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 river 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 cabin car parks  (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!)

Summer here today!!!

Hi there

Well, it's the 1st of December.  The official first day of summer - December, January, February.  Hey, hey, you people in the Northern Hemisphere, are you jealous?  But what goes around, comes around: we'll be jealous of you in June, July, August when it's our winter.

Today is warm.  And sunny.  And not much wind.  But... I'm a bit sun-burnt from the beach yesterday, so I didn't sun-bathe today.  I really can't understand it all because I never get sunburnt.  I always tan.  But I've had several bouts of sunburn since October.  I'm even reducing my hours sunbathing, but that hasn't helped.

For weeks now I have been plastering myself in after-sun gel, moisturiser, and aloe vera.  And pre-swim, there's sun-block, all different brands.

I can only put it down to the sun getting more frequently through that nasty ozone layer.  The sun has found the one hole in the ozone layer that everyone is talking about and, apparently, its right above both Aotearoa and Aussie.

stock picture

We kiwis get tired of being at the bottom of world maps or sometimes not even making it to a map because Australia dwarfs us and we're quite tiny, anyway.   Some years ago, an enterprising kiwi business person printed an upside down map of the world, which put New Zealand at the top.   It was even printed on tea-towels for tourist shops.

The Great (?) Vegas Hotel Soap Scam

 Hi there

Just after I arrived in Las Vegas last August I went into my bathroom at the Rio Hotel to wash my hands.  

Hey, where was the soap - ?  The bar of soap that should be on the bathroom counter?  

The only soap was in the container in the shower - the container that was in a frame that was fixed onto the wall  - and it was liquid soap.  To wash my hands, I would have to stand in the shower cabinet. Or wiggle the liquid soap bottle out from its casing every time I wanted to use it.  And then put it back again, ripe and ready for the hundred showers a day I would undoubtedly have to take during the projected 47c temperatures in the Vegas heat.

I rang housekeeping.  "Could I have a bar of soap please."  I told them I wouldn't even have minded a bottle of liquid soap.  As long as it was portable.

"Of course, Ma'am. We'll deliver it to you instantly.  The soap should have been put in your room in the first place."

About an hour later, there was a knock on the door.  A housemaid stood there, clutching two tiny sweetly-packaged bars of soap.

"Thank you," I said.  I handed her a tip.

It wasn't until I got home that I read a hotel review -

It was a scam.  To get those tips.  

And wait, there's more ...   After the Rio, I moved over to the Flamingo Hotel, to be more central.  Can you guess what happened to me there?  I bet you can...   

The same thing that happened at the Rio was happening at the Flamingo!  There was no packet soap or bottle of liquid soap on the bathroom counter.  Or anywhere in that bathroom.  Only the liquid soap fixed on the shower wall.

And so, I tipped another housemaid...

above:  And just to show you that it can rain in Las Vegas.  Very heavily.  Especially in August,  I got a text from management telling me not to leave the building because of severe flooding.  It was all clear by following day.

TYPIST-IN-CHARGE, Episode 18

 Hi there

Supervising Typist, First Floor, Education Head Office, Government Buildings, Wellington, 1977

When a newcomer joined the govt, Probation Report time came round after a year.  After 2 years, the typist was off probation and ready for her yearly Personal Report, as were all workers in the govt.

 Mrs Rowley, the top-graded supervising typist of all Head Office pools, asked various bosses who sent their work into our rooms what they thought of the service.  She and Miss McNeil, the (supremo) Supervising-Typist-in-Charge worked on the reports together.  A report was all about what a boss thought of a minion's-sorry-employee's initiative, judgement, accuracy, supervision, etc.  There was also a box for Mrs Rowley to give a rating out of 10.

I got a 9!!  I was so excited.  I'd never had a 9.  No typist ever in the history of Education typing had ever got a 10 (please wait with bated breath for Episode 19 where there will be a blow-up over this rating!!)

At the bottom of the form were the words "Your Job Aspirations?"  I had always put "Higher Graded Position".

So, enclosed in that full glow of being a 9, I worked even harder to cement my supervising typist position.  I became a work-horse of the highest degree.  I typed my fingers almost to the bone, I raced through a job with accuracy and speed...  Oh, and as a side note, here's a trick question that was asked at interviews,  "What is more important: accuracy or speed?"  Most interviewees proudly said "Accuracy" and it was then pointed out that accuracy and speed together were important.  Oops. 

I hated working on Saturdays to get the pool's work-pile down, especially when the hand-writing of the officers  couldn't be read and there was no-one around to ask.  I often volunteered to work solo (whatever happened to teamwork?) because I knew that I was both accurate and speedy. and could work non-stop without the disturbance of pool chatter and stopping for cups of tea, and ringing up boyfriends on the one phone that the pool had.  Most letters and jobs to be typed were clipped to a huge file containing everything to do with the subject in question and, yes, sometimes, it was fun to read back through the files.  When the bosses arrived at work on Mondays, one couldn't see the work desk for all the typing.

An officer who sort of cruised through his job had the 'girls' in the pool coming up with theories and ideas about him.  He was in Administration, just across the corridor and, unlike us with our window vista of the wooden Annex at the back of Govt Bldgs he was under the big outside clock with a great view of the Cenotaph, Lambton Quay and Parliament Buildings.  This older guy was sort of the Admin run-around.  He drove Head Office's one car.  If an officer wanted to go to the airport or around town, he would ring Admin, book in a time and this guy would take him to his destination.  I remember once seeing Mr Pinder, a director, racing down the hallways, yelling back to his secretary to ring the airport and tell them he was on his way.  He rarely remembered to tell his secretary that he was leaving the building.  The only way she could figure it out, was if his hat was no longer hanging from the hat-stand.

