Hang on *checks back to see what last post was about* Flip, that was a time ago, well we deffo have done some stuff since then… Here we go now in no particular order.

We went here Te Papa. The big museum of New Zealandness in Wellington. Some very cool stuff. Although, I will say this here and now, just on the off-chance anyone from the museum is reading this. The so-called colossal squid is, quite frankly, not that colossal. The rest of the museum is quite cool though and well worth a visit if you are passing. I thought the best bit was the giant meat playhouse.

It is actually a life-size model of a Blue Whale’s heart. Well cool. The more astute amongst you may have noticed that Te Papa (Oh, whilst I remember; Not.Enough. Dinosaurs. A proper museum has more than three¹.. OK?) is in Wellington and we live in Timaru, so visiting Te Papa was always going to be more than a day trip. We flew up, stayed in hotel with no bath², then caught the ferry and train back. The ferry was awesome. We bounced around a lot, which Stuart enjoyed, then saw some dolphins, then went through the Marlborough Sounds. One of the more enjoyable ferry rides I have been on and a heck of a lot more scenic than the IOW ferry. So that was a few days in Wellington. It was nice, if a bit windy and a lot rainy.

We have also been to see the wallabies in Waimate. I did a mountain bike ride up and then down a local hill to see a local land mark, which a patch of horse shaped concrete painted white. It is called the White Horse. Here is a picture of it. The ride was okay. A sweaty hour up, then a chilly ten minutes down. Here is another music suggestion

It was a nice day out, as I then met Linda and Stuart for a picnic and a wander around the local park. Saw some wallabies. As you do. Also on the riding front, I have continued to ride around the Park. I keep discovering new trails and the construction is really, really clever for most of them. The only thing is that as it has been quite wet here, apparently very wet  by local standards, some of the trails are a bit aggy and getting ripped up a little. So, the hint is not to ride them in the wet, but it is hard not to sometimes, and tricky to know when it is wet if that makes sense. Maybe it does. I haven’t been out much recently. That’s a lie, I was out loads and loads, just not really recently, say last fortnight or so.  I have discovered quite a few more bits to do since last post, and am now riding a bit further. Most of the trails work both ways, so there is a fair amount of to and fro and stuff. In addition to the wet weather I have had a spongy front brake, and have tried bleeding it, but seem to have made it worse. I will get some more fluid and have anther go at it. It is a fiddly job, but reasonably straightforward, but I don’t quite know what I did wrong. Incidentally, after a deal of arsing about with a local bike shop, I have switched my allegience to another purveyor of shiney bits and bobs and finally seem to have the drive chain sorted out.

We have had two sets of visitors from the UK, which was nice. Jenny and Phil ‘popped’ by for a cuppa on the way home from Fiji. Which was lovely of them, and it was really nice to see them and catch up. They stayed a few days and got taken to a few local sites of big round boulders. A few days ago, a blonde-bombshell-blast from the past turned up, Josie Butcher and her husband Richard, who were spending three weeks here on honeymoon. Which they interrupted to come round for a cuppa and a chat. Flying visit, but lovely to see Josie again and meet her new husband. It had, for various reasons, been some time since I last saw her. The power of Facebook.. We also had some West Coast visitors, when Nick and his family passed through Timaru on the way to Invercargill. As you do. it was nice to see them and catch up on some gossip and meet Max the new addition. Also Hamish and family dropped by as well during the holidays, and it was lovely to see them as well. I possibly won’t blog again until after our next set of visitors have been and gone, but it gives me an excuse to take the bike to Hamner Springs for a few days. Yum.

Oh, yeah the other thing we have done a few times is take Stuart swimming. The local pool is too cold for babies, so we either have to go down the coast to Oamaru, or up the coast to Ashburton. Oamaru is a lovely swimming pool, and it is a really nice town. It is nice to take him out and do stuff. He stilL seems a bit indifferent to the whole swimming thing, but I did catch him smiling and splashing a little last weekend. Linda, who wasn’t swimming, was watching from the side. Mostly from behind her hands in horror. Still the boy survived, so I don’t know quite what she was worried about. The last weekend we drove even further down the coast to a place called Palmerston. You may hear more about Palmerston soon.. you may not. We have also been swimming a fair bit, twice a week at the local pool. One of us swims, whilst the other watches Stuart and then we swap. When you regulalry go to a pool, you quite quickly get to know the other regulars and the life-guards, most of whom have taken quite a shine to Stuart. Who generally seems to like watching what is going on. Especially the aqua-aerobics.

Reading has been a little patchy and hit and miss what with one thing and another. If I am being really honest, I haven’t actually read anything that really grabbed me for while. Whilst I am here and talking about books and stuff ‘The Black House’ by Stephen King and Peter Straub is, quite frankly bollocks. One decent character and a load of stoner bollocks,. Do yourself a favour and re-read ‘It’, ‘Salem’s Lot’, ‘The Stand’ or the Bachman books instead. Please.

Trying to think what else I have read recently. It was a really good book. I’ve read a lot that hasn’t inspired me,but this was good. Ken McLeod ‘The Night Sessions’. Very good and a Richard Morgan fantasy book ‘The Steel Remains’. Not as good as his sci-fi stuff, but worth a perusal. You know me folks, I read a lot and the fact nothing has really stuck in my mind in three months may indicate how piss-poor it has been. The only films we have watched have been ‘Blazing Saddles’ and the first half of ‘Young Frankenstein’. Sorry, ‘Young Frunken-shteen’.

Well, that’s all folks except to say if anyone out there owns a copy of this please could you let me know where to get it, or send me a copy please? Please?

1 Fair enough, there may be more than three, we didn’t find them though.

2 The whole point of the staying in a hotel was that it would have a bath. Something we lack. We even took bubble bath and a rubber duck with us. When we got there, no bath.

Although to be fair, as she points out, if I really loved her, I wouldn’t emotionally blackmail her and she’d love a cup of tea whilst I’m up. So, I got to go biking. I didn’t ride a great deal when we first got to Timaru, and didn’t ride a great deal up until about the Easter holidays, but when the Easter holidays came I decided to get out and about a bit more.

Just around the corner from us here is a park called either the Scenic Park, or the Centennial Park. Locals seem to refer to it by either title, and as Scenic Park is shorter to type, I’ll call it that too. There is a small stream and spring in the bottom of a steep-sided valley, and the local council have given the local MTB club permission to build a ‘few’ trails. With a bit of ingenuity, a lot of digging and some bending of the space-time continuum (Who’d a thunk Slartibartfast moved to Timaru and took up biking and trail building) , the local MTB club have built a positive cornucopia of trails in quite a small area.

Depending on where you start from, and this is where I start, then here’s three different routes straight off. The two to the left of this picture are okay in the dry, but a bit slippy on the up in the wet. They all lead more or less to the same place though..

This is the middle track through this bit, one above and one below. I think it is an old quarry, there are quite a few in the Scenic, and some trails wind their way across the top of them, which is fun in the wet,  fun in the dark and chuffing hilarious when it is dark and wet. Zippy in the dry though. Zippy being the technical term obviously. On this part of this trail, it is vitally important that, if you are going to crash, crash left as opposed to say,  crash right. (Unless you are riding it the other way of course..)

I think this is the Goat Track, fans of Pram Cam (TM), will recognise Tatooine. If you aren’t a fan of Pram Cam (TM) shame on you. Or rather sham on you!

Gloriously wet and slippery pine-needled undulating single track. Sweaty and technical.

The start of the track known as ‘The Bypass’. It bypasses the old railway track, and is a lovely bit of single-track, bordering on genius. Don’t know who designed it, but it makes you want to go faster and faster through it until you slide off and find one of the many trees.  It’s the bit of track that feels most ‘British’². Possibly ‘cos it is quite muddy and aggy. Oh, and it sort of runs alongside the old railway track, built to take the stone from the quarry to build the docks, but bypasses it. Just so you know.

Normally, I can wee harder than this stream flows, but we’ve had a week of heavy rain, so now it’s about a foot deep. It connects to a line of track called ‘Flatliner’, which is a nice, easyish trail to ride and is on the way home. It is another section of track that is designed to bring out the hooligan in you, and wants you to try to mow down all the dog walkers whilst bombing along it at warp factor nine. Before you start muttering about ‘multi use environments and respecting others right to use..’  I should just say that ‘Flatliner’ and quite a few others have big wooden posts at either end saying ‘Mountain Bike Track’ and there are plenty of other paths for dog walking.  Once you’ve hooned it to the end of ‘Flatliner’, you can either go home, go around again or follow the stream to the sea. Choices, choices, choices. That’s the Scenic Park though, you can ride  or go round the harder stuff and there’s usually something fun. It has to be said it is bloomin’ slippy in the wet, especially some of the wooden bridge bits³. All the trails have a lovingly crafted feel and are designed to be able to be ridden by most people. Kind of, sort of,  like a diminutive Marin Trail, which suits me fine. As I get fitter, I can add more bits into the loop I ride, my next challenge is to try and ride more of the ‘ups’. Oh, and fall off less. *Ahem* Oh, and in order to help maintain them, we’ve joined, as a ‘Family’  the local MTB club.

