone?"

"Yes a man in a blue shirt carrying a big pack." That sounds like Bruce.

"How tall was he?"

"Quite short, he was really going fast."

That clinches it, obviously Bruce thinks I'm ahead of him and is trying to catch up.

It is the woman's turn to ask the questions, "Where did you come from?"

"Up that track," I say pointing to the track I have just left," simultaneously noticing that both the track she came up on and the one I have just returned along seem to be coming from almost the same direction.

She is puzzled, "Where does it go?"

I have to confess, "I thought it was the track down to the dam but I must have been wrong."

I think she understands my logic and there is no mistaking the white markers, the colour we have both been following. I don't stay to chat. I want to find Bruce before he widens his search for me. At least I know he is heading for the dam.

The track is very steep and awkward and at times I have to make long leg stretches to get over logs. While rapidly executing these manoeuvres I unknowingly put excessive strain on muscles high up on the thigh. By the time I reach the beginning of the lake they feel tight and sore. I skirt the lake continuously shouting his name but the dense bush still muffles my calls. I am almost on top of him before the bush relents and he replies. There he is across the concrete dam standing up after finishing his lunch.

Naturally the recriminations begin to flow.

Bruce launches in first, "You should have waited for me. We shouldn't have separated."

Well he isn't wrong about that but this is something we often do when we are with other people. Bruce will stop to take photos or study the plants and then catch up with us a few minutes later. We have never discussed what we should do if he doesn't show up again.

"Why did you take the wrong track?" he asks.

This is definitely my fault, "The track was so well marked I didn't bother to study where we were going as I usually do. You pointed to the track we should take and I just saw the one we had just arrived on."

"If we'd stayed together this wouldn't have happened." He repeats and I again agree.

I sit down to tackle lunch but only eat one egg sandwich. "I want to start back before the muscles in my thigh cool off."

We return on a different track and as I feared my thighs are very sore on the sections where I have to power myself up steep faces. Fortunately these alternate with gentler uphill sections, and even a few downhill sections. After a while the rain that has been threatening all day begins. For a long time the tall trees provide shelter and we hardly notice it. Only when we come out in long grass near the top do we get seriously wet.

In hindsight, it was fun. True it was unpleasant when I faced the possibility that Bruce had tumbled over a cliff, but once I knew he was safe it was just like any other adventure. Every trip should have moments of uncertainty when unexpected problems must be solved. These make the trip memorable.

But we really should discuss what to do if we get separated in the bush again, but now it is over it hardly seems worthwhile. One thing that is very clear, is that in the high country cell phones are of very little use.

## On Controlling an Unchained Dog

Most dogs are affectionate, loyal and loving, but there is a caveat, and that is if, and only if the dog has been raised by a person with knowledge of dog behaviour. Experts say that a dog must know who the leader of the pack is and learn to accept its place in the ranking system. Such a dog is rewarded by the support of the pack and shares in the spoils. This I am told is the formula for a happy dog.

Unfortunately some people leave a dog in completely unacceptable situations for long times. Having a dog chained up day after day, without exercise or company is a recipe for disaster. Helen Charters is a dog lover and when she found out about the existence of an organisation that rescued dogs from intolerable or cruel situations, she wanted to help. To test the waters she offered to take care of a dog for a month during the summer when her work load at Auckland University allowed her the time to give proper attention to a dog.

As you know dogs come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, all have four legs, a body, a head, two ears, two eyes and a tail but after that there are no limits to what a dog can be. It is however unwise to confuse a dog with a cat, even if both have the same basic bits. Dogs and cats have quite different temperaments, for example a cat has no concept of loyalty, the dog understands the term well. I am tempted to add that dogs bark and cats don't but the range of sounds a dog can make prevents such a simplistic distinction. Some dogs make sounds like a crying baby, some emit the deepest notes on a massive church organ and some don't bark at all.

This vast differences between dogs becomes clear if we contrast two breeds

Judy Mollot is a dog lover who was prevailed upon to take a Crested Chinese Powder Puff. Yes that is such a breed and they do come from China. These dogs were bred to sleep with, and provide heat to, the Emperor. The name sounds silly and it may seduce you into thinking this dog looks like a tiny bundle of fur. Well it doesn't, in fact it's bigger than a fox terrier, and looks like any other dog. When you breed a Crested Chinese Powder Puff there is a fifty/fifty chance the dog will be stark naked or have, like Judy's, a soft curly coat of hair. The stark naked one is all skin wrinkles, a most ugly little thing. On a winter night with its naked body pressed against the Emperor's skin it does its job well but even the hairy one doesn't have much hair on its belly so it can serve the same purpose.

This dog perhaps by breeding perhaps by long training, loves to lie on its masters body and will lie there for days if you let it. As a guard dog it serves its purpose in a defensive sort of way. Judy's dog on hearing a stranger approach launches into a vigorous bout of barking at the volume expected from a much bigger dog, but only does this when it is safely out of sight under a bed. This dog is not willing to be the first line of defence even for the most famous of Emperors because it treasures its own life above that any Emperor.

From the start I must make clear that the chained dog Helen acquired was not a Crested Chinese Powder Puff. It had mixed breeding, half Staffordshire bull terrier and half Rottwelier, two of the biggest, most powerful and most aggressive dogs in existence. From its appearance you know immediately this dog is not going to cuddle up to you on the sofa, in fact if it did lie on you, it might not be possible for you to stand.

Helen was told the dog knew 15 commands, and as she told us later it did know 15 commands, the trouble was it only obeyed a command if it was in the mood to do so. Otherwise it ploughed on with whatever it was doing You must never judge a book by its cover, but it must be said this dog does not have a gentle loving face, it has the sort of face that makes you reluctant to play with it because of the fear it will be you who ends damaged.

Let Helen tell us what happened when she took the dog for a walk, "When I give the command to heel I expect the dog to trot along obediently half a pace behind me. However after about the second step Eli pulled ahead, so I would stop and get him to heel again but then after a couple more steps he was ahead again. We made very slow progress. He probably thinks this is the way I like to walk."

The dog came with one behaviour that is not greatly favoured amongst humans, one that is never encouraged and could get an owner into serious trouble. There is no way to soften the blow, Eli loves to attack children. No one likes dogs that attack people but when that person is a small child the habit is doubly frowned upon. On hearing this news some of Helen's friends asked Helen to meet them at her gate when they came to pick her up, and preferably when the dog was safely locked in its pen.

Knowing this dog's propensity to attack small creatures such as little children, Helen was careful to securely lock up her hens while the dog was out. These hens were all good layers so better to be sure than sorry. After one of Eli's prolonged walks, prolonged by the dog's refusal to concentrate on the command heel, Helen arrived back in the house and released the dog. It trotted out on the back veranda and sighted a hen wandering out on the lawn about the same time Helen did.

The dog, no doubt surprised by the appearance of edible prey so close, took off after the hen, but not as fast as the hen fled when it sighted a big dog rushing toward it. Helen, at some disadvantage because of her slightly slower start, caused by the time it took for her to recover from her surprise of seeing a hen outside its pen, was never going to reach the hen first. Eli grabbed at the hen as soon as he was in striking distance, and found himself holding the hen's tail feathers. I didn't know this, but apparently it's common knowledge amongst bird lovers that in order to escape such a situation birds are able to release their tail feathers. This hen promptly did just that and ran free again, giving Helen more time to close in.

Eli made another huge pounce and the hen disappeared beneath the dog out of Helen's sight. Naturally she feared the worse. The dog happy with its catch remained stationary and Helen was able to leap onto its back and hold him around the neck. She could now see the unfortunate bird in the dog's mouth. She thrust her fingers in the side of Eli's mouth and tried to force his jaw open. Troubled by the fingers, the dog released the hen, who far from being dead, was simply playing dead and took off disappearing out of Helen's vision.

Without a choker lead around Eli,s neck, Helen did not have much control. All she could do was to remain on top of the dog, with her fingers in the corner of his mouth and ride him slowly back toward the house, acting as the bridle with her fingers forming the bit.

She made slow progress but at last dragged the dog inside the house. Only then did Helen see the tailless hen perched on her loom. A tense moment or two followed as the dog newly energised by the sight of its quarry struggled to get to the hen. Without Helen slowing the dog's progress, the hen would have been dead, but instead she was able to make a frantic exit from the house. Helen dragged the door shut and restored normal control of the dog by getting his choker lead on.

I don't know whether this incident soured relations between Eli and Helen but shortly afterwards Helen asked the organisation to take the dog away. They have no choice; after all this work is voluntary.

Shortly afterwards a woman phoned and said she wanted to go out with Helen when she took Eli walking. Clearly this woman already has doubts about either her ability to control such a dog, or is worried by the possibility that Eli had bad habits. Shortly afterwards Helen saw an advertisement on Trade Me that could only be for Eli. It listed Eli's well-known good points, such as knowing fifteen commands.

At this point Bruce and I left Auckland. My thoughts, as usual, were focussed on how, if I were Helen, I would explain the large gap between the advertised behaviour of Eli and the reality the lady would undoubtedly observe while she was walking with him. What about Eli? Does he feature at all in my thoughts? Well no.

However it was Helen who was in my imaginary hot seat, not me and Helen of course looked at the big picture, "We decided that Eli wasn't the dog for her. She lived in a communal flat and often had younger siblings visiting her." Helen didn't know for sure what the final outcome was. "I was only looking after Eli at a time when his regular carer had small children visiting. Then he was going back to them. I don't know whether he is still there." As Helen said this I realised the perfect owner for Eli is someone who dislikes children. With Eli in the house, he would have the perfect excuse not to allow children to enter.

So there the story ends. I hope Eli has a good home. But he may not. Keep your eye on Trade Me; you may be able to pick him up for nothing. He is sure to bring some interest into your well-ordered life.

A Gun in the Supermarket Carpark

Pete Murphy is not a trouble maker, quite the reverse if anything he is a mediator, and a cheerful positive one at that. However the most innocent of activities can be turned into a drama if the spectators are of an excitable temperament. Here is how it all happened.

On a day many years ago, Pete decided to drive up to the pine tree covered hill behind Palmerston North where he was preparing to build a house. When you buy land at this prime location you get the forest too and if you want a view you have to cut down some trees. The remaining trees are a valuable asset to be sold for a profit in thirty years time. But this is in the early days, at a time when there is no house on the hill just trees. Pete has brought his 11 year old son Ryan along and Ryan has brought his BB gun, after all what could be a better place for him to play with the gun; a gun will kill no one and is safe provided you don't get a BB in your eye. Pete has work to do but Ryan is free to play.

The BB gun Pete tells me is more sophisticated than the one shot wonders we used to play with as kids in Taihape. It can fire several shots before reloading. If I am pressed I suppose I would have to admit that this is the sort of gun you could rob a bank with. No Bank teller in his right mind would dare to defy a weapon looking like Ryan's one, after all there is no way he could tell by looking whether it is harmless or not. On the other hand, no self-respecting 11 year old boy would want to own a gun that looks like a toy gun.

As if anticipating the way my mind is working Pete comments, "I don't think he had any BBs."

So Ryan enjoys himself playing around in the trees until Pete is ready to leave. As they drive down the hill Pete remembers they are running out of milk and diverts to a supermarket along the way. Father and son go in, buy the milk and continue home.

Pete doesn't say how long it was after they got back before the phone rang. He answers it and finds to his surprise he is speaking to a policeman>

"Are you Mr Peter Murphy?"

"Yes."

"Do you live at number xx in (a street just off Tremain Avenue)?"

"Yes."

"Do you own a small truck with license number xyz?"

"Yes."

"We are waiting outside your house now, could you please come out empty handed and holding both hands above your head."

I am sure Pete must have at this point hesitated for just a moment, after all this is beginning to sound serious, certainly it is about more than just a parking ticket, but he knows he has no choice, "Yes I will."

So he emerges from the safety of his house, a lonely figure, a vulnerable figure even, ready to face the full force of the law. He is quickly surrounded by cops who relax only after they have done a quick body search and find him clean.

The questions they ask are about an automatic rifle that a member of the public saw on a seat in his truck, when it was at the supermarket. Pete is nothing if not a plausible speaker and the whole messy misunderstanding is quickly cleared up. I don't even know if the cops kept the gun or not.

There is a footnote. Later, this same evening, Pete goes down to the local Dairy, where he is told that a group of military looking men dressed in black and carrying guns were seen sheltering outside the shop. This is how Pete finds out that the BB gun in the backseat has resulted in callout of the Armed Offenders Squad.

None of this got into the local newspaper and Pete's reputation was not smeared by an unfortunate misunderstanding. My conclusion is that some members of the public are real busy bodies who should learn to control their over excitable imaginations.

## No You Can't Drive Our Car!

It's Friday the 28th of February, and since this is not a leap year it's the last day of the month. I leave shortly to pick up Bruce and then head to Wellington for our first weekend of arts at the biannual New Zealand Arts Festival. The car is packed ready for departure, what can possibly delay me now?

I am in the back bedroom when it happens. The noisy, sometimes musical, back door bell sounds and a moment later it sounds again." Come in," I call out expecting our neighbour Bob Lambourne to put his head in, but the bell just rings again. I walk through to find out who the impatient visitor is. It's a small boy of some indeterminate age between seven and eleven. He does not waste time on pleasantries but bursts past me and goes into the kitchen.

"Where's the key, I want to drive the car?"

The sheer brazenness of his request leaves me speechless for a moment or two. I try to return things to some order of normality by negotiating with him, "You're too small you can't drive the car and besides I'm leaving for Wellington in a few minutes."

He seems not to have heard me, and begins searching our plastic tray of keys on the kitchen table looking for the car key. He picks up a key, and I tell him it's not a car key. We reiterate this process several times as he picks up other keys.

There are two small boys in the section behind us, boys we have never actually seen only heard and I jump to the obvious conclusion that he must be from there. He has probably run away from home as an act of rebellion and thinks he will have more success if he is driving. I try to decide how I will get him off the section so I can leave, but he presses ahead with his plan to drive our car. Moving fast he does not give me any time to gain control of the situation. He picks up the TV remote off the kitchen table and ignoring the TV just above the table; he walks through to the lounge and tries his luck on the TV there. Since he is using the wrong remote nothing happens. He immediately abandons the remote and turns his attention to the car sitting temptingly outside.

At least this gets him out of the house. I click the lock on the sliding door behind him. My triumph is short lived. He gets into the car. Unfortunately since I am in the final stages of departure, I have not locked the car. Before I can blink he is twisting the steering wheel and pretending to drive. There is no place in the Toyota Prius to insert a key, you just press a button but it will not start unless the car senses the key owner is close to or in the car. Even though I know he isn't going anywhere it is still disconcerting to see a small boy attempting so blatantly to steal your car. I mustn't touch the boy as this is a type of assault so I can't even risk grabbing his hand and leading him physically off the section.

Realising he needs a key of some kind he slides over to the passenger's side and begins to rifle through the things in the glove box. Unfortunately he finds the key to Shirley Wilson's garage up in Turangi.

In hindsight I realise there is absolutely no sense in what I do next, but for a moment it gives me a feeling of power in a situation where I am being rendered powerless. I use the remote to lock the car doors and for a moment I imagine I have him trapped inside. But the boy flings open the car door and emerges. Obviously the Toyota Car Company doesn't give the owner the right to lock people inside the car.

I still believe the boy is from the house over the back fence, after all what other boys do we have in this part of Waterloo Crescent, absolutely none. Since the affair probably involves a neighbour I don't want to call the police, even if it is a home invasion. The boy tries to turn the garage key in the car door locks and I tell him to stop. We hurry back inside, him leading and me following and he studies the keys in the tray again more carefully.

While he is distracted I phone Betty Livingston next door. After all it was Bruce and I who answered Betty's call for help when a boy began throwing stones and smashing glass in her windows

"I need your help Betty to get a small boy off the section."

She soon arrives. Like me she attempts to use words, and treats him as a responsible adult in the vain hope he will take nothing and go. At least now there are two people to ask questions, two people for him to try to communicate with, the intensity of his desire to drive a car is diluted by the distractions. Within a few minutes he reaches the decision that we will be of no use to him and he wanders out the drive turns right and heads off to find a more cooperative car owner to visit.

"Don't go back to your house yet Betty wait until he's disappeared. You don't want him going in and disturbing you."

Betty has already reached the same conclusion. But after a moment or two she goes to the end of our drive and peeks cautiously up and down the street. Then she brightens and turns and comes in again. Her words are welcome, "The Police have arrived.

The Policeman jumps out of his car and seeing the boy begins to run down the street. Betty encourages him by telling him he is heading in the right direction. The cop claps on more speed and grabs the boy. Then he walks back down past us hand and hand with the boy and heads to the house by the playground on the edge of Waterloo Park, the house where disturbed children from violent homes often stay for a time out.

So it wasn't a boy from over the fence after all. I thank Betty, lock the house and back the car down the drive. At the gate as I pause to check for traffic, a man I have never seen before rushes up to speak to me, "Keep your house securely locked. There's a boy going around houses looking for things to steal"

I thank him for his trouble but don't waste time telling him that he has already done our place over.

I am ten minutes late picking Bruce up, but it doesn't matter; the show is not on until 9 and we will get down in less than two hours.

But the story of the boy who is obsessed with cars didn't end there. The boy lives in the home for lost children, lost not in the sense that Peter Pan was a lost boy, but lost because they have lost touch with conventional reality and live in a strangely different world. In his case he treats it as a place where small boys get to drive cars. When I see Kay on the Monday after the Arts Festival, she gets in first with a warning.

"Keep your car locked at all times," she tells me, "A boy has been breaking into cars and houses and taking things." Kay always likes to be the first with exciting news. Of course I know immediately who she means. But there is more, "Marian and Ken were in their house at the weekend and they heard a car door slam. They thought at first is must be the car next door, but then realised the sound was much closer than that. They raced down the internal steps and out into the garage. There they found a boy in the car, trying to start it.

"What did they do?" I ask even though I already know what the answer will be, "Ken grabbed the boy and started to walk him out of the garage. He was very unhappy when he saw Marian take hold of his bike. He wanted his bike so he stopped resisting. They walked him down to the Children's Home."

I want to dilute the impact of her story so I tell her about the encounter Betty and I had with this same boy on Friday. Without thinking I continue, "We were sorry for the boy?"

Well that ignited a forest fire of words about how such children should be treated, words that seem more concerned with punishment than rehabilitation. When I protest, she points out that she is an experienced teacher who has often dealt with such children in the classroom and of course she is right. But I still can't produce a feeling of outrage about him as a threat to our comfortable lives.

The drama is far from over. At about four o'clock this same day Betty calls up, "The boy is back. I left my car unlocked in the drive and the boy got into it. Unfortunately I left the key in the ignition and I only realised what was happening when I heard the motor start." This didn't sound good. She went on, "He's backed my car into the wall."

"I'll be right over," I say knowing that together we are used to dealing with small boys out of control.

When I get over Betty continues her story, "Of course I couldn't see the driver. He was too small. He asked me if I was angry, and I said I wasn't but then I saw the damage to the car and I told him I was angry."

This is a completely natural reaction. We don't appreciate having our cars damaged, "How did the boy react?" I ask

"He was really upset," she replies regretfully.

First Betty wanted me to get the car off the wall so we could inspect the damage. It wasn't difficult because in truth it was just resting on the wall. The only damage was a little scratching on one side of the plastic bumper.

"Did he do that too," I say pointing to a piece on the other side of the bumper that had been pushed out of position.

"No, that was my fault," Betty hastens to say.

We decide to go down and visit the house by the park to talk to the woman in charge.

As we walk across the front of the house, Betty tells me she saw a head move away from the window. Obviously the boy has been waiting for retribution to appear in the form of Betty. But Betty's only thoughts now are for the future of the boy. A big boned-youth answers the door. He guesses immediately why we are here and calls a part-Maori woman to the door. She has a lovely smile and we tell her why we were there. We can hear William, the boy with a fixation on cars, shouting in the background. Betty immediately calls out, "I'm not angry now," and he quietens down.

The lady tells us about the situation, "He has been expelled from every foster home that has taken him in. This is his last chance." We both desperately want him to succeed. "I can't watch him all the time and we're not allowed to lock him in the house. When he goes missing I go out into the street and keep shouting his name, until he pops his head out of a drive. Then I get him and bring him back." Catching her breath she continues, "Sometimes people come over and abuse me. We're only here until the next weekend and then the couple that normally run this house come back."

People are so stupid especially when they don't understand what an impossible situation she is in. When I see Bob I ask him not to tell Kay about the hijacking of Betty's car. "She gets very excited about this sort of thing."

I am so impressed with Betty's empathy and understanding, I leave a rose in a small bottle at her back door. As I guessed, Bob treats the whole affair of William the same way as an authority figure like Kay. I think that both Kay and Bob regard such disturbed kids as problems in behaviourism and they are probably right but Betty and I are not in the position of the teachers who must get the kids to learn.