One day, our junior Helen came tearing breathlessly into the pool, "Guess what?"

"Your boyfriend has a secret girlfriend?" Maureen asked dryly.

"Of course not!  It's that guy in Admin.  He opened the bottom drawer of his desk.  And there was a bottle of...whisky!"

No???  What gossip...

Mind you, it wasn't that much of a surprise because he often smelt of beer.

While all the usual shennanigans were going on in the typist areas, I was studying Pitmanscript.  I had realised over the years that I would never be able to advance higher if I didn't have a shorthand qualification.  For some silly reason the higher supervising typist positions were for shorthand-typists.  Silly, because supervising typists never went to take shorthand, leaving it to a pool minion instead.  It was better that they stayed in the pool to supervise.  And type.

Shorthand-typists were thin on the ground.  Schools were finding it hard to get teachers of the subject and women attending business colleges, like Gilby's, didn't want to learn regular shorthand.  It took too long and was too finnicky with it's accuracy.  In exams, pupils were marked wrong if they so much as slipped up on the slightest little penciled line.

So, in obvious panic because no-one was learning Pitman shorthand anymore, Pitman came up with Pitmanscript.  It was half-english.

I did a Pitmanscript course over six Saturdays at a local college.  At the end I triumphed with a 60 wpm certificate from the school.  However, that 60 wpm equated to words the equivalent of 'the cat sat on the mat'.  In real-life, if trying to take more complicated dictation from a boss, it would be like I was writing about 20 wpm.  I wouldn't keep up.  Pitmanscript could never be as fast as regular Pitmans Shorthand.

So I studied further.  I brought my "Pitmanscript 500 most common words in the english language" to work and practised going over them again and again every morning and afternoon tea-time until I could all but Pitmanscript the words in my sleep. As I passed shop awnings on the bus ride home, I mentally  pitmanscripted the names of shops.  When the teenage music programme "Ready to Roll" came on Saturday evening tv, I frantically Pitmanscrpted the words to songs.

 I practised an hour every night in front of my text books and my cassette recorder (sorry I wiped you off the tape, Elvis).  I read out loud the long texts from my advanced exercise book - eyes focussed on my watch, to get the words evenly spaced to the minute  - then played the texts back as I furiously tried to keep up. Once I finished the book, I started again, at a higher speed.  

I sat the Trades Certification Board Shorthand-Typing Exam, 80 Words Per Minute.   The piece the teacher read out from had the word "Monarchy" in the title.  I couldn't figure out how to Pitmanscript that word. I hesitated too long. After that, all was lost.  I scrawled everything else, missing out on so many sentences.  

I failed the exam.  I had sat it at a regular college, alongside fifth form girls.   My fault that I failed, nothing really to do with the reader (though instead of reading the whole thing at the same speed as she was supposed to do, she tended to read phrases rather fast.  Maybe because the kids in the class were used to the shortened phrases of regular Pitmans Shorthand, so she was helping them out.  No-no-no, I'm not bitter...)

above:  the department gave the above notebook to all sitters of School Certificate Shorthand.  We had loads in the department....

Noone at the office knew I'd sat the exam, thank goodness, what with me being a supervising typist and all.   I vowed to sit again the following year.  I figured that my writing size was too big.  I wasn't getting that many words on a line, thus losing time.  And with it being Pitmanscript, I was allowed to make up anything I wanted to in order to speed everything up, unlike Pitmans Shorthand where every stroke had to be perfect or there would be a fail.  So ...I came up with a few symbols to get me faster through a piece.  I have never written anything so small in my life as I did in my practise pieces.  The exam piece had taken about six shorthand-notebook pages.  With my new teeny writing and word abbreviations I was down to one and a quarter  pages.  Roll on exam try no 2... And, maybe, a higher graded position

Every Thursday, the Public Service Official Circular (PSOC)  came around the rooms.  Everybody looked at it to see what graded jobs were going over the whole of the govt, including for typists. We all knew everybody's salary because the PSOC included it.

 I flipped through the pages.  Then flipped back again -

What -?

There was a position for a Supervising Typist at Customs Head Office, just down the road from where I was working.

It was a supervising typist job.  Not a supervising shorthand-typist job.  And it was one grade up from my present position.  The gods couldn't have been kinder.  Angels were singing.  Not one alarm bell rang in my head.

Little did I know.....

LAX International Terminal

 Hi there

Stock photo. Los Angeles International Terminal

Just a word for the wise, or the maybe-not-so-wise when they're leaving the United States for a visit to New Zealand -

What to wear at your departing airport when it's an American summer, especially in August....?

Don't wear summer clothes.  

When I was sitting in the Air New Zealand departure area at the Los Angeles International Terminal, I glanced at the people around me.  It was so easy to spot the smug Southern Hemisphere know-it-alls, myself included.  We'd  exchanged our California summerwear for puffer jackets, fleecy trousers, clod-hopper trainers, our pockets a-bulge with mittens, woolly beanies, and cough drops.

Many Northern Hemisphere people appeared to have come straight from someone's backyard pool party:  floaty  chiffon-y dresses, light cardigans, Jandals ('flip-flops' or 'thongs' if you're from some other parts of the world),  shorts, Hawaii shirts....

No-no-no. No.

I can understand that many first-time long-distance travellers don't know how chilly it gets on a plane that might take 14 hours to reach its destination, but to not check up on the weather season at plane's end is totally wrong.

June, July, August are New Zealand winter months.  It's topsy-turvey to the Northern Hemisphere. In many areas, we have snow and winning Olympic snow-board athletes.  Even in places that don't get snow, we're still winter-cold, especially in Wellington with its gale-force winds and seemingly forever-rain.  And, more advice, be careful travelling the West Coast of the South Island in winter.

I guess it's all because we are close to the South Pole...

