Gainfully Unemployed

I was totally humbled on Thursday at my going away do from work. We all headed off the the wonderful Hoppin' Stoppin' Cafe in Taupiri, (Their facebook page) just south of Huntly for lunch and the testimonials(?) that people delivered really were awesome.

You seldom get to comprehend what your impact is on people around you, the community that you work in until time like this. It was a bit of a wake up moment for me as person after person got up and said things about me that really blew me out of the water. Up until Thursday it has always been difficult for me to accept praise (I'm just doing my job etc) and what hit me at lunch was that these people are for real and I am actually quite good at what I do and am an ok sort of person. I know that I am not perfect (too modest for that ;) ) but it really got me thinking about who I really am vs the face that I show to the world under usual circumstances.

I believe that my time working in Huntly has allowed me to be the 'real' me rather than a fake, this is who they expect me to be, type of person.

I leave Huntly with a huge respect for my friends and collegues there, they have taught me a lot and from what they said I have taught them a lot in return, so it really has been a great experience for us all.

I thank you all for my gifts of your spoken words, your gifts of your written words and the pounamu taonga which has an awesome piece of coincidence attached. 

I am not sure whether the person who chose this for me realised that Manaia is the mountain that I relate to, it being one of the first that I climbed.

This book of awesome words from a group of awesome people will be treasured and be re-read often as affirmation of what sort of person I really am.

I thank you all for the matching towels and hand towels for the bus as well, just wonderful.

So as of Thursday afternoon, I am now back into retirement or rather gainfully unemployed!

After lunch I  headed up to Auckland with my boss as a passenger. He was flying out to his sister's birthday in Hawaii late Thursday night so I offered to drive him up. It didn't take much persuading....

We had a great chat on the way and Huki, I will always be grateful for what you have taught and shared with me and what you enabled me to do by employing me at Whanui.

So then it was BBQ at my neice Nicole and her husband Sam's place in Takanini, but as The Dragons' Rest was in their driveway, The Fredrock Cafe had to park back at Val's around the road, where I stayed the night. 

Nicole attempted to light the BBQ before Sam got home, so I told her in no uncertain terms to leave it alone! 'Mans work!' which got some interesting responses, but anyway I offered and was accepted as the BBQ chef for the evening. A lovely meal of marinated steak, asparagus wrapped in bacon and sausages with salad. Lovely meal, followed by crackers with a lovely mango fruit cheese. Val had brought some maple liqueur back from her trip to Canada so we all sampled that! Yummy.

Friday morning saw me head over to Henderson to finally pick up a filtration system for the bus.

Dave from Water Filters Online was great. We looked at the bus, looked at what I was going to be doing and then he assembled a system that will allow me to fill up from almost any water supply and have clean, non tasting water to drink! 

FIlter system

From there it was off to do a quick grocery shop and then decided to try out the NZMCA Park Over Property at Tui Glen in Henderson. 

Lovely quiet spot just minutes walk from the centre of Henderson, so wandered over to the mall and spend a couple of hours window shopping.

Lovely quiet night, apart from the emergency sirens (you forget what it's like is a busy city after a while),

So Saturday started off with a trip down the motorway to Bunnings in Manukau.

How much fun is that, isles and isles of great toys and things!

Anyway was quite restrained and bought only some great matting for my front steps into the bus.

I'd been looking at artificial grass, but when I found what I thought I was looking for it was pretty ugly, so after searching through the things that they had I found a great matting that allows sand and stuff to fall through and is heavy enough to stay put and looks great, so will cut and put into place once the steps have had their final coat of rustproof paint applied.

new doorstep matting

Also I finally found a washing machine that will work in the bus. So now I just have to drill some holes and all will be sweet with the world.

So after that I decided to go for a blat on the mountain bike out in Hunua, so headed out there and over to the great mountain bike tracks out around the upper dam. The road is interesting out to the dam, metal, steep and windy, but very little traffic and the road had been recently graded so was good trip.

Once there I unloaded the bike and headed off for a blat. 

The ARC who looks after the area have put a 'post your plans here' box, so I wrote down what I was doing, when I left and who I was and posted it into the box. I tried to text my sister to tell her but 'no signal - searching'.

A great ride around the river loop track for about 1 1/2 hours and when I got back had a chat to a guy who had just spend 2hours running through the walking tracks, he was looking like he had run quite a distance and his shoes and lover legs were covered in mud, so it had obviously been a fun run!

He was intrigued by the bus so we chatted about what I was doing and he asked if I was blogging this and so I went to give him a card and showed him through the bus. When we went back out his ride had arrived so he headed off with some ideas and more enthusiasm to work towards his goals.

After a quick bit to eat and a shower, I headed off to my friends Dave and Yana in Ararimu, where Dave has a business shooting and editing videos for the web and Yana paints and sells her work. Between that they are raising two awesome boys, 6 chooks and two aging dogs.

We had an awesome dinner of BBQ rotissary chicken (not one of theirs) and a lovely roast vegetable and goats feta salad, followed by an amazing lemon cheesecake thingy, frozen not cooked! Just wonderful. Loads of a lovely red wine and some great conversation, followed by the first half of a movie....we all started to nod off...so part 2 tonight.

Dave is going to help me shoot a video for Cullen Engineering, the guys who are making my kayak loader. He is also trying to get me thinking about getting back into production again..

Anyway this needs to be posted, as I sit here in the sunshine waiting for the household to stir on a lovely morning in Ararimu.