Looking on the bright side, life is never dull when you live adjacent to a foster home for maladjusted children. In such a street, the idea of playing the innocent victim to the child's bad behaviour is just too precious to be considered.

## Our Deer Farm; Its Been Fourteen Years of Fun

It seemed a great idea. Get a photographic record of your Deer Farm, a record that walks you through the paddocks and around the farm sheds. One you can leaf through sitting on the sofa and one you can take away if, heaven forbid, at some distant time in the future you have to sell the farm. Then you can look through the book to remind you of the happy years you spent farming. The deer farmers are Lynsie and Jack Horton and their farm is beside the Hautapu River just south of Taihape. It was Lynsie who suggested the idea to me on her birthday and I began taking photos when, as usual, we walked around their farm after lunch.

In hindsight it was fortunate that this year Lynsie's birthday was on a bright, sunny day when the farm was looking green and lush, with highlights of the yellow autumn leaves on the willow trees. I keep snapping pictures and Lynsie, knowing what is going on, provides lots of activity shots. She feeds the hens and inevitably the enormous pet lambs come over to get their share. With these ancient pet lambs it is hard to tell whether they display real affection when food is on hand, or whether it is all tummy love but for photos it doesn't matter, on film it all looks the same. Brother Gordon goes in to have a look at Jack's vintage Vilocette bikes and I get my motor bikes shots. You won't be surprised to learn that in his younger days Jack raced the bikes.

We begin walking toward the back of the farm and this is when serendipity intrudes to my photographic advantage. Jack has been trying to tempt a stag out of a paddock which has lots of grass so he can put the hinds in. However the stag knows when he is on to a good thing and stubbornly refuses to be tempted through the open gate to a paddock nearer the house (and the hinds). Looking down from above Jack suddenly spots this stag in the paddock he wants him in. The trouble is Jack still has to shut the gate before he realises what's going on. The gate is a long way from us but the stag has drifted a long way across this new paddock so Jack does have a chance. We watch with bated breath as he heads off on his mission. For a while the stag notices nothing. Then suddenly he catches sight of Jack and begins to move back toward the still open gate. It is a close run thing but Jack just makes it first.

The problem for the stag is that now he is in a paddock with several other single stags, as Lynsie tells us, these stags will now have to sort out a new pecking order and the only way to do that is a trial of strength. Fortunately all but the youngest stag have had their antlers removed and the youngest stag doesn't have antlers that can do much damage yet. So we stand at the top of the hill and watch the body bashing competition. In the absence of antlers the fence is their ally in this trial of strength as the stags thump their opponent into the fence.

"Yes," Lynsie tells us, "They can do serious damage to a fence. This could go on for days."

Jack is more optimistic, "It should all be sorted out quite quickly"

Perhaps to help them out Jack goes right down beside the stags and from a distance for all I know he might be trying to talk some sense into them. It gives me the chance to get great shots of Jack staring down his stags and by the time he comes back up things have indeed quietened down. The intruding stag remains split from the others and comes up the hill toward us to get out of the fray

The shadows are lengthening but the side lighting only makes the photos more interesting. Unfortunately when we reach the fence above the paddock adjacent to the river there is another diversion. One of the sheep in this paddock is obviously unwell. It seems to be having a series of seizures under a tree. Jack, a humane farmer, has to come back up to get his gun so the sheep can be dispatched. Shots of Jack shooting sheep hardly have a place in Lynsie's photographic book, and we leave Taihape before I get photos of the riverside paddock.

When I am back in Palmerston North Lynsie calls me concerned about the cost of a book of photos and wonders whether it will be too expensive. Like many farmers, who are dependent on the vagaries of the market, they are asset rich and cash poor. So just as quickly as the project was raised just as quickly it is off the agenda. Lynsie mentions Jack's 70th birthday as a suitable time to prepare the book. I mistakenly think she means next year, so I relax.

When Lynsie makes contact again I find out I'm wrong. Jack is 70 on 1st September 2014 and that's only five weeks away. With this new priority and a fine day, I drop everything and head to Taihape to get photos of the deer being fed. Lynsie is visiting a friend in Palmerston North but Jack is on hand to model for the photographs. Deer it turns out are very suspicious of strangers, especially if they are around when they are being fed. Lynsie says darkly "They won't come up and eat out of our hands if you're there."

However I must try. My hope is if I got to the edge of the paddock where they are going to be fed, and sit quietly, the deer will forget about me by the time Jack arrives with the silage. I suggest to Jack that I should dress up in Lynsie's clothes to enhance the deception. Jack ignores my suggestion and I realise he may not want me parading around in Lynsie's clothes in case one of the neighbours drops in for a visit. No telling what conclusion they might reach and news spreads fast in a small town.

Jack takes me down and tells me to sit, in the middle of a clump of trees beside the paddock the deer will be fed in. This is a clump that provides very little cover, still how hard can it be to deceive deer, they don't have half my IQ and I'm depending on them having a short attention span. So I sit in the shade on this early August day for what seems like an eternity, wishing I'd brought a warmer jacket. There are several false starts as I hear Jack's quad bike start and then stop again.

Unfortunately things are not quiet in the deer paddock. In fact quite the reverse. I do my part by sitting stock still or at least as still as I can manage but I keep hearing angry snorts, grunts and puffs that tell me far from forgetting me, the head Hind remains alert and keeps reminding the rest of the herd of this stranger in its midst. The degree of irritability far from decreasing with time gets steadily worse and, as far as I can tell from the sounds, comes closer to my hiding place. Fortunately a wire fence separates the two of us. Jack's arrival with food provides the diversion I need. Yes Lynsie is right, the deer never crowd in close even to Jack with me around but the most forgetful, naïve or hungry do close in and I take lots of photos. But of course there are no shots of Jack with deer eating out of his hand. He does a splendid job of pretending I'm not around and he does not attempt any hand feeding. But I do have some photos.

I then make the mistake of not checking out the farm one last time and forget to go down and get photos of the river. Instead I spend time looking through Lynsie's laptop to find the photos I took on her birthday. This I will come to regret.

It is time to produce the book of photos. Fortunately Bryan Anderson is on hand to help. Bryan has produced two or three photographic books of his overseas trips and helped Pam Blackwell do another. He is more than happy to teach me the ropes. The first question he asks is what size the book should be and how many pages. Ideally this involves some sensible planning taking into account how many photos I have and how many I need to make a photo story, a decision I keep putting off. Bryan finally takes command "We'll use fifty A4 pages," he announces, and I'm only too glad to fall into line.

Assembling the photos on the page is the fun part of the project.

Since Lynsie wants to be able to look through the book as if she is walking around the farm, I start the book with photos from around the house, and continue with the farm buildings nearby next and finally those taken as you walk toward the Hautapu River at the back of the farm. With that much direction it is not difficult to begin construction, albeit with the uncomfortable feeling I may run out of either photos or pages before I am finished. Bryan has developed a clever way of assembling the photos using the software on one commercial site and then loading the pictures on another. This may be ideal but time is short and I decide to assemble everything on the web site I publish on to save any possible delays when I change sites.

Since there will be no time to show Lynsie the book before it is published, I warn her that the book will not be exactly as she has imagined it, although it is not a bad thing for her to be surprised too when she opens the book. But there is no alternative and it will be easier for me if I am in command.

Things are going well, when I suddenly realise I have no pictures of the scenic Hautapu River and the spectacular cliffs on the other side. I look through all my old photos and have nothing suitable, Bruce checks all his and again nothing, Kay is optimistic that she has some but after a search she finds nothing and that leaves Lynsie. She has photos of the river but because of problems with her old computer she has troubles finding them. After some effort she finds them and then she loses them again. I don't really have time to drive up and get the photos myself.

Lynsie solves the problem by taking the river and cliff photos herself. But then she has trouble sending them by email. Finally she prints the photos on a high quality printer but not using photo quality paper. With a day to spare these photos arrive in the mail. There is no way I can turn printer paper into photo quality but using Photoshop I manage to brighten them up to give completely acceptable river and cliff photos. Lynsie has the foresight to send photos of Jack and herself hand feeding a stag and these photos fit perfectly into the feeding shots I've already got.

Bryan comes around to supervise the sending the book to the printer. He has a surprise, he has managed to get a special deal that reduces the cost of publishing to $40. There is one more iteration still to do. When the book comes back three days later, I discover two text inserts I have not removed, one on the back of the book and one at the river. However I always wanted a copy for myself, so I keep the first copy and re-order another. This second book arrives in the box on 28th August. By the time Martine van Hove spots another error it is too late. Instead of Vilocette Bikes I have typed Vellocette, and there is no disguising the fact because the correct spelling is shown higher on the same page. Still non-French Speakers may not be so quick to spot the error as Martine who is from Belgium, or at least I'm hoping that's so.

We take the book up on the day after Jack's birthday and present it to him after lunch. Fortunately Jack and Lynsie like it as much as I do. My copy now holds a proud place in my bookshelf.

## Drone Attack

If there is one thing I never expected to see while living in peaceful little old Palmerston North it's a Drone.

I was walking down the track that runs parallel to Summerhill Drive and leads to the road toward Anzac Park, more commonly known as Pork Chop Hill and then I saw it lying on the ground. I've never seen a Drone before but I knew what it was immediately. It was a shiny metal object with the wings and tail of a plane and at only about a meter long, too small to carry a pilot. The two men attending it obviously have serious intent, after all they have not one but two Utes from the City Council with them. This is no frivolous toy for the amusement of grown up children; the City Council Staff would never waste money in such a public way.

So I confront them, "It's a Drone," I say in a voice of controlled aggression that I hope tells them I expect answers and will not be fobbed off by a frivolous comment that suggests they are not taking me seriously.

"It's not a drone it's a UAV:" and there they leave me high and dry. Clearly what he's given me is an acronym for a Drone, but I don't want to admit I have no idea what it stands for. I decide I can't risk making a smart arsed comment about the Micky Mouse nature of the New Zealand Security forces which might reveal the full depth of my ignorance. You know the sort of thing, "Heading off to Iraq soon are we?" or "Who are you targeting today then?"

They take pity on me and offer additional information, "We're going to take some aerial photos of the river bank." In any other city in New Zealand this might be interpreted as frivolous activity, but Palmerston North has declared war on the Manawatu River, the river that has for decades threatened the city with floods. Way back in 1953 the river did flood and most of the city ended up under water. Stop banks were built and we all thought we were safe.

The river then tried to attack the stopbank at its weakest point, the Ruahine Bend. Here the river is forced to make an abrupt right-angled turn and our stopbanks are only made of soil. The full power of the river in flood easily cuts several meters out of the corner and left the city hanging by a thread.

The city, or rather Horizons Manawatu, now began to play hardball. One of the major rivers of New Zealand had to endure the humiliation of being shifted bodily a hundred meters or more away from the city stop banks and in this way render the Ruahine Bend safe again. All the knowledgeable heads in town said the new groynes wouldn't work and after the first big flood the river would be right back where it started. They were wrong. Exactly as they were designed to do, the groynes altered the flow of the water so that additional gravel was deposited on the Ruahine Ranges side of the river. In the process safe swimming pools appeared just downstream from the groynes. It was a win-win situation.

Again we thought we were safe, but the 2004 flood put paid to this delusion. The river nearly came to the top of the stop banks at a river flow that was much less than the 500 year flood they were designed to contain. So the stop banks were raised yet again, and again we were entertained by giant earth moving machines grinding away for days and days until they were sure we were safe.

We all thought the Manawatu River could now be left in peace. It could flex its muscles as much as it liked, it could produce horrendous floods but we could sleep soundly in our beds, safe in the knowledge that the water couldn't reach us.

But major rivers are not easily tamed, and in the process of straightening the river, we, or more accurately the river, created another problem. Downstream from the straightening, the river had to make another abrupt turn at the point where the high cliffs began. After this straightening, the river hit the base of the cliff with extra energy and naturally a cliff, not made out of granite or anything substantial in the way of rock, began to peel away. After all soil and clay are not permanent building materials.

It was quite clinical really. The river did not have to attack the whole tall face, just undercut it enough so the top crashed down and could be washed away in the next fresh. Then the process was repeated again and again. Unfortunately during the last twenty years, a whole new subdivision was built on the land behind the cliff, a subdivision of expensive houses, and it became clear that if the cliff continued to be undercut at this rate the new suburb would be washed away. It was the Ruahine Bend problem again writ large.

It was announced that the river would be moved again but not so far and equally as important the top of the cliff would be shaved off, and the grade of the cliff lessened. The bottom of the river would then be protected with rock, and yes there would be another groyne built. Clearly the drone I had discovered was the first weapon in this whole new attack on the dignity of our beloved Manawatu River.

A couple of months earlier while out walking at dusk one Sunday, we discovered an array of interesting machinery at the base of the cliffs. With no one working on the site we were able to carry out an investigation at our leisure. There was a huge pile driver and a large earth moving machine which had piled up a mountain of gravel. Two big pumps also sparked our interest. On this blank canvas we were free to speculate. At the edge of the river an array of metal posts were arranged in what looked like a local version of Stonehedge. The following Sunday we hurried back only to find the pile driver gone and in its place a big swimming pool had been created. This pool was constructed by piling up gravel to form walls. Two big pumps were in place and we worked out easily enough that this must be a primitive filter to hold back some of the sediment created during the construction process.

Then just as suddenly as they appeared the machinery all disappeared again. Perhaps they had second thoughts about commencing work at the start of winter. Sure enough several months later at the start of Spring the machinery all returned and large trucks began dumping loads of big rocks and huge piles up river gravel were assembled ready for construction.

Things moved very fast after that. Late each Sunday afternoon, when no one was working on the site, we went in behind the fences (ignoring the keep out signs) and did our inspection. It was not long before they scraped out a canal away from the cliffs and the following week the river was diverted down this canal.

Showing some imagination the City Council mounted big boards at each end of the site, showing pictorially what exactly was happening and in this way it satisfied people's need to know, and reduced the number of people who like us broke into the site to monitor progress.

I don't think you will recognise the river when the project is finished, but in the meantime the work provides endless entertainment for us locals.

## The Citizenship Ceremony

How could I know that anything so prosaic sounding as a Citizenship Ceremony could be so interesting and so moving?

After all it is just a rubber stamp at the end of the process of meeting all the conditions that allow someone to become a citizen in New Zealand. The work has been done, the hoops have been jumped through, the security clearance is complete, in a word the hard part has been done and this is just the final step needed to legalise the whole process. How wrong I was.

Martine van Hove after decades living in New Zealand has finally decided to become a citizen of New Zealand. When she first arrived from Belgium, her country did not recognise dual citizenship and if she became a New Zealand citizen then, she automatically lost your rights as a Belgium citizen including her Belgium passport. Sometime during the intervening years the Belgium Government changed its position and now dual citizenship is allowed. Martine dislikes all aspects of nationalism, seeing it as a force for evil which puts boundaries on countries that have no boundaries. Satellite images of earth show no signs of boundaries and it is boundaries that lead to disputes and to wars. There is something inherently tribal about the human race. We are an animal that likes to know 'who are us' and 'who are them,' who to treat as friends and who are our enemies. It is no wonder Martine has so little time for nationalism.

Naturally she is conflicted as she approaches a ceremony which seems to exalt in nationalism and will require her to affirm allegiance to the English throne. Her only defence is to maintain a certain flippancy toward the whole thing. Martine has little time for armies and is not happy at the prospect that army personnel will be attending the Citizen Ceremony and she has no time for flags and there will be flags.

But I want to go, I want to see what goes on, I want to see Martine becoming a New Zealand citizen. She is only allowed to bring a handful of guests, three or four, and I'm delighted when she wants me to be one of the chosen ones. In the foyer of the Conference Centre where the ceremony is to be held, I meet Martine's two other support people a couple called Anne and Mike. Anne knows Martine well and she shares Martine's irreverent attitude to formal ceremonies. She has bought a gift for Martine, a bone hook to be hung around her neck on a string. It is a thoughtful gesture, the sort of gesture I never think of making. They are here first, have already sighted Martine's badge. Anne is delighted to discover. Martine has three other first names to go with her already double barrelled surname, and seen together her name looks impressive, Martine Adrienne Pierre Marie Van Hove.

From the Programme, Martine sees there is to be a letter of congratulations from the Minister of Internal affairs, but who is the New Zealand's Minister of Internal Affairs? We don't know and even the town crier, a woman dressed in blue and gold robes, doesn't know, although she looks a little annoyed at herself for not being able to trot the name out, after all The Town Crier is an official and should know something so basic. At the ceremony we discover that Peter Dunne fills the role at present but it is interesting how little this is known.

We take our seats in a large Hall. There are one hundred and thirty people being awarded citizenship, so if they all have three supporters we make quite a crowd. The Palmerston North Mayor with his robes and gold chains remains a smiling welcoming figure throughout the Ceremony. Martine mutters something when she sees two uniform clad soldiers march briskly onto the stage but there is nothing she can do about it. Martine is one of the candidates who has chosen, not to swear on the bible, but instead to make an affirmation of Allegiance. This affirmation is at the heart of the ceremony, and the main reason we are all there. When Martine stands to make her affirmation, she takes her only chance to protest the idea of nationalism by bringing her arm up into the Nazi Salute for a second or two before continuing into the normal position of the bent arm. No one notices except her three supporters.

The Mayor gives the formal address. His words are carefully chosen to avoid any patronising suggestion that New Zealand citizenship is something they are lucky to get but instead affirms the gifts they bring to us.

His opening words set the scene; "We are very honoured that you have chosen to take this step and embrace this country as your own." And then he elaborates: "We are aware that you will not have taken this decision lightly, and we want to take this opportunity to thank you because the citizenship ceremony is a two-way exchange – we gain new citizens who want to belong to this country and this community, and you gain a new homeland –a place you share with us, where you can enjoy the protection and benefits we have in this nation. Next something about responsibilities: Citizenship in New Zealand is like the two opposite sides of a coin – rights and privileges on the one side, duties and responsibilities on the other. The right mix, and the proper balance between them, makes a country of which we can all be proud. Then another welcoming affirmation: "The gifts you bring to us are highly valued – the richness of the culture, tradition and heritage from the land of your birth helps give our country a depth and maturity which we need and appreciate so much." Concluding with a welcome: "Welcome to our country and to our community in the city of Palmerston North."

Then in alphabetic order people are called to go up on the stage to receive their Certificate of Citizenship. It is at this stage I regret not bringing a camera. Knowing Martine's discomfort with the idea of Ceremonies that support Nationalism, I thought it best not to fuss too much and left my camera behind. As I see friends and family crowding forward to take photos of other candidates shaking the hand of the mayor I am annoyed with myself. Fortunately Ann has a camera in her smart phone. I beg her to get some good photos and she fiddles with the camera in a very professional way. Martine produces a wry little shrug as she poses for Ann. But back in her seat Ann realises she has accidentally taken video clips and because she didn't know this was happening, the clips don't add up to smooth record of the Mayor and her together.

It was the reactions of people going up to collect their citizenship that really moved me Out of the 130 new citizens 27 are Bhutanese. These are part of the Nepoli minority of Bhutan, people (mainly Hindus) who have been held stateless in refugee camps for up to 18 years after they were expelled from the country illegally. The smiles of some of the parents of the families are a joy to behold. It is hard to imagine what it feels like when you have been stateless for so long to become a citizen of a country again. You regain your personal identity and your rights to participate fully in a country that welcomes you. The father of one Bhutanese family that includes teenage children has a smile as broad as the side of a barn. He keeps smiling all the way back down the aisle. Wonderful.

Different cultures behave in different ways, with those from English speaking countries the most restrained. But this is just a cultural colouring which disguises feelings. I spoke to one man in his late fifties who after the ceremony said how much he liked New Zealand and how glad he was to have become a citizen.

There are twenty-two ex-South Africans, and about twenty-two different countries in all. (It is an interesting experience to try to keep track of how many people come from each country as you read through a long list of randomly sequenced countries).

Afterwards we discover another first. When Martine and I look for finger food that is vegetarian, it was frustratingly difficult to decide which have meat included and which don't. I am not surprised, this is usually the case. However when I asked the woman organising the catering, she simply points to a table and says, "All the food on that table is vegetarian." How simple, how logical, and how wonderful. Perhaps it happened here because so many of the new citizens are vegetarian but I recommend this practice to every catering firm at every function.

While we were all eating Jono, The Mayor of Palmerston North, still with the same broad welcoming smile poses on the stage in front of the New Zealand flag wearing his gold chain so the new citizens can stand by his side to get the definitive family photo taken, one they can share with family members around the world.

In the end I think Martine too enjoyed the ceremony. Let her have the final word, "I thought the Mayor's speech was excellent." Fine praise indeed from someone who sees so clearly what lies behind the concept of nationalism and knows all the misery it can bring.

# LIFE'S LIKE THAT

## Sally Gives Pam a Hand in the Garden

Sally and Roman arrived in Palmerston North to spend time with family, in Roman's case it's his brother and in Sally's it's her parents Len and Pam. Roman disappears almost immediately to eat lunch with his brother, and with Len at a rehearsal for the concert of First World War songs that his singers are putting on next weekend, Sally and Pam are alone together. Pam has already texted Sally about the possibility of doing a bit of gardening and of course Sally is more than ready to help out.