We have continued to make the most of the opportunities of living in Timaru, one of which was a quick quince scrumping session from someone’s front hedge. We got away without any quincequonces as it were, and now have about ten jars of quince jelly. We’ll let you know how it turned out when we open a jar, as at the moment e are still working our way through a jar of apricot jam we made earlier. Mmmmm, apricot jam. Maybe I will try some on my porridge tomorrow morning, it could be a way of making porridge a little more palatable. I’m trying to avoid the ‘loads of cream and sugar’  technique to make porridge more appealing, as it is supposed to be the healthy option. I’ve been trying to take the healthy option a bit more recently. It occurred to me that I was eating a huge amount of cheese a week in sandwiches, and cheese is delicious quite high in fat, so in a bid to make lunch less delicious more healthy, I have been making a batch of vegetable soup on a Sunday and freezing portions. It’s cheap and healthy, although it can have some unfortunate side effects, especially the ‘Broccoli and Bean’ batch, (Although the ‘Cauliflower and Leek’ wasn’t too bad, and the ‘Lentil and Tomato’ could have been a lot worse).  We have a pumpkin patch in the garden, which is producing a fair few pumpkins without any effort from us, so  the produce is both free and ‘organic-by-neglect’  and I have been able to make some delicious healthy pumpkin soup. There is a knack to making pumpkin more palatable, and that’s to add a semi-lethal dose of paprika and a good pinch of cayenne pepper, which not only clears the sinuses a treat it distracts you from the pumpkin flavour. (Pumpkin isn’t as bad as you fear it might be, which is handy, because there’s a lot of  it about.) So that’s the cookery bit done and dusted. Except I was supposed to making gnocchi today, but it got a bit late so it is vegetarian shepherd’s pie instead.

Making the most of Timaru, that was going somewhere.. oh yes, the local library has been receiving our custom a fair bit, although they did almost get told to ‘do one’ when they tried to charge me $30 for damage to a book. Apparently, the edition of Neil Gaimen’s ‘Coraline and Other Stories’  I borrowed had some water damage (It is the rather nice black coloured page ends version)  I denied all knowledge, and offered to buy the book anyway. I also pointed out that it didn’t affetc the readability of the book in any way. Perhaps I should have thrown the librarian a box of chocolates to distract her, or a cute kitten picture (Stereotypes exist for a reason folks..) or, on the basis I can push a pram faster than she can waddle,  just done a runner, but in the end she just grunted and went off to stare pointedly at some-one for breathing too loudly. In the name of poetic license, I have just done the local librarians a massive disservice, they are all lovely really and very helpful.  Um, library, leads to books and so to reading. Read a fair bit recently, but nothing major really stands out in ‘recommend to people to read’ kind of way. Finished the Elizabeth Moon ‘Vatta’s War’ series. Yeah, not bad, a bit of one of those transference thingies where the author clearly wishes she could be the main protagonist, but quite readable. Still re-reading the ‘Sharpe’ series. Again, quite readable, a little predictable and formulaic but easy to read and curiously more-ish. I’ve started, and got past page ten of, Guillermo Del Torno’s book ‘The Strain’ but to be honest, having just re-read ”Salem’s Lot’ any vampire book  (Oops, there should have been a spoiler alert there, sorry) would have to be awesome, and ‘The Strain’ is definitely a bit blah. I’ll probably finish it, but if you liked ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ you may feel a little disappointed. I certainly expected more. I have read more books, I must have done, but the mind is drawing a blank at the moment. Re-reading ‘Ender’s Game’. It deserves another go, I know how it ends, but can’t remember how it gets there, if that makes sense. There’s a lot of re-reads going on..

Not really seen much film wise either recently, apart from one of the scariest movies I have ever seen. Quickly go and read the blog about post-apocalyptic dystopias, then go out and watch ‘Idiocracy’ by Mike ‘King of the Hill’ Judge. My word, a truly chilling vision of the future, and unless some-one starts enforcing sterilisation, an all too plausible consequence of the Jerry Springer generation. We have been watching ‘Life on Mars’ on DVD though. I sort of missed the first series when it aired and the first half of the second series, but caught a couple of episodes towards the tail end of series two. I’ve  enjoyed the way the series deals with the existential  philosophical concept of reality, the nature of good and evil, utilitarianism, ethics, determinism and free will and the notion of trust and faith in authority, but mostly I like watching Gene Hunt kicking in nonces and saying things like ‘Oi sugar tits, tea, white with two’. I think one of my favourite lines so far, went to Chris, the slightly dopey DC, who on seeing a man about to try to hang himself, said something like ‘I find there’s always time to put down the noose and put the kettle on’.

Musically, tragedy struck, as once again our hard drive is  knacked and this time the data is irretrievable. Somewhere, in a box in my parent’s utility room is our music collection on CD, and at some point we will ship it all over, but until then, my MP3 player has a few albums on it, as does Mrs S’s and we have bought a few CDs since we have been here. One of which is the Violent Femmes ‘Best of..’ which led to an unusual sing-along for Master S earlier.  The most recent batch from Amazon, was heavily weighted towards Master S, with Putumayo Kids featuring heavily. Children’s music with a bit of Guardian reader cred.  Two tracks that stand out in particular are a manic Italian version of ‘Old McDonald’  and a reggae version of ‘No More Monkeys’.

Oh, I have also been reading ‘Tiger’ by Nick Butterworth…..

1 Happens more than you think.

2 ‘British’ okay, okay, English. Okay, southern English. Alright, Thames Valley. Okay, okay that specific bit of the Thames Path between Pangbourne and Goring which is wooded.

3 Bloomin’ slippy= fucking lethal.

Right, picture are courtesy of Paul, so massive thanks to him for actually having a camera and then posting the pictures on Facebook, from where I copied and pasted them. In’t technology brilliant eh?

Hum. So, oh, yes I was going to tell about the move over the hill. Well, the original plan was for me to drive the loaded car and bikes over Arthur’s Pass, stop the night near Timaru, pick up the hire van then drive back. That was the plan. Didn’t go quite according to plan though did it? Essentially, the radiator in the car blew magnificently all over the windscreen at the top of the Otira Gorge. Which although a scenic place to breakdown, has the disadvantage of not having much in the way of mobile phone reception. I hitched a ride to Arthur’s Pass village and rang from there. Interestingly, the two people who picked me up were American soldiers on r’nr from Iraq. Go on, you think of appropriate subjects of conversation. One of the liked Obama, one of them didn’t. Both of them thought New Zealand was ‘neat’ and then we got to the village. I rang for a breakdown truck and spent two and a bit hours watching tourists watching keas. The bloke picked me up on a low loader, we fetched the car and he did something clever with some solder to get me back on the road. About five hours late. So, I stayed the night in Ashburton, yay! And then carried on as per the next morning. Nervously hoping that the solder would hold. It did. Real yay!

So, goodbye Wets Coast and hello Timaru. Timaru is nice and friendly and drier than Hokitika. There is also a place called Centennial Park which has miles and miles of blooming nice mtb tracks. It is also known as the Scenic Reserve and is quite nice for riding. I’ve sort of worked out a loop and will post another riding blog picture thingy at some point.

The other nice thing about Timaru is that the hospital is next to the Botanic Gardens, which meant Linda had somewhere picturesque to walk whilst stuck in the maternity wing for a few days. You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t blog about the actual process and stuff, but it was dull, followed by more dull, a bit of ho-hum things seem to be working, culminating in a holy shit, this is quite nerve-wracking followed by a baby crying and it was ‘Hello’ to the next generation.  Consequently, there hasn’t been much new music this month (Ahem, three months..) but we have been listening to a lot of Tom Waits it seems. It is quite slow and lullaby like and I can sing along in a gruff voice and not mangle the lyrics too badly. (Although, the similarity between this performer and Tom Waits, may go explain why I like TW. Could just be he is good mind..Oh and te-he-he, here is the best song they never wrote. Although to be fair, Springsteen also does a version and we all know that when he grows up JBJ wants to be the Boss.. Ahem) Oh, and the original point of all this was we play Tom Waits to Stuart and he seems to like it. Well, not actively dislike like it in a ‘bawls his head off’ way.

On a reading front, I am trying to re-read all the Sharpe books in chronological, not published mind you, order. Five down and quite a few still to go. Have I raved about a bloke called Richard Morgan yet? Do you like sci-fi? Do you like sex, drugs, rock n’ roll, violence and sociopathic behaviours? New anti-hero on the block folks, his name is Takeshi Kovacs and he will be re-sleeving in a book shop near you soon. (Note: not especially suitable for anyone under sixteen). Beg, steal¹ or borrow ²  anything by Richard Morgan as soon as possible. Highly recommended by me.

