Fiddleheads

No rest for the wicked... I must have been particularly evil this last week or two.  My word it has seemed busy...

Bro and SiL came by last weekend in their new (to them) motorhome and we had a couple of days of their company, some extra walks, a bit of fishing…  It was great to have visitors come and share our little backwater retreat. 

We followed them south a day or so later- mainly to dig Mr B's stand-up paddleboard out of the house lot of boxes stored in Bro's shed.  I'd also bought myself a fancy new line-trimmer (strimmer, whipper-snipper, weed whacker; what are they called where you live?) and needed to pick it up from our friendly tool supplier in Ashburton. Ashburton is a long way to go for tools but given the rate at which I'm buying such stuff it's kind of like having your own trusted drug dealer.

Two days was all I was prepared to spend separated from my tiny water-dependent plants so it was a day of moving boxes, finding random things that 'might be useful' or 'nice to have now',  stowing the back of the van (concrete mixer, paddleboard, a folding saw-bench, telescope(?), floor lamp, laser level and its tripod, one of my sewing machines, a printer (but no cord for it😵‍💫) and half a hundred weight (cwt) of hazelnuts and eggs.  I think Bro imagines we are starving out here.) and heading back north.

Life admin had also been on the to-do list and Mr B managed to talk to the experts in pension fund transfer, while I found a replacement park light for our 30 year old van - none had been obtainable in Blenheim. We also got to spend an hour with the architect getting explanations about the final plans and those are now being polished up by the architect and builder.

Apart from our away days Scully still gets her daily walk and some of my daily thinking time has been taken up by concerns for my friend of the dislocated hip event - 2 further dislocations and he was readmitted to hospital for a the joint to be replaced with a more robust fitting better suited to his lifestyle. He admitted to being very nervous about it and what it could mean for his future but despite an extra day in hospital for monitoring after the operation, he reports it has gone well and he is once again starting the recovery and rehabilitation process.

I'm astounded how quickly such patients are back home (in his case on his own in a remote off-grid house I refer to as his cave) and left more or less to their own devices. I'm also astounded that in cutting corners (or costs) with the first replacement joint our health service has simply ended up incurring double costs for a second go at it and costs for all the ambulance rides and putting right of multiple dislocations - to say nothing of pain and distress, and fear that active life was over.

Mr B is loving my new toy and is, as I type this, chopping bracken fiddleheads.  Good thing I photographed them this morning while trudging back and forth fetching stuff to do the profiling of my potting shed. Profiles in place, I started digging holes for piles until the heat of the day drove me to less energetic undertakings in the garden.

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