But Sally has a few things she needs to do first. After eating a leisurely lunch they walk toward town but are intercepted along the way by a text from Len, who suggests they join him at a restaurant called Flavours for lunch. Well only Len will eat lunch but Pam and Sally will drink coffee or tea while they chat with him. It must have been a relaxed and enjoyable time but it has to be said it didn't progress the gardening agenda.

Next Sally wants to go to a Gallery to see what's on display. As Pam describes it next day, "The walls in Sally and Roman's living room are very bare and they're looking for things to brighten up the house." One of Palmerston North's most famous sons in the art world is Paul Dibble, who makes fascinating bronze statues often of quite striking size. Some years ago, Bruce bought a small Dibble for our lounge and although our guests seldom comment on it, keep your eyes open next time you visit us. Sally leaves empty handed but I hope with a better understanding of the Art Market in Palmerston North.

Now Pam has a diversion, in her case to the Vodafone shop in the Plaza. Her texts to the outside world keep disappearing. She writes them, she sends them off in good faith but the people they are sent to never receive them. I must say that sister Kay sometimes has the same problem and it is very frustrating to those of us who expect a quick reply, after all isn't that what texts are all about, giving quick feedback. The woman in the shop is nothing if not efficient and after punching a couple of keys the block (whatever it was) is removed. Unfortunately Pam has not the slightest idea of what the woman did, so that as far as a learning exercise for Pam is concerned, it is a bust. At least Pam's friends do now receive texts, late texts and out of context texts but at least texts.

But the day is wasting away. It is time to get back home and attend to the gardening. It probably takes about thirty minutes to get home but they can't just walk into the garden and begin work. No, first they must put some roast vegetables in the oven for dinner. Then Sally finds out she has forgotten to bring her garden gumboots and Pam's small ones won't do. Fortunately the shoes of Sally's friend Kirsten left behind at Pam's several years ago do fit and then the only other thing Sally needs is a stout pair of gardening gloves. Naturally Pam gives daughter Sally her own gloves while she makes do with two right handed gloves.

Here a diversion is necessary to explain how Pam comes to have an extra pair of right handed gloves. Pam's friend Fay who lives in Christchurch is left handed and naturally she wears out her left handed gloves first. She has got into the habit of sending her unwanted right handed gloves to the right handed Pam. Thanks to Fay, Pam now has a healthy supply of the right handed version.

At this point in the telling of the story, Bryan Anderson points out that if Pam took a right handed glove and turned it inside out, it will magically become a left handed glove. Unfortunately Bryan is not on hand to deliver this information at the time of greatest need, namely before Pam begins gardening in two right handed gloves. Sure enough an experiment carried out by Pam later in the week confirms the validity of Bryan's suggestion.

All afternoon the weather has been great for gardening but because of things that just had to be done first, it is late in the afternoon before Pam and Sally begin. Here in the story telling, Pam admits they took a short cut. She already has bags filled with three months garden waste, but she has not been able to lift them into the trailer. With Sally on hand the problem is quickly solved and the trailer, before any gardening is done, is satisfyingly full. Then the serious gardening begins and our two heroines slog away for a full half an hour, so that if you're concentrating, you'll know that between the two of them they have achieved a combined one hour of gardening before the setting sun drives them inside. When Roman gets in he too is most impressed with the pile of garden waste in the trailer, who wouldn't be.

So the two of them demonstrated how much can be achieved in a half-hours gardening provided three months of garden waste is on hand to fill the trailer. In case there are carping critics waiting in the wings to disparage the efforts of Sally and Pam, it must be pointed out that they showed great prowess in the area of trailer-filling and still had time to complete a full half hour of gardening each. The next morning Len empties the trailer and the operation is complete.

There is no telling how much these two gardeners might have achieved if, on that day, the sun had set an hour later or if the Blackwell garden had been flood lit, but it didn't and there was no flood lighting. Still all in all it was a valiant effort by two people, who it must be said, really didn't have gardening on their minds.

## Humane Mouse Traps to the Rescue

I like to think in some things I'm ahead of my time. Who else do you know who traps mice with a humane trap? It is a very comforting feeling to set your humane trap and go to bed safe in the knowledge that no mouse will have its brain smashed in while you sleep. I must say others have been slow to follow my example and some (like Martine) have even subverted the whole system by releasing mice near their household cat, which rather stacks the odds against the long term survival of the mouse.

The question of where the captured mice should be released is an ethical one. I try to find an extensive area of long grass and weeds well away from any houses and then wish the mouse well as I release him or her, sometimes even leaving a bit of cheese behind in the grass as the mouse's next meal. But it doesn't pay to think about the ethics of humane traps too deeply because there is a built in contradiction, an elephant in the room that no one talks about. If everyone used humane traps and then released the mice in the wild, the number of mice in the world would keep increasing. Soon there would not be enough space left to release mice away from houses and eventually mice would be everywhere, much as they were on Mana Island after all farming stopped on an island where mice had no predators. Or perhaps it would become the sort of boom bust economy right wing economists are straining to force upon us. The population of cats will explode to cope with all the mice, before collapsing as the mice populations drops and so on ad infinitum.

Late in the winter, or early in the spring, depending how you measure the seasons, Betty Livingston next door has a mouse. It is a bold little chappie; stupid or just very young and inexperienced, so it flaunted itself by running across the carpet as Betty sat watching TV. Betty was never going to put up with such behaviour and asked me to bring some humane traps across to her house.

I chose three of my most effective traps and we baited them together. The oldest and one of the best is simply a wire cage with holes too small for anything but the tiniest mouse to escape from. Baiting this trap is a bit fiddly and trying to set it so the door will spring shut is an art. The other two are bent tunnel traps cleverly designed so that when the trap is tilted back by the weight of a mouse the door shuts securely. One small problem with this trap is that it is difficult to see whether there is a mouse inside or not. My solution is to write the weight of the empty trap on the outside and weigh the trap if I think a mouse is inside. This usually works but not always.

There is a debate as to what to use as bait. I prefer to use cheese but Betty has been told that mice find peanut butter irresistible. On the other hand, I have never met a mouse that will eat peanut butter. I wish Betty good luck and retire to a house that I hope doesn't have a mouse, namely ours.

Next morning here is no mouse in any trap but the cheese has gone from the wire trap. This I tell Betty and Kay is not a bad thing, in fact it's a good thing, because if the mouse continues to get a feed of cheese without the trap being sprung it will become tame and trusting. Then we will spring our little surprise and capture the creature. Kay takes the view that I am just putting the best spin on a bad situation.

Sure enough the cheese is missing from the wire trap the next morning too, the door remains open and there is no sign of the mouse.

"Yes," Betty tells me when I ask," The mouse did run from the old gas fire place across the wall into the kitchen again last night." I am pleased, Betty and the mouse are beginning to form a relationship. If only I can make the wire trap a bit more sensitive we'll have the mouse for sure. Since there is some cheese left in the wire trap I just reset it without adding more.

The next morning Betty has a question. She points to the bent trap beside the stove, "Is there a mouse in that trap?" The door on the bent trap is closed but if this trap is accidentally moved the door will shut.

"We'll have to weigh it," I say.

Instead of pulling out an electronic scale Betty has to stand on A stool to reach into the top shelf of a kitchen cupboard and bring out her old fashioned spring balance. Even to adjust the zero we have to spin the knob a long way. I have no confidence that it will measure accurately enough to know there is or isn't a mouse, so I head home to use our scales. The trap weighs around forty six grams, which is an ambiguous weight because the empty trap weighs forty five grams. I behave sensibly by taking the trap over to Bob Lambourne's section and opening it there. To my surprise a mouse jumps out. I once did this a few years ago and was embarrassed when Bob told me that a mouse had taken up occupation in his ceiling. Fortunately at present, Bob is still on his annual sabbatical in Shropshire.

I hope the mouse doesn't return to Betty's house to enjoy the warmth of her two heat pumps but of course it does at night. I immediately set all the traps again, without telling Betty that we may capture the same mouse we expelled a couple of nights ago. This mouse is just as cheeky as the other one, and again runs across the hearth while Betty is watching TV. Fortunately Betty is not afraid of mice and seems to be enjoying the hunt. The bent trap comes into its own again and we catch another mouse. This time the trap plus mouse weighs fifty four grams and there is no doubt the trap is occupied.

This mouse I take it down to the river bank and release in a small pine forest where the grass and weeds give lots of cover. As sometimes happens the mouse is reluctant to leave the trap. It seems to thrust its feet out against the wall to stop slipping out into the uncertain jungle that awaits it but eventually, as it always does, gravity takes over and the mouse slides into the grass and makes a dash for shelter. I toss a small piece of cheese in the direction it ran and the job is done.

I report back to Betty, "That was a very dirty little mouse. It left poo all around the trap. I had to soak it for a long time to get it clean."

At least this time no mouse returns to Betty's house. Everyone is happy, me, Betty and the mouse, we are all winners. And if that's not a happy ending I don't know what is.

## Survival of a Quail

Helen Charters does not only keep hens. She also has quails, four of them. Yes their eggs are much smaller than the standard hens egg, but the quail is a good layer. For anyone on a diet the eggs are perfect, providing good nutrition without too many calories. Although to me there seems something mean about eating such a small egg. I find myself wondering where it will all end, with fantails eggs perhaps?

For many years the four quail thrived in Helen's garden, but the life, even of quails, is not without its travails.

One day Helen came home after the working day to find one of the quail lying on its back. She immediately assumed it was deceased but when she picked the poor creature up, it came to life. Helen set the quail back on its feet, only to have it fall over again. Further tests gave the same result. This quail has a serious trouble. So Helen took her to the vet who performed all sorts of tests without being able to make a diagnosis.

He did have suggestions, "Perhaps the quail has an ear infection, or the problem might be caused by parasites or then again there might be some kind of toxic material around the cage." None of these suggestions were of much use but since the Vet was paid to get the poor quail back on its feet, he did come up with medication; medication which required Helen to do things like injecting medication down its throat three times a day. But whatever he suggested or whatever he prescribed the quail still couldn't remain on its feet. In short the problem wasn't solved.

In the end Helen took things into her own hands. She noticed that if the quail had something to lean against it could remain on its feet. Displaying the inventiveness of a Charters, Helen brought some timber and lay a track around the cage which was narrow enough for the quail to have two walls to lean on wherever it was in the cage. Of course there were side tracks that allowed the bird to get to food and water. It worked. The quail remained in the upright position. Nature took its course and after a week or so it no longer needed the timbers and was able to walk on its two feet once again.

I hope Helen told her vet about this success, it may help other quail owners. Since Helen is moving to Waiheke when she returns from an overseas trip, she sold the quail at the local market. In fact she may be able to sell them twice, as the lady who paid for the birds has never returned to pick them up.

## Sometimes Things Aren't what they First Seem

It is a perfect early October day, one of those days that, when I was at University, used to be soured by the need to study for finals exams. Now they can be celebrated as serious proof that the last cold days of spring are behind us. I am out walking, and approaching the junction of Old West Road and the road to Aokautere. It's a busy corner so I watch the traffic carefully to find a safe gap. One opens up and I hurry across and run straight into a Maori Man, big of body and waist with perfect teeth and a middle-aged pakeha woman and both obviously have news to share.

At first I can make no sense of the words. They are talking about an event obvious to them but one that is completely passing me by. Then I see it. A bale of wool is lying on the ground between them. Obviously it has fallen off the back of a passing truck, a truck at present nowhere in sight. This is no light weight bale so even the three of us can't lift it, let alone carry it back to the truck. They are waiting for help to arrive and in the meantime guarding the bale to prevent someone stealing it.

I love the way Kiwis always crowd around to give help to strangers and I willingly join the woman who is wanting to help our Maori friend.. She was visiting her mother in a house just around the corner when she emerged to discover the errant bale and I don't think she will leave until everything is sorted out.

As always I can't resist questioning the Maori man.

"Where have you come from?"

"I loaded the bales at Shannon and I'm taking them to Napier," he replies.

He hasn't made much progress; Shannon is only thirty-five kilometres away. I feel sorry for him; it is always embarrassing having something going wrong in such a public way.

It isn't long before a Ute arrives. A man hops out and inspects the situation. From the conversation that follows it quickly becomes clear that the woman has called this man to come and help. The bale the truck fell off is about two hundred meters down the road just past the local Supermarket. I wonder whether the driver noticed he'd lost a bale or did a passing motorist wave him down but I didn't think to ask. I find it inspiring that this new arrival too seems more than ready to join in the rescue. This is indeed the New Zealand I love.

Even with four of us it is a struggle to get the bale on board the Ute. I walk down the road to the truck and trailer piled high with bales. Bales that now have a decided tilt toward one side, and other bales look more than ready to join their companion on the ground. This is a precarious situation, everything must be done with great care to prevent disaster.

The man in the Ute is taking charge, "You can't turn up the next street to the left. It has a decided tilt to one side and the bales might come off."

He seems to know what he is doing so we let him carry on. He studies the situation for a bit longer and then has a suggestion, "If you back up a bit you can do a U turn at that side road on the right. Then you can drive into the road leading to the shopping centre car park."

The Maori man doesn't have a better suggestion and has nothing to lose.

"I'll stop the traffic while you're backing," continues the Ute driver.

The woman starts to make offers that sound rather professional, "Do you want to use the Hi Vis jackets I've got in the car? And do you need any more straps to secure the load?"

The Ute Man studies the load again and declines both offers and the woman takes off.

Then the man does something decidedly strange. He takes out a camera and photographs the documentation and loading weights on the side of the back wheels of the truck. It suddenly dawns on me this isn't the behaviour of your casual helper. This man has a professional interest in the Maori man and his unstable load. My image of disinterested helpers begins to crumble; this seems more like a trap, a spider's web the innocent driver has fallen into. Far from being lucky finding such good helpers he is desperately unlucky to find helpers who may want to prosecute him.

My disappointment is great but I hang on to see how the situation gets resolved. I video the huge truck backing up and driving slowly into the back park of the supermarket. No more bales are lost in the process. The Maori man goes in and gets permission to use the Supermarket fork lift to try to straighten his load.

I confirm my worst fears by asking the Ute man who he works for and am not surprised when he mentions the Transport Department. The Maori man should not have got out of bed this morning, it was never going to be his day. In a desperate attempt to show I am not part of the entrapment plot I go over and shake his hand before I leave. There is nothing I can do to reverse the situation. I will never know whether his desperate pushes with the fork lift are successful in straightening the load but I hope so. I did wonder for a moment if I could buy the Transport Officer off with a bribe but I know that if I attempted that it would be me who is prosecuted.

As I walk back across the public car park I see the last act in the drama, a policeman in uniform is wandering around searching for the truck and trailer. I don't give him any help. When I tell Roger our truck driving neighbour about the incident, he confirms my worst fears. He shakes his head sadly saying, "Poor guy, they'll throw the book at him."

## Is This What the Start of the End of the World will be Like?

Sometimes the most unexpected thing happens at the least expected moment. But then it has to if it's going to be unexpected doesn't it? On the face of it and for most of the time, this seemed a most ordinary holiday weekend, pleasant, yes, enjoyable, yes, relaxing yes and without unpleasant surprises. But this won't continue. Let me start at the beginning.

We are wandering along the track by the Manawatu River when it happened.

It has been a busy Wellington Anniversary Weekend, with the wedding of Malcolm Alley and Xiaoqing on Saturday afternoon, a sixteen kilometre beach walk on Sunday and a busy time catching up on garden and house chores for much of Monday, followed by a walk beside the Manawatu River. It is the one long weekend when we don't go far from home. Because in New Zealand we have so few holiday weekends, we usually like to get out of town and enjoy the excitement of new places, or visiting friends in other towns or going to concerts and plays before we return to the routine of a normal weekend.

Although we didn't know many of the wedding guests, we soon find ourselves chatting away with strangers as if they are long lost friends and most of them turn out to be living around Palmerston North. They are the sort of people I expect Malcolm and Xiaoqing to know, people who are interested in others without a thought as to their status in Society. Maurice and Dorothy, Malcolm's parents have just completed this lovely house high on the Tararua Ranges just off the road to Paihatua. On the veranda we have views straight out to the wild west coast beaches, off to the right is Mount Ruapehu, with Mount Ngauruhoe peeping out discreetly from behind, and in between the broad spread of the green foot hills and the wide flatness of the Manawatu plains, a view that takes our breath away. As the golden sun on this perfect summer's day sets off toward the west the plains light up in yellows and reds.

Sunday the day of the beach walk begins cloudy but clears as the morning wears on. We walk from Waitarere up through the pine forests to the mouth of the Manawatu River and after a picnic lunch, return on the open beach.

In the trees we are sheltered from the cool westerly wind but when the sun comes out it is hot, with all the heat you expect on a day in the middle of summer. We followed Forest Road 13, the road nearest to the sea at the border with the dunes. Pine trees of various heights crowd in around us, with occasional meadows and small ponds to provide variety.

At the river mouth the tide is well in, with the waves spreading out across the estuary forming bands of white across the deep blue of the water. High tide is not the time to try to swim across this river. We eat lunch in the shelter of the dunes but with a view across the waves to people walking on the northern shore, the perfect reward after our energetic walk.

As we head south we find a beach blocked by huge piles of driftwood. It is like being beside a graveyard of white ribbed sea creatures. When we reached a point where the waves are coming in so far they are breaking under the wood, Neville for a moment is intimidated and thinks we should cross back over to the dunes. However we want to wade in the water and he is soon a convert as we enjoy the fun of evading the big waves and splashing through the others. It takes a long time but eventually the driftwood ends and we walk on grey sand. We bustle along, cutting out the kilometres with our easy pace. Hordes of blue bottle jellyfish decorate the sand with their dead bodies, victims of a decadent life spent drifting in the tides. Back at Waitarere Beach milkshakes and icecreams revive us and provided the perfect end to the walk.

Monday was meant to be a quiet day and it is. We busy ourselves doing chores, glad of the chance to catch up after the Christmas-New Year holidays. With rain threatening I insist on mowing the lawn before we head off for a walk. It is about 3:30 before we finally leave, heading down river on what we call the lagoon circuit. It is a typical summers afternoon nothing to distinguish from any other. We are going past the cliffs below the lookout on Porch Chop Hill when it happens.

Suddenly there is a roar and I find it difficult to stand. It is not obvious what's happening, and this makes it even more disconcerting. I concentrate and realise the earth is moving beneath my feet. I glance across at the low trees beside the path and see them whipping backward and forward in frantic time to some unseen force and finally realise it is an earthquake and a large one. A second later I hear a crumbling sound and swinging back toward the cliff, I see along its whole length bunches of rock and soil shaken loose from the face, racing each other to reach the bottom, trailing clouds of dust as they go.

Two women with a baby in a pram seem unsure what to do but finally hurry away from the trees out onto the open lawn. We are not slow to follow. I have no time to think of taking photos and in any case I don't want to a miss a moment of the quake. Then it ends but my heart is still beating fast. If I am indoors, I quickly recognise an earthquake for what it is but this is the first time I have been outside in a big shake. We wonder where the centre was and hope no one has been hurt. The cliffs are shrouded in brown dust.

I wonder if this is what it will be like as the earth begins to break apart? We will have no control over what is happening but may still make pathetic attempts to escape the danger.

As we walked away I text friends to try to find out where the centre was. First my cousin Lynsie in Taihape and draw a blank. She is up in Ohakune picking up her sister Marie and her grandchildren, a text to Cho in Wellington draws a noncommittal reply and rules out Wellington. I text my nephew Bret in Masterton and find he is in his car travelling south and knows nothing about an earthquake. Finally Bruce texts Bob next door who, looking on Google, is able to report the centre to be somewhere in the Wairarapa just south of Palmerston North, (i.e. across the ranges from us) and has a force of 6.5.

Back home we find nothing broken, although the lighter ornaments have been shifted off shelves, and in the lounge, a pot plant spilled its soil out on a bed settee but nothing of significance has happened. Over the next weeks we do find other things have been shifted around but still not damaged. Later reports show that the same seems to be true even at Eketahuna the epicentre of the quake. We are lucky, New Zealand's wooden houses are safe in the biggest of earthquakes.

Bryan Anderson is out of town and Pam Blackwell is watching his house. During the quake lots of stuff slid off Bryan's shelves and a mirror crashed down and smashed. Pam removes everything that is broken and cleans up. Unfortunately Pam doesn't realise Bryan's refrigerator is another victim of the quake, why should she, the motor is puttering away as usual and there is no outside damage. Only when Bryan returns and goes to his fridge do we discover the motor was simply spouting hot air. Its days as a cooling force are over. Still it is time Bryan got a new refrigerator, to go with the new door he required when a burglar smashed his way into his house a few months ago. So Bryan has found another way to upgrade his house compliments of his Insurance Company.

