I am flying, I am flying, home again, across the sky ...

Only seven sleeps to go before we board the Malaysian Airlines flight via Kuala Lumpur to Heathrow airport at 0135hrs on Wednesday 7 March, for our brief 20 day visit to England.  I'm trying to arrange a hook up with Captain Ahab and Belle, but it's looking unlikely at this point, due to our tight itinerary - but never say never.  Although the waterways of Britain are important to us, seeing my family is our number one priority.  


I finished my last shift at the maternity unit this morning, and am not working again until 31 March - hurrah!

Last weekend we spent in Napier with some friends and had the privilege of going to The Mission Estate Winery to see the 'forever young' Rod Stewart.  Prior to the concert, we went into Napier, where, in 1931, the town was almost obliterated by a massive earthquake and many lives were lost.  Following the calamity, the town was rebuilt Art Deco style, and each year they celebrate the uniqueness of their city by holding an Art Deco Weekend on the third weekend of February, where people come from all over the world and dress up in style - I went in 2006 and it was a fascinating experience.

Barry took the opportunity of visiting the local 'Home Brew' shop, imaging that he'd meet a kindred spirit - only it didn't quite work out like that ...

Jelly Bean (bizarre name to begin with!) in Napier

Barry walked into the shop and introduced himself, saying that he'd recently opened up a home brew shop in Gisborne, and from the time the owner of 'Jelly Bean' opened his mouth until Barry left the shop, nothing but negativity poured forth from his lips - it was astounding -  I only managed a couple of minutes before I had to leave the premises, I can't recall ever hearing such a sorry tale!  How on earth he keeps any customers is beyond me.  The first thing he said was how he'd known at least 6 home brew shops between Wairoa and Gisborne in the 21 years he'd been open and they'd all closed.  It just continued downhill from there ...

Rodney and Barry try to look enthralled by the Napier Home Brew shop - it just convinced us how good ezimade is! 

Anyway, enough of that, and no mention of how I was led astray by the array of shops in Napier, back to the reason for our visit ...

When my eldest daughter was young I apparently convinced her that Roderick Stewart was my boyfriend, and she proudly told her friends so - I'm not sure how she managed this when she'd never actually MET him, but it just shows how easily influenced children can be, lol!  I've seen him in concert a few times over the past 40 years, but this time I was so overcome with excitement I almost cried - he's truly a magnificent showman at 67 years young - even Barry was rocking and a-rolling.

Although the rain fell for a couple of hours earlier in the evening, once Rod appeared the clouds parted and the stars shone - of course!

Before we saw the rain - the 25,000 crowd hasn't quite all arrived yet ...

What an incredible venue




Not the clearest picture, but you get a sense of the electric atmosphere in an open air amphitheatre concert

A Busman's holiday - 12 months to countdown now ...

Sunday is Barry's 'day of rest', his only time away from ezimade each week.  So guess what he does on this day most weeks?  Yep, you got it, he goes down to the laundry brewery downstairs and plays with his numerous concoctions!  He calls it research, such a hard life ...

To be fair, he also cut the grass today and chopped down the neighbours' privet trees - hurrah we have so much more light coming into our kitchen window!  The neighbours are actually selling up, so the tenants have moved out and Barry asked the owner if he could remove said privet trees which cause hay fever, and he agreed.  Of course our other incentive was to increase the visibility of our house from the road, as we'll be putting it on the market in September.  We're hoping that number 4 Hillview Terrace sells for a good price which will help ours too ...

Talking of selling up, congratulations to Paul and Elaine from The Manly Ferry who have just sold their house and hope to be back in UK at the end of March!  Shame we'll probably pass you in the air on our way back to New Zealand on 27 March, but good luck and we'll be watching excitedly as you begin your new life on the waterways of Britain.  We're so pleased for you both.

We've just over three weeks now before we come back for our brief visit, and we're very excited.  It'll be mostly visiting family (including our gorgeous new grandson), but we could just squeeze in a visit to Captain Ahab and Belle at some point for a narrowboat fix - watch this space!!!

And of course, if all goes to plan, it's just twelve months until we're on our way back to the waterways, so the countdown is definitely on - 20 days just won't be nearly long enough in March.

It's not so bad here though, last weekend I spent at a place 40 minutes from us, called the Haurata Country Retreat.  It's an amazing place, no-one for miles around, plenty of sheep and cows watching and wondering what's going on, and incredible views.

Somewhere in the distance is Gisborne ...

A surprise visit 'down under' from fellow narrowboaters ...

