Hataitai Beach roadworks

 Hi there

There's building works going on and beside Hataitai Beach.  The road is reduced to stop-go one lane for traffic.  And it's going to last for up to 6 months.  And note that this has all started during the summer school holidays.  Getting to the beach is like working your way through a maze, whether on foot or driving.  The first day of the works I had to park down at the marina's main entrance (south) or up by the French cafe (north), long ways from the beach. 

The second day of the works (yesterday) I took the bus to the beach.  I didnt think the Hataitai Beach bus stop would be operating, seeing it's right in the middle of that stop-go one-way sole traffic lane.  But it was operating.  And sorry I couldnt say the same thing about the bus stop for my going back to Miramar.  It was blocked by road cones.  The bus driver had to signal me to run ahead and catch up with him as he stopped further south.  And note that before my bus journey I had rung both the council and the bus company to check on the stops.

They are building a sea wall (south), and we presume north end may be a cycle lane, either to share with a wider footpath or a lane reaching out into the road.  Car parks will be reduced.  Many beach people sent in submissions re the reduction of carparks but, of course, nothing came of it.  You would think the council would have taken notice after they'd cut out the street carparks at Balaena Bay; beach-goers stopped going there and came to Hataitai Beach instead.

above: sea wall being built.  Photo taken from what was supposed to be the southern bus stop but because of the road cones and one way lane the bus couldn't stop there.

I hate Vacuuming

 Hi there

I hate vacuuming.  Or should I say that I used to hate vacuuming.  But I think I've found a way to make it more enjoyable.  

I listen to Kindle audio books while I am vacuuming.   

I toss my Amazon Fire (Kindle) tablet into a small backpack, put in my earbuds, tell Alexa to raise the volume, and I turn into a Cleaning Diva.

Last week, I finished the vacuuming but the crime book I was listening to was at such an exciting point - my heart was thumping and my brain racing with possibilities for how the two heroes could possibly  escape the clutches of a whole band of baddies shooting at them - that I moved on to mopping the kitchen and bathroom, another chore I detest.  Just to listen to the story.

My heroes escaped the baddies - bravo! - but oh-my-goodness, there was another crisis.

 I whipped out a damp rag and cleaned the venetian blinds.  Four blinds down, and one hero had been kidnapped.  I moved over to the bookcase, shaking out every book and dusting the pages.  Would his detective partner rescue the guy before that bomb exploded?

Phew, yes, hoo-ray.  Another crisis averted.  But wait, there was more to the story...

I stood on a stool and dusted the top of the fridge.  

And all the curtains.

Then ...?

I gave in.   I plonked myself down on the sofa and finished listening to the book.  Two hours later, I looked around me.  Wow, my house was the cleanest I'd ever seen it...

****

My Amazon Fire tablet has internet, emails, e-books, audio books. I one-finger typed this add-on message to this blog.  One-fingering an entire blog on my Amazon Fire is more than a bit nerve-inducing; I have a bigger computer for my longer blogs.

Happy New Year

 Hi there

For Christmas Day I went to Tutaki restaurant in Lower Hutt Civic Building for lunch but, darn-it, I forgot to take my phone with me so, sorry, no photos. 

I have been to the beach quite a lot.  I went today (Sunday).

With their permission I took photos of a couple of beach-goers.

Now, would you rather be the one relaxing on the deck at Hataitai Beach?  Or the one doing yoga on the deck at Hataitai Beach?

I'd rather relax.....

HAVE A WONDERFUL  2025!!!!!!

Happy Christmas

 Hi there

It will be Christmas Eve tomorrow and that brings back memories for me.  When I worked at the Education Department Head Office way back in the early1960s, we were allowed to leave work at 3 pm on Christmas Eve.  Later that time was amended to 1 pm, with the requirement that after lunch we had to return to the office and sign out.  After the first year of the 1pm rule, I'm afraid most people shot off at noon... Hehehe.

I can still remember, as clear as day, my skipping down the southern side steps of Government Buildings, Lambton Quay, 1 pm on a Christmas Eve, dressed up in my best fashion finery to promenade through town on Christmas Eve.