In hindsight, it was all rather fun. Bring on the next earth quake.

## Getting to see Ernest and Celestine at Last

Delayed gratification is something Bruce and I are well used to when we buy things such as furniture for the house. We do our research and visit lots of shops both in the real world and on line before making our much considered choice. For example the dressing table we want to buy is sitting in the shop, ready to haul onto a truck and bring around to us, but it's never this simple. "It has to be made sir, and that usually takes about six weeks." Well eight to ten weeks later we may or may not get our dressing table.

This time the delayed gratification relates to an animated movie, one that in the publicity shots looks like something out of a children's book for five year olds, but when you go to an animated movie it's as much for the art work as the story, although if both are good all the better. This movie first appeared in the Palmerston North version of the annual New Zealand International Film festival and like all the other animated movies in the Festival it is only shown during the day and never at night. This is a hopeless time for us, we are too busy during the day, Bruce can't come on a week day and the weekend is too precious for us to waste half a day looking at a movie.

The reviews for Ernest and Celestine are all positive, but then they all are for the Festival movies, the organisers are never going to print a bad review for movies they hope to sell to the punters. As usual we didn't get to see the film in the Festival and as usual we are disappointed and annoyed in equal parts. Why do the organisers of Festivals show such little respect for their customers? Don't they want our money?

But it turns out, Ernest and Celestine is a movie that has legs and it comes back again for the school holidays in July 2014. Guess what? There are no evening showings. As if to taunt us one of the Radio New Zealand reviewers gives a rave review of Ernest and Celestine. "It ticks all the right boxes," she says, "It's a movie that can be enjoyed by both children and adults. It has delightful animations" and so on. We are frustrated and annoyed. Martine van Hove doesn't make things any easier when she tells us how much she enjoyed the movie, high praise indeed from a professional artist. When at the end of the school holidays only three showings are offered and it is about to leave town, Bruce doesn't sit around shaking his head, he takes direct action and writes to the manager of the DownTown cinema Eight theatre.

Hi ,We were wondering if you were going to have a night time screening of Ernest & Celestine. We would love to see it but can't go during the day. Cheers, Bruce

They do us the courtesy of replying:

Hi Bruce, The last screening of ERNEST & CELESTINE will be tomorrow at 10.45am. We screened it over the school holidays for the kids but mostly big kids came! Carol

It is not the reply we hoped for but they leave themselves open to the obvious challenge and I write the email for Bruce.

Hi Carol, This is exactly why you should have shown the movie at least once in the evening when it is easier for adults to get there. We find this doubly frustrating because you did the same thing when this movie was shown at the PN International Film Festival. Bruce.

But I've had enough. Despite the inconvenience I decide to go to the 10:45 am showing on Saturday to see Ernest and Celestine. Bruce wants to prune a fig tree that is getting too big for its britches and needs cutting down to size and can't come. He suggests we might be able to get a copy of the DVD at some time in the future but I want to see it on the big screen and push ahead with my plan.

I leave for town at 10:30 and under normal circumstances would have plenty of time to get to the show but not today.

I need to digress slightly. Palmerston North was the first city in New Zealand, if not the world, to install a sophisticated parking system which uses a light sensing eye placed in the centre of the car park to determine if a car occupies the space. At some central control post the parking meter attendants can see immediately if the car occupying the space has paid for the parking. Back at the parking site the owner of the car must check the site number of the parking site, eg Z6 or P8 etc and type this in the meter before putting their money in (these cunning meters will not accept money without a site number). The meter tells you the time your money will run out and you have the option of printing a ticket or not. When word spread of people who had put their money in but were pinged with a fine long before the parking they paid for ran out, we all printed a ticket.

This parking system is now spreading like a fungus across the country. Do note if you are in a longer term parking area without individual meters information on how long people are staying, or what percentage of the time is the park occupied etc, can still be sent back to headquarters.

I arrive in the parking area on Main Street behind the Theatre hop our of the car, and look for the number of my parking site. But can't find it. I get in the car and back our a little further in case the number is hidden under the car but it isn't. No problem, apart from the fact that I am losing time and my movie will soon be starting, I back out and shift car parks. But there is no number in this one either. I get out of the car and speak to a couple who have just arrived back at their car and they fill me in, "Someone has stolen the numbers but we're leaving so you can use our park." So I wait for them to leave and slide into their park number Q2.

By now I am definitely late Ernest and Celestine. The credits will be rolling and I will miss the start. I rush in, but they are having their troubles too. The woman selling the tickets can't get the movie started. She keeps me waiting while she calls for help. Her manager is not long in arriving and he starts the movie. I finally get my ticket and woman uses her torch to help me find my seat. In the darkened theatre I still stumble over an elderly couple but they receive my rude arrival with good natured politeness.

The movie was well worth waiting for. There are a couple of small boys behind me and although we chuckle at different times they too seem to enjoy the movie. The art work is wonderful, the tone and animations worth going a long way to see and I emerge from the theatre well pleased.

Back beside my parking meter, I learn that other, less agitated and more determined patrons have called central control to see what they should do when there is no parking number. They are told they don't have to pay and I wished I'd stayed in the unnumbered park.

There is more. On the following Monday we receive another email from the theatre. It reads:

Hi Bruce, Good news! ERNEST & CELESTINE will screen in the evening next week. Wednesday 30 July at 8.15pm. Thanks for asking and we look forward to seeing you here. Carol

Wednesday is the night of Film Society, so they have not chosen the best night but at least they have tried. Bruce stares for a while at the email and then says, "Well I suppose I have to go now." The implication is that otherwise we will lose our credibility as complaining cinema goers. The times are tight but it can be done. Privilege has a running time of 103 minutes so there will be about half an hour between movies.

I will go again to the movie with Bruce, but why couldn't I have been more patient.

## One Size Doesn't Fit All

When it comes to men's trousers, one size does fit all.

Obviously the distance around the waist varies and trousers come in waist sizes that range from small (S) through size M (for Men not for medium) into large (L) through XL, XXL, XXXL and probably even XXXXL. But apart from these not insignificant difference around the waist, one size does fit all when it comes to leg lengths. The length of the standard leg might be too long for Bruce, but it is a simple matter (admittedly involving a small cost) to have the leg length shortened. Fortunately I have the standard leg length and no shortening is is required for me. Bruce is resigned to the fact that he will always have to send his new trousers off to a tailor (usually a woman) and wait, another example of delayed gratification in shopping. People more schooled in the finer points of tailoring than me may like to comment on the question of whether the result of the shortening changes the lines of the trousers in an unsatisfactory or unflattering way.

When it comes to shoes it is clear that one size does not fit all, and there is no way the difference can be fudged by sending the shoe to the shoe equivalent of a tailor.

It is a Friday evening when Bruce and I set off into town to find him a new pair of shoes. As he wants a rugged shoe and since cost is not critical, we go to one of the big alpine shops. After Bruce studies the range on show in the first shop, he chooses two or three, and when asked by the shop assistant what size he wears, he tells her a 6. The woman disappears into the back of the shop, and returns with some bad news,.

"We don't have any in the shop that are that small."

Bruce and I are both amazed. Don't they want to sell shoes to people with small feet? Obviously not. Fortunately there is another Alpine shop nearby. Now he has to choose a different style and he can't spend too much time doing this, after all it is about 5:20 pm and the shop closes at 5:30 pm. Away goes the young woman into the deep bowels of the shop and returns with the same discouraging news, they have nothing in his size. But Bruce has been thinking and now he has an answer ready to break the impasse, "What about in women's sizes."

Her eyes light up and soon Bruce is checking women's shoes for comfort. He has an additional problem, he needs to be able to put his orthotics in the shoe. The door of the shop is now being shut. No new customers will be allowed in but we continue.

"Women's shoes are narrower than men's," the woman tells Bruce

If a shoe is too tight with the inner sole and his orthotics both in place, Bruce throws away the inner sole and tries again. He finally finds a shoe that feels comfortable enough to make it worthwhile trying on the second too and walking around the shop. But he returns with a worried frown. "They feel loose at the back, as if they will slip off at any moment." So it is back to square one. The pile of shoe boxes piled around Bruce is building.

Even when there is only one unopened box left, Bruce is still determinedly optimistic, "If this one fits I'll take it." I don't know about the assistant but I'm relieved to hear it, this is the last shoe in the last shop. If this doesn't fit he has nowhere else to go.

I hold our breath as these shoes are pulled on. He takes a few tentative steps, looks relieved and strolls off down the shop. "I'll take these," he announces triumphantly. The inner sole is not needed but we take it any way.

I pay using my credit card so we earn the FlyBy points, they don't amount to much of bonus but we have earned enough in the past to take flights within New Zealand, which is not to be sneezed at.

So one size doesn't fit all when it comes to shoes

I have to point out that I sometimes taken advantage of the problem Bruce has in \g88finding shoes of the right size. I call it piggy-back shopping. I follow behind him until he finds shoes he likes. He tries them on only to find the shop has none in his size. However they usually have plenty of the shoes in my size. So I leave the shop with shoes and Bruce emerges empty handed. This is not a situation Bruce is pleased about but it does make things easy for me and I need all the help I can get when it comes to shopping.

## When a 70th Birthday Party Catches Fire

Jack Horton's 70th Birthday Party is in Taihape. We drive up it is one of those perfect early spring days when the sun is out and everything is brilliantly green. One of those days when the paddocks show the first flush of spring growth and the grass looks as if it has just been mown. The few clouds are brilliantly white and look as if they have been freshly laundered just for today. The Ruahine Rangers are deep blue with just a touch of snow showing on the highest peaks. But as we near Taihape the sky ahead takes on an ugly black colour that suggests a change in the weather. But the day remains windless and much of the sky blue but in Taihape at 500 meters above sea level the temperature is colder than back in Palmerston North.

It is twelve-fifteen and the final preparations for lunch are underway. Kay helps Lynsie in the kitchen while Gordon, Ross, Jack and I, using the excuse we don't want to get in the way of the women play the role of the typical Kiwi Male and chat amongst ourselves. I manage to squeeze a muffled, frightened, sound out of Lynsie's electronic organ but soon I give up. It may be Jack's 70th Birthday but my desire to play Happy Birthday for him will have to be shelved for today.

The sound of a low flying plane and a plane passes low over the house and curls around to the left to head up the valley toward the landing strip.

When the first alarm sounds I hardly notice it, after all others are in command of the kitchen and the noise is quickly quenched. I hear the occasional comment from the kitchen about smoke from an oven but things seem under control. When the alarm sounds again there are more serious attempts to remove the smoke. Doors are flung open and Kay starts to wave a tea towel in the air to try to dispel smoke, smoke I never notice throughout the whole affair. The occasional repeats of the sound of the alarm causes Jack to focus on the problem and with the help of some free advice from Kay, together they manage to open the skylight to create more air flow to try to dispel the, for me, non-existent, smoke. Lynsie has already phoned alarm control to ensure they don't send someone to investigate, that is a most expensive exercise and not needed in this case.

Lynsie confers with Gordon, after all he is an electrician, "Can I pour water into the oven without causing any problem?" Gordon and I simultaneously tell her that's OK, Gordon from an electrician's point of view and me from my bread making experience where water is routinely thrown around the oven to alter the crust of the beard. But nothing seems to work. The alarm continues to warn us at regular intervals, and intervals keep getting shorter.

About now there is a ring at the front door, the local policeman appears. I am impressed with the protection the local cops in Taihape provide. Hearing the intermittent sound of the alarm, an alarm that detects both fires and break ins the man in blue is here to help. Lynsie points out that he often eats his sandwiches across the road at the old High School. Jack assures him everything is OK but in true country style he and Jack then go outside together and chat for the next ten or fifteen minutes while things keep getting steadily worse in the kitchen. Nothing Lynsie and Day do seems to correct the problem. To stop the sound, Lynsie has to punch the keys on the pad every minute, and press them not once but twice. As the intervals get less and less, Lynsie gets busier and busier. Then we hear the rhythmic chop of a helicopter as it passes over the roof. Things are livening up. But the helicopter doesn't land: it continues toward town, still it is good sound effect to add to the mix.

Having been a dead weight up until now, I finally stir myself and make a contribution,. "I'll take care of the alarm," I tell Lynsie, "I'll switch it of as needed." It is simple enough. I punch in the combination 0994 twice to cancel. By now there is barely a pause before the alarm sounds again and doing this simple chore keeps me fully occupied. At this moment, as if the chaos were not complete, the Taihape Fire siren begins its undulating call to arms for the local volunteers, Since I can't see the least sign of fire around the house, not even smoke, it can't be us.

Matters are now entirely in the hands of Kay, Lynsie and me the others appear to have taken up their tents and gone, but I can't abandon my punch pad. I am like the Dutch boy who kept his finger in a hole in the dikes and saved the town or in my case I am saving the house and Lynsie's nerves from destruction.

Finally Lynsie has had enough. She grabs the phone from me and contacts emergency central again and tells the operator about our problem. The operator sensibly decides to cut our alarm completely out of the system for half an hour by which time hopefully the oven will no longer be emitting smoke.

It works, for half an hour the alarm transforms into its normal quiet self. Looking back I wonder why I didn't look in the oven myself. Actually my mind was focussed on the non-trivial birthday problem of how, given we have brought a whole pineapple with us, we will be able to keep the two massive 70 candles up right long enough for Jack to blow them out. In the end the problem is simply solved by turning the pineapple into a fruit salad.

And we never did find out whether there was indeed a real fire in town.

# OFF LINE BLOGGING

## The Last Words on Dogs

It's odd how fashions in folk wisdom change down through the years.

Something that everyone knows to be true, something that is passed down through the family turns out not to be true, or at most only partly true and therefore misleading. For example I have always believed the popular assertion that small babies don't know how to smile. I believed it, not because I'd read learned research papers on the topic but because I have been told this truth so many times by women with broad experience in the field of babies. However this morning I heard on a BBC science program, it has now been demonstrated that babies smile after about six weeks.

I have also been told, with a degree of confidence that comes close to smugness that what I think of as a smile in young babies is only wind. How frustrating it must be for a baby lying in a cot who produces its very best smile only to hear her mother say it's not a smile it's only wind. What an insult for a baby who has just mastered this very important tool in the field of communication. It may scar him or her for life.

The field of diet is festooned with misleading statements that I once thought of as true. Butter and eggs are bad for you and should be avoided. They aren't, they are important parts of our daily intake and are much better for us than the replacements the modern food industry has supplied us. For example the high levels of carbohydrate and salt in these replacement foods have resulted in high levels of diabetes amongst first world citizens.

For too long I have taken as true the assertion of scientists working in the field that one big earthquake does not trigger big quakes on other fault lines. This is often true but not always. For example the big Christchurch earthquake in 2010, triggered an even more destructive quake in 2011, one that arose from movement on a different fault line. This quake was not simply an aftershock of the earlier quake and it caused much more destruction.

You must know of many more examples.

When I grew up in Taihape most farmers lived by the belief that the way to tame horses or dogs was to beat them. Then along came the animal whisperers who used gentle techniques that depended on understanding the psychology of the particular animal and these methods worked far better. To the old fashioned farmer such animal whisperers were magicians who after talking quietly to the animal achieved better results in terms of obedience than the traditional thrashing ever did.

These days my treatment of dogs is built around fragments of 'hand me down' information I have never questioned.

Five minutes spent listening to a person discussing dog behaviour gave me my first insight. Apparently the one thing you mustn't do when you enter a room and see a dog, is to go over and pat its head and make submissive welcoming remarks in a soft voice. The dog then knows who is boss and it's not me. What I now know, is that on entering the room I mustn't even look at the dog. Then later when I am ready, I call the dog over and acknowledge its existence and establish once and for all that I am the top dog. As a result of this knowledge I changed my behaviour. Now no matter how much the dog sniffs around me, I wait until it is sitting quietly before I make my move.

I extended this concept to dogs that bark at me as I pass their house. I put my chin up, and look around at everything except the barking dog. I must say that the dog usually doesn't stop barking but I feel I have maintained a dignified presence which I hope earns the dog's respect. The alternative of going up to the barking dog is much worse because the dog winds itself into a frenzy of barking, until I reward him for barking by walking away, which of course only reinforces the dogs barking habits. Recently Helen Charters pointed out that I should walk over to a barking dog without looking in its eyes and stand quietly beside the fence until the dog stopped barking. The problem is that none of us have the time to stop outside every house with a dog or dogs.

As to me, I find it very difficult not to look into a dog's eyes. When Bruce and I went for an early morning walks in Ubud on the Indonesian Island of Bali, there were dogs everywhere. When one or a pack of these dogs bounded out unexpectedly from a side alley I found myself instantly looking deep into their eyes. This had the not expected effect of causing the dogs to go berserk.

Helen has tried experimenting with a big brute of a dog called Eli. If she was out walking with Eli and two dogs outside a house began barking. Eli responded by barking just as vigorously. So Helen took him over to the fence and walked him up and down. This, Helen told me, had the effect of calming Eli down and he relaxed. Unfortunately it did not have the same effect on the two barking dogs. They just went wilder and wilder until Helen and Eli were forced to leave when the owners of the other dogs became upset. I don't know what I should learn from that experience.

I do wonder about what can happen when a dog has too much time on its hands. A dog living in a house adjacent to one of Palmerston North's few alleys has devised a cunning system to harass unwary passersby. As you walk up to the alley the dog is sitting quietly on the lawn without barking and looking a picture of well-trained obedience. The day I was caught out by this dog's cunning little plan, I even turned to Bruce and remarked what a pleasure it was to meet such a dog. Why couldn't every dog in town remain silent when pedestrians walk by. The alley is well fenced (as is every other such alley in Palmerston North) and as we walked into it, we lost all sight of this quiet apparently tame little black beast. I was probably expounding on some other matter of importance when it happened. Out of nowhere a snarling scratching angry beast of a dog flung itself up to the top of the fence and threatened to bite us. I stepped hurriedly back thoroughly shaken. How much more successful this surprise attack was compared to the usual barking and growling of the average aggressive dog. What a well-designed plan and how beautifully the dog carried it out. I felt a grudging respect for the animal but I did not give up.

Next time we approached this same alley many weeks later I searched around first to find a stick I could use in a surprise reprisal attack. As we approached the house as before the dog sat calmly watching us apparently completely unaware of the revenge I planned. It's surprise attack would, this time, be met by an angry human waving slashing about with a stick. I could almost see the surprise and fear on the dogs face. Revenge would indeed by sweet. As we entered the walkway I kept a sly eye on the fence, ready to spring at any moment, except nothing happened. The dog remained quietly out of sight behind the fence. My feeling of anti-climax was intense as was my feeling of disappointment. Outwitted by a dumb dog and feeling like a fool, I emerged unscathed from the alley and searched for a place to dispose of my unnecessary stick. That day I think I heard a dog laugh but I can't be sure.

My take on this true story is that dogs must not be allowed too much time to think. I intend to discuss the matter of the cunning dog with Helen Charters next time we meet. I know she will have the answer but whatever happens I will take a stick with me next time I enter that alley.

## Battling the Mysteries of Ubuntu

Changing the operating system on your computer is always going to cause difficulties. That's the way software is, after all if the new software is not significantly different from a company's competitors, you may be dragged through the courts with unwelcome charges of copyright violation.

The prospect of difficulties when you change your software provider results in an unwillingness by the computer phobic customer to make the change and this is what props up Microsoft's profits Even though free ware is available that functions equally well, people don't change. Microsoft has a habit of making unnecessary changes to perfectly serviceable software, software which after a couple of years Microsoft refuse to support. So you are forced to change again and Microsoft makes more money. It's daylight robbery.

But in Palmerston North a Robin Hood figure has taken up the challenge and now works to dent the money grabbing Microsoft's profits by signing locals up to free software. Yes free software, it sounds like an oxymoron, after all we all know it takes hundreds of hours to write a new operating system or a sophisticated word processing package, and who has the time to spend on a project that earns no money. Everyone has to eat. But there are people who do write new software. They enjoy the challenge of contributing to worthwhile projects.

The original open source software was Linux and from this Linux base the operating system called Ubuntu arose. Even with the software written it still takes a visionary like our Robin Hood to promote it and calm the fears people have as they leave the certainty of Microsoft, the mother hen who has provided comfort and assurance for so many years.

Bob Lambourne is our 21st Century Robin Hood and like the original Robin Hood he seeks to rob the rich and give it to the poor. It is not an easy path to follow but our Robin Hood plugs on and is now achieving success. However each year in May our Robin Hood disappears leaving his Palmerston North clients alone and exposed. Of course they are not strictly alone because there are always emails and skype but that's not the same as having the expert at your elbow.

Unfortunately uncomfortably often about three weeks before Bob's departure for the UK our computer starts to fail. One year the picture processing package Adobe photo shop started to act strangely, often crashing, leaving me cursing and gnashing my teeth. Something had to be done. I use photo shop all the time. Bob produced the free Linux based equivalent called Gimp but it was very different from Adobe Photoshop and I had no idea how to use it. Our solution (the expensive solution) was to buy a new computer and install Adobe Photoshop software again.