... coincidentally at exactly the same time as a visit from some friends from UK who had booked in with us over a year ago!

Barry was in the shop on Monday, while I was sleeping before my fourth night duty (we're rather short of midwives currently so I'm having to do some extras!), and a couple came in and asked him if he knew who they were.  Now we were expecting my friends, Jean and Jeremy, to arrive the following day as part of their whistle stop tour of New Zealand, so poor Barry was rather confused.  He finds it a challenge to remember the names of people he's known for years, never mind those he's only met a couple of times, so although he recognised their faces he couldn't place them.

But then the name of a canal - The Chesterfield canal to be precise - was mentioned and he immediately knew Ray and Pauline!  His memory for places and waterways in UK is incredible.  Ray and Pauline were moored with us in 2009, along with the lovely Pete who we also caught up with again in 2010.  We bumped into Ray and Pauline in 2010 at The Black Country Museum.  Ray says he initially saw a young couple and thought we'd sold the boat, but he'd spotted my Godson Mikey and his girlfriend Sophie.

So on Tuesday evening we had a dinner party for six, instead of four, and were even more flabbergasted to discover that Ray and Pauline live 20 minutes from where Jeremy used to live in Lowton.

Pauline, Ray and Barry enjoying the evening sunshine on the deck

Barry was in his element chatting about the waterways and reminiscing about our first meeting with Pete. It was so lovely to see you both, thank you for dropping by and we'll catch you again in 2013 I'm sure!

Jeremy, Sandra and Jean catch up

Jean is a midwifery colleague I worked with in England when I was a Project Lead for Midwifery Recruitment and Retention with the Department of Health, Jean was a Local Supervising Authority Officer and Jeremy is a retired judge.  They're now making the most of their spare time and every two years have a big trip - this year it was to the Southern Hemisphere and they added two days onto their packed itinerary to see us in Gisborne, and we had a fabulous day doing touristy things on Wednesday - in the afternoon we went sting ray feeding at Dive Tatapouri, a short drive up the coast, something I've wanted to experience for ages.  Jean was rather worried that she'd get stabbed, but they were the sweetest, gentlest sea creatures you could imagine.  Only Jeremy had a waterproof camera, so I haven't any photos to put on here yet, but I'm sure he'll email some in the future.

As Jean was leaving to return to their motel, she asked quite innocently "Is that a toy?"  I looked at where she was pointing and there, to my absolute horror, was a dead rat lying prostrate in the corner of the lounge (rather than the 'rat in the kitchen'!).  Barry assured me that he'd vacuumed the evening before and it wasn't there then, but it was extremely stiff - blooming cats aye, but better a dead rat than a live one I suppose!

OMG!  And he seriously had vacuumed the night before!

Six weeks and six days before we return to UK …

Sadly not to come back to the canals, but the next time it will be – that’ll be in just over 13 months time now.  So the countdown is on, and there’s a lot to do in the meantime.

We’re flying from Auckland in the early hours of Wednesday 7 March and will be there until Tuesday 27 March, so a whistle stop tour catching up with my family, which includes a weekend at Northmoor House in Devon for my mum’s 79th birthday.

We had a great time camping at Pouawa from 28 December to 10 January, despite some dodgy weather when everyone (or so it seemed!) except Barry and I returned to town because we had an approaching cyclone!  During the two weeks of living next to the sea Barry and I continued to work as normal, and early one morning as I drove to the maternity unit in town, along the road which hugs the coast-line, I was blessed with a spectacular sunrise …

Awesome, it made getting up at 0530hrs well worthwhile!

Not much else to report really, it’s just heads down, work our little socks off to earn as much money as possible, pay off debts, de-clutter our (far too many!) belongings, get the house ready to sell by September and save to buy a lovely narrowboat in the spring of 2013.  I’m worn out just thinking about it, but it’s also very exciting to think I’ll be coming back to England to spend time with my family again, I miss them heaps.

Sunny season’s greetings and Happy New Year!

We hope everyone has had a fabulous xmas and is looking forward to 2012.  It’s been a chilled one for us, Barry is on his third day off, and we’ve had his children Jamie and Tom staying.  Luckily the sun’s finally decided to come out, we’ve had more than our fair share of wet and cold weather recently – most unusual for Gisborne!

It’s a challenge for us to find something UK waterways related on our blogs during this time when we’re away, but we had a lovely surprise on xmas eve, as a friend of mine from work bought us the xmas card below …

A ‘pop-up’ xmas card – found in a shop in Gisborne would you believe?