NZ is about the first country in the world to see Christmas morning.  I will be almost ready for bed on Christmas night when people in the Northern Hemisphere will be just waking up for their big day.

I truly feel for people flying from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere on December 24th because they will miss out completely on Christmas Day, arriving on December 26th.  It's the opposite when I fly North;  I gain a day.

HAVE A WONDERFULLY HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!!

Edmonds Cookery book

 Hi there

When I was a child in the 1950s, the Edmonds Cookery Book was THE cookbook for kiwi women-about-the-house, along with their cleaning duties, the laundry, bed-making, accounting, nanny-ing, shopping, pet-watching, etc, etc, etc.  The men-about-the-house in those days were into lawn-mowing and ...um ... did I mention lawn-mowing?  

The Edmonds Cookery Book was printed roughly every couple of years (in a hardback form from 1955) up until .. well .. the edition I have is for 1985.  I don't know how long it went on after that.  There were older editions in a different format.

But ... my fave recipe in the book was for cheesecakes.  And here is where I reveal that New Zealand cheesecakes in those days were not what is understood today as a cheesecake.

Above:  my New Plymouth cheesecake

It was a single little pastry and jam-type cake with - wait for it - no cheese in it at all.  Surprise.

And did I like those little cheesecakes?  I adored them!  Relished them, took them to school in my lunch bag -

"Hey, Mum, can you bake some more cheesecakes tomorrow?"

"More?  You've just eaten three!"

Sadly, cheesecakes disappeared.  I can't tell you when it happened, or how, but perhaps they'd just had their day.  The 'other' newer type of cheesecake snuck into shops.  Maybe this new type of cheesecake started in New York?  Or Germany?  I don't know.  All I can remember is that one day we were eating little NZ cheesecakes and on another day we were down at the local supermarket buying big round frozen cheesecakes, ones that evolved into rather posh tucker at top-end restaurants.  They were nothing like the kiwi ones.

But never fear...

When I was in New Plymouth earlier this month, I went into a bakery and what did I find?:  those lovely little identical cheesecakes from the Edmonds Cookery Book!

Sheer happiness for me... 

The cakes didn't quite come up to the standard of my memories of them.  I guess our palates are more refined nowadays. 

175 g (6 ozs) flaky pastry

Raspberry jam

125 g (4 ozs) butter

125 g (4 ozs) sugar

2 eggs

150 g (5 ozs) flour

1 teaspoon Edmonds Baking powder

Cream butter and sugar.  Beat eggs and add alternately with sifted flour and baking powder.  Roll out pastry and line about 21 patty tins.  Put 1 teaspoon of raspberry jam in the bottom of each then a large spoonful of cake mixture on top.  Place a small twist of pastry on top.  Bake about 20 minutes at 200c (400F)

(sorry, for the recipe looking a bit skew-whiff a few times.  My eyesight is so bad I had trouble with the layout.  Should be ok now)

Oh, I believe the United States flour texture  is slightly different from ours.

Cleaning Day

 Hi there

Last week, I was cleaning the bathroom which included the toilet.  I grabbed the toilet brush by its plastic stick handle, and fiercely plunged it down into the water.

Perhaps I brushed too fiercely.  With a - snap! - the bristle head of the brush broke off completely from the stick and got jammed in the tight bend of the toilet.

I prodded that hedgehog's bristles with the stick of the brush, trying to move it.

Nothing happened.  That thing was sooooo stuck.

I figured my salad tongs would be too lightweight to pull out the bristle head.  I couldn't think of anything else.

I jittered around the house for about fifteen minutes, coming up with a dozen ways to get that brush head out from the toilet, none of them practical.  It was late at night, just past my mates' 9 pm deadline for receiving wailing phone calls.  What to do, what to do....?  There was only one answer.

I ... would have to go in.  With my hand.

Sigh.

Finally I decided on swathing my hand in a plastic bread bag.  I discovered a rubber band in my 'anything' drawer and secured the bag tightly at my elbow.

