Just in case you were confused

I've been having a wee tiki tour round the central north island today, Been to T places - Tirau, Tokaroa, Taupo... missed Turangi, might go Friday... I enjoy those sort of days, admiring the countryside, other peoples stock and the idiocycrises of small towns.

I followed the truck in the photo for about 20km, and in the end had to get a photo of it. The small print on the sign says "Anything else could be" A timely reminder since I am not that good at sticking to the speed limit. I blame cars for this - if they weren't meant to go faster than 100kph they shouldn't be able to. (Note too for all my lawlessness the four accidents I have had in my driving life were all at speeds of less than 50kph)

The reason this sign amused me is that he spent most of the time travelling about 20km above the speed limit - must have got an exemption when he got the sign.

Lost my work ethic

The morning has gone like this:

6:30 Get up, shower, dress, get first coffee, feed horses and chooks, I'm gonna start work early today
7:25 Just check my private email before I start work
7:29 Might just have a quick look on the web, after all official work time is 8am
8:16 Oops, check work emails
8:18 Better start with something simple... think about what I will start with for a minute.
8:20 Get a cup of coffee and a piece of toast
8:27 Wipe butter from the keyboard, feed the fish.
8:31 Open appropriate files, gaze at them.
8:36 Check pedometer and do four lengths of the verandah
8:42 Now I'm going to do some work
8:44 Drink coffee brush teeth and take a vitamin
8:46 Look for new batteries for the electric toothbrush
8:51 Replace batteries, brush teeth again, growl at cat who is scratching sofa
8:55 Back to work
8:58 Make more coffee
9:01 Back to work
9:15 That went well... drink coffee, do four more lengths of the verandah, growl at cat again.
9:28 Remember I was going to ring someone. look for their phone number. Clean out my handbag
9:48 Make phone call.
10:00 Morning tea time, have had enough coffee get a cup of orange tea instead.
10:16 Right now I need to do something now
10:32 check the internet for something I need to find out (work related) drop in to see who's blogged today
10:50 Do some more work
11:13 Do six lengths of the house and two of the verandah
11:24 Check the mailbox
11:36 Wonder what I'll have for lunch
11:45 decide to blog about this straight after I've had lunch, checked the emails, read the mail and growled at the cat again
THEN I'M GOING TO WORK ALL AFTERNOON

Just daily dramas.

I had a craving for smoked salmon yesterday. With cream cheese on french bread. I could taste it on my tongue. Nothing else looked edible in comparison. There was nothing for it but to go shopping.

Also needed horse food. So I decided to go to Te Puke rather than Tauranga, pretty much the same distance but less traffic in Te Puke - well that was the theory anyway.

Have never been to the farm stores in Te Puke so I was a bit perplexed when the first two did not stock sugarbeet of any description - bit of a problem as this is Kiwi's staple diet, he loves the stuff. So had to go to the farmstore I never shop at cos I don't like them. They must have noted I don't like them, and I kept my facial expressions carefully neutral too, as two blokes (as in shop 'assistants') watched me heave three 25kg bags of feed into a trolley while offering advise on what brand I should be selecting. Now I know I'm a big strapping girl quite capable of hauling a few feed sacks round.... but... downright rude really. Had to put it in the car myself too. So I still don't like them.

Proceeded out of farm store carpark and to the first roundabout (Te Puke is full of roundabouts) where some idiot who is obviously confused about the new roundabout rules proceeds to go right round the roundabout without indicating at all and then has the cheek to offer me an obscene gesture when I have to brake to avoid him - since I was under the mistaken impression he was going straight ahead. Refrain from road rage... refrain from road rage... breath in, out....

Quick detour round the supermarket to grab that salmon and I find a checkout where the last customers are down to the final five items, and join the queue. This is looking to be going well until the checkout operator rings up the total - 'that will be $165' and they reveal that they have a budget of $90 and start putting things back. So it was a wee wait and I was intrigued at the grocery items that came out of the bags compared to the ones that stayed in. Pizza stays, rice is put back, potato chips remain, frozen vegies taken off the total, I refrain from offering nutritional and budget advice as the bags are half emptied and eventually the total is $88 and some cents. Checkout operator offers her opinion as soon as they have vanished out the door - 'you must know you have spent about twice what you've got - even without a calculator! Did you see all the junk food they kept!'

Someone else tries to navigate the roundabout without indicating as I drive out of Te Puke again. This time I'm ready for it. No gestures either which makes it easier to put up with.

I was only gone a bit over an hour - and they are grading the road again as I get home! Have these guys with the grader got nothing better to do? Surely there is another road in the area that could do with grading more than ours can?

Sometimes it just isn't safe to go out.

Smoked salmon was divine, (the cat thought so too).

How good is my baby?