The card is sitting on top of my gorgeous new Macbook Air – I adore it, though am still rather clueless as to how to use it completely, so am currently sticking with my old desk top until I feel more confident!  It’s fantastic for Skype-ing for my Life Coaching course, and it’ll be an amazing tool once we’re back on the canals as I’ll do a lot of on-line work, so it was my treat to myself.

To pay for it, we’re renting our house out and we’re in the middle of sorting out and cleaning ready for the first group of people to move in for five nights from tomorrow.  We have the same people renting this year as last year, caterer’s at Rhythm and Vines, the New Year’s Eve festival here in Gisborne which is in its 9th year and winner of the 2010 Best Festival/Event NZ Tourism Award, is reported to be “the pinnacle of the best festival week offered anywhere in New Zealand.”  Our usual population is around 35,000, and there’s 30,000 tickets for R & V – and they’re likely to be sold out – so you can imagine how packed Gisborne becomes at this time of year, along with xmas holiday makers from around new Zealand.

So we’re off to the beach …

Barry putting the tent up – it’s a VERY old one, and we’ll be lucky if it survives the next few weeks intact!

 Here’s the tent erected – just a stone’s throw from the beach, and right next to a Pohutakawa tree …

 … and check out the view from the front of our temporary home – what could be better?

Tent’s up, it must be time for a drink! 

We’ve had a great year, it’s flown by, and so many lovely things have happened.  Barry’s shop continues to be extremely popular and I’m almost half way through my Life Coaching Diploma, we have a gorgeous new grandson who we see regularly on Skype, and our family on both sides of the world are healthy. 

So it’s happy 2012 to all of our readers, and we hope to catch up with some of you when we’re back in March.  Have a fun, but safe, New Year, and may you reach for the stars and achieve some of your dreams next year.  We’ll have a lot to do on our journey back to the waterways of UK by February 2013, so it’ll be a productive time, and I also want to see as much as I can of the Southern Hemisphere before we return to my homeland, so it’s very exciting!

Arohanui (big love) from Sandra & Barry.

Barry’s in Tall Spirits

Since our last posting, Barry has had his 56th birthday (6 December) and we had a few days away in the beautiful Coromandel Peninsula as I’d been in Auckland for the weekend on my Life Coaching Diploma.  I’d already booked the accommodation and his air fare before he opened up the shop, and we have a very competent friend who looked after 'ezimade' while he was away.  I know how challenging it can be for self-employed business people to take time off (having lived with Barry when he had his photography business when he hardly ever had a holiday) and I don’t want Barry to go down that road again, especially after he’s tasted three years of not a lot of employment!  It’s gone from the sublime to the ridiculous lately, but that’s OK, it’ll settle down and we’ll adjust.

We drove up the west coast of the peninsula, which hugs the coast most of the way so you’re almost driving on the golden beaches which are lined with Pohutakawa trees (NZ xmas trees), though sadly only a handful of them were in bloom. It’s one of my favourite places in New Zealand, having visited  many times with visiting family, but Barry has only visited a couple of places, briefly, many years ago – so I showed the kiwi some of his own country, just like he showed me some of mine when we were on the canals.

It’s tragic isn’t it that we often fail to see what’s in ‘our own back yard’.  “What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?’  At this point I’ll apologise for the quality of the following photos – taken with my new ‘iphone 4s’, but by me rather than Barry so they’re not up to the usual standard despite it being a fantastic camera!

Stunning beaches and Pohutakawa trees line the road

Me and Barry on the eve of his birthday, in Coromandel town, at the Pepper Tree restaurant in Coromandel town – one of the most delicious meals I’ve ever tasted!

On Barry’s birthday we went to the 'Driving Creek Railway', built in the bush by Barry Brickell over a period of years, and then drove along the '309 road' which is 22 km of winding gravel road that cuts across the Coromandel Peninsula from west to east and has a few attractions along the way.  The second one I’d been to three times before, but it was Barry’s first time.  When I said we were going to a water park, he thought I meant slides and pools – ha!  Little did he know what fun he’d have …

   At the Driving Creek railway station and in the train, high in the bush, overlooking the Coromandel

In the Waiau Waterworks Park, Barry plays out his inner child!!!  56 or between 5 & 6?

After the water park, it was a visit to the waterfall, book into the accommodation at Hot Water Beach, and a quick walk to Cathedral Cove – sadly there’s been some rock falls here so it’s cordoned off (no that it stops most people!)

