Ohope Beach. Yet again.....

 Hi there

Yes, yes, I've been to Ohope Beach again.  Just got back from a two week holiday at Manchester Unity Holiday Homes.  Each of the two Ohope homes are only about $250 a week from Easter up until the end of November.  Then the price almost doubles, but it's still cheap.

above:  West End.  Ohope Beach.  Whale Island in background.  

The only thing wrong with my holiday was that ten days before I was due to drive up north to Ohope, I came down with the flu. I was out of contagion three days before setting off.  And this was on the heels of my dehydration episode that had lasted a couple of weeks.  

The drive was hard-going.  I didn't feel too well.  Eight and a half hours actual driving.  And twice I hit hail, thunder, lightening, and torrential rain. 

I felt so better driving back home after my holiday.

But you all know about Ohope, seen lots of photos.  I've been blogging about it for many years.  So, there really isn't much more I can add.  Except ... it rained practically every day of the first week, and was cloudy practically all of the second week.  I did swim a few times.  It was very hot for November: 22c to 27c every day.  19c at night.  Thank goodness there was air conditioning.

I went, as usual to Julian's Berry Farm.  Their strawberry ice cream sundaes are to die for.  And ... Ohiwa Oyster Farm's fried oysters had me ooh-ing and aah-ing in ecstasy.  A dozen fried oysters please....  Ohope is about a five minute or so drive over the hill to Whakatane. where there is a good township.

The holiday home I was in was practically on the beach, separated by a park. The home was probably what kiwis would describe as 'a bach'.  The phrase 'bach' comes from the term 'bachelor' and it usually referred to shacks that bachelors used as, for instance, a base for fishing or hunting.  Later on, families sort of took over and used the baches for casual holiday living, often extending the bach with extra rooms.  A lot of these homes that were once baches are now pretty resplendent-looking.

This mod-cons holiday home had a nice peek-a-boo view of the sea and the waves roaring at night were a lovely lullaby.

On the day I arrived, two little Swifts (birds) were building their nest on a very narrow ledge at the top of the kitchen window frame. Talk about industrial.  For a whole week, the pair flew in and out of the porchway, loaded up with mud and bits of grass.  By the time I left on my last day....

There is a children's play area in the park in front of the Ohope holiday home.  When nobody is around.I always have a little go on the swings (don't judge me!).  This time, I couldn't reach the seat of the swings.  I was too short! Getting up onto that seat was, for me, like trying to climb Everest.  ..  Aw...fudge!  

Above: it didn't help that there were worn down holes in the ground under the swings where people taller than me had pushed themselves off to a start...

below:  here I am at the Ohiwa Oyster Farm, about one minute drive out of Ohope.

Typists

 Hi there

above: old typewriter,  stock photo

Way back in the 1800s, there was a protest march through Manhattan.  By typists.  Or 'typewriters', as they were called in those days.

The protesting typists/typewriters were all men, objecting to women wanting to  take over this male role.  Oh goodness, when greedy bosses offered less salary to women than the salary that men were getting, the women snatched at the offers and the men got upset.

In the 1800s this takeover was definitely a triumph for women. It wasn't scrubbing floors, doing laundry, or being a house maid.  It was a break-through.  It was professional office work with better labour conditions - and, yes, better pay - than any maid-servant job could match.

So, women the world over became typists....

Now .. Think to the 1990s and the advent of computers into the women's typing haven.  Some business firms started calling typists 'word processors' (my typing pool even had that name put on a sign on our door, much to the hysterical laughter of the 'girls').

Then the job title changed again:  'data input operators' ...

And men perked up their ears.  The modern guy didn't want to be a typist, with its 'girlie' implications but, hey, being someone who input data sounded masculine enough, right?

And as fast as the snap of fingers, men were rushing to become typists (oops, sorry, I mean Data Input Operators, or any other title that sounded as away from 'typist' as a word could get).

Full circle, people......?

In place of those naughty words...

 Hi there

Let me set the picture:  It's the 1960's, a government typing pool comprised of, say, a dozen typists.  When typing mistakes on (foolscap) paper are made, all that can be used to erase them is, well, an eraser (or a 'rubber' in that decade's vernacular).  Some typists would erase the mistake along with a sad sigh, others muttered  something angrily under their breath, citing that the job in question would have to be retyped.   Many typists shouted, "Fudge!"

At the age of 16, I didn't know that "Fudge!" represented a naughty word, but looking back, I'm surprised that noone told the typists off about using it.

During my early time in the pool, one typist did come up with my favourite typing exclamation phrase of all time:

"Oh, bunny rabbits and toadstools!"  

Thanks, Francie, that's a cute keeper.

Not perhaps as cute though as when I heard one annoyed lady on a reality show shout out, "For the love of little bunnies!".  I was in heaven over such a phrase.  I now use it all the time.  There's something about bunny rabbits ...

        cuteness overload?  Who cares if this isn't Easter?  Altogether now, "Ahhhhh.."

Books. And me as a kid...

 Hi there

Well, here is a photo of me at goodness-knows-what age? Nine?  Ten?  Younger? Was I in Wellington with my mum?  There were always street photographers down Manners Street.  They'd snap photos, hand you a card and you'd trot along to their studio to see the proof.

Or was I in New Plymouth?;  I lived in both Wellington and New Plymouth at about that age.

And I notice that I have library books in my basket.  New Plymouth was the real start of my discovering reading.  And it was Enid Blyton who did it.  At New Plymouth's Carnegie Library.

 My previous Newtown Library in Wellington had outlawed everything Blyton, except for the one book in which children staggered under burdens growing from their shoulders, each burden size representing things the child had done wrong.  Burdens could grow bigger by the day.

Anyway, thank goodness for the Carnegie Library.  I hoovered up those Blyton books, dozens and dozens of them.  I went to the library Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, right after school, cycling my little legs off to get home to start reading.  Darn it, why was I only allowed three books per visit?  

Enid Blyton was my awakening to reading  - 

LEARNING TO READ

I remember the look

of the unreadable page

the difficult jumble

& then the page

became transparent

& then the page

ceased to exist

at last I was riding this bicycle all by myself

     (by Cilla McQueen, NZ poet. Published in NZ School Journal)

I heart Cats

 Hi there

I love cats so much.  If I see one down the street I go all goo-y trying to pat the animal.  And crooning to it in baby language.  So embarrassing if a passerby stares at me quizzingly.

But let's talk about cat videos on You Tube.  How come I look at one video that leads to me looking at 'just one more', which leads to three, then four, then one hundred...  Me, I thought I was just addicted to Diet Coke but now it seems to be cat videos as well.  All cats:  zoomy ginger cats, fluffy cats, tabby cats, tuxedo cats, snobby cats, and not forgetting the thoroughly mischievous Siamese cat (RIP, my beautiful StarGirl).

I am such a softie.

above: StarGirl and me, when she was just a kitten.