Ranting

Hi there

I got a Rant Book ("a cathartic daily journal") over Christmas.  I love it.  This is a journal of practically all blank pages and whenever I feel like ranting over something, anything, I write the rant down.  For beginner ranters, there are quite a few sample rants that can be borrowed - the non-returner of borrowed items, people who leg jiggle,  phrases like "that's a very good question", etc.

But I can come up with my own rants, thank you very much.  I don't really like boasting but I can rant until the cows come home.   I've had my Rant Book for five days and I've already come up with 6 rants:  rants about having a head cold over Christmas to ranting about Wellington beaches being closed for a week because of a sewage pipe breakage.  There's two  rants about drivers who take it for granted that I can stop my car on a dime when they cut in front of me. And, hey, I'd really like to tell off the bus driver who decided he didn't want to turn up at my stop.

Taking medication

Hi there

Are other people like me?  Do they  have trouble finding time to fit in their daily medication?  And medication is such a strong word, especially when, in my case, it's eye drops.  Thank goodness, I've finished my 15 eye drops a day and am now back to four eyedrops.  But remembering to take those four is horrendous.  The Christmas holiday period is causing such havoc because my routine is upset.  I'm doing all sorts of things I wouldn't do normally.  Adventure waits for no woman over summer.

I have to take my eye drops at roughly the same time every morning, and every evening.  I have left reminder messages to myself, all over the place;  I ignore them.  I have set my eye drops in the middle of the lounge floor; I step over them and go merrily on to other things.  I have a timer that I forget to set off or I'm out at the clothesline and don't hear it.

Maybe three or four hours later, it's  "Oh, nooooo.  My eyedrops!"  But, whoops, too late ...

Christmas Mayhem

Hi there

And, oh, the stress of all that Christmas shopping -

My Mt Maunganui Holiday

Hi there

After my three nights in New Plymouth, I tootled across the North Island to Mt Maunganui (about 6 hours).  My car windshield developed a crack so I had to book for and get a new windscreen while I was on holiday.
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Because I was right slap dab in the middle of my fifth head cold this year, I just went through the motions of Doing Holiday Things, and I felt pretty awful.  I sun-bathed, shopped, walked, swam.  I walked around The Mount of Mt Maunganui - there'd been some wash-out of the track some time back and to get around that washout, I had to climb 7 flights of steps.  When I got back to Wellington, and was watching tv, I saw that the flat route around The Mount had just been re-instated that day.  Grrrh, missed it by four days.

I went over to Ohope/Whakatane for the day. Went to my favourite Ohiwa Bay Oyster Farm and had a dozen fried oysters - yum, my fave.  Then I went to Julian's Berry Farm and and had a huge strawberry ice cream sundae.  And I shopped my little heart out.

I did get lost getting into Mt Maunganui and ended up going up and down the toll  Expressway twice.  Road workers at two roundabouts had taken down all direction notices.  Boooo....

 above:  Mount Maunganui.  Pilot Bay. I swam here twice a day.

above:  So many cruise ships come in to Mount Maunganui.  I was staying at Westshore Motel right opposite Pilot Bay (photo taken from my motel doorway) and I watched all the tankers, cruise ships, paddle-boarders jet-skis, yachts, kayaks, wakas...
The motel was so gloriously from the 1960's, I adored the place. Extremely clean, with wonderful owners.  Pilot Bay usually gets picnic-ers, families, swimmers.  Around the corner is Main Beach that gets surfers, lifeguards, boogie boarders, bikini beauties, young guys ogling bikini beauties, cafes where folk like to sit outside and be seen....

Yet another little holiday

Hi there

I've just been to New Plymouth for four nights.  Oh wait, no, it was three nights because ... New Zealand, country-wide, had severe storms last weekend, the day I was due to leave Wellington for New Plymouth.  Road wash-outs and slips everywhere.  I got about twenty minutes from Miramar to find Highway No 1  was closed because of flooding.  And it was just as bad further up the line.

So, I gave up and went home, furious.  Anyway, when I finally left the next day, the weather was great.  And I loved New Plymouth.  It's one of my fave places.  I walked The Coastal Walkway, swam, cycled The Coastal Walkway, shopped.  I stayed, as usual in an en suite cabin at Belt Road Seaside Holiday Park.  From the deck of my cabin, I had the most glorious sea and coastal views.

Happy Christmas shopping.  Don't get stressed out!

 above:  part of the view from my en suite cabin deck at Belt Road Seaside Holiday Park, New Plymouth.

 

above:  the new Len Lye Gallery to commemorate Len Lye and his art work.  His wind wands are in various places around New Zealand.  The gallery was built on the site where a picture theatre used to be.  I was ten and on Friday nights my parents took me to this theatre  There was always a serial  beforehand.

My Smart TV

Hi there

When NZ en masse switched over to digital tv six years ago, I bought a Smart TV.  It was wonderful to be able to easily see TVNZ On Demand and 3Now (On Demand) on my big screen.  But two years ago 3Now suddenly scooted away from my tv.  Oh well, I never watched that channel much anyway.

However last month, I got a warning on my screen - TVNZ On Demand were leaving me, too!  On the second of December.

Whaaaat?

Tech people at the shop I bought my smart tv from informed me that the antique workings inside my tv could no longer cope with new updated apps

"But my tv is only 6 years old!" I wailed  -

The guy just shrugged.  It was the way of life now, apparently. 

Oh dear.  Anthony Newley, singer, actor, and songwriter from the 1960's was prone to shout, "Stop the World, I Want to Get Off!".  And I agree with that statement whole-heartedly.