Its been a lovely weekend, both days, sunny and warm, even hot at times, yet this is midwinter in NZ. It can be cold too. The first pictures show frost, a cold mist and steaming roof when the early morning temperature was minus six degrees. We went for a long walk on Northland NZ’s equivalent of Holkham Beach on Saturday. Breams Bay leads up to Marsden Point, where we cleared in just past NZ’s only oil refinery all those months ago. Around 30km of white sand on which we made a tiny impression at the north end. A bigger impression was made by a young lady on her lively chestnut mare as they galloped beside the surf. Hundreds of live scallops had been washed ashore and black backed gulls were enjoying a squabbling feast. The beach is backed with well worn dunes that appear to be home to possums and possum hunters judging by the macabre impaling of six carcasses on wooden posts. I wondered why the humans had not made something on their pelts. There is a factory in the middle of Whangarei that takes in road kill and hunters trophies to skin and grind up the rest for dog food.

 

Back on Zoonie we drank water so we would appreciate the homebrew more. Then came lunch. My favourite female novelist, Sara Alexi, recently published another book which contains her favourite Greek recipes so I made her artichoke stew for the Marina BBQ last Sunday evening. There was some left so I liquidised it in my bullet baby processor and we had the resurrected sauce with pasta and a few shavings of cheese. Rob made the pudding, an assembly job of little choc muffin, scarved with Greek yoghurt, and topped with vegan coconut yoghurt flavoured with mango and turmeric and no added sugar. The crown was maple flavoured syrup, to make up for the lack of sugar in the yoghurt!!

 

Yesterday we climbed to the Mt Parihaka lookout, once a strong hold of the Hatea Maori tribe. A vast array of plants are starting to flower; glossy leaved Camellias, rambling jasmine filling the air with their fragrance from flowers in indirect proportion to their size, Busy Lizzies, snowdrops lilies, geraniums and magnolia all bursting forth.  You know how I love the steep valley we have to scale, with its busy stream and indigenous forest and the sounds of human activity as good as a millions years away it is an escape to see what NZ once looked like all over the islands. Rob clicked on the torchlight on his iPhone and we tiptoed tentatively into the old gold mine. No pit props here, just solid dripping rock and puddles, the single tunnel entrance soon opened out into three dinosaur claws and we turned back to the warm daylight. Maybe we’ll explore a little more sometime.

 

Down again on the river side a male mallard duck resting on a part submerged rock slept soundly as the gentle breeze lifted some of his feathers and turned him ever so slightly. At the Dairy Shop we bought Magnums and made them last as long as the remaining walk back to Zoonie.

 

Zoonie is all back together now and Rob has just booked her launch for this Thursday, wish us luck. A few evenings ago after dark we were sitting in the boat shed doorway enjoying a beer with Mo and looking beyond Zoonie down the ancient river to the floodlit Te Matau a Pohe, Fishhook Bridge. He was telling us about his little boat, a 1944 Hereschoff 28 footer called Rosemary that he is living on while he restores her and works in the boatyard. (photo attached).

 

In my last blog I included photos of Andre Rieu’s advertising poster for the film of this years 30th Anniversary Concert of the formation of his Johann Strauss Orchestra, held in his home town of Maastricht, Belgium. You may have heard of him. He ticks all my boxes by popularising a variety of music genres and making the performances affordable to us masses. So it wasn’t his fault that it cost us $35 each to see the film of his concert when to attend the live performance was only $17. I might just go onto his website and advise him of that.

 

In 1917 a baby girl entered the world whose destiny was to marry Jesus. She had a liking for classical music and has been to every single one of his 30 concerts held in Maastricht. This year she was whisked in a wheelchair to the area infront of the stage really to get her there quickly, then Andre scooped her up for a dance to the Blue Danube Waltz, not bad for a centenarian!

 

One of the musicians, Manu, is a lady with character. A breast cancer survivor, she responded positively when Andre asked if anyone could play the bagpipes. “I can’t but I’ve always wanted to learn,” she replied. She took front stage with her bag and pipes while a Scottish bagpipe orchestra backed her up and a Scottish castle was the backdrop on stage. The concert was a colourful, lively and interactive performance and apparently all can be seen on UTube. If you’re interested a Google of Andre Rieu would send you to his website. I’d love to soak up the atmosphere of a live performance and Rob loved the music, pretty ladies and colourful dresses. What a treat that was.