Yeah, sure, its a cozy, fuddly old BBC show, but the incredibly talented experts they use are craftspeople, workers.
They’re “Tradies“!
At no point in all the series we have watched has the expert, upon seeing the cherished family heirloom that found itself at some stage between a rock and a rhinoceros sucked a deep inhalation of breath through their teeth and said
“Yeah, it’s fucked, i’nnit?”
We have never heard a “SPROING!” “CRASH!“, or “CRACK!” in the background followed by a solid 15 minutes of foul language that leaves the neighboring farm owners questioning their real estate decisions.
We’ve never seen Kirsten muttering “shitshitshitshitSHIT!” when the glue hasn’t bonded properly on a Victorian vase.
Steve the horologist (clock/watchmaker) has never bellowed “Nobody bloody move!” after a spring has sprung off somewhere, or an irreplaceable, tiny screw was last seen rolling towards the Teddy Bear Ladies’ workstation.
Speaking of the Teddy Bear Ladies, they are lovely, but you can’t tell me that, in all their time making and fixing teddies and dollies, they haven’t at least TRIED making he occasional voodoo doll?
Has there ever been a passing shot of a small, fluffy replica of Jay (including felted flat cap) on a shelf, but the man himself is mysteriously absent?
All the experts are incredibly talented, skilled and professional.
But EVERYONE, from beginner to veteran, swears at some stage when they are doing intricate work and something goes sideways.
That’s what the show’s authenticity is missing.
Of course, this is all in jest. I do LOVE the Repair Shop.
They are not just repairing items, they are repairing memories.
They are repairing people.
It’s not an old radio they are hearing again, it’s their late father working in his shop.
The re-stuffed thread-bare teddy bear was someone’s only source of cuddles through hard times.
They’re not just craftspeople, they are therapists.
But can we PLEASE have some swearing, just for authenticity sake?
Even in the end-of-season outtakes?!
Will the chippy and Dom the metal worker, I’m looking at you out of sheer tradesperon stereotypes.
Even if it’s Pete, the brass and percussion instrument expert declaring in his deep London drawl “that sounds fuckin’ brilliant!” upon a cherished trombone or trumpet finding its voice again for the first time in decades.
That may not sound frightfully thrilling, but I found it really interesting!
That’s because I’ve watched the progression of this hole for weeks.
Down the road from where I live one of Napier’s main arterial routes, Taradale Road, has been getting dug up, had large metal plates and piles driven beneath it – the sound of the piledriver at times not too dissimilar to a church or clock tower bell (except I am unaware of the time “72 to 14 o’clock”..) and large concrete culvert blocks being lifted in and slid underneath it.
Such large excavations required lots of support. Dozens of long, metal piles have been driven into the creek bed to support the work’s walls
All this activity – The stuff of Tonka truck drivers and Lego builders’ dreams is to aid the flow of the Georges Drive creek and lessen the chances and effects of future flooding events along its path.
The creek has a long, aquatic pedigree. Before Hawke’s Bay’s 1931 Earthquake and subsequent urban development, the path that it takes from Chambers Street behind Napier Boys’ High School, along between Georges Drive and Douglas McLean Avenue and passing under Taradale Road, used to be the course of the Tutaekuri River that now flows behind Taradale.
Tutaekuri River, Napier, 30 March 1922, Napier, Looking from what is now Pettigrew Corner and Roundabout southeast towards Napier South. Photo by Leslie Adkin. Te Papa (B.022330)
While where I live was fortunately spared from the flooding, it was only just so – because the river/creek bed is trapezoid shape, for every meter the water rose up, it had to go five, 10, 20 meters across – The creek level outside our house still got to within a meter of breaching onto the road. Needless to say that ends up being A LOT of water!
And that was a major part of the problem. As once all that mass of water got to the crossings at Taradale Road and Herrick Street, there were only single, concrete culvert pipes, about one meter in diameter going underneath each road. That massive amount of water didn’t go through those small pipes anywhere near as quickly as it needed to.
Stormwater pipes along the length of the creek adding even more rainwater into it, and tides at the creek’s outlet into the estuary effecting its drainage just exacerbated the flooding upstream.
The south side of the Herrick Street culvert showing the size of culvert pipe pre-redevelopment
So, when Napier City Council announced they were going to be increasing the size of these culverts, my main thought was “by how much?”.
It turns out the answer was “LOTS!”
The old half of the Taradale Road culvert (around one meter in diameter) framed by the new half of the culvert – approximately SIX TIMES bigger! Photo courtesy of Napier City Council
It turns out lots of locals were also interested in the work. About 50 people turned up on a sunny Saturday morning to walk around, and through, the culvert work. I was part of the second group to tour the site with Napier City Council and Fulton Hogan staff talking us through progress.