[Rant font on/] I got quite cross on Sunday morning. (That’s not like you I hear you say..) I was busy doing domesticated Dad type stuff, as it is still something of a novelty, when there was a knock at the door. When I opened it, there were two girls, one about  ten-ish and one about  twelve-ish, standing there, with someone who looked either like their elder sister, or possibly a young mother. Long hair, fairly wholesome looking, first appearances I though I was going to get a lost puppy leaflet. Nope, they were handing out religious pamphlets. Either Church of the Latter Days Saints, or Jehovah’s Witnesses. Now, I have absolutely no objection with people pursuing the religion of their choice, I have no objection to people taking their children to church (That isn’t meant to sound patronising, so if it does, sorry..),. I have a slight objection to people disturbing my peace and quiet on a Sunday morning (Yes, I know it is the sabbath and all that…), I have a moderate objection to cults sending round people to try to convince me that their brand of belief is better than my brand of belief, and is the only brand of belief worth believing in. (As someone I’m fond of  is fond of quoting;  ’I may believe in nothing, but at least it is my nothing’. Orwell via the Manics. I think. He’ll tell me if I am wrong.) I don’t have massive objection to evangelical, proselytising religions³ , but I do strenuously object to churches, cults, religions and political parties using children to do the advertising for them. (I wouldn’t go so far as to agree necessarily with Richard Dawkin’s polemic statement, that a ‘religious upbringing is akin to child abuse’ but using children as missionaries, does in my opinion come close) The Mormon youth are bad enough, big smiles, name badges, zero life experience and no idea on how to debate, but children? Have they made an informed and free choice about what they do and what they believe in? Grr it makes me cross. [/end rant] This isn’t an anti-religion rant by the way. It’s a please don’t send children round to my house with pamphlets rant. Grr.

Right that’s it for now.

More Rowlf  ’cos I can

1 Stealing is bad n’kay?

2 From your local library, where else?  Joined yet?

3 Objections yes, massive objections no. At least not when they aren’t disturbing me. Or anyone else.

Footnote. Look religion is contentious, you either do or you don’t. I believe in keeping an open mind and in free will. That is my ‘nothing’.  Evolution is demonstrably true by the way. Not open for debate on this blog. Not a matter for belief. You are free to disagree.

Last year, the Matakitai Earthquake Section with Mr G from school. Linda took this photo, then went back to drinking beer.

*DISCLAIMER BIT* the river descriptions that follow are based on my memory of my opinion of the section, from when I did the section and may be wildly innaccurate and/or highly disputable. What I am trying to say folks, is what I think about the run may differ from what you think, and the levels change. So, I have described how the section appeared to me, and linked to the guidebook we used.

Anyway, scroll forward a year and I got a text from Warren. He was coming down to Hoki to do some paddling. He met up with some locals and got taken off by them to do some of the scary Grade X ‘death-on-a-stick’ paddling that the West Coast is famous for. After a couple of runs with local lunatics, Mr B and I set off for Murchison to do some easier for him, but still scary for me paddling at the shallow end of the grading system. On the way up we stopped off at the Grey River and ran Gentle Annie Gorge. This had been described to me as a ‘gentle, cruise-y run that wasn’t worth the shuttle’. It was worth the shuttle and with a fairly full river, wasn’t that gentle. It was a pretty continuous Gr III ish gorge. We made it more interesting for ourselves by not putting on the river until about 6pm in the rain and gunky weather. According to the guidebook, it was a 3-5 hour run, and it gets dark at about nine-ish. I think it took us about two and a bit hours to do a 15km section. There were two bits of rapids that were a little harder than the rest, and it was running high but not a bad trip. There are no photos available apart from this one..

This is Warren worrying sheep. The shuttle for this run takes a while, as there is a lot of gravel road driving. There are also sheep. Who in this picture are ‘baa-ing’ our way to a ‘five baa’ gate, so Warren had to go and shoo them away. ‘Ewe’ will notice he isn’t wearing wellies or velcro gloves which would be ‘shear’ crassness for ‘flocks’  sake! I don’t think I can ‘ram’ in any more ovine based puns in, so I promise I will stop.

We went and camped near Murchison and got up the next day and ran the Maruia river, which was a sort of Grade II-III, with the possibility of IV in large flows. It was flowing high, but not massively so. It was really bloody nice as far as I was concerned. Enough to keep you interested without being terrified, pretty to look at and about 15km long again. Oh, and because it is a little way out-of-town, it tends not to be run very often, so we pretty much had it to ourselves, apart from an American couple who were fly-fishing. It was a nice trip, and if you are in the area and going boating, I recommend it. There are no photos of this one. Sorry!

As it was still relatively early, we then went and ran the Mangles river, which owing to the local geography was on a low-level and was a slightly dull scrape down a rocky ditch. I can see that in higher water, it would be more of an adventure, but still. Oh, no pictures of this one either.

We then went back into town and set up camp at the Riverview campsite. If anyone reading this is thinking of coming out to do some paddling, this campsite should be on your list of places to stay. We set up the tents and were discussing dinner, when a bloke wandered up to us and offered us a beer and asked if we minded if he came paddling with us in the morning. We turned down the beer, but accepted the paddling. Phil had arrived in NZ that morning, hired a boat and a car just big enough to fit the boat in and driven to Murchison to warm up a bit before heading off to do some interesting rivers on the West Coast. Fair enough, I thought, was Phil interested in dinner? Brilliant, so off we went to a local restaurant for a very good steak and chips. Later that evening, back at the campsite, a couple wandered up to us and asked if we were going paddling the next day. I think the three big creek boats and kit hanging out to dry may have given us away at this point. We said we were and our river running crew gained another paddler, Steve, and due to a collar-bone dislocation caused by falling off a mountain bike (And we all know about that don’t we?) a shuttle and photograph bunny George (ina). On top of this, we were meeting another UK paddler on holiday when he drove down from Picton after catching the overnight ferry. So, we got up and went paddling. The Gowan was described to us being a ‘relatively easy Grade II-II, with a few trees on it’ . Being as how it is lake fed, and the lake is snow-melt fed I think, it was cold, clear and blue, and seemed to be at a high-ish level. (It was the way the water was lapping at the grass at the put in that made me think that). Well, we put on and drifted the first hundred yards or so, then it was a continuous boulder garden-y, tree infested blast down to the get out. 11km took us about an hour and  little bit. We would have eddied out, but there weren’t any. It was fairly manic and at that level, I reckon more of a three than a two, purely because of the lack of eddies and the trees. Lots of different channels as well, so picking a route down was done on the fly. There was one point when we floated over a tree with about 6″ depth over it, then shortly after had to duck under another branch across the river, so all in all I reckon we hit it at a good level. No photos of this one either! Then we went and paddled the Upper Buller out of the lake. Which was a little more sedate and there were a few more eddies. It was nice. So, if you don’t beleive me here is a photo. Of me. Paddling. Yeah, really. Cool eh? That is a smile actually not a grimace. Thanks to Phil for taking the photo and then e-mailing it to me a few days later.

(Note big, cheesy 3* grin…) 

Paul and Warren had  to go off and do some sea-kayaking round Abel Tasman, so Phil, George, Steve and I went back to the campsite, where we had a cup of tea and a biscuit, before meeting a very cheerful Italian called Diego and his wife, whose name I didn’t catch, and then we went and paddled the Matakitaki Earthquake section. On a higher level than I previously done it. This meant some of it had washed out, but those bits that hadn’t were a bit pushier and higher volume. Steve took a swim on the upper bit, and put in one of the best displays of defensive swimming I have ever seen, before we recovered his boat and set off again. I took a roll on the lower section as I inadvertently found the bloody great big hole at the bottom. I ‘skillfully’ exited the hole by the tried and trusted method of back looping out of it. Diego, who was behind me, said he had been following my line, but when he saw the loop, he went left and avoided the hole. His English is better than my Italian, but his internationally recognised paddler sign language and whistling was very eloquent.  And then I drove home reflecting on a busy couple of days. It is worth noting, that considering most of us hadn’t really paddled together much, the dynamic on the rivers was really good.  I would happily paddle with all of those people again without any qualms. They might need persuading to paddle the easy stuff with me though….. Still at least it was sunny.

A few things worth noting: The boat I was paddling was a new Bliss-Stick Mystic Creeker (Blue for preference please..)  lent to me by the Outdoor Ed teacher at school, so a massive thanks to Bruce for that. The boat was absolutelty awesome. Bloody amazing, made me look almost like a decent paddler. When I next buy a boat, I reckon I will get one of those. Especially as the factory is in NZ and if  I work there for five days, I get to buy a boat from them for $500 dollars in lieu of pay. Awesome boat. (I wish I was being paid by them to say that.. but alas I’m not..)  Secondly, the rapids and grading in NZ are different to the UK in my opinion. It seems that especially on the West Coast and Buller as well, a ‘rapid’ is a section of river, and it is usually some kind of boulder jumble, with no actual single feature. In the UK, a rapid is often just a single drop or feature on the river. If my memory works properly, think of the Treweryn. The top section has several named rapids, then you get to the boulder garden bit called the Graveyard(?). The NZ rivers I have seen and paddled are more Graveyard in style than the pool-drop style of the upper Treweryn. Expect more jumble and less named features, especially on the West Coast. I think. If you are coming out to paddle for the first time here, try and arrange to spend a couple of days in Murchison first to get used to the guide-book’s idiosyncratic style and do not expect a blow-by-blow account of the river. You will get a grade and how to get there and possibly an anecdote. The rivers here can be very isolated and may not go anywhere near a road. A lot of the famous West Coast runs  are helicopter fly-ins. Gentle Annie Gorge on the Grey is about twenty km down a gravel track to both the put in and the get out. These were the only two access points along the whole section, the rest was in an inacceasble gorge. Similar with the Maruia. Once on the river, the get out is just about the only way off the river. Bear this in mind when planning paddling. The Buller is divided up into manageable sections, but, you will find again, that once you are on the river, you will stay on the river to the next get out. So, if you go to the Riverview Campsite just off Highway 6, and hang about (Although offering beers works well as well..)  you will probably meet paddlers. Especially between Christmas and New Year. The rivers round Murchison are pretty much year round, and a lot of paddlers seem to use it as a warm up before heading further west. Your other option is to go and hang out at the NZ Kayak School in town and buy shiny, shiny bits of kit and check out local levels and rivers and stuff.  The staff are all really nice and friendly and will advise you on what’s what in the area. You can also hire kit from here and there is a shop in Chch that will hire kit as well. I think Phil paid about $200 for two weeks boat hire. Which isn’t bad compared to the hassle of flying with boats. Um, so that is a note about kit, grading and meeting paddlers. So, you should be all set then. Give us a shout when you are headed this way, and I will try and get up to Murchison to meet up and paddle.

