Martinborough Fair 2012
Having escaped the big city rugby booze-fest this weekend, we got up early and headed to Martinborough for the first fair of the year (it’s held on the first Saturday in both February and March so you get 2 chances).
Now having been a number of times, we are pretty quick at getting around the event, and tackle it as a kind of assault course. We get there early (around 8.30) to beat the crowds, and today managed to finish by 10.40, including a stop for coffee half way round. However, unless you have been a number of times – I would bank on spending at least twice that amount of time wandering around and browsing.
We really tend not to spend much money, mostly because I seem to have expensive tastes and the stuff I like and want to buy is in the hundreds of $$$. So I take a card and add it to the list of things I will buy one day when I have a stash of cash burning a hole in my pocket.
However, we did buy some delicious Satay Sauce from Sone’s Satay. Unfortunately they don’t have a website, and stockists are short, but if you see this stuff anywhere – grab some. Its the best Satay Sauce I have ever tasted in New Zealand. At $10 a jar it is quite expensive – but it is worth it.
Hubby spent some money on some real Turkish delight from Loukoumi. I cant stand the stuff, and it’s full of sugar, but he confirms what the seller said, in that it really does melt in the mouth and is delicious. At $12 a box, I would say its quite expensive, but it gives you 16 pieces and hubby it’s worth it!
What I didnt but was a stunning hand beaten copper still from Alembics.
This one was distilling a Eucalyptus oil which you could catch on your finger as it came out. Now I have a lot of essential oils – I am actually trained as an aromatherapist – but I have never actually seen a still in action and I have never smelt an oil straight from the still. It was beyond devine. For the serious DIYer, lifestyler this is a true treat. Even better, they sell a range of stills for different products – the large ones for distilling essential oils and making hydrosols, and smaller ones for distilling alcohol.
And they are gorgeous to look at.
At $295 for the smallest stills and $795 for the large 10l column still its not pocket money. But to be honest with the cost of essential oils in New Zealand, you could probably save that relatively quickly, not to mention savings on Alcohol, and having the pleasure of owning a beautiful item.
And may favorite whimsy of the day was the Car-B-Que. Only in New Zealand!
Dwarf Tossing in New Zealand? REALLY???
The wonderful Peter Dinklage won a Golden Globe (and an Emmy) for his role as Tyrion Lannister in Game Of Thrones. Imho one of the best TV series ever filmed – but then I happen to rather like the books it’s based on.
In his acceptance speech, he talks about Martin Henderson and tells people to Google him.
So – Who is Martin Henderson?
Martin is a Dwarf living in the UK. He was attacked outside a bar in Somerset, by being picked up and thrown to the ground by a drunk.
So what does this have to do with New Zealand.
Well, it seems that Martin believes (as do the UK press) that the attack was “inspired” by reports that during the Rugby World Cup, the England Rugby team visited the Altitude Bar in Queenstown during its “Mad Midget Weekend” and watched a Dwarf Tossing Contest.
Let’s just say that again.
The Altitude Bar in Queenstown hosted a Dwarf Tossing Contest.
WTF????
(Sorry mum – but I really can’t think of anything else to say there!)
Why haven’t I blogged about that before?
Because let’s face it – I am really disgusted that any bar anywhere thinks that’s a “cool thing to do”. Well because all we heard about that bar over here was that Mike Bloody Tindall snogged some bint who wasn’t his wife. No mention that I recall of the England Team watching dwarfs gets tossed around like sacks of crap.
Moreover – what would happen if that was a “Maori Tossing Contest” or even a “Mad Maori Weekend”. There would be hell to pay – but laugh at some really short people being thrown around in a Queenstown – fine – no worries.
Now there’s really no way of telling if the attack on Martin was in any way “inspired” by a bunch of overpaid over-egoed rugby players or a crass and repulsive bar that should be closed for cruelty. But it does really piss me off that New Zealand allowed this to occur in the first place. The people who own and run that bar are sick in the head.
Also, as Hubby has just pointed out – the Security Guard who release footage of Mike Tindalls snog-fest did so because he was a “Christian” and Tindall’s behaviour offended his sensibilities as a christian and a royalist. But he’s fine with little people being chucked about for fun and entertainment? Seriously? Priorities mate – in the wrong sodding order.