But in 2014 Microsoft gave Bob the opening he needed. They announced they were stopping all support for their very popular operating system Windows XP, a package that was running perfectly but which had been superseded by not one but three newer Windows versions and Microsoft was determined to sell those. A huge number of people across the world suddenly had to decide whether to continue with Windows XP and risk invasion by viruses and worms or replace it with one of the new expensive Microsoft version.

Suddenly people were ready and willing to make the change to Ubuntu. Tom Armstrong, Gordon Buckley, and Martine van Hove signed up convinced by the prospect of getting free software (and saving several hundred dollars). Shirley Wilson got Bob to load Ubuntu but at the first sign of trouble she went in and bought Microsoft again. Pam Blackwell had bravely made the change to Ubuntu a year earlier and Pam (and husband Len) have become familiar with the system.

However Bob Lambourne (aka Robin Hood) could see that more software support was needed when he was away. He good naturedly suggested I be this person. I didn't mind because I wanted to become familiar with Ubuntu and there is no better way of learning than teaching someone else. Being a software consultant on a package I have never used certainly provided me with some motivate to learn more. I had until the middle of May to pick Bob's brains.

Even without any official announcement from Bob the problems began to flow in. Shirley was having trouble deleting emails in gmail. I soon sorted that out. My brother Gordon was unable to scan on his printer-scanner after he started using Ubuntu. Yes it was printing but not scanning. Gordon knew what the reason was, "It's because I'm using Ubuntu." When I told Bob about the problem he came up with a lateral solution, one I would not have thought of, namely use another scanning program (yes its free software). A quick search by Bob came up with a scanning program named Xsane or if that failed he suggested downloading Gimp (yes again free software) and scanning using this programme. I decided to phone Gordon and try to direct him on the steps to get the scanning software installed. He still hadn't finished his lunchtime soup but I pressganged him into it anyway.

This is when I found out just how difficult it is to give instructions when you are not in a position to see the screen and you are working with a person who lacks confidence and has difficulty finding things that were trivial when Bob demonstrated them. Gimp again became a step too far. So back to Xsane. I lost track of the times we searched for and got to the software centre and tried to find and download the program and how many times we failed Sometimes we seemed near success but then Gordon would announce another problem. At one point Gordon announced that Ubuntu was asking him whether he wanted Xsane removed. I told him in the strongest terms we did not.

About now Tom Armstrong came in from his three weekly ride on Gordon's motor mower and took over. Tom quickly made it clear he preferred to work alone and I left him to it He got things working. His mother Janet had an amazing system for forcing software to work by just pressing as many keys at random as possible. Somehow it always worked for her.

My next client was Martine. We have a picnic lunch together and then tackle the computer. Today she has a simple but important question she wants answered, "Where have all the photos of my granddaughter Petra gone?" Petra lives in Melbourne and Martine lives in Palmerston North and seldom do the two meet. Of course we looked under My Pictures but they weren't there Martine assured me they had been loaded. So I introduced her to the search instruction Ctrl F and yes we did get some hits. There was one folder named Pictures and there were two named My Pictures.

Sure enough one of these folders contained dozens of copies of photos of Petra. Finding a way to get these pictures over to Ubuntu took a bit longer, but Gordon and Tom Armstrong had already cracked the problem by making use of a pen-drive as the packhorse for the transition. The problem was, as Bob pointed out, Microsoft was so arrogant it designed an operating system that did not recognise any other operating system. Totally devoid of this racist attitude, Ubuntu was willing to talk with any operating system but one way contact was not going to solve the problem but the pen drive did.

The next day I went down to Levin, to look at Gordon's scanner. Trained on Windows and having a very tidy mind, Gordon wanted his scanned photos to be put in the Windows's folder called (for obvious reasons) My Scans and he wanted all his old scans to be transferred across the partition to Ubuntu. The pen drive was again pressed into action.

Then Bob disappeared off to Shropshire. Only then did I realise how little I knew about Ubuntu. I did learn things as I floundered around with Martine on her old computer but unfortunately things fell apart faster than I could find solutions. I don't meant small things, but big things like having the computer lose all contact with the outside world. Skype stopped working and then Martine received an email telling her that she had to update her version of Skype.

Her problem with losing contact with her provider I put down to her location as the last house before the hills and the resulting weak signal. Gordon had this same problem before his provider upgraded the software. I don't think Martine ever believed my explanation

I have learned much about Ubuntu but as a helpful advisors I am a complete failure. Basically I can handle many things but not significant problems. When I start floundering and there is no way to disguise the fact.

I am looking forward to Bob's return. It can't come soon enough.

## Summer Time

Don't you just love summer?

It really doesn't matter whether it's the classic Kiwi Summer of long hot days continuing seemingly without end. Summers when the farmers start calling for rain as the grass begins to fade into brown before bleaching out to white, days when the city council warn us watering restrictions are close, the sort of days where if you are not actually in the river or sea swimming then you want to be. In such summers the temperatures hardly ever seem to drop, and some people start complaining they can't sleep because of the heat.

Or perhaps it is the sort of summer that never really gets into gear, the summer where a day that starts out brilliantly fine dissolves away to become cloudy and wet. This is the sort of summer where southerly breezes always seem to be blowing, one where when the sun is overtaken by a passing cloud the temperature abruptly drops. These are the summers that people complain about, the summers where we keep asking each other if summer will ever come. Of course it does but perhaps only late in March at a time of the year when even the hottest of days still cools off soon after the sun sets.

This year we have the hesitant summer, the sort of summer that never quite commits itself. High pressure systems roll onto the country but within a day or two they are gone again. But I don't mind, I enjoy the challenge of searching the summer out. It is a summer where rain never comes, despite endless promises from the weather office. Things get dry but it is the wind that dries everything out, not the sun.

Take the last weekend in January. After a stop-start week weather wise, Saturday dawned fine, clear and hot. By lunch time it is 26 degrees and we are spoiled for choice as to where to go. Bob has sent a text to say it is too hot for him and can we delay a walk until the evening. Bob is as sensitive to hot weather as he is to cold weather. I find a way to compromise. We'll go walking as usual at 3:30 with Neville and I'll go out at 7:30 with Bob.

When a day is this hot Bruce and I like to stay close to water and after walking go swimming while we are hot. So we just walk up river along the Manawatu River Walkway and on the way back stop for a swim at the groynes. By then it will be around five o'clock and the early swimmers will have gone. The groynes were of course built to prevent the river from flooding but one of the, for us, unforeseen consequences was the safe swimming holes that were formed downstream from each groyne. Each year the holes are different. This year our pool is protected from the main current by a finger of shingle but as always it is safe for swimming.

While Neville watches we get into our togs and brave the waters for the first time this summer. The water is not cold in fact it is warm but still greatly refreshing after the heat of walking. Afterwards we walk home well satisfied with our first swim of this uncertain summer.

Sunday is quite different. It starts out as if it will be as hot as Saturday, but true to form it clouds over and there are a few very light showers which provide promise in the way of relief for the garden and occupy the rest of the day. The conversation flows through the afternoon and it is not until five that the other guests have gone and Bob, Mark, Bruce and I are ready to go walking. As I stuff my pack with a camera and raincoat the rain comes. All afternoon it has been threatening but by walking late we are going to have to embrace it. We all react in our own way. I put on very short shorts made of light quick-drying material so that with bare legs and a raincoat I will not end up wearing cold flapping longs or long shorts, and if there is little wind I top all this off with an umbrella. Bruce does much the same but he produces a super umbrella, one he was given at work, one that has vents to allow the wind pass through. Mark on the other hand produces a tiny umbrella, one that only covers his head and some of his shoulders. The three of us wear sandals and let our feet get wet. Neville does not bring an umbrella so if the rain continues he must rely on his expensive raincoat to stay dry. Bob changes into boots and wears a standard, older style, rain coat. Well equipped in our different ways we set off to walk around the lagoon. No point in driving anywhere with weather like this. After about ten minutes the rain clears and the dark clouds break up. It looks as if yet again we are going to be lucky.

But as we approach the lagoon, the weather changes abruptly yet again. The rain pours down in torrents, well not exactly down, because of the gale force winds that have appeared out of nowhere, the rain is horizontal. Realising it won't cope, I lower my brolly. Bruce on the other hand stands like a gladiator thrusting his super brolly forward and challenging the weather to do its worst. His umbrella holds, but he is unable to walk forward while the full weight of the wind is pressing on his brolly. Mark, despite facing the full force of the rain and wind, bravely continues to hold his little umbrella up but in the process his unprotected body gets a drenching. Bob in stoic British fashion stands patiently accepting his share of the weather like one of the herd of cows on his Shropshire farm (actually his friend Stephen's farm). Then the weather relents, as it always must and we all start walking again.

Wildlife in the lagoon is always interesting and today is no different. We punch through a crowd of the enormous Canadian geese who thrive so well in the Manawatu. They have to be regularly culled to stop them taking over the whole lagoon. A coot is nesting somewhat precariously on the edge of a floating platform used for canoe basketball games, and everywhere the ducks patrol on the lookout for food, while the black swans sail grandly by.

As we approach the Massey Bridge the weather collapses back into its Mr Hyde form and the rain and wind return in spades. I huddle under the bridge and try to take pictures as the others brave the falling waterfalls of rain as they examine the concrete steps recently put in by the council to allow the disabled or timid to get down to the river. In the pouring rain my photos are misted over so they become like impressionist paintings.

This wildly changing weather is exhilarating and the mad scramble we have to stay together adds excitement to the day. When we walk in a line, with Bruce and his enormous black umbrella at the back, me, a bit taller, with my conventional and, in the high wind, vulnerable blue and white brolly next and then Mark with his blue baby umbrella and finally Bob without any umbrella at all, we make a sight I would have loved to photographed but I won't risk my camera in the rain.

As we get back to the house, I find myself wondering what this endlessly changing summer will deliver next. I say bring it on. Let's enjoy the fun.

# EMAILS

A Disquieting Message

To:

undisclosed recipients: ;

Hello

It's not my intention writing you this but I have to, my family and I made an unannounced trip to Manila, Philippines and really it was unannounced, but unfortunately things turned sour when we were robbed last night in the hotel room of all our cash, credit cards and cell phones and I sustained some injuries on my leg which I am currently treating at a local clinic.

We've reported the incident to the embassy and the police but their response was just too casual, my problem is our return flight leaves in few hours from now but I am out of cash to settle my hospital and hotel bills, Please I really need your help with some money, I promise to refund you immediately I get back home. All I need is $2,650. Please let me know if you can help me with the money, it's really urgent please.

I need to return home for a proper medical check up.

Thank You,

Tess Cootauco

Yes we do know Tess Cootauco and yes she did originally come from the Philippines. If Tess is in trouble of course we want to help her but how likely is this story? People do have accidents and people do get robbed but not usually at the same time.

At first reading the story is plausible and we would not like to leave Tess in the lurch, abandoned in her time of trouble and after all it is only $2,650 she wants. The longer I think about it the more I am sure it is just one more computer scam. It's got to be and so we do nothing.

The trouble is in an uneasy corner of my mind I am not quite sure. Perhaps I am letting her down. But I hold fast to what my rational mind tells me. I have to say this is one clever scam. Our names are linked on Facebook and presumable that is where the scam was devised. In earlier times these scams all came from Nigeria and involved vast sums of money waiting for me in a bank account if I only sent them some money. They were easy to see through and I don't know anyone in Nigeria.

## Bob's first Email from the UK

Greetings

I thought I should email you and give you some news, such as it is, though there's not much to tell. The journey was pretty uneventful, which is just what I like, though there was a minor hiccup at Auckland airport. At the Cathay Pacific check-in counter, there was a notice "Do you have any of these things in your checked luggage?"

The answer was unfortunately "Yes, I've got a rechargeable battery pack."

"I'm afraid you are going to have to take it out of your suitcase and carry it in your hand luggage"

It's not that big - perhaps the size of two mobile phones - so finding it in my very full suitcase took some doing. It was buried deep. However, I triumphed!

The plane was on time into Heathrow, and I was soon on a tube into London. I sent a text to my sister Ruth to let her know that I was on my way. It had been arranged that she would meet me at Arsenal tube station (which is in the same road as my sister Anne's house) with the keys to let me into Anne's house (Anne and Iain being away in Scotland visiting Iain's parents).

But at Arsenal tube station - no sign of Ruth! And no response to a phone call to her. Managed to get in touch with Anne, who said that a neighbour, if in, would have a key. That worked - got out of the rain and into the house.

Finally got a call from Ruth "I was surprised by your text as I was expecting you tomorrow, Wednesday. Oh, it's Wednesday today!!!" Dear Ruth!

Saw a lot of Ruth and her partner Jeremy over the next few days. I'm glad I declined the possibility of staying in her house, as it's even more chaotic than usual at the moment, as she has builders in, constructing an enormous extension. So instead I shuttled back and forth between Ruth's and Anne's on the bus. We had some nice walks on Hackney Marshes, which are very close to Ruth's house, and I walked on the tow-path to the Thames. And Ruth and I had a trip to Greenwich, including a walk through the foot-tunnel under the Thames.

On Tuesday I took the train up to Birmingham. Liz met me and we went to her house, where I met Geoff and Jem for a chat. Then we came out to the farm. The caravan was OK - grubby of course, so Spring cleaning was called for. But I'm now reasonably settled in and need to start thinking about plans.

Bob

# GETTING OUT AND ABOUT

## Christchurch in the Cold

When we buy our plane ticket to fly south to spend Queens Birthday Weekend in Christchurch, no one tells us how cold it's going to be. Unlike last years Queens Birthday Weekend, when we were down in Tekapo, this year there will be no snow. Instead we get three glorious days where the sun shines down from dawn to dusk but there are frosts, heavy frosts, and each morning a fog embraces the foothills keeping us on our toes.

Walt's house is on a spur, high enough to be above the low hanging fog. Standing at Walt's kitchen window each morning we enjoy looking down on a landscape heavy with white frost, where the valleys are garnished with early morning fog.

Walt appears to have anti-freeze flowing through his veins. He leaps into the car in a short sleeved rugby jersey with only a thin looking jacket to provide back up, at a time when I am wearing five layers and still don't feel overly warm. Reading out from the skin up I have a T shirt, a rugby jersey, a polypropylene top and a heavy woollen jersey all topped off with my new, puffy winter jacket from the Warehouse. In reserve I have a raincoat to take the edge off any persistent breeze.

On the first day, Walt suggests we bike into the city to look at the changes wrought by the two big earthquakes, one 6.3 and the other 6.0 and check out the damage still visible for quake-tourists like us to see. I borrow Walt's wool gloves and we delay our departure until after ten when the air has warmed a little. By biking briskly we get nicely warm although a small muscle in my inner thigh does threaten to bunch up before at last it warms up too

The roads look, to an out-of-towner like me, chaotic. They are afloat with bright orange cones which we must weave our way around while avoiding the cars. Walt has no fear and boldly exploits the smallest gaps to make good time while I trail cautiously in his wake. It reminds me of the time back in 1991 when we were biking with Helen in Beijing In those days the streets were dense with Chinese cyclists all proceeding at the speed Chinese cyclists do, namely genteelly slow. None of us wanted to lose sight of Helen the only person who knew the city and be left to find our own way back to the Language Institute. So these four foreigners pedalled madly overtaking all the Chinese riders ringing our bells to warn of our rapid approach. Today Walt stops occasionally to let me catch up after I have been ensnared by another red light or a host of cones.

In the part of Christchurch designated by Walt as the one that remains most munted we take photos while the locals drink their coffee at tables and plant gardens in the waste land nearby.

Walt shows us one of the small Art Galleries set up around the city while the main Art Gallery is closed because of earthquake damage. The exhibits are fun, a celebration amongst the destruction. One has videos that show in ultra-slow motion what happens to balloons filled with colourful paints when they are pieced with a needle. The rubber skins of the balloons disappears in the blink of an eye but the colourful paint maintains its shape for surprisingly long times, creating the feeling you are watching in a dream. Then slowly in soft dribbles at first the paint begins to spew out into space. At the next satellite Art Gallery we climb two flights of stairs to watch a video of an Asian Tai Chi master having his body distorted until a line of Tai Chi Masters spread grotesquely across the whole screen to produce a continually changing blended image held out on an invisible clothes line.

As I push Colin Elliott's bike along the footpath I hear people calling after to me, "You've lost a pedal." At first I ignore them, after all how can I have lost a pedal. When I at last looked down it was securely attached to the bike. The calls continue and I finally glance down and find that indeed one pedal has vanished. Walt and Bruce are equally surprise by my unexpected discovery. A bike shop is not far away, and the woman there is happy to attach two new bike pedals. (you can't buy just one, I presume that is something to do with right handed and left handed threads) and at small cost to me I am back in business.

Of course this is Christchurch and we want to eat at the moveable shopping centre constructed from stacks of brightly coloured shipping containers. While we eat we watch small children trying to chase some panhandling seagulls away but the gulls are used to this game and fly only if they really must. The girls are persistent but the seagulls win in the end.

The big surprise for me is the amount of the old Christchurch Cathedral that is still standing. I expected a crumpled wreck consisting of a piles of stones but really it is only the front of the cathedral that has caved in, the rest looks completely serviceable. Now I understand why there is such strong support for a group trying to stop the Anglican Church from knocking it all down and starting again.

What a brilliant advertising concept, what a triumph for the spin doctors, a name to kill for, I am referring to the newly built Cardboard Cathedral. Although the builders were unable to use as much cardboard as they hoped, who can forget a building when it has such an appealing name. Cathedrals I expect to be built to last hundreds of years not like this Sugar Cathedral which will dissolve away in about twenty years. Inside the cathedral glows in the warm light of row upon row of unpainted timber seats. The seats are so uncomfortable that worshipers will have no difficulty staying awake to hear the sermon. There is even a stained glass window, admittedly at the back of the cathedral, but it casts patterns of coloured light down amongst the chairs. The acoustics are excellent and the musical community is making full use of the building for concerts. Volunteers are on hand to tell us about the Cardboard Cathedral and answer our questions. Shipping containers attach to one wall of the cathedral providing a place for the clergy to robe and de-robe themselves.

The day is still sunny but the fingers of frost reach ever closer as the sun slants toward the horizon and the shadows lengthen. I bike back with the cyclist's equivalent of a limp as I protect a thigh muscle which is now thoroughly cooled down and tries to grab at every opportunity.

We eat Sunday lunch with Colin Elliott and Val McKenzie, (who also prepared a meal the night we arrived), and friends from other visits such as Paul and Gill (both keen cyclists) and later we were joined by Koa (Val's daughter) and her partner Spider. Afterwards we walk in Hagley Park in a forest of the long shadows cast by tall trees. The remaining pools of sunlight are rapidly shrinking.

Sunday morning, after again waiting patiently for the temperature to rise, we drive over to Lyttelton via the town of Teddington, a trip that takes us along the southerly rim of one of the old craters that cup the harbour. Everyone else arrives in Lyttleton at the same time as we do, all hoping to find somewhere to eat. By the time we have patiently searched out the best place to eat everyone else has come to the same realisation. The choice is only between the empty pub and a restaurant that is full. We eat at a table under the veranda which we are forced to share with three smokers but the food is fine.

On your visit to Lyttelton Harbour allow time to watch the ships being loaded. Today huge piles of cut logs are stacked ready to be put on trucks and carted around to a boat called poetically Glorious Starlight. The logs are hauled on board in the old fashioned slings. I dream out loud about being a stowaway on the boat and earning my passage as a Cabin Boy, although it turns out none of us really have the least idea what the duties of a Cabin Boy are.

We manage in the end to tear ourselves away and continue exploring. We climb up to one of the cemeteries, and meet the people who are last in line for restoration. Many of the graves have been skittled by the quakes and have been left resting at odd angles, or split apart. The authorities have no immediate plans to repair the damage but if you have been in your grave for almost a hundred years, what does another half century or so matter?

The smoke from wood fires drift across the town as yet again the shadows lengthen and the temperature drops. It is time to head back to Palmerston North.

## Travelling to the USA

One of the joys of travelling is that you never quite know how things will turn out. Although 'went wrong' is too pejorative a phrase to describe the things that make travelling memorable, the first thing I always ask returning travellers is "What went wrong?"

We as usual, like the loyal Kiwis we are, fly with Air New Zealand, trying to forget how this airline price gouges its travellers from provinces where there is no competition, i.e. the Palmerston North. However we admire the Air New Zealand cabin staff, staff who have chosen to endure the stress of travelling for twelve or thirteen hours in the confines of economy class with us. The smiles on their faces may become a bit strained as the hours drone endlessly on but they do get paid for the torment we all endure.

