Spring at White Rose Farm

We have had a cold snap over the last few days. A cold southerly came through and dumped a load of snow on the Oxford mountains. We escaped the worst of it although we were concerned for our lambs which were born a few weeks ago. Our four ewes (we had 5 but the dog got one of them .... a 22 rifle then shot the dog!) have had 5 lambs - 4 boys and a girl. We have named the boys Fisher & Paykel, Kelvinator and Electrolux.

Sterling Collapse

When we moved out to New Zealand in 2006 we got NZ$2.89 for every£1 we brought with us. If we were emigrating this week we would have received only NZ$2.26 for every £1. By my reckoning, that is a de-valuation of the UK pound of 22% against the kiwi dollar in just three years! This is on top of any loses we would have incurred from the UK property market slump which has been struggling for the last couple of years.

It is not bad for a country at the bottom of the world that only has a population of 4.5 million and exports milk solids, meat, wool, timber, coal, wine, kiwifruit, apples, aluminium and has some of the most breath taking scenery in the whole world!

New Zealand ... you cannot beat it!

Scout Geek Camp

It is Pre-JOTI (Jamboree on the Internet) aka Geek Camp time again but this year it is bigger and better. We have again returned to Cotswold School to give 18 Harewood & Bishopdale Scouts a change to get familar with the chat program we will be using for JOTI.

We have replaced all of our old computers with 40 Pentium 4 machines kindly donated by Chrischurch City Council and the University of Canterbury. Each workstation has a 19 inch monitor and upto 1Gb of RAM and will be used for a variety of scout activities.

Jaymo_Black can be seen in the above photo running a workshop showing the scouts how to embed scripts within the chat program for doing things like writing text is different colours.

The Southern Alps

On my last trip to Perth (and the one before that for that matter) I flew with Pacific Blue to Sydney and then onto Perth. The cloud cleared over the Southern Alps so I got chance to take some photos as the sun went down.


If you look closely you can just see Mount Cook in the distance. The next photo is my favourite as the aircraft leaves the west Coast and heads across the Tasman to Australia.

Bah ...... Bah

When my parents asked me what I would like for my birthday I replied by saying, "I would like a flock of sheep please.". Above is our latest addition to our small holding - 5 Romney and Corriedale cross ewes. The black face amoung them is Rambo. Rambo is a Suffolk ram whose services have been kindly lent to us by some friends who live just up the road.

When he first arrived, Rambo had a bit of an attitude problem; he was tapping the bottom of the trailer with his front hoof to express his disgust at being moved. However, after being introduced to his new lady friends he seems to have put that all behind him. He is so comfortable here, I think I am going to have to build a holding area to stand any chance of getting him back in the trailer to get him home again!

I have never played midwife before ........... but I have watched James Herriot on the telly. How difficult can it be? I'll probably be in Perth anyway!

I am already looking forward to the spring.

The Wood Shed

After spending too many cold Sunday afternoons chopping wood last year we decided to get our winter fuel in early and fill up our wood store during the summer. The tunnel shed holds something like 8 cubic metres and it looks like we have already used something approaching 4 cubic metres. Will we have enough to see us through until the spring?

It's Cold Outside

Will somebody put another log on the fire?


Thanks!

It's Snowing Again .....

A cold southerly is working its way up New Zealand with snow down to sea level ...

One to Avoid ......

I had a book a room at short notice for my visit to Perth. I looked on the internet and I found a hotel which was described as a three star. Alarm bells started ringing when I checked in and they gave me the tv remote control.

My worst fears where confirmed when I entered my room. The room was small, it had no desk, the paintwork was generally grubby, the bed spread had a cigarette burn, the only ironing board was on the 4th floor - it was grim!


The fan in above the bathroom sink had not been cleaned for months.


The bathroom door was also coming apart.


I have to go back again to Perth this week and needless to say, I will not be booking in to Aaron's Hotel!

Nobody is Flying .... ... oink, oink

Last Monday I was sat at my desk in Christchurch looking forward to a quiet week in the office. Cutting a long story very short on Tuesday I was on my way to Perth to help our partner finalise their project plan.

The international departure lounge at Christchurch airport was deserted as I boarded DJ73 for Sydney to make my Perth connection.

When the aircraft arrived at Sydney we were asked to remain seated. Two Australia quarantine officers boarded the aircraft. They went to the back of the aircraft to see a young man. They put a face mask on him and escorted him off the plane before the rest of the passengers were allowed to leave.

The travel industry now not only has to face the economic slowdown but it also has swine flu to add to its current list of woes!

Beware ... Slumps Ahead!

This road sign on the road between Reefton and Westport provided advance warning of the current economic conditions.

Papabear 'washing' his Dishes in Reefton

It is almost the Queen's birthday weekend so it is off to the West Coast with a party load of scouts. Myself, Roger and Reinhold (aka Papabear - pictured above) paid a reconnaissance visit to Reefton (http://www.reefton.co.nz/) which is to be the destination for this years camp.