As we walked through the new culvert sections, I had to get an idea as to their size. I’m a tad over two meters tall (yes, REALLY!). With my arm raised above my head, touching the top of the culvert indicated it’s about three meters high. The culvert is around twice as wide as it is high, so three meters by six meters is significantly larger than the original one-meter diameter pipe!
Scoping the size of the new Taradale Road culvert. Two meter tall author for scale. Photo courtesy of Napier’s Mayor.
You might wonder how we were able to walk through a creek culvert without being waist-deep in water, weeds and inquisitive eels? Well, part of the works has involved damming either side of the culvert, with diversion pipes helping keep at least some of the creek’s flow going.
The bottom of the new culvert is actually below the current creek bed level. There are plans for the creek bed through the culverts to have rocks added and ultimately make the area as natural as possible for the wildlife, which includes eels, ducks, shags, herons and occasionally spoonbills, that live in the creek.
A pair of heron on their way back from inspecting the culverts works.
I will be interested to see how the bigger culverts effect the creeks flow.
I would expect the regular depth to possibly drop a bit, given the bigger pipes allowing more water through more regularly. But the added volume currently backed-up on the Kennedy Road side of the Herrick Street culvert flowing through more freely might equalise that out.
There might even possibly be more of a tidal effect from the Ahuriri estuary nearby (there are already, albeit slight, inward and outward tide movements in the creek, along with the occasional school of mullet or similar fish who come for trips up-stream.
Whenever the next significant rain event happens once work is complete I’m confident the creek level won’t get as high as 2020 again. The increased flow rate will be interesting to see, though.
The current, regular, height of the stream.
Water Flow vs. Traffic Flow
I do have one concern about the Taradale Road culvert redevelopment, but it isn’t about the construction.
Hawke’s Bay drivers are notoriously BAD. Anyone who has driven on our roads for a while will know that situational awareness, courtesy, and an ability to follow road rules can often be lacking to say the least.
Can’t park there, mate! In 2024 a car ended up in the creek where Alpers Tce and Douglas McLean Ave meet. No. I don’t know “How?!” either…
But back to my concern: During the redevelopment of the Taradale Road culvert, hill-bound traffic has had right of way (mainly because it allows Napier’s Fire Brigade, stationed right next to the roadworks, quick access to the city centre). This has included hill-bound traffic crossing to the opposite side of the road while the second half (Kmart / Mitre 10 side) of the culvert was being laid
Meanwhile traffic that usually turns left at the Taradale Road roundabout at the base of the hill to go towards Onekawa and Tamatea has been blocked and had to detour via Georges Drive, Herrick Street and Douglas McLean Ave/Alpers Terrace, or Ford Road between Kmart and Mitre 10.
When the culvert work is finished, and Taradale Road reopens in both directions, I can see this causing some problems, and probably a few accidents.
Because, at the corner of Taradale Road and Alpers Terrace there is a Stop sign and two yellow lines across Alpers Terrace. Not that you would know it from standing at the bus stop in front of the fire station, watching the corner.
Some people stop, but most drivers seem to consider it a “Give Way” at most, or just blatantly ignore it. This has made the corner a site for regular motor vehicle accidents for years.
I fear several months’ construction and accordingly altered traffic flow will only make the frequency of crashes on the corner spike once regular two-way traffic is reinstated.
With no Onekawa-bound traffic crossing their path, vehicles turning left from Alpers Terrace into Taradale Road have not needed the regular awareness of cross-traffic to their right and months of thinking they (‘still’?) don’t need to obey the Stop sign at the corner.
Equally, those currently turning right unencumbered from the fire station side of Taradale Road into Alpers Terrace will likely get a sudden surprise to discover traffic coming towards them once again halfway through their turn.
I outlined these concerns to the Napier City Council comms people at the tour, so it.will be interesting to see what sort of publicity or guidance there will be in.the lead-up to Taradale Road fully reopening once again.
The last thing we want after months of constamt construction closure is months more of sporadic crash-related closures and disruptions!
Last year I was able get “a grail” – a toy I only dreamed about having as a child – Transformers’ Optimus Prime!
As an only child I was fortunate to be able to accumulate quite a collection of Transformers from pocket money purchases and birthday or Christmas gifts, but never had any of the biggest, best figures, especially the Autobot boss – Optimus Prime – one of the coolest 80s toys!
A couple of my friends had an Optimus Prime, but he was really expensive back then (never mind how ASTRONOMICALLY expensive a G1 Optimus Prime would be today…), and these kids also had Castle Grayskulls,Supertramp trampolines, Para pools and two storey houses (these were the signs of “wealth” to me as a kid..), so owning an Optimus Prime remained merely a dream.
That is until I saw a newer version of the robot truck appear on Trademe last year.
