Paekok April 6-12

Spent Sunday morning trying to remove various bits & pieces from Hilary’s PC. Decided that a possible career is training to fix home PCs, such a lot of people seem to have problems. Will investigate courses available here, & definitely back at home if I haven’t managed to find anything. This would be something I could do as many hours or as few as I wanted to, in both countries actually!
Got home to find that Erola hadn’t done anything on Saturday night, later she told me she cried because she is missing her son so much. She is a single mother of long-standing, her son is half Maori, she left his Dad as soon as she discovered that his family wanted to take him & bring him up. It is very common to have a large family group where the children are ‘communal’, Erola did not want this for her son. Consequently he became her focus for 20 years, & I gather this is where all her money has gone. He is now a professional hip-hop/tap dancer, very successfully, now in Australia but about to go on tour in a troupe called ‘Raw Metal’ to multiple countries. She has a flight booked to go & see him in Sydney in October, but it looks like he will be in Western Australia at the time! I’ve told her that sons seem to be very bad at keeping in touch, my own is an example, but she is upset that he doesn’t phone or e-mail very often.
Had my first example of Kiwi rudeness on Monday, which I had heard about but hadn’t encountered. Phoned Wayne to find out what was happening re the house plans, discovered that the detail hasn’t been started yet because my house is in a wind zone off the scale, which means extra strengthening in the roof is required plus other stuff & he has yet to discover what the cost will be. Also the earthworks guy is concerned that he may have to excavate ‘blue rock’ to flatten my section, & will require special machinery to do that! Oh well, nobody said this was easy! Over the weekend, because it has turned much colder, decided that a fire in the lounge is a necessity. We had proposed a heat-pump in the open-plan family/dining/kitchen area, but it won’t heat the lounge, which is separate. Went to a place in Paraparam where the lady only wanted to sell me a wood-burner, though they advertised gas fires, & then gave me a lecture, very rudely, on how her grandparents had been pioneers & had to chase chickens if they wanted to eat, so why was I such a wimp that I wanted a) a heat pump, which wouldn’t work in a power cut, & b) a second form of heating too when it didn’t get cold in NZ! Not the way to sell anything! Fortunately I then found a lovely (English!) couple running another place who were only too pleased to help, & in fact I have almost decided on a very expensive through wall fire which will heat both areas I hope, & then I only need a very small heat pump for the bedrooms.
I decided on Thursday that it made sense, if possible, to delay the start of the build until I can get back next Jan i.e. I leave as planned on July 19, or earlier if there is any chance of a contract back at Avis starting July. Contacted Wayne & he said an Oct/Nov start would be OK, in fact I think he’d much prefer it, because it takes the pressure off. This would still be OK, because, provided everything is absolutely clear in the plans, it will only be up till at most the roof by the time I get back. Have decided that this is the way to go. Contacted Denise & Aileen re possible work back at Avis, if not available then I hope I can get a job in Emma’s call centre maybe, I’m sure I’ll find something for the 6 months to help with the finances.
Erola went to the same play as we did on Saturday, courtesy of her friend Judith, a dance teacher, who came for dinner before they went off. Erola has a ‘bar’ on her phone to prevent calls other than to Wellington, which is unfortunate. It is my grand-daughter Elisha’s birthday today (12th) but I used my mobile instead at great expense.