Don’t we have enough violence in New Zealand? We all wring our hands at the continuing violence against children here who are tortured an killed. Now OK – Adult Dwarfs are not children, and presumably the ones involved in this event were willing participants – but can we really be surprised at a culture of violence when this is the kind of “entertainment” available?
Altitude Bar – Queenstown. Bunch of bloody morons. Just don’t go there.
To end on a more positive note – here is a you tube clip someone has done of Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones as a “Buddy Movie”. And good on Peter Dinklage for highlighting the problem.
No Friday in Samoa
Filed under: Beaches in New Zealand, Life in New Zealand
Today (Friday) does not exist in Samoa. Without the aid of a parachute or safety net, Samoa is jumping the international date line (IDL) and joining NZ, Fiji & Tonga on the other side of the date line.
I can see the sense in this, with so many holiday’s from NZ & Aus, plus lots of business, being out by a day is a real pain. I once spent many hours trying to rack my brain around which flights we needed to get from Auckland to Samoa, plus how many nights accommodation we’d need in Samoa – compounded by then trying to figure out which day we needed to fly to and from Wellington-Auckland for the domestic connecting flight – all darn confusing. Plus of course, with AirNZ providing flights at awkward times anyhow, the knots got worse trying to figure out if we actually needed a hotel in Auckland coming back - arghhh!!! it was just all too confusing. Fiji was easier.
Which is really the point.
And with American Samoa staying where it is, some people are already eying up the options to spend New Year in Samoa, then take a quick flight to American Samoa and party all over again.
After a hundred or so years of being one of the last place on Earth to see in the new year, they will suddenly become one of the first. Although I’m not sure whether you’d consider it the East or West side of the IDL, look at a flat Mercator projection map, it’s on the right, therefore the East. Look at a Pacific map and it’s on the left, and thus West of the IDL. Either way, I think Kiribati still takes pole position, being 13 hours ahead of GMT.. Wrap your brains around that one.
Vote here!
One of the positive things about the NZ Voting system is that they’re inclusive. Lots of avenue’s are provided for everyone to vote.
Postal vote (counted up to two weeks after the election date), fax vote, advance vote (up to two weeks before the election for those who can’t get to a polling station on the day) and in person. As a kiwi you can even vote from the NZ High Commission in London (and elsewhere). If only Brits could vote from the UK High Commission in Wellington. But apparently that’s too complicated and wouldn’t make it a ‘secret’ ballot..
Anyhow, if you happen to find yourself on holiday around the world in obscure places you can vote in the NZ election.
Including Scott Base in Antartica. In person.
How cool is that?
Not that Hutt.
I actually remember the very first time we travelled over the Rimutaka hill to Wellington. We were on our honeymoon, and had already decided that living in New Zealand was a stellar idea. So we were highly bemused to find ourselves travelling past places called Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt. Neither name exactly instills a sense of wonder, and we just giggled.
I have always wondered where the name Hutt came from – and it just so happened that this was part of the conversation over dinner last night.
So, for anyone else so bemused – it’s not named after this one:
It’s actually named after this man:
From HuttValleyNZ.com:
Sir William Hutt was born in 1791 in Lambeth, Surrey, and educated privately at Ryde, Isle of Wight, and Camberwell. Matriculating from St Mary Hall, Oxford, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge where he graduated BA (1827) and MA (1831). He married (1831) Mary, daughter of J Milner and dowager countess of Strathmore.
Hutt was MP for Hull (1832-41) and for Gateshead (1841-74). A free-trader and much interested in colonial affairs, he was a member of the select committee on colonial lands (1836). He was a commissioner for the foundation of South Australia, a member of the New Zealand Association (1837) and of the select committee on New Zealand (1840).
After the New Zealand Bill was thrown out in 1838, Hutt helped form the New Zealand Land Company, amalgamating the interests of the New Zealand Company, the New Zealand Colonisation Society and the old New Zealand Company in 1825 and would later become director and chairman.
In 1839 the Heretaunga River was renamed Hutt by William Wakefield after the founding member, director and chairman of the New Zealand Company, Sir William Hutt. Thus the City was named after the river, not after Sir William Hutt. Only the river can claim to have been named after that British member of Parliament. Further to this, it is interesting to note that Sir William Hutt never visited New Zealand.