In other, less important news, we moved house. We now live in Timaru. It was an interesting couple of days, and involved a lot of driving. More on that one later.

Book-wise, I had a week on the sofa, and three visits to the library, the highlight of which was the new Terry Pratchett, ‘Unseen Academicals’, and several other TP re-reads. Also worth mentioning, ‘Sharpe’ re-reads. Pleasant way to pass a couple of hours. Oo, exciting writer, new to me anyway,  is a bloke called Richard Morgan with a book called ‘Altered Carbon’. Brilliant, twisty turny plotting, exciting action. Sci-fi noire. Worth checking out. but only if you are over say, 18 or so. Also, a writer called Rupert Thomson- kind of PAD type fiction stuff but unusual approach. Interesting and again worth getting out of your local library. What else have I read? Like you are going to know.. Um, oh yes. There seems to be something of a vogue for Scandinavian crime fiction at the moment. I just read a sort of triliogy by a bloke called Jo Nesbo. ‘Redbreast’, ‘Nemisis’ and some thing else as well. Good, but not rave-about brilliant.  Again, get them out of the library. Finally, the last of the ‘Nightwatch’ sequence. Called ‘The Last Watch’, again well worth collecting the four extant in the series. By a Russian bloke, just google ‘Nightwatch’. The film is also available and is okay, but if you can get the original cinema release one with the animated subtitles, I reckon that is worth the price alone.

Musically, before paddling I seem to be listening to ska a fair bit, especially The Specials. Don’t know why. I suspect it might be Tea-boy Tom’s influence. It just seems right somehow. The rest of the time we have been concentrating on our calming and relaxing soundtrack. So, one month before Munchkin is due, and there is still a bit of flat-packing to allen key together, some nappies may be arriving in the post and stuff. Oh, here is a photo of the house.

Update. On Sunday, about lunchtime, I had a text from Warren. It went along the lines of:  ‘Too much rain here, coming to near you to find some paddling. Fancy a run tomorrow?’ 

To which I responded, ‘Love to. No boat.’ 

Some time later; ‘No problem, got boat and paddles’

‘Okay then. Who have you got with you?’ (Reason for asking here is that Warren has been knocking around with Auckland University Canoe Club this summer and I think there are about fourteen of them.. Now, we’ve got room for them to pitch tents and stuff, but we only have six mugs,  so making them all a cup of tea was going to be a problem. Then I thought, well, they have been camping so perhaps they will bring their own mugs?)

‘Just me and Paul, we will be in Timaru shortly..’ (No problems, we can even let both of them sleep inside!)

‘Fair enough, need a place to crash?’

And using Warren’s magic phone and sat-nav device, a car and a van pitched up on the driveway a short while later. Warren and Paul had spent some time driving round the South Island paddling a variety of rivers and having adventures. It has been a wet summer here and a lot of rivers are flowing a little high. Some of the AUCC paddlers had talked about doing some rivers over this side of the hill, so Warren and Paul decided to split from the group and head over whilst the group got themselves organised. (Hmmm group of paddlers of different abilities, university club,  summer road trip. Three faff multipliers straight off..) Warren blagged a boat – a blue Mystic funnily enough and a pair of paddles- and they left the faff behind and came on over. Monday morning we got up and went off and ran the Opihi river, which is about forty minutes or so from here. We put on and the river was a bit low and surrounded by willow trees. The sun came out. Pleasant. Then we got into the gorge.  Eep. A big, scarey, ominous, no-escaping-from gorge. It was fast and shallow, but not as gnarly as the gorge made it look. Personally I give it a solid Grade III, but it was the most pool drop river I have paddled in NZ. I think it was about 10km and took 2hrs. We scouted two of the bigger drops and ran the rest. Lots of pools, loads of eddies, nice and scenic. A really, really lovely section. Reminiscent in many ways of the Dart Loop. In a big, scarey gorge. Oh, in the interests of full disclosure I should add I swam twice.

Once as I went down a drop and bumped a rock hard, went over and it was too shallow to roll and I was banging about on rocks a lot, so I baled. The other wasn’t strictly my fault, and also involved bumping a rock (Having been bumped by some-one else into it…) and capsizing and once again knocking my head repeatedly I baled again. Non scarey swims in both instances. However, I really liked the section, and it is local.  Sweet and unepxpected in many ways. Big thanks to Warren and Paul for making it possible. Huge thanks to the owner of the boat. Sorry about the scratches. There will be some pictures of this one at some point, as Paul had a camera out a fair bit.

Nice. Pool-drop fluffyness. Thanks guys.

So, on a more entertaining note perhaps, mountain biking. I have been out riding a fair bit, and enjoying some riding other than my usual local grind. First up, about a month ago was the Croesus Track. This is relatively local and at the end of a 6-7 km gravel road. It is out of a town called Blackball, which is famous for several reasons. It is an old gold mining town, it used to have a hotel called the ‘Blackball Hilton’, until Hilton International plc noticed and got their lawyers involved. The hotel is now called ‘Formerly Known As The Blackball Hilton’. There is quite a good salami and sausage factory there and um, oh yes, it is the birthplace of the New Zealand labour movement. So, sarcasm, sausages and socialism (Compares favourably with Reading’s ‘Beer, Bulbs and Biscuits’ bollocks in my opinion). Not bad for a place that has about two hundred people living there really. Anyway, the Croesus Track is an old miners and prospectors pack trail that leads roughly from Blackball to somewhere else. You may ride all of it, but the convention is to ride to the first hut and then come back, which is a twenty km there and back trip. Oh, and you climb about 800m. The first 2 km was a rocky, chocky, barely rideable down-hill nightmare of slick rock, and swing bridges. That over with,  it was a 8km or so climb up a rooty, rocky, chossy gradual climb up out of the bush line into mist. It was mostly rideable and fairly straightforward. The views when you break the bush-line are supposed to be amazing on a clear day and there are a couple of historic sites and relics to look at. It wasn’t a clear day, so I ate a cereal bar and juddered and bounced my way down again. It was an interesting trip, and worth doing, but if you are thinking about it, I didn’t reckon it was worth a special trip to do, it was fun, but a lot of hard work. Especially as, being an out-and-back trip, the awkward first 2km, becomes the bloody awful last 2km. Lots of pushing. The guidebook said it was a between 3hrs and 6hrs return. I don’t know if there is anyone who can do it in 3hrs dead, but given they probably wear their pants outside their tights and have a red cape, they should be fairly easy to spot. Not being the world’s a) most confident, b) fittest and c) ‘bovvered’ about going quick rider, I walked and pushed a fair amount, but rode enough to make it worthwhile. I reckon I did it in about 4.5 hours walking/ riding/ pushing/ gasping for breath, but I did spend about an additional  forty minutes dicking about with a puncture. I decided to repair it, rather than just put in a new tube, of the first two patches only one stuck, but the other came unstuck only when the tyre was back on and I was trying to set off. Cunningly I fixed ‘the’ puncture, then looked for the second. There is always two. I took the patch off, stuck a new one on, put the tyre back on, pumped it up and then the first patch blew, so it was back off with everything, new patch, which still didn’t take, so after forty minutes I said ‘Sod it’ and did what I should have done in the first place and stuck my spare tube in, and off I went. (I can fix punctures honest, just not on the trail in the damp. At home with a cup of tea and a book to read waiting for the glue to cure is the best place to fix punctures). There was a Canadian couple tramping the trail, and after leapfrogging them and being leapfrogged, I was on the way down, when they stopped me and gave me a nut. It deffo wasn’t from my bike, but I thought I might be able to track the owner down, as Westland Mountain Bike Club had done the ride the week before. So, I sent round an e-mail, and later posted the nut to the owner. Sweet.

So, scroll forward a couple of weeks and I went back up to Nelson for some QBT/ biking. I did a short ride, up the Matai Valley to the dam, and back down some purpose-built track.