Sadly the tide never went out at Hot Water Beach, so we didn’t get to dig a hot pool, despite waiting around with our spades for almost two hours!  Ah well, we’ll have to go back one day …

The time away together was far too short, and it was soon back to the shop for Barry – not that he minded!  He’s loving the new opportunity and has been unbelievably busy since he opened.  New Zealand is one of only three countries in the world where it’s legal to brew your own spirits, and it seems that having somewhere with the equipment for spirits, as well as beer, wine, cider and cheese and yoghurt making, is a very popular place to frequent in Gisborne.  He’s even just been featured on the front page of the national home brewer’s magazine …

But don’t worry, despite  his success his main aim is returning to the waterways of Britain early in 2013, all of the things we’re doing here in New Zealand in the meantime are working towards that goal.

You’re never too old to diversify – the three faces of Barry, looking outside the box - lessons in putting it out there!

For anyone reading wondering what one earth this blog has to do with the waterways of Britain, let me explain.  Barry, my husband, and I, bought Northern Pride, a 45 foot narrowboat in April 2009 and spent the next six months travelling almost 1,000 miles around the canals and rivers of England and Wales.  We returned to New Zealand, as Barry is only ‘allowed’ to stay in UK for a maximum of six months, until May 2010 when we returned to complete another five month journey.  In February this year, we sold our beloved boat to some beautiful people who keep us in touch with what is happening with her, and we’re back in New Zealand, Barry’s home country and my adopted country, while we plan our return to UK by February 2013 to buy another narrowboat and live aboard ‘indefinitely’.  So, in the meantime, we’re continuing with the blog to keep us inspired and focussed on our vision …

In April 2007, a year after Barry and I got together, I dragged him back to England to meet my family.  His proviso was that he would come, and leave his successful photography business and not earn any money for 4 weeks, so long as we could ‘do a canal trip’.  So we had four days and nights aboard a hire boat with my parents and my youngest daughter Kim, and did the Birmingham ring.  Barry was hooked!  When we returned to New Zealand he dreamed of returning, buying a boat, and living aboard.  It took us another two years to get there, but by September 2008, I had sold my house and moved in with Barry, he had sold his house and then sold his business – a professional photographer of 35 years with a very high profile in his local town of Gisborne.

Since that time, Barry has had a few short term contracts in between our trips to UK, but realistically found it an enormous challenge to get a ‘real’ job, despite sending in numerous CV’s, application forms and covering letters.  Feeling that maybe employers were looking at the fact that he’d only really worked as a photographer and not seeing his transferrable skills, as well as possibly believing that at 55 he must be ‘past it’, he was becoming despondent.

But Barry isn’t one to let things get to him, and November 2011 has seen a complete change of his life!  From having no job, he’s had three!  From having much of the past three years off, he’s spent the past month with hardly a day not working.

Firstly there’s been his photography workshops which we mentioned in a previous blog.  The September dates were a non-starter, probably because it was such short notice, but suddenly a few weeks ago he had people wanting to book and was full for November with bookings now in place for the February workshops too!

 

 

 

Then of course, he opened his homebrew shop 'ezimade', on Thursday 17 November and has been like a pig in s—t ever since!  Business has been amazing, with huge interest from local people.  He’s open six days a week, 1000hrs to 1800hrs Monday to Friday and 1000hrs to 1600hrs on a Saturday.  So from having him at home for seven days a week I now hardly see him - we’re like ships narrowboats that pass in the night!

 

Then yesterday, Saturday 26th November, Barry was the manager at one of the local polling stations working from 0800hrs to 2200hrs!  He’d applied for a job with the elections some time ago, and without even asking had been appointed as a manager.  Not that he craved such notoriety, we suspect anyone who knew anything about the elections would have declined – experience is a great thing in retrospect isn’t it?!  A 16 hour day for a pittance – ah well, that’s life.

So the message is that however low you may feel, and even if you think that you’re ‘too old’ to do what you want to do, it’s like anything in life - “What you give energy to grows and expands’ - so put it out there, whatever ‘it’ may be for you, and rest assured it’ll be given to you.

Embracing technology and ezimade takes off!

Goodness me!  My aim has been to write a blog each week at least, but things have been full on here lately, and I haven’t quite managed to fulfil my good intentions.