Over the years airlines have packed more and more people into the same space by the clever design of things such as angles of recline, thickness of pillows as well as in depth studies of the human anatomy. As a result of this work there are now only two comfortable positions for a passenger; one is when the seat as upright and the other is when the seat is reclining. The trouble is that both you and the person in front of you can't be comfortable unless both of you are in the same orientation. If you are in the upright position and the person in front of you decides to go into the reclining position he ends up in your face in an unpleasantly intimate way and only by clever use of your knees into his back will you return him to the upright position. Unfortunately if you are tall it is difficult to turn onto your side in the way you routinely do when sleeping in a bed. All in all it is a miracle that you get any sleep at all during the night.

I try not to take notice of time passing. If I succumb to clock watching the flight seems endless. Far better to be pleasantly surprised when a fellow passenger comments on the fact she has slept well and there are only are couple of hours before we land. Then I know I have tricked my subconscious into submission by a clever combination of movies and unexpectedly long dozes that almost qualify as sleep. In the end every flight finally ends.

On this year's trip after landing in LA, we must catch a second flight on to Las Vegas. During the wait we explore the enormous U shape that is LAX but we know not to tarry too long, after all there is always the last big hurdle, getting through security. I have learned from long experience, that for my piece of mind, I must place everything on my body, apart from the clothes I wear, into a plastic bag and stuff it deep into my cabin bag, before I approach security. Otherwise I become flustered and fail at every hurdle. I still must pull my shoes off at the last moment but usually here everything goes smoothly. This time the X-Ray whole-body scanning system throws up something suspicious where there is nothing suspicious and I have to be patted down to ensure I'm clean. Still I don't mind this intrusion; it's like getting a particularly warm welcome before boarding my flight.

We are flying Delta Airlines on what must be a commuter flight. Our hostess, if that is still what the women cabin staff are still called, rattles through the safety instructions at a speed that makes a mockery of the idea that we may need to remember it to save ourselves in a real emergency. I choose to take this as a sign that crashes no longer occur in the USA, and therefore spending time preparing for one is a waste of everyone's time. Our plane is narrow and very long, so it is rather like flying inside a pencil. With the so called safety instructions over, the hostess slows down when she tells us what the staff have to offer in the way of refreshments, but still in an accent I find difficult to decipher. Then we sit and wait.

Our plane is jammed up against the air bridge in a way that makes me think it lacks wings. To make matters worse, the plane seems to be sitting in the middle of a junk yard with obstacles all around that make the prospect of any attempt at normal taxiing laughable. I continue positive in the belief that they must know what they are doing. By now it is dark and the multiple colours of the lights scattered around seem designed to confuse our pilot rather than help him taxi safely to a runway. Eventually the doors shut and we begin taxiing across the cluttered surface, the pilot magically finding a safe way through the debris. Our take off is just as confusing as the rest of the operation as we accelerate into a maze of lights apparently heedless of any normal idea of safety. To be honest I am surprised when we manage to soar into the air. The lights of LA spread out beneath us like a magic carpet provides a welcome diversion.

It is now I discover what the last part of our briefing really means. The hostesses go around taking individual orders from the passengers, presumably the business class passengers, seated in the front part of the plane. As to the rest of us, we just get ignored.

Far from being the quiet country Airport I imagined, Las Vegas is a major hub with flights streaming in and out continuously. We walk into the terminal building expecting to be gently directed to our carousel, instead we are shepherded onto a shuttle and whirled away through the darkness to be disgorged into an enormous hall fluttering with promotions and advertising for all sorts of exciting shows and products. This is promotional heaven and they want us to spend, preferably at one of the many slot machines which we thread our way past as we search for carousel number sixteen. This is the most in your face exciting terminal building I have ever been in. Normally picking up luggage occurs at a place where the decoration, what there is of it, is more suited to a funeral parlour than a circus. If we were only transferring at Las Vegas Airport, it would be impossible not to make plans to return here on holiday sometime soon.

Through this vast space we wander with eyes wide open barely able to stay focussed on our search for luggage. At Carousel sixteen there is no sign of our packs. For a while we wait expectantly, assuming we have arrived here ahead of our bags. Then I notice something and tell Bruce, "None of the people around here came from our flight." After 24 hours travelling this is not what Bruce wants to hear.

The volume of the noise from the huge videos makes communication difficult so Bruce beacons me away to quieter regions, "Our luggage isn't here," he tells me. And there is no sign of Mike and Linda Dunn. This is not the start to the trip I hoped for.

As he is the holder of our only USA compatible cell phone on this trip, Bruce texts Mike and Linda to tell them where we are and then we head for lost luggage. It is not far away and the black woman at the desk is both relaxed and understanding.

"When did you last see your bags?"

"At LAX when we went through customs,"

This reply seems to raise her confidence about getting the bags back sometimes soon. I leave Bruce to deal with the luggage and return to the carousel to watch for Mike and Linda. Bruce returns with the bags but still there is no sign of Mike and Linda and they have not replied to Bruce's text.

Then they appear and everything is back to normal. "We guessed you would arrived at Terminal 3 but then found out you weren't there," Mike or was that Linda told us.

Bruce says, "You guessed right but then they shifted us and our bags went to Terminal 1."

Shifting the car between terminals at Las Vegas Air Port was a non trivial process and naturally Mike and Linda were more concerned with achieving this important task than replying to texts. Our motel is next door to a fast food Mexican Restaurant and I find myself in burritos heaven. I have burritos for dinner and the next day for lunch. The, cheerful well padded, owner is delighted when he finds out we are from New Zealand. "That's where they made the Lord of the Rings movies." I nod my agreement and he goes on, "I want to visit there some time." I feel special by proxy and wonder what it is like for Peter Jackson when he travels around the USA.

Mike and Linda have acquired a small dog since we were last in America. As dogs go Kenai is small but for the Chihuahua breed of dog he is huge, a genetic throwback or is that throw forward to one of his ancestors. As Mike said, "When we went to choose a pup from the litter, Kenai was easily able to step over the rest of his siblings. He stood out and we liked the look of him." He turns out to be a very friendly fellow with one great advantage over most other dogs, he doesn't bark. He does make excited snuffling noises when he wants to join the rest of us in the car, but no matter how anxious he is about the prospect of being left behind he never lapses into even a single bark. He will be our companion for the rest of the journey.

With four, and sometimes five people, and their luggage and a dog with his own small house, we must hire a large wagon. So as Mike poses the question, "How do we get three people safely across a river in a boat that only holds two people and with a man eating tiger on one side of the river." In reality the problem is that Mike's car can't hold four people, a dog and their luggage and we need to pick up the big rental car and drop Mike's car at a storage garage. It is Linda who solves the puzzle, "We leave all our luggage at the motel, and go in our car to pick up the wagon. Then we take our car and the wagon to the storage place and leave our car there. Then we return to the motel and get our luggage."

Like so many things although this is theoretically by far the best way to do it, as so often happens it didn't work in practice. Using their GPS system, getting to the car rental company was easy, as long as we remembered to look for the sign for dropping off rental cars. The line for picking up cars doesn't look too long but there is a 25 cent charge for every twenty minutes of parking. At first our prospects looked good, but the line moves inordinately slowly, in fact for significant times it doesn't move at all and we soon expend all our 25 cent coins. Bruce and I go hunting for more. I ask a lady playing a slot machine where she got her quarters from but it is quickly clear that this woman is not going to sell me any of hers. I wandered into a shop selling snacks looking for something I can buy that will give me change in quarters. As I am leaving empty handed, a woman comes in and taking pity on my lost dog look asks what I want and magically produces a dollars worth of 25 cent pieces from out of the till. Later Bruce buys other things from the shop and gains more quarters, enough to carry us through, just.

As the crucial moment approaches where all the potential drivers have to sign the agreement, Linda realises Kenai needs to get to the toilet. Of course no sooner does she vanish than she is needed to sign. Bruce and I begin a hurried hunt, as people waiting in the line try to work out what is causing the delay. Fortunately Linda is already on her way back. By the time we are finally signed up, it is close to one o'clock the time we have to pick up our luggage from the motel rooms. So we abandon our carefully formulated plan and drive the two cars across town to get our bags.

The result of all this to-ing and fro-ing is it is well into the afternoon before we finally clear Las Vegas and reach the open road. Leaving Nevada we pass through Arizona and then enter Utah where we shift our watches forward an hour. Despite the high speed Freeway we are driving on, there was no chance we will reach our destination of Hurricane Utah before dusk. The country side is big broad and beautiful, and forever changing. I wondered what it would be like to live in a country as big as the USA, although in reality the USA is so diverse it is actually lots of small countries.

Our faithful GPS system, unwanted on the Freeway, should have come into its own in Hurricane, a small town with houses strung out like beads along the main street, but it didn't. Putting it simply the GPS couldn't find the house we have booked. I keep offering to get out and ask people where 77S 100E Street is but the others are determined to rely on the GPS system. When Bruce finally gets it correctly programmed, it guides us to a house we have passed at least once before.

It has a security system I have never seen in New Zealand. A key box with a combination lock is hung on the front door. The combination of the box has been sent to Mike and Linda. Inside the box is the key to the front door. After a number of false starts we finally manage to get the key box open.

The two storied house has two double bedrooms downstairs and two others upstairs, one room on each floor has a bathroom/toilet attached. Mike and Linda take the downstairs bedroom with en suite bathroom and Bruce and I the upstairs one. Only Diane Dunn, when she arrives, will end up without her own bathroom. The huge TV upstairs will not be watched during our five day stay.

## The Magic of Zion National Park

Day 1: Is there any better way of exploring a beautiful National Park, than with two people who know and love that park, and want to share their special knowledge with you? It is Mike and Linda Dunn who chose to show us Zion National Park and I for one don't want to know anything more than the name before I arrive. Doing homework before you go on a trip is for the drudges who don't trust their own judgement and fear they might miss something if they abandon the crutch a travel guide provides. I want to be surprised, shocked and startled out of the ruts of my own routine and this can't happen if I blunt the edges of my anticipation by too much reading.

Mike for his part makes no attempt to lecture on things to come but instead gives tantalising hints of what we may see. After I have delighted in the wonders of the scenery we are driving through he might say, "You ain't seen nothing yet," and in this way he draws me on without weighting me down with details. When I first see the gorgeous red-orange cliffs of Zion, I imagine I am seeing them the way the first explorers must have found them and I hope with the same delighted surprise as they did.

As we drive further into the Park we begin climbing up a winding mountain road and Mike starts mentioning something about seeing windows in the vertical rock face high above us. I think he must be dreaming. I see no sign of what must be an invention of his imagination. The cliffs soar above us releasing streams of orange light down the sunlit walls, while the northerly faces fall victim to the heavy shadows.

At every angle we see more cliffs all just as spectacularly colourful and as I take endless photos I realise yet again what a wonderful invention the digital camera is. No longer do we have to hoard our photos, as we remember the cost of each frame. Mike is still mentioning a tunnel but all we see are vertical walls. And then suddenly we are faced with a set of traffic lights and ahead of us see a stream of cars and buses emerging from a hole in the cliff face. This is the tunnel and as we drive through we pass the windows Mike has been talking about.

"This is a major through road," Mike tells us as we emerge from the blackness.

The road now wanders through a high valley, valleys captured by still higher peaks, with the colours and the contours continually changing in a world I have only seen before in children's comics. We stop to picnic in a dry stream bed where we are out of sight and sound of the road in our own hidden space. We are surrounded by trees with autumn leaves of every possible colour at the yellow, orange and red end of the spectrum. Mike finds a rock with dozens of small fossils embedded in it and I sit on it while I eat my sandwiches.

Afterwards Mike suggests we wander higher up the faces, while he nurses the pinched nerve in his back and curses the effects of growing older. My enthusiasm for this free flow hill wandering is tempered by the way what initially seems like gentle accommodating hills can quickly turn into a beast of a steepness that give me pause for continuing. I find it hard to judge how this sudden change in pitch occurs, perhaps it is because things look so different when you are going downhill, compared to the safe feeling you have when you climb the same face. I am punished for my studied caution when I try to support myself by putting a hand onto a cactus. The number and diversity of thorns that enter my hand from one misplaced hand amazes me. After this, I am much more respectful of cacti.

After lunch, Mike and Linda search for some petroglyphs sketched on a cliff face a thousand or more years ago. The site is not publicised to reduce the chances of vandalism but over the years word has spread by word of mouth and Mike and Linda have been here before. Eventually they recognise the place where we must leave the road. Initially we have it for ourselves, and I as usual pretend that we are the first to find the site. Looking at the petroglyphs is like receiving a text from the past. Then a small party of black early teenage kids arrive. The Park Ranger who is leading the group quietly challenges the children to use their own eyes to tell their friends what they see, being sure to leave lots of gaps of silence to give them time to make their own discoveries before she begins to feed them additional information. As we leave the Ranger has the children taking turns to throw a spear at a deer represented by a blanket hung on a line and celebrating their direct hits. The kids are loving it and so am I just watching them.

On the way back to the road, I learn a bit more about the technique of walking in these deceptive mountains by watching a woman in her forties negotiate a steep slope safely by sitting on her bum and sliding slowly down into the valley. Afterwards I will use this technique whenever I feel threatened by the steepness of the terrain with what I regard as great effect.

When we get back to the car I, perhaps too boldly since I am still feeling the effects of our long flight, offer to drive back. In the event I terrorised my passengers by not turning my headlights on before entering the tunnel and then driving on in darkness while I search with one hand for the lights. In the process I put a wheel against the concrete gutter producing an unnerving screech before I finally turn the lights on. Fortunately no damage is done except to everyone's nerves.

We have all been expecting Mike and Linda's daughter Diane Dunn to arrive on Friday evening, but a late check of her email reveals it is tonight she is coming. Mike and Linda depart with their GPS to pick her up in the town of St George at the same time we are going to bed.

Of course things turn out not to be straight forward and they don't blame the GPS, well they can blame the GPS as it did not take them to the airport, but they must take some of blame themselves since they had not updated the GPS and the St George Airport has moved. As a result they drive to a non-existent airport and it takes them a while to sort things out. At least Diane has her cell phone and knows what's holding them up.

Day 2: To celebrate Diane's arrival Mike leads us up a lovely side canyon with intensely orange cliffs. Where ever the sun can reach, the day is warm but it is distinctly colder in the shade. The deciduous trees are again displaying their delicious colours, along with some evergreens to cool the pallet. Kenai is in his element, running backwards and forwards between the leader and the tail end Charlie, to ensure we all stay together. In between times he checks out the endless smells in the grass and among the fallen leaves. Nothing of significance escapes his intense scrutiny.

This canyon is narrower and more intimate than the others we have been through, with a track that is crowded in by trees. It is seldom level but endlessly rises or falls. We pass a small cave, which Kenai perfunctorily explores, and so do Bruce and I but we also find nothing to hold our attention. The narrow track goes up and down like a fair ground ride and Mike wants us to get to a level section near to the end of the canyon before we eat lunch. After lunch Bruce and I hurry on to the end of the canyon, to find out what the triumphant cries of male voices signify. They belong to a group of Slovenians who are climbing the vertical canyon walls with the security of fixed lines. They tell us they are doing many such climbs across the States while on holiday. "Yes you can take photos," their leader tells us and we do.

While we have been away Diane has discovered a part of the path made of pink sand. We take pictures of each other and the group standing on it. On the way back, Mike leads Linda and Bruce across an alternate high track, which holds no appeal for me or Diane. In no time we are at the far end of the diversion and can watch the others painstakingly work their way across the most exposed section.

Afterwards we drive to the top of main canyon, where we have impressive views of high cliffs of many colours, none of them grey. It is not until the next day that we realise Linda's boots have been left behind but a quick phone call to Park Headquarters reveals that they have been handed in and as they tell us "Yes we will hold them here for you."

Diane works for a large company that hires many staff from overseas. Her job is to help new staff get the visa they will need to work in the USA. This can be a very worrying time for the individual as she waits to find out if she will be successful. Diane tells us what advice she gives them, "Don't read the blogs." Good advice for all of us in life.

Day 3: We drive back to Zion National Park through the by now, familiar high road tunnel again. To protect Kenai's anonymity and avoid attention we go through a tunnel under the road and wander up beside what, at other times of the year, would be a stream with multiple small waterfalls but is now just a line of deep pools, all of which could do with more water to top them up. The pools make perfect mirrors to photograph each other in, and we do. The picnic lunch is always a highlight of our walking day and today is no different. We seem to be alone in the golden hills until a party of about six adults and small children appear above us, descend towards us and then disappear out of sight down the hill. It is amazing how people can vanish into this large landscape so easily.

After lunch while Mike and Linda relax, and Mike takes photos, Diane, Bruce and I climb further up a hill that becomes steadily steeper, until only Bruce wants to continue on. Diane takes a photo of me posing as a serious rock climber while still standing safely on solid ground. Bruce has received the same photographic treatment before he left us. Back in Palmerston North I will shift us from ground level to high up on the vertical cliff face our Slovenian climbers where scaling yesterday courtesy of Adobe Photoshop Elements.

The Autumn colours around the bridge are just as stunning as on our other days in Zion and they again demand from us serious photographic attempts to capture their brilliance. Walking in this country at this time of the year is like living in a technicolor landscape with the colour saturation increased to maximum. I keep wanting to pinch myself to be sure this is not a dream.

Tonight we are going to eat in the restaurant at Zion Lodge. During the day you must take a shuttle to go up the valley, but when we have signed up for the meal we are given a red label to put on the windscreen which allows us to use our own car. We are not allowed to stop the car but nothing is said about how slow we can drive, so Mike in places moves us at a slow crawl so we get the best views

For the last few days Mike has been promising to give ten cents to anyone who sees a deer. No one has claimed the money, and we are beginning to think this is a set up. But as we drive toward the Zion Lodge, Mike sees first one and then several more deer. Soon they are everywhere around us even. We take lots of deer photos before going in to eat and afterwards using a flash we shoot more. Whether Mike collects the prize money from himself I know not.

Day 4: Late this afternoon Diane will fly back to Seattle. It is time to think of souvenirs and gifts so we head to Springdale the town on the edge of Zion National Park. On another sunny day we wander about looking at the stones, the glass, the fossils and the native art. There is even a fossilised dinosaur's egg, but we didn't buy any. I don't think Kenai enjoyed the shopping as much as our trips up the canyons but he made a show of being interested. The woman who serves me, must have told all her customers about how her life had completely changed since she had a massive heart attack at the age of 44. She shares her experiences and makes buying things fun and I tell her so. She reflects my comment back to me by saying that people who find fun in such simple activities know a lot about living and in the process effectively silences me. I smile as I leave

At lunch I order a vegetarian pizza but when it arrives it is different from any pizza I have had before, but only when I mentioned this at the end of the meal does Bruce realise he has ordered the wrong dish. Both have the same featured vegetable, so it's an easy mistake to make and it doesn't matter.

On the way to the airport, Mike and Linda dropped us off in the town of St George for a bit of sightseeing in this famous Mormon town. Well it wasn't famous for us until we came here on this trip. We are left standing outside what used to be a Mormon temple but is now used for meetings and other secular activities. A big sign outside invites us to come in and tour the building. We hesitated at the front door, after all it is a Sunday and I don't know how serious Mormons are about the Sabbath. The wooden door is opened by a soft speaking man in a suit. He invites us in but in that voice of someone with an agenda and I am glad Bruce is with me.

The building is made of a dark wood and clearly well built, and it is the hook our guide hangs his narrative about the arrival of the first Mormons in Utah on. As we wander on his attack becomes more focussed. You know the sort of thing, "Do you believe in God," Bruce quickly batted that down but he does not give up, even offering us a free copy of the Mormon book. I really don't enjoy being with people who have a desire to change you.

We head for the Mormon Temple, but more so we can use the toilet, rather than with any intention of going inside. A photographer is taking photos of a newly married couple as they pose beside the building. Even in the meeting room adjacent to the temple we find ourselves surrounded by people who keep telling us proudly they are missionaries. We slip away as soon as we can and head for the town. It is almost time for Mike and Linda to return.

Day 5: It is a Monday, the first day we are allowed to drive without restriction our own car right up Zion Canyon Scenic Drive. This will be our chance to walk the West Rim Trail and get the view from the top. After the road being closed to private cars all summer, there is pent up demand and lots of people have the same idea as us.

The cliff is sheer but the path that zigzags skywards is well paved and a problem to no one except people like me who don't like looking down vertical faces. I push on avoiding the drop by staring at the path and eventually am rewarded by finding myself safely enclosed between rock walls, walking up the resulting alley. All good things have to end and during the last section we climb steeply again. Don't ask me about the views, I didn't see them, but I did peer cautiously down from the top ridge when we are eating lunch while competing with the squirrels for food. Some people go along an even more exposed ridge but reports of how many people have fallen to their deaths on this track quenches any incipient desire I might have to explore it. I see more of the view on the way down and it is impressive.

But the walk hasn't finished yet, and on my insistence we continue along the lower track, the Emerald Pools Trail, since it sounds safer. We almost get wet as we pass through the sprinkle of water coming over the falls. Mike and Linda are waiting for us. While we have been walking they have picked up Linda's lost boots.