This was taken on the Maitai Valley Pipeline route. Somewhere in this photo is a very cute, very small kitten that I almost ran over, he/she/ it came back when I was on my way back, so I took a photo. Special prize if you spot it.

Sunday I went out with the intention of doing some lightish trails up the valley. Nelson has the reputation of being sunny. Not when I was there it wasn’t. You know that persistent drizzle that settles on vegetation and gradually soaks you completely through? Yeah, like that pretty much. Nelson MTB club have built some really nice trails, and again a better, fitter, more competent rider would be quicker around them and ride more of it but hey.. ‘Spotswood Wriggles’ was fun, even if it was quite remote. 8km along a gravel road, 450m up… Back down contouring the valley sides. Again, quite rooty and technical in places. Not a well used trail, so quite overgrown and so not especially smooth or flowing (Particularly when you are running it blind..) Good mud patches though. Off that, and on to try and find the next bit, there was an ominous ‘sproing’ sound from the rear wheel, and it seized. I think, the (technical information follows) the spacer spring between the pads on the brake deformed (Heat!? Pressure!? Dunno..) and left the rear brake locked with the spacer jamming it. A little bit of creative dismantling and swearing later, I managed to get the back wheel to go round, so I could at least ride out. Even if I was denied the chance to do the other bit of track I had in mind, I  had a long ride out on gravel roads downhill with only a front brake. In the wet. The bike shop was shut, so I went and had a pie and a coffee at ‘The Sprig and Fern‘. Hmmm pie. They are a brew pub, but I was driving, so stuck to coffee. The pie was brilliant. A really nice pie. Damn fine Beef and Porter Pie. If you are in Nelson, let me know and I will come and visit. Yes, with my bike, and appetite.

Next day was supposed to be the highlight of the trip, the Rameka Track. This is one of New Zealand’s great MTB tracks (No, I don’t know according to who, but.. ). It is another pack track over Takaka Hill cutting through the Abel Tasman park. As it is a ‘Paper Road’ (Green Lane..) it is still legal to ride it. The guidebook reckons the best way to do it is to get dropped at the top, and then ride down and get your shuttle bunny to meet you in Takaka township, 15km along and about 0.85km down away. Yes, really. If you don’t have a shuttle bunny, you can ride up it and then down. I did consider this option, but *ahem* what with waiting for the bike shop to open, and taking longer to fit the new brake pads then it should*, I decided to take the third option, which is to ride the first 5-6km at the top, which is mostly quite lovely single-track through beechwood forest going down slightly, then turn around and ride it back ‘up’ .

Incidentally, the black tree trunk is quite normal. It is caused by a fungus that feeds on the sap that is released by the tree when the bark is breached by a type of boring insect. You also get a lot of wasps feeding on the sap as well, which adds an ominous humming sound to beech woods in summer. Seriously a very ominous humming sound. The black tree trunks and lack of ground vegetation make for (and the humming… did I mention it was ominous?) a slightly supernatural air to the place. Almost as though it was designed for filming epic fantasy films in. Weird uh?

This isn’t as arduous as it sounds, as it is quite a gentle gradient. You know when you should turn around, as it goes way steep, slippy and clay-ey. It ended up being a very pleasant little ride, with a gentle descent over the last 1km or so back to the car park. Which incidentally is even more remote than the Croesus Track one, being as how this one is 11km down a gravel road. Hmm. It is also quite touristy as it has carnivorous snails and Harwood’s Hole. *Snigger* New Zealand’s biggest and deepest limestone sinkhole. Quote ‘if you can see the bottom, you have fallen in. Rescue will not be needed, recovery will be…’ (Those of you who have heard of Koom Valley..yeah, like that. I think some of LOTR was filmed there, it was quite miffic.) Anyway, from Harward’s Hole to Hokitika is a five-hour drive. I arrived home at about half nine, then got up at half past five, drove five hours for an interview in Timaru, did the interview then drove back to Hokitika in about five hours. I ended up feeling a bit like a character from an as-yet-unwritten Tom Waits song.. Something like  ‘A windscreen full of flies and sand-blasted eyes, burnt coffee throat and waking dreams of tail lights, I did a weeks worth of driving in just two days, tarmac and gravelled out with an empty tank..’ (Being Tom Waits it doesn’t have to scan, rhyme or make much sense…)

So, there you have it some driving and some mountain biking.

Last weekend we popped over to Christchurch and after being good all weekend, I got let loose in a second-hand bookshop. When I have read them, I will let you know.  Tried out another brew pub Dux- de- Lux. It was okay, the food was alright but not much to write home about. One thing that is nice here in New Zealand, is that rents seem to be quite cheap. this means that people can run, oo, say second-hand bookshops and not worry too much about having all the latest best sellers. You can run a small, independent cinema and show non-mainstream movies. So, we went to see a small mon-mainstream movie in a small art-house theatre. Regular readers may remember Kristin Scott Thomas in ‘I Have Loved You So Long’, but since then we have been to see three Brit-flicks. All BBC/ C4 and Lottery funded stuff. We saw, ‘In The Loop’ which was swear-tastic and very funny, ‘Is There Anybody There?’ which was Micheal Caine and Leslie Philips. Sort of came in somewhere between ‘Sixth Sense’ and ‘Adrian Mole’, but was better than I have just made it sound. We have also been to see ‘Looking For Eric’ by Ken Loach, which was poignant and gently surprising. All three movies are well worth watching, and look out for them at your local film club/ small independent cinema/ DVD website.

Musically it has been a sound-track of gentle and relaxing tunes, suitable for a delivery room. Some-one* reckons that by exposing Munchkin to gentle music now, we can simply slip on a CD of the relaxing tunes and gently waft the little tyke off to sleep. Those of you that have kids, will be pissing yourself laughing about now and know that it doesn’t work. Apparently, gentle soothing, baroque music stimulates the brain and causes a woss-name of theta waves. If nothing else, if nothing else, putting on some gentle relaxing music is soothing to the mother and helps her to relax, which is important or something. (Besides which, I had a quick dekko at the CDs in the delivery room. Fucking Enya, the Eagles, Abba greatest hits and bloody whale songs, and AND sodding pan-bollocks-pipes. I am not having my child born to any of those. Besides, now we have our music collection back, it is time to take advantage. I will try and post a full list of the tracks next time, but it won’t include the song that starts;

‘I thought I saw a man brought to life / He was warm, he came around like he was dignified / He showed me what it was to cry ‘

This Canaan Downs, towards the top end of the Rameka track. You have either got to get down to the road, or have just come up from it. Scenic and Harwood’s Hole is somewhere over there as well. Some of LOTR was filmed here. Which incidentally, doesn’t make it that unique or special of nuffink. (Chetwood Forest was filmed here… the bit where they escape from the Black Riders? Been there..)

*Oh yes, the brake pad thing. Well, one of them is marked ‘L’ and one of them is marked ‘R’. I reckon this means one goes on the ‘light’ side of the bike and one goes on the ‘real’ side of the bike yes? No, of course I know it means left and right. Doofus. Sit on your bike, it is easy to tell which is left and right. Turn it upside down, take the back wheel off and sit facing it. Now which side is left and which side is right. Now,  at the same time, holding the pads and spring shut and making sure you know which is your left hand and your right hand insert the closed pads nto the bed, also making sure that the hydraulic pistons are far enough apart to fit the pads in. Not so easy, but it still shouldn’t take you the best part of an hour to work out. *Blush* In my defence, I had gone to bed late, and was woken early by lumberjacks in the Maitai valley, who felled their first tree about 06.45am. This was after being serenaded for a couple of hours by an enthusiastic Tui. Oh for a shotgun.

I ring the SLC (This is my side of the conversation. Sort of. Put the necessary ‘wah-wah-wahs’ from the SLC in yourself. The criminal flabbergasting bit is in purple….)

“Hello, I would like to pay off my student loan, can you give me a figure for full and final settlement?….. What do you mean ‘no’? No, yes, I understand what the word no means. What I don’t understand is why you cannot tell me how much money I owe you, so I can pay it off and emigrate. Yes, I have paid off one loan in full, it is the other one.. Yes, 2001, University of Wales.. Yup. that’s it. Yes, no, seven four seven five. Um, SY Five four EP? No? Um, RG um… five? Seven? Five NY? Ah, knew there was a five in it somewhere.. No, yes. Okay….. Really?……… Seriously? But that’s bollocks. No, no I believe you and I know you don’t set the system, I’m saying the system is bollocks. Okay, I know you record the call, and I will stop saying bollocks. Sorry. That has to be one of the most ridiculous ways of doing business I have ever heard.  That’s seriously, just plain wrong. Let me see if I have understood you; the tax people take the money from me at source. They collect a years worth of money. Hold it in their account, then pay it to yours in April at the end of the tax year, when it is credited to my account with you. Because you do not know how much they have collected, and will pay over in March, you cannot tell me how much I will owe then, and cannot tell me how much I have to pay? No, I am just checking I understand you. That’s a bloody disgrace. That means I think I am paying off my loan, but I am still being charged interest on the lump sum from the start of the financial year.* Hang on, if I emigrate do I still… Yeah. Monthly voluntary repayments eh? How much? HOW MUCH? That’s boll.. um.. ridiculous. Seriously, that much? Goodness. I’d better pay the full amount, and you can owe me*.. Okay, to pay it off how much? Right, I shall go on line an pay it.  You then send me a letter yes? Okay. Thank you for your ‘help’ and sorry about the bollocking swearing. Bye now.’