In 1859 he was vice-president of the Board of Trade (KCB 1865). His first wife (who died 1860) left him mining properties worth 18,000 pounds a year. He remarried (1861) to a daughter of the Hon Sir James Francis Stanhope.
He died on 24 November 1882
So there you go!
Only in New Zealand: The Duck vs Whale bike race.
On Sunday, a leading Labour MP cycled in a 60km Bike Race in Auckland against a right wing blogger. It really is the kind of thing that could only happen here – I cannot imagine a UK MP ever paying enough attention to political bloggers to lower themselves to engage in this kind of thing. I don’t really know whether that is a good or bad thing.
So what happened?
Well, as far as I can make out there is equal loathing between the two: Trevor Mallard (the Duck) who used to be the Finance Minister under the old government, and Cameron Slater (WhaleOil). Mallard is a keen cyclist, and races frequently, but crashed a while back and broke his femur. Whaleoil called him a cripple (whaleoil calls a lot of people names so this is not exactly news) and Mallard called him Blubber Boy back (he is quite overweight).
Mallard then challenged Whale to a bike race. Whale agreed on the basis that there should also be a round of sport based on something he was good at but that Mallard wasn’t – so he chose boxing.
Mallard refused the challenge, but whaleoil went ahead with the Bike Race. It seems he hadn’t been a bike on many years – and was basically a couch potato – who was suffering with well publicised depression. Well, he got off the couch. He spent 3 months training – lost loads of weight – has apparently beaten the depression, and can now cycle 60km in a race against a stronger opponent.
WAY TO GO!
Trevor Mallard won the race - something that no one seems awfully surprised by. But I cant help thinking that Whaleoil utterly won the contest – hands down. I do not know WhaleOil – other than what I read in the papers, and what I read on blogs, and I don’t know Mr Mallard either (other than he thinks people like me are “Rich Pricks” and need to be destroyed financially). But I cant help but admire the sheer guts it took for someone to get off the couch, and turn themselves into a cyclist – and having to overcome some pretty hard obstacles to do so.
The other thing of course is that you may well find yourself completely bewildered by the antics of a lot of Kiwi Politicians. Clearly I don’t have much to compare it with – only with the UK – but they do seem to be very much amateurs here. Challenging an overweight, depressed blogger to a race you know He won’t win seems a bit – um – pathetic really. Perhaps not quite as bad as charging the UK tax payers for moat cleaning – but not exactly statesman like either.
Ah well, at least if you do migrate to New Zealand, you can be highly enteratined by the politicians – while you bang your head against the wall as they make your life increasingly difficult.
Don’t you dare get used to being warm!
Filed under: Cost of living, Life in New Zealand, Only in New Zealand
Last week (just as we got back into New Zealand from Fiji), is snowed.
Now it was very pretty for most people – though living in a central city apartment we really didn’t get to see all the nice bits. We just saw it snowing, but due to traffic volumes it didn’t stick. However – the excitement from the Kiwis at this highly unusual event was electric. Very little work got done on the Terrace if the number of people coming out of the high rises to gawp at white flakes was anything to go by.
me – I stayed indoors and made a cup of coffee.
I’m used to snow. And while I love the soft crunch of walking through untouched snow, and the slight;y muffled sound of a blanketed world – I preferred to admire the snowstorm from the comfort of floor to ceiling windows. And a blanket.
But many Kiwis have never seen the stuff.
And the snow did in fact cause a great deal of trouble. Many roads throughout New Zealand were closed. We could not have got back to the Wairarapa as the Rimutaka hill was closed for days. That’s the main trunk road from Wellington to the east side of North Island. So its a big deal. Many of the suburbs surrounding the central city – because they are on steep hills, were difficult to get to – and for Kiwis who are actually not used to driving in snow – impossible to navigate. Plus – why would you when you get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to stay home and build a snowman???
But wait – don’t you dare have too much fun in the snow! Don’t you know how huge your electricity bill is going to be because you “guzzle”too much electricity cos its cold?
Don’t Panic. The Dom Post is there to rain on your fun and gie you a heads up that you are going to broke next month cos you made an extra cup of coffee, cranked up the radiators and had the electric blanket on all night.