## On to Grand Staircase National Monument

Day 6: It is time to shift house. Any anxiety Kenai had about being left behind is quenched by getting him out to the car early. Mike has to dismantle the big cage he sleeps in at night to get it into the car. Kenai enjoys riding in the smaller cage and is quick to slip into it as soon as he enters the car.

Today we drive to the town of Escalante which is part of Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument; the drive will take most of the day. Our first stop to is photograph two fiercely-orange rock arches that bridge the road and of course to give Keynei his rest stop.

The highlight of the day is a visit to Bryce Canyon. The Ranger in a booth to collect our money, or in our case so Mike can show him his Seniors Season Pass, a pass which gets all of us into every National Park for free, comments on how cold the day is. When we stop at what a sign claims to be Bryce Canyon, we see no Canyon. A Scandinavian couple with two small children are as puzzled as Bruce and I are. We are all standing in a wide meadow, but as to one of America's most famous canyons, its gone AWOL. Mike and Linda confidently lead us across this featureless land until we suddenly arrive at the lip of this most impressive canyon. If you weren't paying attention you might have stepped over the side and ended up at the bottom for a much too close a view. In the event we search out one of the benches scattered along the rim and eat our lunches.

The scatter of other tourists seem to be intent on playing the game of "I can stand closer to the lip than you." Naturally I don't participate but Bruce certainly does. The rock walls of the canyon seem content to imitate the forest of pine trees growing at the bottom in every respect but colour and height. The trees are a dark green while the rock is bright orange for most its height but bleached out to almost white at the top of the highest faces. The forest of coloured rock is more abundant and much, much higher than the lowly forest of trees. Think of spiky pillars of rock that merge at their bases into a solid rock face but at the tops remain as separate columns of rock, then that's Bryce canyon for you.

The town of Escalante is strung out along the Highway like a child's necklace which is made from odds and ends from her bedroom with many gaps along the way. This is a town with almost no depth, a town that has a breadth of one block when the administration building, the gymnasium and all the other town facilities are stacked together. It is late in the afternoon and we are searching for our accommodation which is confusingly called The Escalante Outfitters. We pass one substantial motel but that would be too mundane and unmemorable a place to sleep. The Escalante Outfitters we know to consist of a circle of cabins around the communal facilities we all share. We see a large sign and we are there.

The cabins are just as cute as the advertising promised. We have two and each is barely one double bed wide but we are pleased there is heating since Mike told us the nights could be cold at this time of the year.

Before dinner, Bruce and I walk the length of the town. The only other people we see the whole way are three small children laughing as they push themselves down a slight dip in toy cars. Sensibly the front fence at the school has a sign warning against the use of drugs. There are several two storied building in a more traditional style but sadly two of these are boarded up and show signs of neglect and disrepair. A description I have only recently heard to describe small country towns that are showing signs of decay slips into my mind, namely Zombie Towns.

The local store seems well equipped and we can buy plastic plates to eat tonight's meal on. When I comment on this, the cheerful woman who is sweeping up before closing says, "Yes supplies arrived today," hinting there are other times when things might be in short supply. We sit at a small outdoor table and eat up the food we brought up from Hurricane, as the sun slips behind the hills and the temperature drops.

Day 7: Today the plan is to walk to the Lower Calf Creek Falls which is in Grand Staircase National Monument. We stop at a lookout above the huge park and find ourselves chatting with other travellers, including a cyclist who is tackling the impressive hills spread out at our feet. A couple escaping the fast approaching winter in Idaho are happy to chat with us. But we must get onto the Falls track, Mike is allowing four to five hours for the return walk.

Kenai is again pleased to be out on the dusty tracks again and is very busy as usual trying to keep us all together. This is a much busier trail than the others we have been walking on, but saying that most of the time we are still alone. On this sort of walk the time slides away as you get enticed by all you see. Cave Creek meanders its way up the broad canyon tempting us on. Mike points out a broad wetland created by beaver building activity.

Mike points out petroglyphs high on a cliff showing human figures and later he shows us food storage sites also used by local peoples many years before. As we get further up the canyon the track gets rougher and we must concentrate where we place our feet. With all our many diversions it takes us more than two hours to get to the falls.

It is amazing how quickly the temperature drops as we get close to the waterfalls. Here the sun is excluded and a cool mist of water drifts over us. The waterfall itself drops gracefully in three extended steps into the pool generating local winds as it goes. In the stream a little below the falls Bruce spots trout; they look small to us but Mike assures us they are big enough to eat.

We haven't gone far on our return journey when Kenai gets a surprise. With a sudden bursting of wings a large turkey takes off from besides him and flaps its way up to a high perch on slender branches that hardly seem strong enough to hold him. Kenai recovering from his initial shock moves closer to the tree and stares up at the bird, but if he hopes to reach the Turkey he is mistaken. My photos of the turkey show little sign of any intelligence in a bird whose brain must form only a tiny percentage of its total weight.

We take less time on the walk back. The November sun is already low in the sky so most of the time we are walking in the shade. We never tire of the beautiful colours of the deciduous trees that decorate the bottom of the canyon.

For dinner we eat a homemade pizza in the tiny restaurant at the Escalante Outfitters

## That's Las Vegas

Las Vegas, is a city of failed dreams, it's the place where the only winners are the Casino owners and possibly the criminal gangs. Where else can you be assured of the result of a game before you start playing.

If you have an intoxicating early win and can resist the temptation to play on, then you may walk out making a profit, but otherwise you are sure of being scalped. It is strange that in these games where luck is preloaded for the house, there is talk about playing a game. It doesn't make sense to play when you know you will never win. Or perhaps you just like losing, in which case play on.

A story is told of a woman who became addicted to gambling and lost all her money. She told her parents what had happened and they scraped together money she would have received when they died and handed it to her with stark warnings about never gambling again. But the managers of the casino where she lost all her money heard news of her windfall and sent out a special plane to fly her back and how could she refuse? Inevitably she lost all this money too. When the parents heard what had happened they sued the Casino and won but the money they awarded the woman never compensated her for all her losses.

In the evening after we ate Asian food with Mike and Linda, we walked up to the strip and joined the jingle jangling crowd that flows up and down the strip with eyes glittering at the sights of false fronted multi-storied buildings and dancing lights. Excited out-of-town visitors flood the street while men and women dressed in red jackets thrust into their hands brochures promising multiple orgasms. All the time a constant flow of cars and limos make crossing the road a task more difficult than breaking down the Berlin Wall.

Intermittently one building lights up with exploding balls of fire and jets of flames enough to terrorise even the most godly, before burning back to embers again. Who says this excess is too much? In this mad city excess is just what you want, and we who are walking the street are the voyeurs who suck from the edge of the cup so we can brag to friends who have never been to Las Vegas and make them jealous. Jet planes still roar low over the city promising dreams of different places you have never seen.

Four women dressed in clothes so scanty they hardly earn the right to claim to be clothes, bulge out of a crowded corner like phantom figures driven by lust and commerce. The crowd breaks before them but the bulge keeps coming, until one large woman with immense thighs and bulging belly races ahead of the others ready to clasp some lucky, or unlucky man and drag him in the fleshy folds of her body. I don't so much retreat as execute a right turn that leaves me no target for what she has to offer. But there is humour in this strange dance of attempted sex.

But some are not so lucky, there always must be losers and they sit at the edge, comatose amidst this boiling well of humanity. But these are few, mainly I see the sons from Kansas and Idaho with or without their wives, smiling strange smiles of release from still tighter worlds. The earnestly middle class, and this includes me, circumspectly look but do not leave their own safe worlds: instead they pretend they are not really here, but they too have earned their places in the agitated swell of the crowd.

Afterward we walk back to our motel through the dark streets away from the slash and vibrancy of the smouldering lights along the strip to our safe suburban world. The celebration is over, and it is time for bed.

Next morning in daylight everything has changed. Now we visit the Casinos to see their fairground attractions. I never expected I would stand by a pond of crimson Flamencos or stare at giant fish when I was in Las Vegas. It is Saturday morning and all signs of the party of the night before have been cleaned away. The inside of the Casinos have become like a McDonalds Restaurant decorated for a child's birthday. I see a good natured circle of friends who seem to be genuinely enjoying expending the change they set aside for the poky machines before they left home. But there are still also lost souls who like tired zombies keep trashing money in the machines, indifferent to whether they win or lose. It is almost time to take our shuttle to the Airport.

Even now Las Vegas has a surprise for us. We check in our bags out on the pavement, but after they take them away they call for us back. Bruce's pack is a couple of pounds overweight and they want to know whether he wants to remove something rather than pay a fortune to have the bag sent after us. Of course right there on the pavement he opens it up and makes the necessary adjustment. Then we are allowed to pass.

## Life in Palo Alto

Halloween is a rather uncertain celebration in New Zealand. Many parents view Halloween as an unnecessary import from the USA and wish it would go away. But it doesn't. What child doesn't like the chance to wander around at night in spooky costumes and get lots of sweets from the neighbours. It's kid's heaven. And the costumes are fun too, spooky and scary in equal amounts and you get to scare adults.

As to the critics of Halloween, they dredge up the usual beefs, you know the sort of thing, it's not safe for children, adding with a worried frown "We all know the kind of people who are around these days". Or they criticise the children themselves "Having kids knocking on their doors worries the elderly who don't want to have to tell them they have no sweets or cakes. Then the clincher, "Sweets aren't good for a child's health."

Of course all these criticisms can be argued away. The children will be safe, if parents go around with them. It is the parents who must ensure no one is harassed and as to the sweets, they can be stored and eaten over several weeks, although I admit this may not be easy to enforce.

We arrive in Palo Alto on the 31st October and run right into the middle of Halloween celebrations. Mathangi tells us about the protocol for Halloween here, and perhaps in the rest of the USA too. "If your house welcomes visitors, a lighted pumpkin is placed in a window." In this way everyone knows where they stand and there is no knocking on unproductive houses. It's the obvious solution, Although it does mean that the 'trick' part of 'trick or treat' must be abandoned, which removes other possible problems.

But there is more. Mathangi continues, "Some people make a real effort and decorate their houses with devices designed to scare people." It sounds like Chistmas in Palmerston North where some people put up magnificent displays of lights and the rest of us go along to enjoy them.

Bruce and I are keen to take a look at this American Halloween.

Having lived in this neighbourhood for so long, Anand and Mathangi know which houses to target, or should I say visit. There has been rain during the day but thankfully it is holding off during the uncertain hours of Halloween. They take us to three houses which have increasing levels of sophistication in their decorations. In the first I get to see a variety of useful tricks, to highlight the ghosts with lights and shock appearances of unexpected creatures. In the second house I learn to interact with the creatures who display human intelligence despite the destroyed state of their 'bodies. For example a bloody disembodied head is being waved in my face. The head keeps saying something to me, but it is a couple of minutes before I realise what it is saying, "Do you have an aspirin," and of course I laugh at the idea there is an aspirin strong enough to provide any relief. Some of the creatures have a light sensor that tells it when to launch into its performance. I have quite a long conversation with another beast when it learns we are from New Zealand.

It was easy to wander around the first houses, which have all their displays in the garden. However when we are taken to the third house there is a line, a long line. As we near the time when all good dead creatures should be back in their graves, I'm afraid we will not get in. But with some generous help from Anand and Mathangi who keep calling out the only credentials we have, namely that we are New Zealanders, a person with long grey hair, who looks like Gandalf, squeezes us into the last tour of the night. Entering their garage is like entering the ghost house at a fairground. I tail along at the end of the line, as we enter a system of corridors that are pitch black while we are sprayed with water (or I think it was water) as a large variety of decrepit beasts spring suddenly into our faces. The tunnel keeps taking sudden turns so you can't see what is coming next. It is great fun and I try to react with my best imitation of someone who is badly frightened. Then we enter a slightly larger room and the lights come on so we can see we are in the most dreadful of Hospital theatres where body parts grab and implode all around us. They really are horrific but I can't resist continuing to stare at them as I hurry on to safer places. It has been an experience far better than any of the slightly tatty fairground displays in Taihape and leaves me smiling and happy.

As we walk away I see Gandalf disappearing into his house next door but I wait long enough to buy one of the T Shirts. I am now a huge fan for Halloween Palo Alto style. But I won't be building my own house of the dead on Halloween back in New Zealand. I could never hope to match the elaborate displays we have seen tonight.

Palo Alto is Silicon City USA, so it isn't easy for the top students in a High School here. Of course many of the kids will have high achieving parents, which can make life doubly difficult for a son or daughter.

Mathangi tells us about some of the hurdles an honours student must jump over if he or she wants to get into a top College. It goes without being said that they will need A's in all their papers but wait there is more, these are not just A's in High School courses but A's in the University papers (or the Advanced Placement Courses) which they must take if they are going to get into the best Colleges. To make things really competitive in some papers you can get 105 percent by doing extra questions included in the paper for this purpose So you think you can get A's in all your papers, well you've hardly begun. To be noticed at the highest level you must show you are doing extra curriculum activities, such as teaching English in South America or working on a health program in Africa. Starting your own business is unfortunately not enough, you must show your business has been successful with cash earned or perhaps you have made a video that has had tens of thousands of views on youtube. Playing a sport is again not enough, you need to be able to show you were successful and made the top team, preferably getting a reference from your coach.

You are not only competing with all the other students who apply, but you must compete in a regional category. This, the Universities say, is so they will end up with a balance of students. Panini is classed as an Asian and therefore must compete against students from for example China, students who are famous for getting high grades. This makes things harder for Panini not easier.

Mathangi tells me how the Honours students describe their grades, An A grade is AVERAGE, A B grade is "BAD, a C grade is "CAN'T BELIEVE THIS" and a D grade is "DON'T GO HOME."

Panini talks about his teachers. Some complete the required university course half way through the teaching year and then go on to cover material that is not going to be examined. For example the chemistry teacher taught Organic Chemistry and by the time of the exams the topics they must know are half forgotten. Panini says, "The best teacher was the maths teacher. He used the time to deepen our knowledge of Maths so by the end of the year we were able to develop proofs for problems we had not met before." While we were there Panini in his own time was writing an app. to be used in a business"

The pressure on the students is intense and at various times through the year the teachers go on suicide watch, but still some suicides occur. Anand commented, "Because of improvements in medicine, Panini will probably live to a hundred so there is time – he doesn't have to do it all in his first seventeen years."

Our plan was to spend the weekend doing things around Palo Alto with the family and then on the Monday hire a car to do a day trip up the coast and visit the Redwoods north of San Francisco, and on the Tuesday spend time in San Francisco before our evening flight back to New Zealand. Instead Anand who is teaching is able to deal with student queries in the morning and then take us sightseeing on all four days.

Each morning we had time to explore the part of Palo Alto within walking distance of their condominium. In an hour we were able to reach a small shopping centre and return through a neighbourhood of trees that were changing colour through pleasant suburbs that were bordered on one side by the a freeway. We particularly enjoyed the post Halloween sight of witches on broom sticks who had collided with lampposts at such speed that while at the rear you can see the cape, body and head of the witch at the front you see the rest of the stick and the witches nose.

Mathangi did her homework and discovered a more natural Redwood forest south of Palo Alto, one that didn't have broad concrete paths and lots of tourists. It was called Big Basin Redwoods State Park and we immediately wanted to go there. In the end that trip didn't turn out to be as straight forward as we imagined.

The early morning showers continued intermittently as we headed south. We were in the Redwoods and making good progress when it happened. A car driving out from the park waved us down and gave us the bad news, "The road ahead is blocked by a fallen tree and you can't get through." Instead of turning around Anand drove on to check out the tree. One disadvantage of a GPS system is that you gain no real information of the relative geometry of the surrounding countryside and so I am left wondering whether the fallen tree is far away or close and whether this will be a good place to walk in the Forest. In the end it turns out that at the tree, the road is narrow, parking is non-existent and the cars of other rubber neckers have jammed up the space needed to turn around.

Anand and Mathangi do not give up easily, "There's another entrance into this park, we'll use that." This time we drive through a small town and I wondered whether people from here commute to the city. This time there are no fallen trees in our way. The late afternoon sun is angling down on the giant redwoods and a serious photographer is working to get arresting pictures in the fragile light. We joined them to get our photos of our own while Mathangi joins a line at Park Headquarters to get detailed information about the tracks. Photographing such huge trees in a way that shows their massive size is for me an impossible assignment. To fit them into a photo you inevitably reduce their apparent size.

Mathangi leads us around a short walk where the trees are subject to our photographic assaults and later on a longer one but with the Autumn day closing in we do only half the loop. This is where we finally see the big yellow slugs Anand was telling us about in the car.

It was dark by the time we passed again through the small town but further on we come across something we don't expect and don't need, another road closed sign. Anand takes another road we should be able to get through. Again we made good time for a while and then we are faced with another road closed sign, on a different road. We begin to wonder if a major storm has recently passed through. The alternate road we are offered this time looks narrow and rather dodgy.

A couple of cars emerged from the road confirming this is indeed a through road, but obviously not one of great significance. Still there was nothing we can do but try. The road gets narrower as we drive on and Anand hopes that we wouldn't meet any other cars. After a tense few minutes the road widens again and we come to a major four lane highway. We want to go north but the road forces us to head south It is several kilometres (or miles) before we are offered a place to do a U turn. From there our journey is straight forward.

We stop at a Burritos fast food restaurant for dinner and I make the mistake of going back to get what I think will be a milkshake, but which turns out to be a vivid pink ice crush concoction which has a violent, and to me, unpleasant flavour. I was about to leave 90 percent of it undrunk on the table but Mathangi tells me I must put it in the waste bin regardless of any spillage, and I reluctantly comply.

Katya arrives home on Sunday morning with a school assignment to be finished in the next couple of days, "The others I asked have almost finished theirs but I haven't started yet," she tells us. It turns out to be a non trivial assignment which is meant to involve the whole family, a family which is about to drive north to Stintons Beach for the day. You (or should I be saying we) are supposed to choose a part of the body (veins, heart etc etc) and write about its function. That's easy enough but we are supposed to go on and make a model or models to show how it works. It is this second part that is tricky, because it involves some planning and building of model building which we don't have time to do. I suggest the heart but quickly even I realise that although this is an admirable goal, creating a moving heart is not going to happen any time soon. Bruce suggests veins and this becomes the body part of choice. He gives Katya lots of suggestions and then with promises that we will buy building materials when we return, we leave Katya to do as much of the rest of the project as she can during the day. Panini too is still working on his ap. We depart leaving them both to it, but, in my case at least, not without a twinge of guilt I can't suppress.

To get to a West Coast beach called Stintons beach we must drive north through San Francisco, cross the Golden Gate Bridge and follow the hilly coast to this sandy beach. The day is crystal clear and the sun beams down on us from a blue sky. Clouds today will be in short supply.

San Francisco on a sunny day is drop dead beautiful. It is a city of hills, high rise buildings, picturesque low rise wooden homes painted in interesting colours, harbour views and lots of cars. It seems everyone else is out enjoying the day too. Trams much like those Wellington used to have crisscross our path. We can't linger too long in the city but we can't resist stopping at the far end of the Golden Gate Bridge. The crowds are so dense it is difficult to find places to take photos. At this distance the houses in the San Francisco are reduced to tiny white boxes, but Alcatraz Prison still manages to look threatening. The 1.5 miles to the nearest shore looks tiny but virtually no convict who tried to swim made it to safety.

The coastal hills north of the bridge are higher and more rugged than those in the city. We only get glimpses of the mighty Pacific Ocean until we are almost at Stintons beach. Coming from the sandy beaches of the North Island of New Zealand we feel at home immediately. Having driven so far Anand is determined to stay on and watch the sun set into the ocean and we want to too. We take photos and wander down this big beach, watching a moon that in another week will be full, edge its way into the high hills behind us,

Bruce and Anand climb one of the large rocks lying against the hills, and descend again, Bruce with some skill and ease and Anand with less grace, especially during his backward scramble down. The setting sun is as golden as the Bridge itself, really more so and we watch until the last slither disappears out of sight. The gold in the sky remains with us until we get back into San Francisco.

Progress on the project has been slow. Another day at least will be needed. Interestingly Katya can specify the grade she is aiming for, I suppose the grade depends on how much work you are prepared to plough into it. What happens if you say you are aiming for a B and your project ends up being worth an A? Do you get the A?

On Monday morning, Mathangi must go off to work, and with Panini and Katya at school, Anand will take us to a wetlands which is in walking distance of their house, one we have never seen in our previous visits We check the bikes first but since we can't adjust the height of Panini's we decide to walk. To get to the wetland we must take the foot bridge over the motorway. It is a disconcerting feeling staring down at three lines of traffic rushing toward you but like most things you soon adapt.

We are in quite another world on this side of Highway 101. Quite soon we are beside a big driving range and in the distance we can see an airport with small planes taking off constantly. In the distance we see the south end of San Francisco Bay. After walking for about three quarter of an hour we are beside the wetlands where fingers of salt water intrude from the Bay. There are many birds around but we don't stop to do any serious bird watching, we never do. We are best described as Kamakazi birders who don't sit around waiting for birds to come but instead race towards them hoping to get some interesting shots.