*(Oh and the IR is collecting interest on my bloody money. Bastards)

*O sweet irony…

Scroll forward a year.

‘Hello, is that the SLC? Splendid.. I believe you owe me some money*. Account number? Certainly.. 8******* 8***** ****. Address? 2* ******, *********, **** New Zealand. Yup, uhu… Two weeks you say? Brilliant, thank you..”

*Never, ever thought I would say that!

Two weeks later a cheque arrives. See what happens when you are in the right?

What was even more splendid was the big cheque from the Inland Revenue, which just goes to prove that if you must emigrate, do so half way through the financial year. I’m laso owed by the NZ Inland Revenue. Ha!  (I did apply to join the IR once but I failed the medical. I have been circumcised, and apparently you have to be a complete prick to work for them. I can make this joke, as their cheque is safely banked..)

Sorry about the delay in updates, faithful reader, but it has been busy here recently. Next update soon, and I will tell you all about my road trip..

BUT, the big news is that we have a new hard drive. Some time ago I dropped the hard drive we bought with us. Yes, the hard drive that has all our music on. Hard drive go kaput, and we couldn’t access our music. We couldn’t, but Linda could as she had her music on her MP3 player. I love my wife to bits and i think she is brilliant, but she has some blind spots when it comes to music. (Three Oasis albums? One would be bad enough, two would be careless. Three looks like masochism… ) Still, the nice ICT tech at school managed to brute force our old hard drive, dump our music library on the school server (Boy, is that going to confuse some-one later on..) and we bought a new hard drive. 1.5 terabytes as you are asking, and transferred all our music to it, so now I have all my obscure albums and weird folk/ world music back, jsut in time to make up a play list for the baby to listen. Possibly ‘In Utero’ by Nirvana but probably not.

Cheers folks and I will see you soon. Mines a pint and don’t forget the crisps…

And now the prologue…..

As some of you maybe aware, I departed for pastures new late last year and took myself and Mrs S off on a thirty hour and four day journey to the Westcoast of New Zealand. In a bid to be ‘grown-up’, and um, ‘fiscally responsible’ and not leave the bailiffs knocking on random strangers’ doors, or even my MIL’s door (Trust me, random and strange apply here as well… He he he. Sorry Sue. Do I come across as scared?) I paid off debts to external agencies, but not to the Bank of Mum and Dad. (The bank that likes to say ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees you know..’) Anyway, mortgage repaid in full, student loan paid off in full, bank loan paid off in full and then the credit card. Which wasn’t straightforward. Oh no.

Basically, you can open an account in less than 48 hours. You can’t close an account in less than three months. A slight discrepency me thinks. I rang them and aked for a settlement figure. I paid the sum mentioned. Fifty five pounds went out of my account to pay for Credit Card Protection (Fifty five pounds for card protection, payable every three years. Seemed reasonable at the time. A little bit of peace of mind, that slipped my mind…) Fifty five pounds got refunded to my account. I got charged thrity odd quid interest and a thirteen quid late payment charge.  I paid off the money and left the account about forty five pounds in credit, thinking that just in case they tried anything else, there was a bit of money to pay it. they eventually agreed to wait three months, then close my account, then send me the money. That was in October 2008. Come August, I suddenly remembered the forty pounds. Impending fatherhood has a way of focussing the mind on money. I wrote the MGMNFC, asking for my money back. Then I got an e-mail…….

Dear Mr Swallow

Thank you for writing to us about the credit balance on your account. I understand you are unhappy that we have not sent this to you before.
As you now live in New Zealand I have replied to your letter, to prevent delays in our response, via email. However, please be aware as this response has been sent using this method, to prevent security issues, I have not included any account specific details.

I realise that before you emigrated to New Zealand you asked us to close your account. In order for us to be able to do this we asked you to clear your outstanding balance. However, you paid more than was
due and therefore this left your account in credit.

You’ve mentioned that you are unhappy that your account was not closed and the credit remained. I can see the notes on your account indicating that it would be closed and we would send you the credit. I’m sorry that this was not done and you have had to contact us about it.

You’ve also mentioned that you will be seeking legal advice about charging us interest and late payment charges because of the delay in sending you the credit of £48.55. However, as we do not have an agreement that states we will pay you any charges in relation to credit on your account we will not be honouring your request to pay you these charges.

As I understand you are now living in New Zealand , and the cheque for the funds will be £48.55, please confirm you would like us to send this to your address there. However, if you would like us to send it to an alternative address in the UK , please let us know where you would like us to send it.

I trust I’ve explained things clearly, however, if you have any further questions, please write back to me within four weeks. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll consider that you’re happy with my response and that your complaint is closed.

Love Mr Money-Grabber

I was slightly annoyed by this response, so my reply was as polite as possible..

Thank you for your response. The late payment fees and extra interest I mentioned are those that pertain to my payments to you. It would be lovely if the reverse position were true, and I am sure that if I owed you forty eight quid for the best part of a year, it would by now be in the hundreds, if not the thousands of pounds.

Essentially, I rang your operative and asked for a closing balancecon my account. I was told a sum, which I then went on-line and paid the exact amount that I was told would be a closing sum. This was after being
told that it would take three months to close my account. I paid the amount I was told I had to pay. I then received a statement from you a short while later, saying I owed about fifty five pound as a payment had
been made to a card protection agency. No-one in your offices seemed to think it was odd that if I was trying to close down my account, I would then pay for card protection. Nor, did they refuse the payment. The payment was made and I then missed a payment deadline as I didn’t know that any payment had been made, as I thought I had closed my account. I paid the punitive late payment fine, I then also paid the extra interest money that you charged me *after I had specifically asked on the telephone what a closing balance would be* (You record phone calls for training purposes don’t you? Check the records…) I then got the Card protection people to refund the money they had take, to my account with you. This left my account in credit with you, which was the point I left the country.

The money I seek to reclaim would be the  late payment fee, the extra interest you charged me as well as the balance of my account.

Yours etc..

Pretty polite and reasonable I thought.  A few days went past and I got this back..

Dear Mr Swallow

Thank you foryour email in relation to your account.

I’m disappointed you were given a sum to pay over the telephone, which when you paid it, put your account substantially in to credit. Normal practice is to write to you with an exact settlement figure. We are then able to calculate the exact amount of interest and give you a specific date to pay by. This way, we monitor your account and any over payment is returned to you. Please accept my apologies that this process wasn’t followed.

In relation to the Card Protection Plan (CPP), this is a policy that you set up when you opened your account. It is a single premium policy that provides cover for three years before renewing itself. CPP will have written to you before the policy was due to renew itself giving you the option to cancel this if it was no longer needed. However, as you had moved and they probably were not aware, they would have written to your old address. I’m afraid we’re unable to refuse these transactions, even if there is a request made by you to close your account.

To resolve your complaint, I have refunded the £12 late payment default sum and interest we added in November last year. This totals £13.47 and your account is now in credit by £62.02. Please can you email me and let me know where you would like me to send a cheque for the credit balance.

If you have
any further questions, please let me know.

At this point, a couple of e-mails, which to be honest don’t take too long to write have earned me money. They have already agreed to pay me sixty two odd quid, I have CC’d people into the e-mail at this point, so I have nothing to lose by pursuing this. Plus, I can’t help feeling that they are trying to fob me off. So, let’s start round four as I do have a question actually..

Thank you for your prompt response to my previous e-mail. I think the point I am trying to make here, is that on 15/09/2008 I rang  to try and close down my account. The first lady I spoke to at the time could not or would not close down my account for me. Instead, she bumped me up to her supervisor, who I imagine, has the experience and training to deal with customers who are making unusual requests. I asked again if I could close my account down. I was told that this would take three months. I expressed a degree of disbelief that it would take this long. However I was assured that this was indeed the case. You will have to bear in mind at this point that I am working from memory here, as I do not record my own phone calls for training purposes or otherwise. I asked the supervisor what the settlement amount for  my account would be. I was told a sum ( 1790.81 GBP you’ll forgive me, but my NZ Apple Mac doesn’t have a pound sign for some reason.) I repeated the amount and asked if this was for full and final settlement. I was told that yes, it was. I then went on-line and paid that amount, believing it to be in full and final settlement. There was a reason I used that phrase….

Imagine my surprise and disbelief then, when I receive another statement from your good selves stating that now I owe you another  hundred pounds or so in interest payments. At this point I rang up again, and made inquiries as to what was happening. I was informed about the card protection money. This has been refunded to me and is not in question here. There was also a late payment charge which you have kindly agreed to refund. Thank you. There just remains the difference, some thirty two pounds or so. At the time I made a payment, which together with the refund from the Card Protection Agency, put me into credit. The thirty two pounds was, I was informed, for interest. I paid 100.83 GBP into my account on the 15/09/2008. This was purely because I wanted to leave my account in credit as you chaps have the terrible habit of whacking on late payment charges, interest and so on. All of which adds to the amount you would ask for in payment and when you send in  the bailiffs, it would be to addresses in the UK where I no longer live.

