Boxing On

Boxing On

They say that every picture tells a story.  This image demonstrates how I write this blog while I wait for the computer desk to be delivered and assembled.

Thankfully we are now fully installed in our new house and away from our rental unit where we endured the rampaging sounds of our landlord's children in the house above, for the past two months.

It was a great pity he couldn't have taken his children with him when he went off in his electrician's van each morning.  At least we would have got some sleep.

The US Postal service had the right idea as this old photo (right) demonstrates.

The Shaky Isles

Yesterday was a black day for New Zealand and more particularly the South Island.  The first inkling I had that their was a calamity was a report of a major earthquake when I switched on the bedside radio to hear the BBC.

A 7.1  quake hit Christchurch just after 4:30am in the morning and flattened a lot of the city.

As the Prime Minister stated later in the day "Parts of the city look like they've been put in a tumble dryer and given a damn good shake. You look at certain parts of the city and down town, it's essentially a ghost town. You can see utter devastation",

The city was lucky on two counts.  Firstly it was early in the morning when the streets were relatively deserted and families were together.  Secondly there appears to have been no fatalities at time of writing.

I rushed to turn on the television but at that time of the morning there were no special reports.  Once again it was the Net and in particular Twitter that kept everybody up to date.  Real time updates from citizen tweeters and bloggers provided excellent coverage while the main stream media struggled to keep up.

As the map shows the country is a mass of active fault lines and the forces generated by the collision of the Pacific and Australian plates are massive.

It is only a question of time before our capital city Wellington is devastated as it sits on more fault lines than any other NZ populated conurbation.  It was therefore a surprise to most, including the geologists, that it was Christchurch that experienced this  major event.

It should however be no surprise at the scale of the damage, as the shingles on which a lot of the city sits are perfect transmitters of energy. Therefore the force of an earthquake spreads easily and causes greater damage and also liquifaction.



Now twenty four hours on, we have comes to realise that this will be a billion dollar cleanup exercise and one of our most serene and English of cities has been changed forever.

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• 7.4 quake hits New Zealand's South Island (abclocal.go.com)
• New Zealand braced for quake aftershocks (channel4.com)
• 'Worst earthquake I have ever felt' (bbc.co.uk)
• Twitter concern for NZ earthquake (news.theage.com.au)

Rivetting Flying And Flying Rivets

The DC3

Where we live is near the flight path of Auckland International Airport; not I hasten to add on the flight path but near enough for me to spot the insignia of departing aircraft.

I like to imagine myself in a forward seat in business class, sipping a welcome drink and nibbling on a hors d'œuvre. The joy of leaving for a a far flung destination  has always been with me and this wanderlust hasn't dissipated with age.

It has always been this way.  In earlier days the trips from New Plymouth to Christchurch, with fuel stops at Ohakea and Blenheim were looked forward to with pleasure.

Of particular fascination was the  motorised vacuum cleaner that regularly swept the Ohakea runaway clear of rivets, shed by DC3 aircraft such as ours. 

I was too young to associate these shed metals parts with metal fatigue and the potential catastrophic failure in those days.

The Douglas Dakota DC3 was quite an aircraft and the workhorse of New Zealand's domestic aviation in the 1950''s. Even the Queen arrived in one at New Plymouth airport during her visit there in 1953 and if it was good enough for her........

There was something magical about the throb of the propellers and counting fleeing livestock as we flew overhead at low altitude.

Only once has the joy of flying been replaced by stomach-clenching terror.  This was a white knuckle landing at Wellington airport into the teeth of a southerly storm. 

Flying in old Twin Otter aircraft in the highlands of Papua New Guinea was a doddle compared to the Wellington approach, where the horizon bucked and dipped as we made a shortened landing through a cloud of sea spray.  At one stage just before touch down we were careening sideways to the runway.

I rediscovered the mint in my clenched hand only when we were safely inside the terminal; it was that sort of landing.

Flying in and out of Asian airports in recent years has had its moments including racing a typhoon into Taipei, but nothing compared to Wellington.  I haven't flown for two months and am missing the welcoming warmth of Changi already.

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• Metal fatigue in old aircraft: Flying rivets (economist.com)

The Delivery Man Cometh...Sometimes

Waiting for a delivery

Delivery guys drive me nuts!

As per usual we itemised the morning time of delivery on the docket and equally true to form the van was nowhere to be seen by midday.

The frustration of trying to track down the elusive van reached a crescendo at noon and finally..... after calls to the shop where we bought our appliances..... a call.

"We are lost" said the driver. "Can't find your house on the map"

"Have you read the  very carefully composed direction we left on the payment docket?" I asked. "If you had done so you would have realised that this is a new property and won't appear on any postcode"

A pregnant pause.

"It's not on our delivery docket" was the reply.

There then ensued a rather terse conversation, the upshot of which was the van arrived half and hour later.

In preparation for the delivery we had vacuumed and mopped floors to make sure that when appliances were in place, they were on a clean base.

The items which included a refrigerator were offloaded at lightning speed.

Would they mind slipping off their dirty boots when the entered the house was my polite request.

"No, we can't take off our boots, it's an Occupation Health and Safety requirement that we keep them on"

"Then do you have any drop sheets to cover our newly cleaned carpet?"

 Of course they did not and one of them even  managed to cut his finger while installing the washing machine leaving red smears on the wall.

Today we are having another delivery; furniture, so at least we will have something to site on while we wait for deliveries in the future!

Munching Through Malaysia

Beef Rendang

Last evening I watched Rick Stein munching his way through Malaysia.
 
This was a repeat viewing as I had seen his Far Eastern Odyssey while in Singapore.

His rapturous description of beef rendang had me salivating and dreaming of my years in Singapore and the many delightful Malay meals I had eaten.

I miss the punchy spiciness of this cuisine and much as fresh New Zealand bread and dairy produce has its attractions, I still prefer Malay and Chinese food.

Stein is an interesting man who, while identified with Cornwall, in fact now lives in Mollymook, Australia, with his publicist fiancée. His father committed suicide and he has a brother who is a university professor.

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• Rick Stein's seafood curry recipe (guardian.co.uk)
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