 Hi there

I was going through New Zealand airport security a year or so back.  I'm always excited - and nervous -  to be starting off on a holiday; it probably showed.  Still, I beamed at the guy operating the x-ray booth, the one that we have to stand in so as they can see if we're carrying anything illegal under or over our clothes.  The hard-worked security people deserve my beaming at them because they have to put up with a lot from passengers.

He beamed right on back, and waved me over to his monitor.  Oh, no, I thought, what am I wearing that's betraying me?  My rings?  Ear-rings?  The sequins on my sweater?  

"Hey, come and see how happy you look".  The guy pointed to the screen. 

Um... I peered c!osely at the screen.

It was just the outline of a figure.  No detail at all.

"Gotcha!"  He grinned.

This guy made my day.  I tripped merrily away, in such a good mood to start my holiday

Modern Movie Musicals

 Hi there

above: "The Colour Purple".  Picture taken from Neon  streaming platform.  No mention of It being a musical.

It truly annoys me when movie-makers love to disguise that their movies are musicals.  I guess they must think that if actors were seen singing and dancing throughout the trailers, then audiences would run screaming away from their upcoming movie.  

Take "Wicked", for instance:  the stage musical has been a success all around the world.  For years.  It's beloved (actually, not beloved that much by me, but I appreciate other people's opinions). The song "Defying Gravity" is a show-stopper. Theatre audiences are enthralled when the young witch astride her broomstick soars above their heads.  Wow...

"Wicked" is being turned into a movie.  The first trailer is out...

But we don't see any singing.  The only song we hear is dubbed over an action sequence.

It's one more movie that doesn't reveal it's musical heart in the trailer.

There are other modern movie-makers who have used this same tactic, they will try all sorts of ways not to show singing and dancing in a trailer:

Wonka

The Colour Purple

Mean Girls

Anything to pretend these movies are not musicals.  It's as if those faceless Hollywood guys are ashamed of their product.  Or they think that the audiences will be.

So, what do they get instead?:  a grumpy audience who think they're going to see see a normal movie, ie, one  without songs. 

Musical fans, too, are irate because they realise they've missed a musical that had been right under their noses at their local cinema complex.

When a musical show on the stage is advertised,  it will usually have the words " - a musical" written alongside the title, eg

The Colour Purple - the musical

Mean Girls - the musical

Wicked - the musical

Legally Blonde - the musical

Hairspray - the musical

etc...etc...etc...

But what about "Lala Land"?  It was  a tremendous success and trumpeted as a musical.  Okay, so "Lala Land was a straight-to-movie musical that had never been anywhere near a stage.  But didnt this success show that there was an opening for the movie musical to be out and proud?

No, those movie-makers still want to disguise musicals in their trailers.  No wonder "The Colour Purple" musical and "Mean Girls" musical only lasted in cinemas a week or two.  The wrong audience had been notified via the trailers. Imagine the horror to fans who thought they had booked for an unvarnished remake of a much-loved movie only to get to the theatre and find it had been turned into a - gasp! - musical.  Here, in Aotearoa-New Zealand and most other countries, audiences don't know that "Mean Girls" and "The Colour Purple" have been West End and Broadway stage musicals for some time... 

...  Why on earth does Hollywood buy a successful stage musical and not want to tell the world it's true nature?  Search me....

*In NZ, the word is spelt "colour".  In USA, it's "color"

Buying Shoes

 Hi there

I bought some Skechers shoes last month.  I fell instantly in love with the above Walk shoes. 

 Miracle of miracles, Skechers have invented a way for my feet to slip easily into the new inventive high-back shoes without my having to bend down to fiddle around down on the floor.  Wow, no more head rushes.  Thank you, Skechers, I love you.  

Oh wait! - I'm wondering what advantage I've gained -

I'm still having to bend down to tie up the shoelaces.....

 

Ohope Beach Yet again.

 Hi there

About two weeks ago I was browsing through the website of the Manchester Unity Ohope holiday home units.  Both units were booked up for months.  But, hey, wait -  There was one week clear.  Odd, it was for the second week of the school holidays.  That should have been booked out months ago.  Oh, well, someone must have pulled out.  So last week I had a surprise holiday in Ohope...

I hired a car to drive the eight hours up to Ohope. When my own car is parked at my own house, she is closeted away in a nice warm garage.  Nowadays if she takes me anywhere on holiday she absolutely refuses to wake up on cold mornings, and there is no under-cover parking at Ohope.  So....

The hired car people gave me a Toyota.  Goodness, I had a terrible time driving that car.  So different from my little blue baby.  The automatic gear shift may as well have been a manual shift because of all the trouble and swearing I went through on my week's holiday.  The car's bonnet was shaped so badly that I couldn't see over the sides of it.  The first time I tried to reverse, I pressed the pedal hard and almost shot through the back fence of my holiday home.  Quick thinking and a quick reflex on the foot pedal stopped me about a quarter-of-a-metre from that fence

The weather was perfect.  Sun-bathing Spring weather, as high as 20c, and no wind.  Every day I walked along the beach which was in front of the MU holiday home.  Many people walked their dogs.  Most of the dogs were cute little things -

One fox terrier-type raced toward me, barking like a rabid monster.  As my four readers will remember, it's only been over the last few years that I've started to lose some of my fear over dogs.

I froze as this particular dog screeched to a halt about a metre away from my Crocs, still barking his lungs out, baring his teeth, and quivering with emotion.

I was terrified.   What to do?-what to do?

The tv programme about Barbara Woodhouse, the dog trainer, flashed into my mind -

"S-s-sit,"* I hesitantly whispered.

The dog barked louder, moved closer.

"SIT-T!" I bellowed.  Barbara had told we viewers that the heavy 'T' at the end of the word 'sit' was essential, as was determination in the voice.