So, essentially, I made a payment of 1790.81 GBP to yourselves in full and final settlement. I then later paid over another 100.81 GBP in another full and final settlement. You have offered to send me a cheque for 62.02 GBP. What about the other 37.98 GBP that I paid to you as ‘interest charges’ on a sum I had settled. You will forgive me, if I seem puzzled by paying interest charges on what I thought was a balance of zero. This seems to me to be wonderfully creative accounting.

So, my understanding is that your employee made a mistake which has cost me 30 odd quid.

Can I have it back please?

See, I even said please. Very, very polite…

Dear Mr Swallow,

Thank you for your email.

The reason you were charged interest in September 2008, was because your payment arrived a day late. The only way to avoid interest is to pay the balance in full by the due date. However, I believe as you had requested the account to be closed, and had the CPP not gone on to your account, we would have refunded this and closed it. Therefore, I have refunded a further £38.83 to clear this up for you. This means that your account is now in credit by £100.85, which I can send to you as a cheque. Please can you confirm that I am to send it to your address in New Zealand?

Regards

Miss M-G

Hmm, well okay then. I seem to have got a promise to get back a hundred quid. Which is sixty quid more than I thought I would get. They do seem quite keen to get rid of me and for me to accept their offer. This makes me think I could push my luck here. I have a e-mail that says they will pay me a certain amount. Hmmm. Best walk away now-ish..

Please send a cheque for one hundred pounds and eighty five pence to
Toby Swallow 2* H****** P****, H****** New Zealand 7***
I will send you an e-mail of the cheques arrival. Will you also please
enclose a letter confirming that my account with you is now closed.

Thank you for your help on this.
See?  Me playing nice. Their reply..

I have checked your account and a cheque for £62.02 had been issued  before my further credit was showing on your account. Therefore I have  requested another cheque for £38.83 today. You will receive two separate cheques which I hope  doesn’t cause too much inconvenience. Please allow 28 days for air  mail. I have arranged for your account to be closed and you will receive a separate letter to confirm this also.

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to get in  touch.
Kind regards
Miss M-G

Hang on a cotton-picking minute. Two cheques? Two chances for the NZ Bank to make a charge for handling foreign cash? I don’t think so. Nothing to lose right?

Yes, this will be  inconvenient as I will now have to pay two separate cheques into my bank account, both of which will incur a handling charge and a exchange charge, effectively costing me more money through no fault of my own. I would like to suggest that you cancel both cheques and send one cheque for the full amount please. That way I will only pay one handling charge.
Yours etc…

See, by this point even I thought I was taking the piss. However…

Dear Mr Swallows,

As this will cause a problem for you, I have arranged to cancel the cheque that has already been issued and have arranged for one cheque for £100.85 to be sent to you. Please allow 28 days for this. If you receive the one for £62.02, please destroy as you will not be able to cash this.

Kind regards

Miss M-G

The cheque has arrived, I have e-mailed them to say thank you. I may even send them a postcard. I will admit I do still have a faint feeling of ‘what else could I have pushed them for?’, but a hundred pounds is what, about $250? Which by my reckoning is about a quarter of a new kayak third of a new pram. Although, is calling me Mr Swallows a deliberate mistake? When I have been nothing but polite to them. Tsssk.

So, the MGMNFC have coughed up. Possibly I could have persuaded them to cough up more. It would be nice to wring every last bit of cash from the bastards, but… Oh, and to anyone reading this who works for them, it is not personal. Don’t take it personally, and thank you for your help and giving me money. Seriously, thanks guys. Hopefully, one day you’ll bring down the system from within, but until then stay undercover.

To sum up then folks. Remember that persistance, politeness and a CC e-mail can pay off, oh, and mentioning legal lawyers.. He he he.

(One book to recommend, ‘Manners’ by Rob Newman. Yes, that Rob Newman. Very good. Musically a varied playlist of Violent Femmes, and Fleet Foxes. Go figure. Oh, and Oasis have split up. So, the more of you that go out and burn all of their ouvre, the more valuable each bit left will be…. So, go out and burn it all. most of it. Now, where are my Coldplay wax dolls?)

Postscript

A cheque arrived for a hundred quid. Shortly followed by a cheque for two hundred and fifty quid from the Student Loans Company. Both have now been paid into my our bank account.

Well, it is like this. Recently Mrs S and myself  (Well, more just me really..) agreed to run a quiz-night for staff at school. We arranged an evening, got folks to ‘bring a plate’ and ‘bring their own’. Both great NZ traditions, whereby people bring booze and munchies to an evening event. A bit of a self-organizing party really.  We then sat down to write the questions. Which was tougher than you might think. No, really

So, here’s the deal on this one: Reproduced below are the questions from the nine quiz rounds. You are allowed to play a joker*, you are not allowed to use the interweb to look up answers and your team should be between four and six people. (Ideally about now what you should do is ring up three to five mates. Ask them if they have read this episode of the blog. Arrange to meet them in a pub, print out the questions, take them and your friends to the pub and drink some beer and fill in the answers.. Can I recommend the Hobgoblin at this point? Don’t forget the Cheese n’Onion, post me the completed answer sheets and we will let you know how you did. There may be prizes available. Be honest now children..)

Round 1 Literature.

From which books do the following opening lines come from?

1) It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

2) Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

3) Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small, unregarded yellow sun.

4) When he was nearly thirteen my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.

5) These two very old people are the father and mother of Mr Bucket.

6) James McFadden died in March 1905 when he was 47 years old: he was riding in the Driffield point to point.

7) These are my New Year’s resolutions: 1 I will help the blind across the road.

James Bond, with two double bourbons inside him, sat in the final departure lounge of Miami Airport and though about life and death.

9) The year 1866 was signalized by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and inexplicable phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten.

10) When I came to New Zealand I expected to stay for a year.

(At this point in the actual quiz, I thought I was going to get lynched, as there were many, many blank faces around the room. Then they got the Envelope Round, which they were to work on for a few rounds. If anything the faces got blanker… Oops.)

Round 2 The Envelope Round

Translate these common Kiwi idioms from the Latin.

1) bonus ut aurum

2) dulcis ut

3) bonus dies frater

4) is has totus absentis ut custodia

5) is ero vox

6) trans vallum

7) meridianus africans impono

tribuo vestri ferret curriculum

9) bonus in vos amicus

10) universitas ovis arse

(Again I felt the atmosphere in the room go slightly cold when they saw these. Incidentally, apparently Number 8 isn’t a kiwi idiom at all… Bravely I launched into the Numbers Round..)

Round 3 Numbers

What is the connection between these sequences:

1) 11 12 14 15 16 17

2) 36 18 33

3) 4 5 6 1 2 3

4) 1935 1957 1972 1984 1999

5) A bit of maths: what are the total number of stars on the American, New Zealand, Australian and Israeli flags?

6) How many minutes are there in a week?

7) What is the lowest whole number, when spelt out, which is in correct alphabetical order?

How many elements in the periodic table begin with ‘Z’?

9) What is the average number of sheep/ person in NZ (to the nearest 0.2)?

10) What is the length of NZ coastline (within 1000km – will accept 500km each way)?

(I think that they were a bit happier at this point, so off we went into round four.. New Zealand Trivia. If you are UK based I wouldn’t play your joker just now…)

Round Four NZ Trivia

1)  John Cleese once described this town by saying: “If you ever do want to kill yourself, but lack the courage, I think a visit to _______ will do the trick.”

2) Which street is notorious in Wellington for being the local haunt of transsexual prostitutes?

3) What is the New Years Eve dance festival in Gisborne called?

4) Who is the “mother of the nation”?

5) The television program ‘Shortland Street’ has been gracing our screens since (month and year – if you know the actual date you’re either showing off or watch way too much telly):

6)  In 1907, Frederick Truby King founded which important and long-serving organisation?

7) When Abel Tasman sighted New Zealand in 1642, what name did he give it?

Which is believed to be the oldest government department?

9) Who was the first New Zealand born Prime Minister?

10) You may find some highly immature European tourists giggling at the kakapo. Why is this?

(People were beginning to relax a little by now. I promised them that the hardest rounds were the first two. None of them appeared to notice my finger were crossed at this point in time. So, on we went and into the sports round. Which cheered the South African couple up no end. See if you can spot why….)

Round 5 Sports Round

Last Five Winners – most recent first. Name the competition.

1) Italy, Brazil, France, Brazil, West Germany

2) South Africa, England, Australia, South Africa, Australia

3) Australia, New Zealand, Australia, Australia, Australia

4) FINA is the governing body of which sport?

5) ISF is the governing body of which sport?

6) In NZ which of the following is the odd one out, hockey, basketball, netball, softball, rugby union.

7) In what sport’s word championship is the Naismith trophy awarded?

How many Olympic medals has Michael Phelps won?

