32/365 Boatsheds, Bosley's, Freyberg, Cathedral

I looked after my son for a couple of hours today while my wife had a dental appointment. We walked along to the beach by Freyberg pool, going past the boatsheds in Oriental Bay along the way. It was a superb sunny warm day (only 20deg, which feels warm for Wellington believe it or not)

In this picture:
- said boatsheds;
- Martin Bosley's Yacht Club Restaurant (apparently extremely nice!)
- St Gerard's Church and Monastery
- Freyberg Pool

31/365 End of the month

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30/365 Picnic at Percy's

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29/365 Magic in the Gardens

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28/365 Biscuits and muffins

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27/265 Curious motorcyle

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26/365 Muffins

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25/365 Celestial Wines

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24/365 Hutt River outflow

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Silt outflow front from the Hutt River diffusing into Wellington Harbour, as viewed from our place - looking across to Days Bay and Rona Bay. A result of the rainy weather system that cancelled day 2 of Wings Over Wairarapa the previous day.

23/365 Airshow washout

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All dressed up and nowhere to go: plane sits with a cockpit cover on... it's not going anywhere. Wings Over Wairarapa : day 2 was a washout! Highly disappointing for my son and nephew - and me. But it was a nice visit to the half-sister-in-law's place in Masterton.

22/365 Story with the (toy) animals

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My son's construction of animals, cloths, and a cousin (or is it a footstool) as part of a random little story he was making up. Love his imagination at setting this up, and his attention to details.

21/265 Garden flowers

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The nicest arrangements can be made from flowers straight from the garden. Those orange ones always catch my eye - and seem prolific at this time of year (although I understand they're actually a pest plant...?)

20/365 Expensive bit of plastic

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Picture of motorcycle horn switch which broke off. This small, insignificant bit of plastic is going to cost $65 + installation to replace! (that include the switch assembly) Rip off!!! So I'm trying to figure out a way to reattach it.

19/365 Two computers

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Picture of nephew's new laptop next to my parents' real computer (the Apple iMac /grin/)

18/365 Moody sky

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Picture of cloudy skies over Wellington, with a magical mix of light and showers.

17/365 Men at work

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Picture of son tidying away toys with big earmuffs on!

16/365 Lake Taupo

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Lake Taupo.

15/365 Happy reunions

Definitely the highlight of my holidays today: meeting a friend who I'd known at primary school: Kirstin Anderson-McGhie. I didn't know what to expect... a positive, friendly personality and 'vibe' came across via Facebook after we reconnected about a year ago, but what sort of people would we be like after half a lifetime? I was thrilled to discover that we still 'clicked': we had an excellent yarn, and our respective families got along really well too.

I'm sure Kirstin won't mind me borrowing her photo in the meantime... I have yet to retrieve the ones from my niece's camera (and I hope I find one of myself without arms crossed! Looks a bit sort of stand-offish /grin/)

Why was I so happy about this? I'm guessing that it's due to the realisation that, even after half a lifetime of taking on all the cares and stresses of adulthood, each of us apparently still has those positive aspects that we liked about each other. In other words, that part of me (and of her) hasn't changed after 25 years. No reason I can see why it won't be the same after another 25 years.

In a word: awesome.

14/365 Water under pressure

Why have I posted a picture of a pipe with a joiner in it? Because this thing is basically what took nearly 2 days out of my holiday. This is the finished result of my efforts : the two halves of the joiner screwed into each side of the pipe using a pair of very heavy, 'he-man' pipe-wrenches. I was extremely pleased with myself!

How did this come about?

My sister-in-law has a Pelton water-wheel on her property, fed by water taken from a pond using a 50-mm LDPE plastic hose, which drops quite a way down the hill to aforementioned wheel...

... so anyway: Mr Helpful here decides he's going to tramp the length of the hose, to check for any  dirt/rocks/trees fallen onto the hose, and clear it. With a spade. A metal one. It's amazing how much pressure was behind the water, even though it was only a relatively short way down the hill. It was also amazing how fast I was able to crash my way up the steep craggy bush slope in heavy gumboots, to pull the hose from the pond before all the water got wasted by draining away.

Anyway: it was worth it in the end: right where I cut it, a collection of fallen rocks plus a tree stump had pushed quite a bend into the hose. This is a Bad Thing for power generation, as it increases friction to the water, which reduces available water flow at the bottom... = less electricity. The net result was that after I rerouted the hose around the obstacle (and around the very narrow craggy stream bed below the obstacle, necessitating quite a large deviation), my sister-in-law subsequently reported a slightly increased power output! All's well that ends well.

13/365 Bonkers

Visited my uncle in Kaikohe today, and met his two dogs: a couple of fox terriers bursting with energy, and totally bonkers! Frustrating in that I like dogs and was keen to make friends with them, but they just weren't into it. This picture captures it well: the two crazy sods were jumping and bolting around like they had springs in their legs!!