And, my goodness.  Guess what?

The suddenly-silent dog.... SAT!!!!

...........

The photo above is of Moutohora Island Sanctuary (commonly known as Whale Island). I took the photo from Ohope Beach.     Moutohora used to be the also-ran island to see, after White Island.  But then the volcano on Whakaari/White Island erupted, responsible for injuries and tourist deaths (see Netflix documentary).  It was heart-breaking.  The island is now closed.  The tour companies go to Moutohora instead, a beautiful trip apparently, seeing bird life, breath-taking greenery, walk tracks, and a hot water beach.  I've never been there, even though I keep telling myself I will visit 'next time'.  I did go previously to White Island where I had to wear a gas mask as I peered across into the mouth of the steaming volcano.  White Island can also be seen from Ohope Beach.

*Barbara Woodhouse's way of dog training was lampooned in the movie "Octopussy" when James Bond ordered a tiger to "sit-t!", and it did.

Shopping those sales

 Hi there

I went into a clothing store the other day.  I had been attracted by the huge sign that took up all of the front  window:  "20% Off Everything!!!"

 Wow, I was in!  Literally.  

More "20% Off Everything" signs inside.  Everywhere.  On the walls.  On the clothing racks.  On the counter. There was even a huge "20% Off Everything!!!" peel-off sign on the floor. 

As I stood under one sign, looking across at another, and  surrounded by many more, an assistant made a beeline for me.  "Did you know that we have a "20%-off-everything sale? " she whispered confidentially to me.  

Like it was a big secret.

"No," I said.  " Really?  I hadn't a clue... "

Pound Sign

 Hi there

When New Zealand switched over to dollars and cents instead of British pounds-shillings-and-pence in 1967, we were told that our dollar sign would have one stroke line running from top to bottom through it, whereas the United States dollar had two strokes.

Nowadays the US have all but forsaken those two strokes for the one stroke, though I believe it's still okay there to use both.  

The first time I went to Las Vegas I got caught up in a similar Zealand vs America situation  -

Before leaving home I had booked a night-time tour around the city, but I was required to confirm it on arrival.  Via phone. The automated voice gave me several options for extension numbers at the company.  "Please press pound for confirmation of tours," said the robot.

Um. What?

Pound?  What was pound?    Was it like the old-fashioned pounds-shillings-and-pence?  Or pounds (lbs) as in a person's weight that was never now used in NZ?  I frantically searched the phone's dial pad.

                                 below:  a money pound sign, British

Zilch.  Nada.  Zero.  Nothing on the phone pad looked anything remotely like a British pound sign.

I had to ask at hotel reception what a 'pound' was.  The kind lady - hiding a smirk - pointed it out to me -

HASH - 

#   #   #   #   #   #   #

Oh, my goodness...  All New Zealand automated messages ask us to "please press hash" - # - to get through to the proper extension.  No wonder I was confused.  Same keyboard sign, not same name....

----------------------------------

Oh, I must tell you that the cafe (the Annexe), on the 1st floor* at Whitcoulls Lambton Quay surely has the best hot chips in Wellington.  No, the best in New Zealand.  The world?  Their caramel muffins are pretty good too.

*2nd floor, if you're American.

Population of New Zealand

 Hi there

When I holidayed with my mum in Sydney, Australia, in the early 1960s, we went on a bus tour around the city.  I was absolutely agog when the courier told everyone that the population of Sydney was well over a million. At the time, the population of the whole of New Zealand was just over 2 million.  How could so many people fit into Sydney?  A population of a million in one city was just too populous a number for me to understand.

Nowadays, the population of Sydney is five million, and the population of New Zealand is just over 4 million. When I go to Sydney for a musical show, I'm jammed in with people everywhere throughout  the city.  It's mainly tourists of which I am one.  I guess Sydney shouldn't be such a desirable place to visit.  

above: Sydney Harbour Bridge 2023

The wearing of the cardigan.

 Hi there

When I was a young teen, every female seemed to be wearing a cardigan.  Except me.  To me, cardigans denoted growing up.  Growing old.  Getting older.  I vowed never to wear a twinset and pearls which was all the rage for our mums.  A twinset was a matching sweater and cardigan.  And people used to think it was the height of fashion to add those pearls.  Whaaaat...!

above: stock photo

But the years have gone by and ...guess what?  I'm wearing cardigans!  Never with done-up buttons and never-never with pearls. 

But I'll tell you something that has begun to intrigue me:  often when I watch a home renovation show, or a gardening show, or a posh-people-holdaying-in-the-Hamptons show, the women love to wear cardigans or sweaters tied around their hips.  The funny thing is that these women are never seen actually wearing the cardigans or sweaters.

Is cardigan hip-wearing a fad?  Never worn, but always seen?  "Oh, don't I look great?" think the bored-stressed-angry-vindictive-jealous housewives of such-and-such city.   "I'll just tie my cardy around my hips and the peasants will throw hosannas and confetti at my feet.  I'm so fashion-forward."

Am I the only person in the world who realises that the moment a cardy is tied around the hips, the wearer suddenly has a big broad bottom.  The only time I decided to follow the trend and tie my cardy across my backside, I peered over my shoulder into the mirror, and was horrified.

I had the biggest hips, waist, and bottom...

XXX

Oh yes, I know I sound an idiot, going on about big bums ... But I denied myself much food for so many years - from age 13 until I retired - and it  became so ingrained in my brain that even now I have trouble getting away from some such thoughts about my size.

At that age of 13, I tore off the bottom half of a photo of me at the beach because my thighs were too big.  When I was in my early twenties I refused to take vitamin tablets that my mum was foisting on me because they were sugar-coated.  During my last years at work, just before retirement, I would fast-chew a cupcake or donut, and then spit it out.  