I am puzzled to see the surface of the water disturbed and looking like water running out of a bath. As we continue watching, it becomes clear this is exactly what it is. Two pipes allow the outgoing tide to depart more readily from the flatlands. Then we arrive at one of Anand's favourite view points, a place where he often stops when he is out biking with Katya but today he hardly recognises it. Normally Anand and Katya are floating on deep water but today, at what must be close to low tide, the pontoon is stranded in the mud.

School will soon be out and Panini has not taken his key, so Anand wants to return home. He suggests we should go to visit the displays in the park headquarters and return the long way around the airport and of course we jump at the chance. Before he goes, we notice a black Testla car parked with its owner inside and take the chance to check it out. Unlike our Prius, the Tesla is not a hybrid and is fully electric. After Anand disappears we discover the headquarters are shut so we set off toward this amazingly busy airport. I imagine the planes are used to reduce commute times around the Bay or to other cities in California.

As we walk beside the runway groups of runners flow past us, obviously getting some afternoon exercise, we even have a group of Hispanic teenagers stream past us. To return we go around the golf course and past either another inlet or a creek, I can't tell which. Luckily Bruce was paying more attention than me to the outward leg otherwise the return journey would have been considerably lengthened. After just over three hours we are back home at Anand and Mathangi's house and when the hour of our morning walk is added in, that's four hours for the day.

We take the family out to dinner at a Mexican fast food place that has burritos, still my favourite dish. There is a bit of a mix up with the ordering in the line and I end up without my burritos but it doesn't take long to get them. While Anand takes Panini and Katya, home Mathangi takes us on a shopping expedition to a super cheap store, one that has everything. Bruce looks at smart phones, I buy some trousers for Bruce to wear at Fonterra and we both pick up small gifts as Christmas presents. Only the lack of space in our packs stops us from buying much more. And so ends another memorable day. Tomorrow evening we will fly back to New Zealand.

The next morning we farewell Mathangi and Panini but Katya doesn't realise we're leaving. I spend a couple of hours packing and repacking my bag to try to fit everything in. I should have left room for presents when I left home but I usually don't buy presents. In the afternoon Anand takes us back into San Francisco on a day when the weather is even better than the previous two days. We are going to visit the de Young Fine Arts Museum but we are hijacked by a Conservatory at the Botanical Gardens. This is a place Anand has never been inside before. It is full of colour and as humid as the Amazon Rain Forest. There are so many people we are continually jockeying to get the best views of the flowers exploding with colour all around us. Anand says he will return here with the rest of the family and I hope he does.

The de Young Fine Arts museum is crammed with the most stunning of native art, nowhere can I escape the power of these beautiful creations and after about an hour I am in cultural overload and must leave. Outside the gardens, fountains and statures provide the quiet escape I need on an afternoon where everything is drenched in a magic light that seems to celebrate the whole summer, in just a few hours. As the long shadows begin to quench the heat, the day starts to cool as we stroll back to the car.

At the airport we pull out our bags and thank Anand yet again for these memorable four days. It's time to leave.

# MORE GLIMPSES OF LIFE

## Tropical Storm Heading for New Zealand

The Manawatu Plains are parched. The farmers desperately need rain and so do the townies.

Last year we had a drought and this year we are again tottering on the edge of another drought. The frustrating thing is that the lack of rain continues despite the weather office continuing to promise us relief, but the rain never comes. It is almost a joke now. The Weather Office predicts rain and we look at each other disbelievingly, knowing it won't come and it doesn't.

It's as if the climate has changed and now the rain sweeping up the West Coast does not deign to head inland and give us a bit. We can't say the Weather Office staff haven't done their best to wish rain upon us but it never comes.

At the yoga class I hear the same litany, "We need rain." And no one disputes it. Although it is not yet a drought our resources are stretched and if we don't get it soon we will tip over the edge into a world where plants shrivel and the lawn turns to dust. Now is the time we want rain.

As usual I keep checking the metVUW forecasts (www.metvuw.com) which so clearly shows weather patterns and allows you to make your own, more reliable, forecasts. It is Monday 9th of March when a massive depression is shown looming up on the horizon. Its isobars are so close together it is difficult to separate individual lines and the centre is shown encasing oceans of rain– more than 20 mm in six hours. Even better, this tropical storm is not slipping away to the east and departing the country somewhere over Gisborne as all the others have. No, it is doggedly heading straight for us. I tell my yoga class, the good news. Of course I meet a disbelieving audience, we have been disappointed too often, and they are not willing to have their hopes raised only to be dashed again. I understand but I remain optimistic.

But as the week progresses this storm, like all the others, slows down and begins to shrink away from the Manawatu Plains. The closer the weekend comes the more reduced are our chances of rain. It hovers tantalisingly just to the north of us, but this is only the edge of the storm and even if it comes directly across us it will only produce one to two millimetres of rain over six hours.

This will be our second weekend at the New Zealand Arts Festival in Wellington and the weather is still and warm, perfect conditions, as we drive south early on Friday evening. I am still hoping for the best but I fear my status as a weather forecaster for the yoga class is about to take a hit. The weather stays good over the weekend and we are left to enjoy the languid, tranquil days of an Indian summer.

The only thing of moment that happens is I lose my camera but there I make my own luck. Some weeks before I finally did something I had been promising myself for months, I put a clear label on the camera. I know it's stupid not to have valuable things labelled but I didn't do it, until now. When something is labelled it allows the honest finder to get it back to the owner rapidly. And that is what happened. Within hours the finder tried to contact me, and I soon have the camera back again. You might like to do some labelling.

On Saturday night we take our host, Margaret Gordon, to see a new modern dance production called Age. It is a pleasant evening, quite bereft of rain, but we still enjoy the Thai meal we eat beforehand.

When we take our seats, we are three rows from the front on the only flat section of the theatre. For a long time we have four empty seats in front of us. Then the seat directly in front of Bruce is taken by a woman with hair so big that even though it is pulled back into a tight knot it still blocks his view. So we shuffle around, with the very tall Margaret replacing Bruce. He is satisfied and so are we. Unfortunately Bruce is still behind an empty seat For Bruce's sake we hope it remains empty. Of course it doesn't. At the last moment three woman appear, two of them with outstanding stacks of springy hair. Yes you guessed it Bruce's view is again blocked. The people in the seats behind us smile as we shuffle yet again. The woman in front of me has a spectacular flare of hair that cuts down even my view but not completely. It is the best formation we can mount against this assault of bulky hair and we settle to enjoy the dancing.

For an hour and a half we, and the rest of the audience, sit spell bound. Dancers twist around each other in pairs and threes in sometimes erotic positions with the other members of this family glimpsing what is happening from within a cardboard house, The youngest son, a ten year old boy is given birth by one of this complex family. A kind of resolution comes from a joint dance at the end which is headed splendidly by the boy, who is for most of the rest of the dance simply dragged or carried by other dancers.

There is a stunned silence at the end. Then the audience collapses into wild applause.

Outside light showers are slipping in from the north, the showers we saw gathering up in the Hutt Valley as we walked on the wharf before the show started. But this isn't the heavy rain we are looking for.

We spend the morning helping Margaret prepare for her knee replacement next Thursday. I make up fresh beds and Bruce helps Margaret cut back the ivy that keeps threatening her small back lawn. Then Margaret, using her crutches, practises walking the steep steps in her entrance hall and negotiating the demanding zigzag path leading up from the front gate. There are even steps up the hill to the back garden that we practise on too. On one side the steepness of the insecure steps makes climbing like scaling the final ridge on a mountain. But Margaret is not using these steps. We also remodelled the inverted stools she is using to contain her crutches.

The showers that have been threatening all morning commence as we farewell Margaret and go walking through the Botanical Gardens, taking our rain coats off and on as heavy showers pass over. It is promising but we need more than this in the Manawatu. When Bruce and I get to the theatre we find a note has been put on our seat telling us we still have Margaret's bunch of keys. When we leave the play called Pacifica, we find the wind has turned to gale and the rain is falling.

We return the keys on our way north. All along the motorway we have wild winds and heavy showers but then magically it ends. At Pukerua Bay we see clear skies to the north. We can only hope the storm has dropped our share of rain while passing over Palmerston North. When we get home I rush to check the gauge and am pleased to read 19 mm, not by any means enough, but it is a good start.

Next day we find out that the storm has been very capricious about where it gifts its rain. In Palmerston North we are one of the few winners. This is a miser of a tropical storm. It is called Lucy but it has no motherly instincts apparently believing we are the better if left alone to fight for our own survival.

I check the forecast and find we will get no more rain in the next week. The drought may be partially broken but it is not yet over.

## When You Block Out Your Own Theatre Booking

When we return about four weeks later Margaret is walking for most of the time without her sticks, only using them when she is outside walking on irregular pavements. Of course we want to go to the theatre again and this time we try for the play at the waterfront theatre called Circa. This will be Margaret's first theatre visit post the operation.

"I'll need an aisle seat on the left hand side of the theatre," Margaret tells us. In any other position she will be unable to stretch her affected leg.

When we go on line to see what seats are available, we hit the jackpot; one row back are just the seats we need. All we have to do is buy them. Unfortunately this turns out to be much more difficult than we imagined. Everything goes well until we come to the point where we must pay for them, which is pretty much at the start.

I try with my Visa card and soon run into trouble. I put in the number of my card, the expiry date and the code on the back but the computer said it did not recognise the site. Margaret takes over and tries her BNZ Visa card and runs into the same brick wall. Despite the difficulty of reading the screen on her laptop with the sun behind it, Margaret gives it a go. She meets the same blank wall and there is nothing to do but call the BNZ help site. As usual there is a long wait to get through. It turns out that neither of our VISA cards is registered with the Bank. This seems like madness because we have both used our VISA cards to buy things on line in the recent past and there have been no problems. Why now?

The woman at the call centre volunteers to take Margaret step by step through the registration process. This takes quite a long time. After a while Bruce tries to phone Circa Theatre and buy the seats directly before someone else gets them. Instantly there is so much noise on line that Margaret can't hear anything. Bruce leaps up the hall way but still the interference is too great. He has no choice but to switch off. Margaret has to think hard as the Bank demands she uses a new password of 8 letters which must use some numbers. But in the end it is all done.

With such a long time passing since our first attempt we phone the theatre and ask for our precious seats in row 2.

"I'm sorry but those are already taken," is her reply.

For a moment we don't know what to say, but then we realise our early attempt to get these seats is still being treated as valid by the computer and is blocking our attempts to get the seats we now consider to be ours.

Fortunately the woman at circa is one of those people who is willing to solve problems and after we tell her what is happening she gets serious with the problem and finally manages to delete the blocking bookings (our blocking bookings) and we get out seats.

After skirting around Courtney Place looking for a different restaurant, we go back to the same Thai restaurant. We just manage to get our order in before the crowds arrive. The theatre is by no means full and as I watch Margaret squirming around as she tries to get comfortable in the small space allotted to her even in an aisle seat, I realise she would be better in the front row with lots of space before the stage.

I go over to ask the men who are collecting the tickets and learn something new. "We can't move because we need to be in the front row nearest the door in case there is an emergency." The disappointment must have shown on my face and the second ticket collector joins the discussion, "Instead of both being together in the front row, perhaps I can sit on the aisle seat in the second row." What a sensible suggestion. There is more discussion, involving consulting someone else at the desk, before we get agreement.

Margaret now has all the space she needs after her first post operation theatre visit and we are all satisfied.

The night is not yet over. While Margaret is recovering from her knee replacement operation she is entitled to use the disability car park, which in the case of Te Papa is situated at the entrance to the underground carpark. As we reach the carpark I take out my small wallet and look for my parking ticket. It isn't there. I search through my fat card wallet and again I can't find it. I repeat the searches twice more and still can't find it.

In an act which is both desperate and futile I go over to the parking station and here I find what might be an unused ticket but of course it doesn't work. I phone the telephone number placed there for those who have lost their tickets and a man answers. I explain our predicament and he starts by asking us where we are parked. I tell him the disability carpark and there is a long pause.

Then he says, "Just drive out."

I naturally protest, "But I won't be able to get through the barriers."

His reply, "Someone has forced their way through the barrier arms. Just go."

And I do. Two weeks later I find the ticket buried in the middle of my fat card wallet but it is nice to have luck on your side sometimes.

## You Choose

Darrell Hutchison was up in Whangarei with his wife Julie to visit Julie's brother Carl, his wife Mel and their daughter Elana (age 4) and son Tom (Age 2) for a few days before Christmas. At some point during their happy visit, a visit where Elana and Tom featured high on the entertainment agenda, Darrell in a mood of expansiveness and Christmas good will offered the children a treat. Elana at least had a choice.

Darrell, who although having no children of his own, knows all about the setting of limits and sticking to them, said to Elena "You can have an ice cream or some chocolate."

Elena thought for a moment or two and then tested the system and Darrell's resistance to a bit of pleading. "Can't I have both?" she said.

Determined to stand his ground and not be out flanked by a four year old, Darrell replied, "No you can't, you must choose one or the other."

Elana stood still for a while thinking about her dilemma, some deliciously cold ice cream or some seductively tempting chocolate. Both sounded wonderful and the more she thought about it the more she wanted both.

Then she had a brainwave. Looking up at Darrell she said, "Then I want some chocolate ice cream please?"

When the laughter finally subsided. Darrell realising he had been out manoeuvred by a four year old, has no option but to agree.

Mark my words that girl will be a lawyer when she grows up, and I want her on my side if I'm ever taken to court.

## The Life of a Frustrated High Wire Performer

It's not as if Mark Patchett is not a talented and successful research scientist, it is just that he has a dream, a dream that has never been realised. He has never spoken to me about it and perhaps I am presuming too much when I put the words into his mouth but actions always speak louder than words.

From the first walk I went on with Mark his drive to test himself against challenges involving walking across high wires provided by nature was evident. A narrow log stretching out toward the middle of a fast moving river was irresistible to him. He could not pass by without attempting to walk out to the very end of the log at a point where it quivered in the tumbling current, and then return without getting the ducking that always looked imminent but never took place.

Sometimes it was the top wires of a fence that challenged him. As for me I have no desire to emulate him, being on solid ground is enough for me. Bruce will often join in but the rest of us just stand around and hope Mark survives.

His other passion is for large sticks, sticks big enough to qualify as broken branches, sticks which he uses to stroll boldly along like the wizard Gandalf from Lord of the Rings. I never saw him use his undoubted powers to blast an attacker to the ground, but I did not doubt that despite his calm most placid nature, he could do so if he so chose.

But I digress, although what he did do that evening would surely have challenged Gandalf himself and as usual he came out safely at the other end.

It happened on the evening of an Autumnal day in May when Mark, Bruce and I went down to the high cliffs above the Manawatu River at the end of Albert Street to inspect progress on a project to stop the cliffs from eroding away and destroying nearby houses. They have barely begun work, this is only the second week and we don't know what to expect. What they do have is a huge pump which we presume they will use to suck vast amounts of water out of the river. The question is what do they do with the water then?

Bruce offers his analysis, "I think they've made a holding lake," and he points to a wall of gravel towering above us. But Bruce is not content to simply stroll across the stones and climb the sides, he decides to take a leaf out of Mark's book and balance as he walks across a hose lying on the ground which is filled with water. Of course the water is not solid and gives a little under Bruce's weight which sets the hose trembling. This raises the skill level of the crossing to an 8 or 9. Bruce who is talented in the art of Tai Chi presses on without being thrown by the antics of his insecure footing.

When Mark catches sight of Bruce he can't resist taking up the unspoken challenge. With two people on the hose the order of difficulty doubles as the displacement waves caused by the double mount are even less predictable and more complex. Mark starts laughing a wild exhilarated laugh as he begins the crossing with his arms wide apart and swinging wildly first in one direction and then the other in his desperate attempts to compensate for the erratic behaviour of the tube. One moment I am certain Mark will be thrown, but then through some unbelievably violent correction the ship is righted. But the actions needed to accomplish this feat generate motions that threaten to throw him off in another direction. I watch fascinated. This is the most difficult challenge he has ever faced and this time I am certain that eventually he must fall off. But he somehow retains a semblance of equilibrium and stays on, until with a final lunge he is safely on the wall of the pond.

At that moment I know it is time he threw caution to the wind and attempted a crossing on a high wire, one stretched between the two highest buildings in Wellington, and done in a wild southerly wind. I don't think Mark should leave a skill like this for his Bucket List.

## A Dent in the Reputation of the Prius

Swapping our 1989 Ford Laser for a new Toyota Prius had its challenges. You don't drive a car for twenty years without developing an affection for it. The Laser was never a racing car; at 1.4 litres it is never going to give you the power to sweep past tardy cars with disdain. No I always had to plan a passing operation like a military operation, taking into account not only the positions of any approaching cars but also the exact nature of the terrain. Whether there are hills ahead and how steep they are and is the gap big enough to allow a leisurely overtaking with all power deployed and no backup systems in place. If the passing lane is on a hill, which they usually are, it is best to drop back a bit and then push your foot flat to the floor in a desperate attempt to be travelling at the maximum allowed speed for this stretch of road just as the second lane arrives. If any thoughtless act by the car ahead slows you down on the hill then all is lost. It was almost never possible to build up the appropriate head of speed for a second try. But on the plus side, the Laser hugged the road and tackled the corners with all the smooth compliance expected in the rallying car it was.

The Toyota Prius was different in every respect. Aside from the most obvious thing namely the Prius is a hybrid car with two motors, one petrol and the other electric and the Laser had a single petrol motor, almost everything else was different too. The Prius is stacked with computers, the Laser has none. The Prius has a Heads Up Display (HUD) which projects the speed up onto the windscreen so it is unnecessary to glance down to check your speed. The Prius effectively has four motors (phantoms created by the magic of the software) one the conventional mode, the other the economy mode where the car works to reduce even further the usual stingy fuel consumption, the rapid acceleration Mode, where petrol consumption is sacrificed for power, a mode useful for overtaking in close situations, and then there is the all-electric mode (which can only be used when the batteries are sufficiently well charged). The keys in the Laser had a habit of bending or getting lost but the Prius key never leaves your pocket. The Prius senses if you have the key device in your pocket and if you do you can lock or open it with a stroke from a finger.

The Prius has power steering but the Laser doesn't. Strangely this makes it difficult to back the Prius because with the power steering it is so easy to over correct with the result that you snake our way down the drive, a snaking which is difficult to compensate for in a narrow drive like ours. Other problems are created by the road hugging fenders at the front of the car. When coming into park with high gutters it is easy to scrape them on the concrete. We gradually adjusted to the new world of the Prius, gaining confidence as we went. During this adjustment process I became a very regular visitor to Stuart Jenkinson, our panel beater. After my third visit he stopped charging me.

On the up side, people are interested in the technology built into the Prius, and many are fascinated by the way the car is silent when the petrol motor is not needed. Even dogs have almost walked under the wheels because they don't hear us approaching. It is also disconcerting to hear the sound of twigs been crushed as something big and heavy approaches from behind a hedge. We brushed aside the sarcastic comment by the writer of the Dog and Lemon Guide that the Prius is not a car but an appliance, a remark that greatly amused my brother Gordon. The same writer made the comment, "The Prius may not have saved the world but it certainly saved the Toyota Company."

If there was any chance we might become smug and superior about the Prius the ground was cut under our feet in 2014 when the Toyota Company announced a recall of the Prius Cars of a certain vintage. I hurried in to the garage to ask if the recall applied to our car, but got rather short shift when I was told the Company would contact us directly if there was a problem. About six months later they did send us a Dear Paul letter. I took advantage of the recall to point out that some of the protective rubber around the front door was wearing out. They dug their toes in for a start but we did have the three year warranty and they finally relented. "We'll have to get it in from Japan, we'll contact you when it arrives."

You will probably not be surprised to learn it was a software problem. What else do you expect in a car controlled by computers? When I left the car off the reprograming the mechanic (do we still call them mechanics in the computer age?) said. "We have to reprogram both computers and it will take about two hours."

I leave the car and bike toward home. When I get into Cuba Street I suddenly heard an unpleasant clattering sound from my bike. I was in the middle of the road and couldn't stop. I thought a wheel was about to drop off but when I got off my bike the sound didn't stop. Puzzled I looked around and then realised the noisy rattling sound was coming from two Art works consisting of a forest of flexible wooden sticks that were blowing in the wind.

When I picked the car up, I asked for more details of exactly what would have happened if the problem happened on the road, "All the lights would go off on the dashboard and the motor would stop and the car could not be moved until the problem was fixed. That was the fail safe mode to prevent any damage happening."

I hope he meant to the driver or perhaps he was just thinking of the car. I didn't ask

## T-Shirt Watching, Two I liked:

I don't want to brag, or anything. But I can still fit into the earrings I wore in High School.

Do not meddle in the affairs of cats. For they are cunning and you sleep with your mouth open.
