What Happened?

Yesterday was a fabulous day:  full sun all day.  There was a very brisk force 4 or 5 wind too which was great for keeping the midges away.  I think that I shall go away more often because I had three days of idyllic garden weather when I returned from New Zealand.  Anyway I spent the whole day in the garden (with a couple of quick coffee stop visits to friends) either gardening (which is what one would expect) or digging a trench so that I can find the waste outfall from the house (which is not perhaps what one would expect).

I spent a little time later in the evening with a book soaking up the sun in the conservatory.  The evenings here at the moment are long - sunset is after 2230 - and as there was not a cloud in the sky it was still reasonably light when I eventually went to bed at 0200 this morning.

I expected to be tired and stiff when I woke this morning because I've not indulged in that sort of physical labour for a while.  I was surprised to find that I was neither tired nor stiff.  I must exercise more often!

What did surprise me though was that in those few hours the sun had disappeared and the clouds and rain were back and the midsummer temperature is a stately 13℃.  And the mid night mid winter temperature in Napier?  12℃.  Mark commented on my Hebridean in New Zealand blog that I would have to take a decision about where my permanent home was going to be.  Just at this moment, if I had a choice, it might be a no-contest decision.

Was That The Night?

I woke this morning at 0521 (the digital clock syndrome - twenty past five doesn't exist any more) and decided that going back to sleep would be unlikely so I did what I have done for most of my life: woke up and got up within a minute of each other. You really wanted to know that didn't you? I am sooo fortunate in that I don't suffer, and never have, from jet-lag. I wonder why? Perhaps it's something to do with the fact that I've never needed very much sleep and when do I sleep, I sleep!

It was light anyway. In sharp contrast to N Z where the days were shortening, here the days are lengthening.

Napier

At 0557 (according to the time on the camera) I took the following picture from the Study. The sun was just creeping over the headland.

I have been wandering around this HUGE house (it's not but it feels like it after The Cottage because everything is relative and this house has grown higgledy piggledy over nigh on 90 years) trying to work out what to do, where everything is and how to fit all that I need to do into the day. So why am I sitting here typing this when there are so many other things to be done? Because this is what I enjoy. This is what I want to do. I want to do some of the other things too but on the whole they are things I need to do. There's a world of a difference. Here my life is less structured for the most part than in N Z. Why? Simple. No croquet!

Faced with the CD 'bookcase' I even had a problem trying to decide which music to play. Which is silly because it's actually visually easier to choose here than it is from the iPod.

I started off withMozart's Requiem and am now on his Mass in C minor K427. It seems to have that sort of frenetic energy that is me this morning. It also has other memories but that may be for another posting and another time.

I can't get over how fast the broadband connection here is. Having paid an absolute fortune by comparison for my mobile broadband in Napier (which I have to pay for for 12 months of the year to add insult to financial injury) which is not that much faster than dial-up but which is at least available all the time without tying up my phone and will allow larger downloads.

The weather is magical here this morning with not a single cloud from vast horizon to vast horizon. I hope, Pat, that you are up and appreciating the gift I've brought from my Other Home. At 0555? Perhaps not. The forecast is fantastic too:

Mind you Napier's forecast isn't so bad either and apparently everyone's been back in shorts since I left:

Ah well. I suppose I'd better go and get on with the day. I'm sure there will be another posting soon.

Back in Eagleton

Where are the saucepans? They should be in a pull-out drawer next to the sink. But the pull-out drawer is on the other side of the kitchen. Ah. There shouldn't be another side to the kitchen. Wrong kitchen.

The strange thing is that, when I woke up on Friday morning having had only just over 5 hours sleep since I arrived home, I knew exactly where I was. So why during the day could I not find things in a house I'd lived in for so many years?

I have come to the conclusion that my Geminian personality is running true to form and I really have adapted to having two lives, two homes (before I'd been living in a temporary home now I have a permanent home in New Zealand - one to which I will be returning in 6 month's time).

When I went to the Co-op in town on Saturday morning I was quite surprised to realise how much of a stranger I felt.

But all this will pass and in a few days. That will be just in time for me to leave the Island to go to a niece's wedding and then bring my Brother - CJ - back here for a while.

So there we are the first of the new postings on this Blog. Hopefully the next one will be a bit more interesting.