At retirement I realised I'd never ever bought a block of chocolate or a bag of potato chips, never tasted cheesecake, brownies, or lemon meringue pie, always refused sauces of any kind ...

Diets hadn't often worked anyway...

So, I threw out my scales, bought a bag of potato chips and a crunchie bar.  

And I try so hard to never look back...

Comics Banned in New Zealand in the 1950s

 Hi there

I was a young girl, mad about the English romance comic 'Valentine'.  'Valentine' was full of drawn romance stories, and interviews with pop stars, and instead of letters-to-the-editor, it was letters to Davy-the-mailroom-boy.  Everyone who got their letter printed got an 8"x10" photo of their requested favourite.  I managed to get a photo of Elvis in army uniform.  Sigh....

There were no New Zealand comics at the time.  Overseas magazines and comics were imported.  They took a minimum of 6 weeks to about 10 weeks to get from England to New Zealand.  By ship.    Kiwis were used to their overseas reading matter being so out-of-date.  

But by 1958 the change had come.  It was general knowledge that comics caused juvenile delinquency (huh?) 

So...   Comics were banned!  Government censorship was in from the middle of the decade, along with the famous Black Budget under Prime Minister Walter Nash.  I lost my beloved 'Valentine' comic.  Right in the middle of an exciting serial.  Would the heroine get her hero, the famous concert pianist?  Or would she have to marry the cad?

I moped around the house for weeks.  I was so devastated that my father sent a ten shilling note over to England and asked if 'Valentine' could be sent direct to our house, as newsagents would no longer be accepting overseas comics.

Yes!  For a couple of years I got 'Valentine' delivered, until the publishers sent a note saying the ban had been well-lifted and I should now get the comic in New Zealand.  

I never did find out whether that heroine married the cad or the gorgeous pianist....

Religious Teaching, New Zealand Schools in the 1950s

Hi there

When I was a kid, the schools had a religious person come in for an hour a week to tell the class about the bible.  It was usually someone from the Salvation Army.

I remember when I was about eight years old, at Newtown School  ...

The kids in my class had just opened their eyes after a prayer.

A boy frantically waved his hand.  "Jenny had her eyes open," he tattle-taled to the Salvation Army captain.

The captain pondered this.  "And how do you know she had her eyes open, Tommy?  Unless you had your eyes open too?"

"Oooooh..."  We kids were so over-awed by the Salvation Army captain's cleverness....

Even more about Las Vegas. Sorry about that...

 Hi there

My second week hotel stay in Vegas was at the Flamingo. The dates coincided with the Las Vegas Cyber Security Convention which is also known by all and sundry throughout the world as the Cyber Security Hackers Convention.  Oh dear...  On the night before the start of that convention, the tv news channels all warned that there would be hacking -  what?  Huh?

I had no trouble whatsoever with wifi at my first hotel, the Rio.  But at the Flamingo I couldnt access wifi the entire stay. I figured it was me, not being a very good worker of my phone, but one of the guests told me it was because the hotel was making it more difficult for the hackers.

From Flamingo window.  More colours on The Sphere.

below: The Linq Promenade, leading to the High Roller Ferris wheel. The Flamingo is on one side of the Promenade and the Linq Hotel is on the other side.   

I went on a zipline from the roof of the Linq Hotel right on down to another roof beside the High Roller.  Great!  But before the flight on the zipline I had to tick my nearest weight from the half-dozen choices that were shown to me on a tablet screen.  I had no idea how much I weighed in lbs but I was told to just press any weight on the information screen. 

When I moved on to the place where I had to be outfitted with the harness -  and because I'd been on ziplines before - I realised the harness was way too big for me, and I asked for a smaller outfit.  I might have slipped out of that original one.  And all because I had put down my wrong weight on that computer screen.

Above.  The Linq Promenade.  If you look real closely you can see the many ziplines at top of photo

above:  the Palazzo Hotel, foyer.  I have a faint feeling this view was the same as one I photographed about five years ago.  So, some things in Vegas don't change...

above: In the Linq Promenade.

Me:  in my room at Rio Hotel, the first hotel....

====

And talking about television in Las Vegas....   It was odd that practically every tv ad break was trying to sell me pet litter but I never once saw in my two weeks' stay, one advertisement for travel.  In New Zealand, I would say that practically every tv ad break shows some form of travel advert, be it ads for planelines, countries, tours, or cruises.  

At the Jerry Seinfeld show I met a lady from Seattle who'd never ever thought of going overseas.   I read an article a long time ago that said because New Zealanders lived so far away from big centres around the world, they tried harder to travel the globe, whereas Americans felt no need to travel overseas because they had everything in their own country.

I enjoyed Seinfeld.  I also had booked for Rod Stewart, but as I arrived at the theatre, a notice was put up saying the show was cancelled because Rod had a sore throat (turned out to be covid).

The Seattle lady said to me, "I saw Rod Stewart yesterday.  He was running so fast through the Linq Promenade.  Trying to avoid fans?"

More like not wanting to pass on Covid...? 

****

Los Angeles Airport - LAX

I had done a very stupid thing before I left New Zealand.  I looked up hundreds of you tube videos telling me how awful it was going through LAX and especially going through border security.  The videos were scary, I was petrified I'd be robbed, or I'd clash with security people, or I wouldnt know where to go, or what to do (even though I've been through LAX over a dozen times).  

What a mistake looking at those videos.  I breezed through security and border control in about 10 minutes  (I only have cabin bag) and after racing past 8 terminals outside LAX terminal B to get to SouthWest Airlines, I managed to get a flight to Las Vegas three hours earlier than the one I had booked, with 30 minutes to spare and no hassle getting through security a second time.  Hey, 'Anytime Fare', anyone?

