My birthday! Monday, 19/02/2024
Well, today is one of those unfortunate days when you have to admit that you aren’t getting any younger! It was hard enough to recognise that I’d turned 60, but now I have to deal with the absurd idea that I’m 61…
After talking to both my daughters, to celebrate the day I decided to avoid doing any work. Instead, I set off to a place that I’ve wanted to visit, the Quarry Gardens. As the name implies, it’s a disused quarry that has been turned (by volunteers mainly) into a botanical gardens. It’s a little way the other side of the town centre, but not that far – 3.7 kilometres from here, so about 2.5 miles. I made some lunch and stuck it in my rucksack along with a bottle of water, and walked. It was well worth the visit, a beautiful, peaceful place, with a small waterfall tumbling down into a lake. It being a Monday, it was pretty quiet – and the upside of that was that I had a long conversation with the young ranger who was on duty, about the history of the place and the excellent accessibility of nature in New Zealand. He seemed very keen to chat. I suppose I helped relieve the boredom of a quiet day.
On the way back I stopped at a great takeaway place that does very fresh food. Their Korean BBQ bowl is excellent, so that means I will have a good meal tonight. The day wasn’t entirely work free: at 9am a chap who I’ve been chasing suddenly turned up. He does canvas work, and has measured for a replacement of the sprayhood which protects the cockpit when sailing. The existing one is very worn and has literally started coming apart at the seams – being in the tropics for almost three years has finished it off. So with that now underway, that’s one more thing ticked off.
I deserved the day off today because I worked pretty hard yesterday, scrubbing rust marks off the dinghy and then cleaning out the chain locker in the bow. Then loading my new 50 metre anchor chain into it, getting the end through the windlass and attaching it to the new anchor on the bow roller. Moving chain is heavy work: being 10mm galvanised steel, it weighs a lot, about 2.6kg a metre. So 50 metres of it is at least 130kg (286 pounds) – not something you can just pick up and carry. You need to move it bit by bit, hand over hand. The anchor’s not so bad, just 20kg. Anyway, that’s all sorted out – and being outside a steel fabricator’s workshop they have a scrap metal pile, so no problem getting rid of the old and very rusty chain.
I have grown very used to being out of the water by now. The main effect is climbing a fairly long ladder in order to get on or off the boat. Which becomes second nature, although I do try to concentrate when doing it – the last thing I need is a fall onto very hard ground.
The main advantage of being here is being close to things. A very large supermarket about 12 minutes’ walk away, and the beautiful natural environment just across the road. Most days I have been for a walk in the forest, and mostly I walk right up to the summit. It’s good exercise, because it’s about 80 floors up: 242 metres (800 feet). The first time I did it I found it pretty heavy going, but having now done it several times in two weeks it starts to feel relatively easy, even at a fast walking pace. But I am humbled by the people who run up there and back down – and some of them are well into their sixties…
As I’ve said before, this is such a friendly place. Multiple conversations with people, whether here in the boatyard, out walking, or even in the supermarket. I’m now starting to bump into people I’ve spoken to before, so the whole atmosphere is rather jolly. That’s the nice thing about having the time to settle into a place. I’ve even found myself giving directions to people on walking trails – as though I’d been here for years…