On 11th November, unbeknown to me at the time, the new iphone 4s was launched.  On that day, I had some time to visit our local Vodafone shop and invite of the sales assistants to tell me about what phones were available to update the Motorola phone I’d had since early 2007 – without even knowing it I was persuaded to buy the very latest iphone and went away thinking I’d never be able to work it out but incredibly discovered that actually it was (and is) the simplest and most useful phone I’ve ever purchased!  I adore it and have finally begun to embrace all this newfangled technology!  All in the name of working our way towards returning to the waterways of UK by 2013.  But more on that to come …

Last Sunday I had the pleasure of organising and partaking of a cycling winery tour with some of my midwifery colleagues, courtesy of Gisborne Cycle tours, cycling 22kms whilst visiting four local wineries sampling their wine and tasting some delicious food – awesome fun!  I was the lead on a tandem bike which was pretty scary to begin with, but we managed to get the hang of it pretty swiftly and stayed upright throughout the day with no mishaps.

Nikki and me and our tandem bike

The cyclists about to leave Stonebridge Wines on a beautiful, sunny Gisborne day

The day after the cycling I’d organised a two day experience courtesy of Walk Gisborne, with a friend from my life coaching course, and we did an awesome walk on Tuesday of last week with them.

On the walk with my new ‘drink as you walk’ water siphon over my shoulder – what a fantastic invention!

Looking out onto Makorori Beach, Gisborne

Not a bad part of the world :-)

Due to changeable weather conditions on the Wednesday, we decided not to do the next walk but return to Gisborne and visit Barry in the about to open shop and help out with his opening evening.

 

 

 

 

Barry outside his new shop, with the signs being put up

 

 

Welcoming his new customers

The shop is going well, it’ll be a week since it opened on Thursday and the interest has been awesome!  Today, Tuesday 22nd November, Barry has a business profile published in the local paper, the Gisborne Herald:

So anyone who had the pleasure of meeting up with us on Northern Pride in 2009 or 2010, and sampled Barry’s home brew, will appreciate the passion and commitment that has gone into opening this new venture which is part of our plan for returning to the waterways of England early in 2013.

A nail biting final, and Barry’s new venture takes shape

We had a fabulous day at the Gisborne Wine and Food festival on Sunday 23 October.  Sadly the weather changed from a glorious sunny morning to an overcast and rather cool afternoon – and there were some scantily clad people who wished they’d packed some extra clothes around!

Barry (unsurprisingly, as he seems to know a large proportion of the population of Gisborne) bumped into a number of people he knows at the event, and took the opportunity to promote his upcoming ‘home brew and more’ shop that’ll be opening in November.  James Milton of Milton's Winery in Gisborne, listened intently as Barry enthusiastically talked of his plans.  Barry can’t compete with their organic and biodynamic wines - my favourite is 'Muskats at Dawn', which in 2011 has a slight sparkle and is absolutely divine.

Barry tastes a glass or two of Milton’s wine with James Milton

The day was a sell-out of 5,000 tickets with around 1,500 of them to folks from out of town.  For the third time this year we socialised with our niece Emma, Matt and their friends from Wellington which was cool – especially as they had packed a picnic rug so we could share that when we wanted a rest!

Barry, Lois, Matt, Emma, Charles, Lana and Charles!

The venue for the day was the Waiohika estate, which has two natural amphitheatres and is also the venue for the huge New Year festival called Rhythm and Vines which accommodates an amazing 25,000 people, and won the 2010 Best Festival/Event NZ Tourism Award.  It seemed just right with 5,000 people, plenty of room for everyone, but it must be buzzing with five times that amount of people – almost the same as the total population of Gisborne!

The main stage where ‘Fat Freddie’s Drop’ were the headline act – the ‘R & V’ sign can be seen in the background

As dusk fell, the crowds moved to the smaller amphitheatre to watch the big match – and what a tense,  breathtaking final it was!  There was a time when I was thinking I should’ve bet $100 on France, rather than just $20 (just to soften the blow if the worst happened!), but was thankfully ecstatic to lose it.  What a shame there weren’t more tries though as the whole crowd rose to it’s feet and roared at the All Blacks only try - electrifying!

Yaay!  We are the champions of the world – Richie’s in the background kissing the Webb Ellis cup, and you can tell we’re delighted and relieved

So it’s all positive for New Zealand and great for our economy.  Hopefully that ‘feel good’ factor will also help Barry’s new business to get off the ground.  We have the keys and Barry has put up most of the shelving now and will be putting his first order in tomorrow – very exciting!  Here’s a few snaps of the up and coming shop …

 

The logo we chose after much deliberation

 

 

The shop is on the end of a line of premises, on Peel Street, Gisborne

An abundance of shelves just waiting to be filled with home brew kits, cheese making kits, and who knows what other surprises …