****

Auckland Airport

What a mishmash of an airport. Building works everywhere.  Didnt enjoy it.  Another lady and myself couldnt find the bus stop to catch the bus to the domestic terminal, after we'd arrived from Los Angeles.   I was terribly upset as it was because I'd got to border control when I discovered I'd left my passport on the plane.  I almost broke into tears, but a lovely security guy rushed back to the plane and found it for me.  Thanks, man.....

When I was traversing through Auckland Airport, having just landed, I sighed into the air, "At last, I can walk on the left side-"

Yes! hooray we're home" (from the guy in front of me).

"I hated walking on the right!" (from the lady behind me).

"I could never turn corners without automatically veering over to the left"  (from the woman to my side).

***

MY Holiday (there'll be more holiday stuff over next few weeks. Poor you!)

 Hi there

Most of today's mind-gripping text is about - wait for it! -  the PLANE RIDES

Well..  My 2 week Vegas holiday has been and gone in a trice.  Because I'm getting, ahem, older, I decided to fly over to Los Angeles on Air New Zealand Skycouch.  No skiting (showing off) allowed because the skycouch is still in Economy, with the same meals and attention as other Economy passengers - sadly,  I didn't get led onto the plane by an Air New Zealand entourage, with confetti, balloons and trumpets lining the route. 

The Skycouch is great.  I got all the three seats in the row.  There's a leg rest on each chair and they can be locked to seat level when needed to turn the chairs into a couch.  Up go the inside arm rests and I was given a mattress layer, an extended sleeping seatbelt,  three blankets, and a couple of proper pillows.  Divine.

I loved having these three seats, including the window and aisle.  They were my personal domain. I used whichever tray table I felt like eating from. I had my own stuff all around me.  No other passengers bothered me.  I was in a lovely little nest..

stock photo

Though Air New Zealand advertises that two people can sleep on one skycouch, I can't recommend it.  However, one parent and a child can fit great on a skycouch.  There are a few other configurations that work on an okay level, eg, if a couple book one skycouch, one person can sit on the third seat while the other tries to snuggle down on what is now a two-seater skycouch.  Feet on loved one's lap?

Or... One person can sit in Economy, the second in Skycouch.  They can swap during flight?

Returning home, I was in Premium Economy, with a posh seat with more leg room, the tray table is in the seat arm, the back of chair is in more relaxed mode, and I had a leg rest.  However, the leg rest literally was a leg rest.  My feet dangled off the end which annoyed me no end. 

In Premium Economy there was a menu choice for breakfast and dinner (I liked the Alaskan Cod).  The staff were attentive (there were only six passengers in Premium Economy, but about thirty empty seats). We were handed out wet towels at various times, and encouraged to stretch out on empty seats.  The seats of only two arm-rests could be lifted so even though I was in a four seat row setup, I could only stretch out on the two middle seats.  So...  I may as well have been in Economy, or Skycouch where I had three whole seats to go to sleep on.  Costs roughly same price as Skycouch, depending on when and how you book.  And no sleeping seatbelts.

Two people booking the one skycouch is cheaper than one person.  

NB:  a booker has to book their economy seat first, and only then do they get asked if they want skycouch.  There are only about a dozen skycouches per flight.  I guess maybe there are ways a flyer can check to see before booking if any skycouches are free.

Alcohol drinks were free in Premium Economy but as my choice is Diet Coke (yes, yes, you know by now that I am an addict), I wouldn't have saved much money on the journey.

There was a Premium Economy check-in counter at Los Angeles Airport so the snob factor was there, and I was allowed a 10 kg cabin bag instead of 7 Kg as in Economy.   I only took a cabin bag with me. 

(The weirdest thing: my baggage scale at home said my bag weighed 7.1 kg, but when I weighed it at Air New Zealand Wellington Airport, it was 6.8 kg.  An hour later at Air NZ Auckland Airport, it was 6.4 kg.  On leaving Vegas for home, and after buying quite a bit of stuff, my bag weighed 7.1 kg again.  Go figure.)

Oh, and Premium Economy passengers are allowed on the plane a good two minutes before Economy so, wow, that's a extra incentive to travel PE, yes?

So, all in all, if you want to be refreshed when you land, I would go for Skycouch over Premium Economy...

below: menu, main meal, Premium Economy. The breakfast was lovely too.

LAS VEGAS -

I didn't really take a swag of photos as I'd been to Vegas before.  I have loads of photos from Vegas in this blog of the years pre-Covid.

The highest day temperature was 47c. (117f). The lowest high on other days was 41c.

above:  view from my Flamingo Hotel window.  The 'High Roller' ferris wheel.  And 'The Sphere' auditorium which has revolving colours going all around it, all day, all night.  Music acts appear inside The Sphere, along with examples of technical advancements, eg robots.  The Sphere is maybe 30 stories high???

\

above :  An outdoor Paris Hotel and Casino cafe.  As people walk by on The Strip, they are very lightly sprayed with water to ease the heat.

above:  me at the above cafe, sitting on outside patio.  Hot, tired...

above: view of Eiffel Tower at Paris Hotel and casino.

Just Got Back From Las Vegas holiday!!!

 Hi there

Walked in my door about an hour ago: tired, sweaty, worn out.  On one particular day weather in Las Vegas was 47c (117 Fahrenheit), broke a record.  The temp never went below 111 Fahrenheit the whole two weeks I was there.  I took my umbrella to use as a sunshade but it didn't help - it protected me from the sun but not the heat.  The same with the fan that I took with me- the waving of the fan just moved the heat about, there were no cooling breezes coming at me from my frantic waving of that darn fan.  Just walking a hundred metres outdoors turned me into a heated mess.