The spotty little git on the right there (looking shaggier these days)

The farrier came out yesterday and trimmed him while I was still bringing in the other two, in the paddock, without a halter, with no one holding him, and he didn't move a muscle except to pick up the next foot when the last one was put down. Not bad for a 20 month old colt I thought

Bastards

As previously mentioned we live about 5km down a gravel road. But there is actually very little gravel on it, it's mostly dirt. The council has plans to seal it sometime, in fact it is the second highest priority road in the district apparently. That means they will probably do it in about ten years... (okay I'm a cynic).

Most of the time it isn't too bad, as dirt roads go. It gets a few potholes but mostly it's pretty easy driving.

Except the council has taken it into their heads to grade it every three weeks at the moment. So it goes from being a fairly easy road that you can comfortably travel at 80kph on to a slippery, muddy mess that you need to navigate at about 30kph to avoid sliding off it. After they have graded it it takes about a week to settle down again so we get two weeks of good road and then they come along and mess it up again. They have just outdone themselves though, it was graded on Friday, now they have just come back and graded it again.

Just something I was going to mention earlier but forgot

Prompted by reading the wonderfully irreverant Karl's blog... I'm quite addicted to Karl, she's one very amusing lady. I like the horse photos too so if you follow the link make sure you scroll down and have a look at those.

What prompted this was the second paragraph mention of Winston Peters (and I agree with her opinion of him).

We were wandering through Fieldays this year in a crush of far too many people and Winston had a stand. So there he was standing, smiling, immaculate in his navy suit (at least pretty sure it was navy, I actually only glanced at him) with a handful of party supporters, kissing the babies and no doubt discussing immigration. The woman in front of us in the crush went "Oh it's Winston" deserted her husband (well I'm assuming they were married, they looked married) to gravitate towards the stand. Her husband headed in the general direction after her. We moved on about two stands and paused to look at something there that was a little more interesting than your average political candidate and the same couple came back past us a few minutes later. As they passed us the wife was gushing, starry eyed from the meeting.

I caught what she was saying as we went past and had difficulty not laughing out loud. "Hasn't he got the loveliest handshake." she was saying...

The mind boggles at how people may make voting decisions.... and how would you describe a lovely handshake?

On car alarms

A few years ago we knew a bloke that had a fair amount of money - and probably a complex about the size of his genitals - who bought a brand new, top of the line, overpowered, gasguzzling, big boys toy type car. When he bought it he was also in the throes of moving from somewhere to somewhere and was renting a house without a garage so he parked it in the driveway. This suited him fine as the neighbours could all admire this hunk of metal that looked mean enough to make you pause before walking in front of it when it was parked. Of course vehicles of this calibre are highly coveted and often converted so he got a state of the art car alarm fitted. He stopped short of having GPS and an immobilizer fitted but it was a pretty good alarm never the less, the sort you talk about straight after you've finished talking about engine size and horsepower and all that other bloke stuff.

About a month after he got the car the car alarm developed a fault. It kept going off, three or four times a night, every night for four nights. Every time he got up to check there was no sign of any disturbance round the car or anywhere on the property. It was a bit peculiar really because it only did this at night never in his work carpark. He took it in to the alarm speciallists twice over the next four days and they tested the whole lot and insisted that the alarm was fine. On the fifth night the car alarm went off about midnight, he went out, looked round, there was no one there... so he turned the alarm off and went back to bed.

In the morning the car was gone, and it was never seen again. The insurance company got a little bit huffy about the alarm being turned off too - though they paid up eventually.

Husband woke up in a less than cheerful mood due to the neighbours having a loud party until the early hours of the morning. They do this with a little too frequent regularity, but this one went particularly late.

Must be karma (tongue firmly in cheek here) cos about two minutes after husband got up this morning his car alarm developed a fault so was going off every five minutes for half an hour. Darn I hate it when that happens... must be particularly irritating when you've been partying loudly until about three hours before.

A takeover coup?

Back to work this morning. Actually I only lasted till lunchtime then I packed up the laptop and went home, it was too darn cold in there. However I have an eight week project to amuse myself with so will carry on with that, either at work or at home as the mood takes me.

Was a little perturbed to find my office had been taken over in the last few weeks (it was vacant as it should have been three weeks ago when I went in). The takeover bidder had not gone as far as emptying the drawers of my desk but had rearranged computer, left stuff all over my desk, added items to the bookshelf etc. He was not present when I showed up (yes he's one of my staff, and yes it was commonly known I would be back today). So general enquiry eliciting that there was no reason given for this move I packed the whole lot up and dumped it back on HIS desk and got to work. First thing was phonecalls to various people to assure them I was back and working and check what was going on. And the gossip starts "[desk thief] rang me and demanded a pay increase since he was doing your job" said my manager "I told him to go take a running jump as I know who was doing your job and it wasn't him, he went to [GM]"

[GM] said something similar (along the lines of I told him No).

Said individual turned up eventually. "Sorry I didn't tidy up your desk..."

Eyed him up and down and said "you should be." in a reasonably amiable tone of voice. (receptionist who heard this through the door snorted quite loudly)

He found he needed to be out again reasonably urgently.

I'm vastly amused. I was only gone six weeks!