It's all downhill - really!

Setting the scene. Olympic Pool is just that - an Olympic sized pool, so it is huge.  It is separated across it's width with a large removable but 'permanent' type barrier sporting 'Please Keep Off' signs on either end. One side is relatively shallow.  Several times during the week there's Nifty Fifties Aqua Aerobics, school swimming classes, canoeing lessons and on the weekends it transforms into a kids wonderland with a blow up run along thing, hanging rings etc. The other side, the deep end, is well deep. It's 3.6 meters, featured a high dive platform & several dive boards. During the week most of it is in lanes with the equivalent of two lanes reserved for aqua jogging & there's a steady stream of swimmers and aqua joggers. The high dive is opened for kids on some weekends.  There's a row of flags running widthways to signal to the back strokers not to hit the wall and these swimming lanes, and aqua jogging lanes are strictly reserv...

Well, that's our goal, we've laid the path and started upon the stepping stones and it's all downhill on the slippery slope. Our journey's end will be good. Sadly for too many who not only plan their escape to a better life, actually make the changes for themselves and children the past will not let them go. Yesterday a  Tauranga  (2013) woman was stabbed by her former partner in a 'domestic incident'. Glenys Stanton & Trevor Waite  (2013) shot by her ex partner at her new partners home. Barbara Ann Moka  (2013) moved from Auckland to Rawene, was then found murdered and an Auckland man, first charged with an historic assault, is then charged with her murder. Patricia Ann McGrath  (2013) killed in her home by former partner who pled guilty to her manslaughter. Alexsis Tovizi  (2010) killed by her former partner who was jealous of her new partner. Inayat Kawtha  (2012) killed by ex partner released on bail against police advice, after a...

Laws' opinion piece 'Love among ferals' is tragic. It is tragic because it is true.  Once past the hook, Life in Welly vs. Auck & the rest of NZ, the tragic tale of Ana Eriepa is sketched. ' Ana Eriepa. Three months ago she was placed in the boot of her new car by her deranged, drugged boyfriend - fell out - and was then dragged 1.7 kilometres behind the car as he zoomed off. Ana is now missing a foot, has multiple skin grafts, a slowly healing scalp and her right thumb is stuffed for good. Considering her ordeal, she is very lucky to be alive. Yeah, but Ana is fine. Because she is in love. She is in love with Sonny - the same bad-ass boyfriend who maimed and mutilated her. "He's actually a good boy," she says. "He has a good heart". And she turned up in court last week to support him as he battles lawyers and the justice system to be there for her. As Sonny Waiti romantically explains it: he only gave her the bash and p...

I introduced Bruiser earlier in the week, and as puppy parents (meaning we are utterly obsessed with inflicting out little darling upon you all), here's another photo. Bruiser No expensive colour coordinated collar/leash combination nor any amount of frufru can disguise the fact that he is 'one of those'.  Yes, although quite Staffy looking on a glance at his brindle, a practiced eye notes the long legs & ears of an American Pit & the broad nose of an English Bull Terrier and the breadth of chest from all of them. He epitomises the stereotypical look media have demonised.  Gorgeous boy. These days I'm mainly attired in the Bogan uniform of jeans sneakers & a hoodie (hey it's not the winterless north here ya know), with matching Bloke. Add to that a Bruiser & the moderately dressed are clutching their (in my experience dangerous) small children & designer fluffies across the road. Yesterday I lunched at the Karori Park Cafe with Al ...

The GCSB, described as the (coincidently) slippery slope until Orwell's Big Brother is standing in our lounges watching everything we do. Let me first make this point - I am NOT a supporter of the GCSB Amendment Bill.  I am one of John Key's 'don't cares'. I don't see this bill as an erosion of our rights or the beginning (it's actually a continuum, but that's just another pesky fact) of the end. I do believe it's a vocal minority in opposition of the GCSB Bill. While it may not seem that way, the submission numbers don't lie "124 submissions on the GCSB Bill & 30,000 on Snapper".  http://www.stuff.co.nz/blogs/opinion/9055745/Espiner-Keys-snapper-attack-swallowed-whole  From the Far North Dover Samuals says "Tell the Minister that if he wants another Maori war we will start it here"  http://www.nzherald.co.nz/northland-age/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503402&objectid=11107625 The vocal opposers believe they're ...

On Saturday we became involved in a high-speed car chase. I was driving my little itty bitty putt putt car onto SH2 north from the Melling lights with precious cargo on board, Bruiser on his way home from visiting his new Auntie, Nana and Pop. We passed a motorbike cop parked in the flash driveway to the left there. Thought nothing of it. I can barely reach the speed limit let alone intentionally lose traction! Itty Bitty Putt Putt Car Heading toward the Belmont turn off, there's sound of a loud exhaust & revving engine, barely drowned out by the siren of the motorcycle cop following the souped up car (now of course gender & age specific boy-racer stereotype). This car swerved through very heavy weekend traffic, pulled into the first Belmont turn off lane, slowed turned into Belmont, pulled over & when the cop went alongside the car pulled out almost hitting the cop bike before speeding away.  The chase was on.  The car re-joined SH2 at the Belmont light...

There's wild pig in them there hills.  Evident with rooted up clearings & piggie poo about.  "It's the big ones that dig in the clay banks", says Neighbour Pete on a visit looking for lost pig dogs. "The ones with the big tusks". Pig dogs, that's what we need. Now we have Rufus - (photo below as a pup for apples for apples) Rufus Rufus, meant to be a town house dog, was a challenging high-strung pup is now in his element as a 'teenage' possum-killing machine, solid, hard muscled super-fit bush dog. Rufus So, I caught the bloke checking out the dog section on Trade Me (hardly deal breaker internet use), and spent the following week torturing him with pictures of cute fluffy puppies while recruiting family and friends into the puppy scheme.  On Friday this is what was waiting for him when he got home. Bruiser Sold as a 'Pig Dog Pup', Described as 'Hard & Fast' and presented to his new Daddy comp...

Retirement, that's the goal. 32 acres of mainly bush (and a house), off the power grid, no cellphone coverage for 4.5 kms, no landline, accessed by gravel road in adventurous condition.  Paradise! 800 meters down an adventurous driveway - it's the slippery slope all the way down to the bottom. Semi-retirement in the winterless beauty of the far-north?  That'll do, thank you very much. There it is.