More later.....

Out for a Walk

 Hi there

I walk a lot.  In my mind, I'm speed-walking, but the weirdest thing happens:  people amble past me....

Last week I walked from Hatatai central, where the shops are.   I walked straight up the hill and over to Oriental Bay, turning left at the top where the school is.   I love this walk, the view from the top of the hill is great.   I love looking at the view over the inner harbour and the Miramar Peninsula.  When I come to a big fork in the road, I go left for a couple of minutes till I get to the zig-zag downhill walk getting me to Grass Street, Oriental Bay, roughly opposite the Rotunda.  From Hatatai to Oriental Bay takes about 45 minutes.

Below.  View from the top of the Hataitai hill -

below.  The fountain at Oriental Bay

Still swimming

 Hi there

I'm still winter swimming at Hataitai Beach, my 15th winter-swimming year.  

Jay, The Young One, and I swam together for ten years . For a few years after my swimming friends' lives had gone in other directions, I swam in the lonely cold winter sea all by myself.

But then Covid came and the whole country was shut down. No swimming allowed.

Freedom came in the month of March and, suddenly, the beach was crowded.  Under normal circumstances swimmers would all but have given up with the onset of cooler days.

But this time, many never stopped swimming.  It was as if having lost their freedom during a covid summer, they were going to make up for such an outrage by swimming through the winter. 

Today, there are lots of swimmers, all of them bubbling away with the joy of a cold winter sea.  And me?  I'm getting jaded because of ...

being dictated to by the tide times, and the sea and air temps;

the gradual  disappearance of the sun on the deck;

the winter shadows that completely cover the water in the bay;

the aching coldness of the sea;

the absolutely freezing changing sheds where after a swim my fingers are so numb I can't hook up my bra, do up buttons or zips, or pull up sleeves, and all this forces me to  stay longer in the shed, getting colder by the minute;

the bone-chilling cold that is often inside me for a couple of hours post-swim if I don't make it home fast enough for my hot shower, 

and

the fact that I have to give up so much of my ordinary life because I'm ruled by my swims...

Hey ... Do you think I will be swimming next winter?

sorry for moaning...

"Thank you, driver"

 Hi there

I've often wondered if people in other countries do what we do, when they get off a bus.

Maybe it's just Wellington?   

As I exit a bus - be it via the back or front door -  I call out, "Thank you" to the driver.  Some people are extra polite and they shout "Thank you, driver".  There are bus riders who mumble it so low that the driver wouldn't be able to hear it, and others who bellow the words.

It's an expected thing.

Also an expected thing is the little wave one gives to the driver of the vehicle that stops to let you pass on a pedestrian crossing.  I often think this a bit weird as cars are by law expected to stop anyway for me when I'm on a crossing.

The little wave is also a thing when a driver approaches roadworks.  Oh, look, here's a guy holding up a 'Stop' sign.  He turns over the sign to read 'Go', and as I drive past him at a crawl, I flick up my hand in recognition.   He flicks his hand back....

Getting 'The Strap' at School

 Hi there

When I was a child - between the ages of eight and thirteen - I got strapped at school.  A lot.

I was a talker.  Still am.  I babble away contentedly to anyone.  On the bus.  In the theatre.  In cafes.  My friends roll their eyes and put up with me.  That's what friends are for....

My father got transferred a few times, so I went t o schools in and out of Wellington.  Here are the schools where I got strapped:

Newtown School, Wellington (attended twice)

Bell Block School, Taranaki

Central School, New Plymouth, Taranaki

Central School, Palmerston North

South Wellington Intermediate (attended twice)

Manukau Intermediate, Auckland...

...and then, mercifully, by the time I reached Wellington East Girls' College, we pupils were considered too mature to strap.  It was detention instead.  At South Wellington, I had received both the strap and detention; South Wellington's idea of 'detention' was sweeping the classroom floor after school...

Some children receiving the strap were so scared that after  the teacher told them to stretch their arm out to the side, palm up, the kids jerked their hand away at the last second. Because I was strapped almost every school day, I put on childish bravado as I walked up to take "the cuts', but it always hurt.

The strap was flat-looking, leather, and well-worn.  It would probably have been over twice the average width of a man's belt.  Once I was called out to take the strap when it wasn't me that was talking, and that truly rankled. I was so cowed by the teacher that I accepted  'the cuts'.

Children who rarely got the strap or, indeed, had never been strapped, took it really hard when they were called to the front.  The teacher would pull out his desk drawer and seemed to take forever to gather up the strap and march over to the wrong-doer. 

 I never sobbed after getting the strap because I was used to the sharp pain as the strap landed - thwack! - on my hand, but others sobbed their little hearts out.  Most kids massaged their hands through the rest of the lesson.  I only remember being strapped by male teachers.

Quite a few times extra-naughty children got two straps.  Out would go one hand - thwack! - and then out would go the other hand for yet another thwack!  Sometimes the teacher wasn't all that expert with the strap, missing the palm and scraping the strap across the fingers.

Looking back, I am horrified by how barbaric it all was...

above:  I had a hard hunt for photos on the web of The Strap as used by New Zealand schools in the 1950s.  Noone seemed to have taken photos of the thing; this photo of a pristine strap is the closest I could find.  Oh, sure, there are lots of pix of modern-day 'straps', but they are usually reserved for naughty pleasures in houses of ill repute, and they vary greatly from the school strap.  Our school straps were extremely worn.  I had no idea what the hand-hold of the strap looked like.  It could have been as the above.  Or not.

Matariki

 Hi there

This past Friday was a fairly new public holiday in New Zealand.  It's to celebrate Matariki, the Maori New Year when early Maori -  charting the stars - would plan the year ahead, eg, crop planting, exploration, etc.