Reefton was the first town in the southern hemisphere to enjoy the delights of electricity (scouts take note!) and was one of the major centres of the gold rush in New Zealand.

We have a range of activities planned for the long weekend which include a treasure hunt, a trip around a working gold mine, some tramping and not forgetting Jorja's cooked breakfast with bacon, sausage, egg, baked beans, fried bread and black pudding!

As to to my favourate pie ... well that has to be the one with wild bore from the bakery across the road from the Three Miners! Again scouts take note!

Hopefully Papabear will remember to pack a dish cloth, some washing-up liquid and a tea towel although I feel absolutely sure he will manage without!

Snow-time

It is that time of year again! Snow fell last week on the Torlesse range (and for that matter over large parts of the south and north islands). Mt Hutt http://www.nzski.com/mountain.jsp?site=mthutt one of the ski resorts about 40km from where we live has already opened for business two weeks ahead of schedule with a snow base of 1.2 metres. More snow is forecast too! I can't wait!

In the above photo you can see the snow on the mountains at the bottom of our road.

Weekend in Dunedin

We recently took advantage of a weekend in Dunedin courtesy of Air New Zealand. We have never been to Dunedin before so it was a chance to spend a bit of quality time and explore.


Myself and my wife secured return flights from Christchurch to Dunedin and enjoyed a night in a rather nice hotel for an all inclusive price of NZ$300 (approximate £120) - that price is together and not each!

As soon as we got off the plane we picked up our hire car and drove towards the city. Our first port of call was Lanarch Castle and Gardens. http://www.larnachcastle.co.nz/index.pasp


The castle was built by William James Mudie Larnach in the 1880's. Cutting a long story very short, the house lay in ruins until the 1967 when the house was discovered by Margaret & Barry Barker who have restored the house and gardens over the intervening years.


Our next port of call were the botanical gardens close to the centre of the town.


Then we went to the railway station - what a building that is!

We were very tempted to go on the Taieri Gorge Railway http://www.taieri.co.nz/ but we decided to go to the beach instead.


On the beach at Sandfly Bay we came across some sea lions who were having a bit of a frollick.

So back into town we went and we paid a visit to Baldwin Street which is the steepest street in the world with a gradient of 1 in 2.86.

It was a lovely weekend - Dunedin comes highly recommended!

Larry the Lamb

You are probably thinking. 'Larry ... that's a good name for a lamb!', but this 9 month old Corriedale ram is called Burt. Larry the Lamb is the name given to a scouting activity that Bishopdale & Harewood scout troop run for the senior scouts every three years or so.

Before the event can really get under way the boys have to dig a reasonably large hole and apply some of the knots and lashings they have learnt to create a tripod.

Burt is humanely dispatched and dragged by the scouts towards the freshly dug offal pit and the tripod.

The lamb is then suspended from the tripod to allow it to be skinned.


The scouts take particular interest in the internal organs of the lamb.

Once the gutting is complete, the lamb carcass is covered with a tarpaulin while the oven is prepared.

How to use a Nokia E61 as a broadband modem on 3 in Australia

I have been struggling to use my Nokia E61 as a broadband modem in Perth on the 3 network. After a frustrating day I have finally got it to work. There is nothing on the internet explaining how to get it to work and 3 care are totally unhelpful so I thought I would throw something together.

I am running Windows XP. Below is a point by point guide:

1. Throw away Nokia PC Suite because it does not seem to work - I couldn't make it work anyway!
2. You need to use good old dial up - just like you did pre-broadband days.
3. Goto Start > Connect to > Nokia E61 USB Modem # 2 (OTA) or similar.
4. Set-up the modem to dial *99# as the phone number (it works, believe me!)
5. On the Networking tab, untick 'Enable LCP extension' & 'Enable software compression'.
6. Goto Start > Control panel > Systems > Hardware > Device Manager > Modems : select your modem : Nokia E61 USB Modem # 2 (or similar) > Advanced > 'Set Extra initialisation command' to AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","3services"

Put a dial-up icon upon your desktop. Plug in your phone - I am using USB. Select PC Suite on your phone. Double click on your dial-up icon and ..... you should be connected.

Fire wood prices fall

Last year I was very pleased with myself when I bought a trailer load of firewood for $10. This year I have done one better and bought a trailer load or firewood for ....

$7 (about $2.50). However, I am going to use some of the wood to build some more raised vegetable boxes so it is even more of a bargain!

And the winner is .......

One of the evening events run at the Staveley Scout Camp was Lip Sync which was hosted by the local Kiwi tv stars, the Topp Twins. It is a 'Stars in their Eyes' event but (thankfully!) we were spared the singing!

My 8 year old daughter, Kirsty, decided to take part. Her High School Musical number was changed last minute to Abba's Mama Mia. She has only seen the movie 4 times since Christmas. She performed in front of 250 scouts and she won the solo artist event!

She was well pleased with herself and won a MP3 player!