Domestic Electricity Users Network spokeswoman Molly Melhuish said the next power bill would be a shock for many.
To save money and cope with blackouts, she advised people to use an alternate form of heating, such as a woodburner or gas heater.
“Turn your heatpump off, get your fire going nice and warm and you will keep warm and save the whole country from having to build new power stations and new power lines, just to meet demand on the coldest days.”
Apparently, Molly thinks gas and wood are free. Idiot. And why is it that we shouldn’t expect New Zealand already to have the capacity to deal with cold weather? Cold isn’t unheard of here. It has honestly been no colder in our apartment this last week than on any day when a southerly is blowing. And yet, even in the capital city – there were rolling brown and blackouts for a few days. On the Terrace we lost power for an hour and it really did make a difference. I Missed our rural way of life and logburner at that point I can tell you!
The prize for the most stupid comment though goes for this one:
Heatpumps were efficient but deceptive because people got used to the warmth, Mrs Melhuish said.
Gosh. You don’t say. People actually want to be warm in winter. How dare we!
Stuff being cold – I quite like having a heatpump in the Wairarapa. It actually makes a cold house (even insulated) warm. Its not hot – it’s just pleasant – and livable. Interestingly, when we installed our heatpump – it did nothing to the size of our power bill. It remained the same if not slightly cheaper. The difference was that the heat was more evenly distributed and we didn’t have one room warm with 3 radiators and the rest of the house an icebox.
The comments are well worth a look in the article. One of the early ones from an ExPat pom had me in stitches:
“Heatpumps were efficient but deceptive because people got used to the warmth, Mrs Melhuish said.”
Oh yes – people must not get used to warmth in the 21st century. Disgraceful idea…!
As a Pom who had never even known houses without central heating and insulation even existed in the modern world until he time travelled back to the 50′s a couple of years ago when moving to NZ, this sort of comment is bizarre.
The Romans had central heating in AD40. Why should modern NZ be any different? We need more cheaper power and the answer to that is that, as Ian #2 says, we will be needing nuclear soon.
“Were there blackouts? No.” Actually, Clint # 1 yes. We here in the Wairarapa, a whole 80km from the nation’s capital, had no power in our part for 19 hours.
I burst out laughing when the woman at Meridian told me that 6 inches of slushy melting snow constituted “extreme conditions” and suggested she get the line company to take lessons from Canada or Sweden.
Why the Internet costs so much.
In New Zealand, just about every Internet provider has download limits, ranging from a poxy 250mb for mobile Vodafone, to 30gb at Orcon. The higher the limit, the more it costs. And woe betide anyone going over their limits. Either the Internet crawls to stone age dial up speeds, or you get charged at a ‘casual’ rate. Which is a bit like the bank charging $25 to send you a letter to tell you you’re $0.01 overdrawn and you’re accruing interest at 20% per day. Opps, new day, new letter.
Dear Valued Client, you’re now $30.01 overdrawn.
Wiz Wireless, the company we use in the Wairarapa, charges. Through the nose. We currently have a 5gb download limit, and if we go over that, we get charged $17.25 for the next 5gb. Even if you only use 10mb of it. And the extra does not get carried over to the next month.
Recently, we have gone over our 5gb limit twice. And we don’t know why. The thing is, that with Hubby and Myself not actually living in the house except at weekends, and us being the heavier Internet users we cannot really see why this much data is being used. Especially as when we lived here alone, we knew we could download a movie or a couple of TV episodes and still be well withing the 5gb limit. And neither my parents or brother download movies!
So what is happening?
Well, adverts.
Hubby tells me that ISP’s are noticing a 1/3 increase in traffic, but without a corresponding increasing in customers or their actual internet activity. What this means is that you can do exactly the same on the Internet, day in day out, and yet your usage of the bandwidth goes up. Because the pages you are looking at contain more data, mostly in the form of video adverts that you probably ignore anyway.
You are just paying for them to be downloaded for you to ignore.
A good example is the Dom Post Website. Now I go on there a lot, and have looked on it as a way of saving a whole $1.60 so I don’t have to buy a paper. {That’s Extreme! budgeting for you} Except the Dom Post (and the NZ Herald) runs streaming video adverts. We noticed that one particular month, when I was being lazy and hadn’t disconnected from either the Internet nor the Dom Post Website, we used our 2Degrees 5gb limit in 3 weeks instead of the usual 4-5 weeks. It probably cost me about $10 to read the paper that day!
