Soon, Only 365 Days Till Christmas

She pauses, looks up, squints and figures out labels. Decisions. Behind her another examines an item, replaces it on the shelf. Our supermarket aisle, the whole super market is in pause and ponder mode. We are not shopping for the next meal, we’re shopping for Christmas. A porridge of slow moving people who are patient, pleasantries exchanged.

The intersection, busiest I’ve seen since I moved here. Cars wait, indicators winking, time to nod, shout a quip to a fellow pensioner on the footpath. Road rules politely oberved, Indicators wink, wink, wink.

Shopping lugged from car to larder, or stuffed in the fridge. After Christmas that fridge will have the Big Dig. ‘Best Before,’ da de dah.

A humid early summer afternoon.

Swim

Wot is a Geodetic Datum?

Sunday morning walk. Early. Our main street.
A lone contractor’s truck.
One fellow both arms leaning against the tray,
Breathing out memories from the night before.
His mate returning from the all-night
Pay, grab and gobble Burgher bar.

Stop by our best little provincial book shop, Carsons.
“Paris Indoor Style.“
A white cube. Inside that cube are white cubes.
Furniture. There must be, out of sight, a sign:
‘Please do not sit on The White Cube’

Leave town, up the steps, now a view of The Firth
Captain Cook, 1769, it was Spring.
1500 steps so far.
Highest point. 58 metres above sea level.
That is based on a standardised geodetic datum

From childhood Holidays…

Then it was a gravel road,
The car a cocoon of dust
From Waitakaruru, to Thames,
Where today, retired, I live.

Pollen Street, three old guys,
One of them is me.
Chortling, sharing aches and pains,
Growing old, it ain’t for sissies.

Grahamstown, an almost gypsy vibe.
Op-shops, cafes, a music shop, I stop,
Two strangers, two guitars and now,
Both tuned, becoming friends.

Enjoy Your Day

And while the Scotsmen slept, the invadors, Norsmen, crept up. An ambush. A cry of pain. Indignation. A would be conqueror had met his match. On one leg the Norsman hopped, cursed and removed a thistle. Ambush averted.

Today the ‘Scotch Thistle is the national emblem of Scotland.

Hopping across their sheep runs South Island farmers today are dealing with an invador, the Californian Thistle. Stock dont eat ’em so they spread. Can’t use ’em in soups. Goats. Goats gobble the flowery bits when in season. I can’t find out why or how they were introduced.

So how did this jotting come to be?
My morning walk.
Enjoy your day.

There be Gold

A & G Price is a local heavy engineering business providing   employment going back to our gold mining days.

These days it is held in some affection, many of our Thames families have connections with the gold mining industry.

It was founded in 1868 in Onehunga, New Zealand by Alfred and George Price from Stroud, Gloucestershire. It manufactured locomotives, rolling stock, repaired ships and flax-milling machines.

In 1974 the staff of A & G Price alone was in excess of 520 people.

Today, global trading and we live in precarious times. Ingenuity in locating contracts worldwide provides for few skilled workers.