Mataraki is for families and friends (whanau) to be together in our modern world....

Matariki is a star cluster, known by the ancient greeks as Pleiades.  On Friday morning I got up just before dawn and went out into the back garden, armed with my binoculars.  It was a black sky, but over toward the east, stood out this wonderful bright cluster of stars.  Matariki.  What a privilege to see it in all its splendour.

web photo

Mid-winter swim, Hataitai Beach, 23 June 2024, 2pm

 Hi there

Bottom photo:  It was drizzling a couple of minutes before the swimmers entered the water but the rain stopped as we stepped into the sea.  The water was as flat as a mill pond.

 Top photo: taken just after the swim.  A sunbeam pierced through the dark clouds to illuminate  an over-the-water shed at the end of the bay. Note the shed's reflection in the water.

 Probably about 40 people attended....

Short people

 Hi there.  

I hate being short in height.  Before last week, I had not had my height measured since I was at secondary school where I was (imperial measurement) five feet two and a half inches tall.

From that time I've always told people I was five feet two and a half inches.  In the 1960s when we had to put our height on a passport application, I wrote 'five feet two and a half inches'.  We also had to put our eye colour.  I remember asking the man behind the application counter to look into my eyes -

"What colour are they?" I asked him.

"Um ...  Green?"

"That'll do..."

If I was ever to be in a future fatal plane accident and if by that time I had gained or lost an inch or two of height, and my eyes were officially down as being green, rather than the hazel that my friends told me they truly were, then my body would never have been identified.  Hooray for DNA nowadays...

But I digress ... 

Just recently I was reading a piece about how people grew shorter as they grew older.  Apparently, by the time we reach the age of 80, women will have lost 3 inches and men have lost 2.

Well, I was at the eye clinic at Wellington hospital last week and I asked a nurse if she would measure my height.

I was a smidgin under five feet.

Whaaaat????

So.... its true then?  About getting shorter as you get older?  Who'd-a-thought?

This is why I get so anxious before I go to a live show.  I always-repeat-always end up with the tallest person in the theatre sitting in front of me.  His kids will sit either side of him and his tiny wife a couple of seats away is happily watching from behind another short person.

I was telling the ticket box lady about this dilemma once.  I don't think she believed me because she asked me to show her the following night when I found my seat in the theatre.

At interval, I scooted into the foyer to locate her -

"There!!"  I pointed in triumph to the guy in front of my seat.

"Oh, he is tall," said the ticket box lady.  And she beetled off to help sell the ice creams and no doubt forget about me....

above: Wellington Opera House where many live shows are staged.

*****

Shortest day, whoopee!  

Mid-Winter Swim Hataitai Beach 2024, now SUNDAY 23 June 2 PM... 2 PM... 2 PM...

 Hi there

(This is yet another change to mid-winter swim date and time, hopefully last.)

NOW:  2 pm Sunday 23 June

I'm devastated!  I'm old (is that a good enough excuse?  Can I play The Old Lady Card?)...

I have told the whole world that the Hataitai Beach Mid-winter Swim is Sunday 23 June 2024, 11 am...  And it can't be then.... 

...because a Wellington marathon is on the same day and the road alongside the beach will be closed till 1 pm.

So after Jay organised the most beautiful poster for that day, I am going to have to slam a sticker over the date with my terribly-scrawled amendment on it (not only did I fail Art for my School Certificate but I was the only girl in my class at Wellington East Girls' College to fail Chamber of Commerce Handwriting). 

 I feel so bad that I've probably ruined this for Jay, my ex-winter-swimming pal.  I'm so sorry, Jay.  And I'm sorry to those who have already read the poster and written down the information. 

Mid-winter Swim, Hataitai Beach is now Sunday 23  June, 2024 at 2 pm.   

Evans Bay Parade Opens at 1 pm.

Plane Turbulence

 Hi there

There has been a lot of talk lately about the results of  air turbulence on board planes.

Years ago in the mid-1960s I was on a plane and we went through turbulence.  There was a woman in a seat in front of me and when the plane suddenly dropped, she happened to be holding a full glass of wine.  The plane dropped, everything inside that plane dropped, but, goodness, the contents of that glass stayed a-hover in the air, in perfect glass shape, for a couple of seconds, whilst the glass itself dropped down with the woman who was now holding the stem of an empty wine glass.   Then - splat! - the wine splashed down onto her.

Talk about 'defying gravity' (as throatily sung by that naughty witch in the stage musical "Wicked"). 

It was a memory I'll never forget.

above:  you all know that I'm a magnificent artist, yeah?

above: a computer friend put the above together for me.  In truth, it was white wine, and the wine didn't look as ragged as in the picture.  It was a perfect wine glass shape. It would have been more than a couple of feet (imperial measurement) above the glass.

Taking a shower

 Hi there

I was reading a book the other day ("Demon on the Down-Low" by E J Russell) and I came upon the following paragraph -

He leaped out of bed and raced in and out of the shower so fast he actually dodged the water and failed to get wet, so he had to go back in and force himself to stand still, vibrating in place with the urge to hurry.

And I thought about that ...  Rushing in and out of the shower because we have far more important things to do is now sort of a normal thing?  A shower is an inconvenience, a hold-up, a thing to get over and done with as fast as possible.  No luxuriating in a shower.

I remember when I used to have leisurely baths.  I would pour a good quarter of a jar of Helena Rubenstein bubble bath into the water and luxuriate in that tub for at least forty minutes.  Nowadays, I  have time-managed my shower down to around the five minute mark.  I'm proud of my achievement. 

Still ... a part of me craves for a life that isn't one big hurry.  I mean, I am retired after all.  My life should not be in fast mode.  

I think I'll give that bubble bath another go.  Hey, where can I buy a rubber ducky....?