Then .... ugh, yuck...

Down into the toilet water, I plunged my hand.   Well, at least I knew the toilet was clean.  I had used enough Dettol on it thirty minutes before to kill surely any germs in the vicinity.  Hopefully.

I tugged...  And tugged.  And tugged at that bristle hedgehog.  And tugged a lot more times.

Finally .... the bristle brush-head popped out from the bend.  I breathed out slowly, evenly, happily; everything was well in the world again.

 I bought a new brush the following day.  I stood in Bed Bath and Beyond for ages pretending to bend and pull the heads of all their toilet brushes.  I settled on one with a wooden stick instead of a plastic one.

Let's hope the toilet brush never again breaks on me, ever....

**

However, I did discover, via You Tube, that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of people who have had the same problem. There are whole stories on how to get that jammed bristle head out from the toilet.  Some people use a plunger, some pull the entire toilet out from the wall, some call a plumber.  Guess I was lucky.

Another New Plymouth Holiday

 Hi there

I'm just back from 6 days' holiday in New Plymouth.  I so love walking the Coastal Walkway.  It's completely concrete, and part of it is directly opposite the city.  On the walk, one comes across bicycles, skaters, walkers, dawdlers, scooters, mobile scooters, joggers, families, mothers with prams. Last week, I even came across an oldie on a walker.  She was on the track for about half-an-hour.

I stayed at the Devon Hotel, in the city, with the most fantastic nightly buffet that the locals adore. And I can swear by the fish and chips from Room Service (plus... no tipping).   And across the road is a zig-zag path that leads you - in about 5 minutes - past a stream to the Coastal Walkway.  

There is a croquet green at the bottom of the zig-zag.  I stopped to sort out my sunhat and my sunblock.

An older guy passed me.  He nodded toward the croquet green.  "  Go on, " he indicated, with a wink.  "Give croquet a go?"

"I'm too young for croquet," I said.  ...  Fibber ...

I've done the Walkway lots of times, used to walk from the Ngamotu Beach end (family beach, calm water) which is down at the Port end -  to the modern bridge end.  Couple of hours walking it all one-way, maybe.

stock photo:  Mt Taranaki can be seen through the bridge

But last week, I decided to split up my walk into two sections, to make it more leisurely.  In whichever direction I walked I had to remind myself that I had to walk the same distance back again.  But there are points along the Walkway to park a car, cross over or walk up to a bus stop, or make a detour to the city.

Another place I love to stay in is a small serviced cabin at the Belt Road Seaside Holiday Park.  The cabin has en suite, and kitchen facilities.  The cabins (and some motor home parks) are on the edge of the cliff, looking across to the magnificent view of the sea, and the holiday park is right next to the Coastal Walkway.  What I like about these cabins, is that I can tie my own elasticated clothesline between the two poles on the cabin deck and dry my wet bathing suit!

above:  Me, on the Coastal Walkway. In front of a surf rescue club. Surf water.

above:   This used to be the entrance to the aquatic centre, a place where I learnt to swim when I was ten.  There's a more impressive entrance around the corner nowadays.  The Coastal Walkway goes around the aquatic centre.

above:  thin me!  There is a silvery-metallic-type sculpture on the Coastal Walkway, near to the city.   If I go around the back of the sculpture and look at my reflection, I appear extremely thin.  Wow, wonderful.  Hey, my hair even looks thin; it was very windy and I got a sort of mohawk.

above:  Along the Coastal Walkway.  Behind the tree, you can spot a glimpse of a yellow-ish building.  This is the Clarendon Flats, St Aubyn Street, where I lived for a couple of years as a child.  If you look in front of the posh new building on the right, you can see a white fence.  I used to stop my bicycle against the fence and just sit there on my bike, gazing for ages at the sea.   I was so fascinated by it.

The above photos taken last week. If you look further back in this blog, at other New Plymouth holidays, you'll see more photos taken from the Coastal Walkway (of the actual sea views!)