9) Which Olympic event will be reintroduced in London 2012, having last been an Olympic event in 1904 as a demonstration sport.?

10) Which events make up the Biathlon?

(By now, people had relaxed a little, had a couple of beers and realised that yes, the questions were tough, very tough, but they were equally tough for everybody. There was some good natured heckling and requests for clarification. Oh, and some smart arses trying to be pedantic. Trying to be more pedantic than me? Ha! It also helped at this point, that my cunning research assistant Mrs S, was on-line and able to look-up any disputes very, very quickly. I also invoked Rule Two*  on a couple of occasions..) Oh, and we handed out the picture round. In my defence, I thought the Muppets had been on NZ television, so Some of them are *ahem* a little obscure

(Again, the teams had several rounds to try and figure these out. We were now into the last three rounds, Quotes, Current Events and the Music Round….)

Round 7 Some Infamous Quotes.

1) New Zealand was colonised initially by those Australians who had the initiative to escape.  (Politician..)

2) A country of inveterate, backwoods, thick-headed, egotistic philistines. (Said of NZ by a famous dictator..)

3) Insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting the different results. (And yes, I did repeat this quote several times. Only one person laughed..)

4) It takes a lot of money to look this cheap

5) You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.

6) I think we’re going to the moon because it’s in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It’s by the nature of his deep inner soul… we’re required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream.

7) I got to dress up in funny clothes and run around New Zealand with a bow and arrow for 18 months, how bad could that be? (Actor)

I’d move to Los Angeles if New Zealand and Australia were swallowed up by a tidal wave, if there was a bubonic plague in England and if the continent of Africa disappeared from some Martian attack. (Actor)

9) I’ve never been to New Zealand before. But one of my role models, Xena, the warrior princess, comes from there. (Political figure..)

10) Well of course New Zealand isn’t anti-American. (Politician)

Round Eight. Current Events.

Last chance to play the Joker…..

1) From 1st November talking or texting on a mobile phone while at the wheel of the car will be a traffic offence. What are the penalties if you are caught using your phone while driving? (Local to NZ this one..)

2) A former child star has claimed he is Paris Jackson’s natural father, having donated sperm to Michael. What did he originally become famous for (the sperm donor, not MJ)?

3) What’s the name of the monkey who escaped from the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve at the weekend? (Most people got this, as it was fairly major news*. Said monkey has since been recaptured with the aid of a banana and a cardboard box.)

4) A newly-wed Chinese couple have attempted to break a world record whilst getting married. What record?

5) What date and time is the ShakeOut due to hit the West Coast? (Very local sorry..)

6) The Mona Lisa was recently attacked with which everyday object?

7) US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is currently on an 11-day tour of seven African countries. Name four of them. (One point for four, half for tow or three, none for one.)

Why is the Arctic Circle in the news?

9) Whose last operatic role will be in April 2010?

10) Why are scientists getting excited about boobies?

(Okay for round 9 then,  the music round, I am going to have to do it in a slightly different format. On the night we actually played a cover version of each song to the assembled throng. Many of whom looked quite unimpressed. Most of the following are the first line or two from each song. One is a middle verse, be warned. We need the name of the song and the original recording artiste. Half a point for each.. To reflect the fact we played the list twice through, you may read each part of the song twice if you like..)

1) Maybe I didn’t treat you quite as good as I should,

Maybe I didn’t love you quite as often as I could,

2) Life is a mystery,

Everyone must stand alone,

I hear you call my name,

3) I was sick and tired of everything ,

When I called you last night from Glasgow,

4) Aaaaaaaaaah,

I guess now its time,

For me  give up

I feel its time,

Got a picture of you beside me

Got your lispstick marks still on your coffee cup

5) I may not always love you,

6) My baby don’t mess around
Because she loves me so
And this I know for shooo..
Uh, But does she really wanna
But can’t stand to see me
Walk out the dooor..
Don’t try to fight the feelin’
Because the thought alone is killing me right nooww..
Uh, thank god for mom and dad
For sticking two together
‘Cause we don’t know hooowww…

7) I’ve been singing with my band, ‘cross the water, ‘cross the land,

I’ve seen every blue eyed floozy on the way,

But their beauty and their style went kinda smooth  after a while,

Take me to them lardy ladies everytime.

When I wake up, I’m gonna be the one who wakes up next to you,

When I go out, I’m gonna be the one who goes along with you,

If I get drunk, I’m gonna be tha man who gets drunk next to you,

When I am working I’m gonna be the man who is working hard for you.

9) Its been seven hours and fifteen days,

Since you took your love away…

10) I want to run, I  want to hide,

I want to break down the walls that hold me inside,

As noted these were all cover versions of other people’s songs. I would give you the names of the covering artists, but it would kind of give it away.

Incidentally, the joker may not be played on the Envelope Round, the Picture Round or the Music Round. You must publicly declare playing your joker at the start of the round you intend to play it, and you will get double the number of points when you play your joker. (Standard Lyndhurst Joker rules apply)

*Rule Two.  The Quiz-master’s word is final. No arguing.

PS That means you as well. Especially you…

(Suggested soundtrack here)

Not so much ‘North-shore’ riding but essential boardwalks to get over the scenic swampy bits.

The view from the end of the tramway and the end of the tramway. Spoilt by clouds, but you should get the idea.

The old self-portrait-whilst-cycling-along-trick should explain the apprehensive look.

The start of the down bit, and a rare glimpse of scenery that isn’t trees.

These two photos are of puddles rather than ponds. No, Really. They seem to be permanent features though. Tracks go in, and tracks come out the other side, so they must be puddles…

(These were done with the ‘Arty-bollocks’ setting on my camera..)

Leave only tracks. Muddy ones….

I can see the sea. This is a good sunset spot.

Home again.

Anyway, back in the real world I have had cause to thank  You-Tube for helping out admirably when it comes to teaching poetry. For a glimpse of what we have been doing, go here, here, although we didn’t ‘do’ either of these poems, as they are a bit long, instead we did ‘Wot A Pair‘ and ‘Nature Trail‘ (Incidentally, if you are into obscure indie music The Black Cab Sessions are worth a visit..). In an effort to be hip and trendy and a proper English teacher, we also did some Roger McGough, highlights here and here. (Although the music on that last one may irritate..) Some totally irrelevant to New Zealand kids, Dead White Poets stuff here, here and here. (In my defense I quite like all of these poems, but they are all a bit obvious and a little beyond your average Yr10..) Um, who else was there? Oh, yes. I showed them this, as again I have always liked it, and it has an interesting rhyme scheme. There is an interesting response to this poem here. The problem with ‘Slough’, is it is difficult to describe to context of the town to extremely rural kiwi kids… Still, David Brent is a good example of literary criticism. Apparently, rap music counts as poetry, so we went and had a look at this, but not this. Not because it is a bit sweary, but again, the context isn’t appreciated by todays youngsters. They all think rap music is this sort of thing.

Yoof eh?

Anyway. ‘On The Beach’. Bleak, bleak ending. *Spoiler Alert* Goodness, they all die. There is no hope. I needed a hug from Mrs S. at the end of that one, I can tell you. *End of Spoiler*

Incidentally, I have also read  a few other books this holiday. ‘The Night Watch’ by Sergei Lukyanenko, which is part of a tetralogy. Not bad, bit like a grown-up vodka soaked Harry Potter. All about how we are but pawns of powers beyond our control. Then I read a book called ‘The Third Person’ by Steve Mosby. Now, that is worth a read, very inventive but very dark, twisted and cyber-gothique. Nice touches though. I would however not let any-one under the age of say, eighteen read it, and would recommend psychotherapy for the author. Who apparently lives in Leeds, so could do with it. Anyway. A daft book is ‘The Towers of Silence’. Any book where the lead characters comment ‘it is like something out of a novel’ tells you that the plot is preposterous. Willing suspension of disbelief is one thing, but this was just bollocks.

What else. oh yes, the follow up to ‘The Sparrow’, called ‘Children of God’. Massively underrated books, thoroughly deserve a wider audience. GO AND READ BOTH OF THEM. Could be accused of being theistic propaganda, but try and overlook that, why not READ THEM and make up your own mind.

My mother, when I was younger, would occasionally reference ‘something awful in the woodshed’. Which I never really understood. I have just read ‘Cold Comfort Farm’ by Stella Gibbons. Now, I still don’t know exactly what Great Aunt Ada Doom saw in the woodshed, but I understand the reference. Good book incidentally. Personally I would have slapped Flora and locked her in the woodshed for being an interfering git, but that would have made a much shorter book. (On a similar note, the local classic teacher, with whom one shares office space, came in singing/ saying ‘Only me from over the sea said Barnacle Bill the Sailor..” Which is a couplet my Dad would occasionally start singing, but mysteriously never finished. Then I joined a Rugby Club/ Venture Scouts and found out what the rest of the song is about.. No wonder Mum never let Dad finish that one.. I gleefully told the classics teacher the rest of some of the verses and she had no idea. Tssk. Fine old folk song is Barnacle Bill. Fancy thinking it is innocent and lovely. Quoting out of context is a dangerous game.)

There has been a few others as well, but that is it for now. ‘Bye.