I should have gone out and bought a paper and 2 coffees instead and really enjoyed the experience.
So be aware. In a country with expensive Internet service, titchy data-caps, and extortionate overage charges, the types of websites you look at can make a difference.
BTW – no streaming adverts on Avalon’s Guide 
Did we emigrate to New Zealand or Maoriland?
Today’s Dom Post talks about new signs being erected at the entrance to the Kapiti Coast region. It seems they will have “Macron” above the “a”, which makes it a long vowel rather than a short vowel. So it would be pronounced Car-Pity rather than Ka-Piti which is how most people say it.
The addition of the Macron is happening in other areas as well, and from what I can tell is designed to improve pronunciation and more accurately reflect the Maori language.
So where is the problem?
Well, i guess there will always be people who object to anyone not speaking English. I personally feel it is the one language everyone should know, even if it isn’t their first language, and yo would be at a disadvantage of you didn’t. But the crux of this particular issue is that a Mr Warriner believes Kapiti with a macron actually spells Cabbage.
Well, that I leave to the linguists!
What I find troubling though is this quote:
Last year Paraparaumu resident Martin Warriner forced the council to back down over its use of macrons in “Kapiti” in legal documents, including his personalised rates invoice.
Mr Warriner, an English immigrant, insisted he had emigrated to New Zealand, not to “Maoriland”.
Now yes, he like myself migrated to a place called New Zealand. How does that in anyway detract from the fact that New Zealand has two official languages, one of the being Te Reo Maori? We emigrated to a place that is Bi-Lingual, and has a history and culture that is sometimes different from the one we left behind. While I certainly do not (and never will) buy into the notion that only Maori in New Zealand have a “culture”, I refuse to buy into the same rubbish that says their culture has no meaning.
I am proud of my heritage and culture – why shouldnt any Maori be equally proud of theirs? Sure they have thier tricky spots, and less pleasant moments in history – but so do we all.
And language is a huge part of that. I do sometimes feel it goes to far – particularly here, where my understanding is that there was no written language until the European settlers arrived, so there may not be a “right spelling”. But honestly – this is really no different that being in Wales. We tried to ban Welsh as a language – but we grew up eventually and now Wales is covered in Bi-Lingual signs. I personally find that quite wonderful.
Where to live in the world?
It’s index time, apparently, with the OECD Better Life Index & Vision of Humanity Global Peace Index coming out with their best places to live in the world annual surveys.
The OECD survey is quite interesting as it allows you to give weight to particular things you care about, be that quality of life, jobs, income etc. They do produce a summary report with analysis which makes fascinating reading.
Everything being equal, NZ only scores bottom in the ‘employee’s working very long hours’ category – which appears to mostly be driven by the relatively low average income. Although at least the Aussie’s & the UK score badly for that factor too. Turkey skews the average results a bit by having a very high level of weekly hours worked. So 10 out of 38 are ‘above average’.
At $18k USD NZ average income is below the OECD average. Interestingly this compares with being the seventh best in terms of levels of employment, and fourth ‘best’ for long term unemployment (i.e. fourth lowest).
(Another) interesting outcome is that NZ comes second, behind Sweden, for environmental factors. As it turns out this is actually a measure of pollution in the air in cities of over 100,000 people (NZ=7, Sweden=5). Which as a generalisation for the majority of the population is probably a fair assessment.
We’ve mentioned the GPI before, and this year it puts NZ second place – behind Iceland. So assuming you ignore the bankrupt banks, stagnant economy, exploding volcano’s – sure Iceland is a great place to be. We’ll ignore our own earthquakes, buggered-ish economy and the Rugby World Cup for the moment.
Funnily enough the NZ drop in score is for curious reasons;
More Police officers – delivering on a Govt pledge to put ‘more police on the street’;
More people in prison – possibly linked to the greater number of Police;
And an increase in involvement in International conflict! I hadn’t noticed NZ invading any other countries recently and I don’t think lots of Kiwi’s going to Aus really counts as an invasion let alone a conflict. Unless they were thinking of the international jousting tourney in Taupo?
ho hum.
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