The fact it was just the tractor unit and not the original truck AND trailer pair was actually advantageous, as displaying just the robot would be far easier than the transformed truck and, rather big when expanded, trailer base.
I came across a glass and mirror case in K Mart (intended for candles, apparently), which worked even better for my plans when inverted.
I used my extensive stash of model parts – wheels, bombs, fuel drop tanks, missiles etc. to make an appropriately mechanical / combative diorama base.
Then I spray painted it all black to give it a neutral / desolate poat-batfle / outer-space feel.
I drilled holes in the painted MDF and zip-tied Optimus’ feet to the base, to ensure he wouldn’t topple over in the display case.
Finally, I added the first ever Transformer I got as a child – a yellow Cliffjumper – to give Optimus some company, and adhered a large Transformers/Autobot sticker to the top of the case to complete the display.
The completed diorama looks great and will be a terrific display piece!
Covering 10 square kilometers along the top of the Maungaharuru Range, just north of Te Pohue, Harapaki is New Zealand’s second-largest windfarm. At roughly 1,100 meters above sea level, it is also the country’s highest.
It was fully commissioned by Meridian in July 2024 on time and within budget. In its first full week of operation Harapaki exceeded 170MW of generation several times and set a new Meridian record, with a daily mean of 156.6MW produced.
One thing that makes Harapaki special is its wind turbines – they’re Siemens direct-drive Typhoon-class turbines with no gearbox between the blades and the generator, making them more efficient and reliable than other turbines.
“Typhoon class turbines were originally designed for offshore wind farms and require less maintenance. This model of turbine is available only in New Zealand and Japan” says Chris More, Meridian Energy’s Head of Renewable Construction and Harapaki project overseer.
The Harapaki Wind Farm can produce a maximum of 176 megawatts of renewable energy, which is enough to power over 70,000 homes – roughly the equivalent of every household in Hawke’s Bay.
Harapaki will not, of course, be a power producer for our region exclusively.
Its location is adjacent to Transpower’s national grid lines that run between Wairaki, near Taupō, and Redcliffe, on the outskirts of Taradale in Napier. This means it can provide much needed power supply resilience to the North Island and beyond.
As anyone who had to wait for just one of the wind turbine blades to pass while they were being transported by road from the Port of Napier to the Harapaki site will know, these turbines are HUGE!
The towers alone are 85 meters high, and the diameter of the blades’ rotation is 120m. From ground to vertical blade tip, they stand 145 meters high – it’s no wonder you can see them from as far away as Napier!
Shortly after it was commissioned, Meridian’s Lachlan Forsyth (formerly of the legendary Campbell Live show) invited me up to view the wind farm first-hand. To see these 41 giant wind turbines up-close on site and stand underneath one of them while it slowly spun made even my 6’8” tall frame feel tiny.
By the People, For the People
Construction of the Harapaki Wind Farm involved a million “man-hours” of work, with around 2,500 people inducted onto the site during the project, roughly half of those being workers from Hawke’s Bay. The on-site security who greets you when you arrive on site are Te Pohue locals.
When Cyclone Gabrielle hit the region in February 2023, Meridian used the resources available on site and through their company’s networks to assist locals. That included flying in much-needed supplies and redeploying the site’s earthmoving equipment to help with clearing parts of State Highway 5 that had been blocked or washed out by the storm.
Meridian aims to assist locals further with its “Power Up Fund” which provides financial support to community groups in areas where they generate power. It allows community groups to apply for grant funding that can go towards things like community swimming pools, firefighting equipment, tree-planting and other local initiatives. “Harapaki shows we have the capability to deliver. We’ve got a world-class renewable construction team backed by a great group of contractors. What they’ve achieved in the face of COVID-19 and multiple weather events is truly outstanding,” says Guy Waipara, Meridian’s General Manager Development.
My clearest memory of the original trilogy was seeing a “behind the scenes” documentary on TV one weekend showing how they did the special effects for Return of the Jedi and in particular the Endor speeder-bike chase.
Here I was – young and impressionable, watching how the most awesome movies ever made were created using what they called “models”, but to all intents and purposes for a six-year-old were TOYS!!!
I have a plan – I’m going to recreate my favorite movie memory!
With the modelling skills I’ve acquired over the years fizzing at the bung I set off on recreating a suitable diorama!
I order two Speeder Bikes and Scout Troopers. In an utter fluke I come across Endor Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia on sale at Farmers in Hastings. I can’t afford to get them there and then, but when I go back a few weeks later they are still there, so I buy them.
I got a clear acrylic case from The Warehouse to keep everything contained, tidy and dust-free. I print out an Endor-esque forest background onto an A4 sticker sheet and adhered it to the inside of the back wall of the display case.
I sprayed the base with a can of my modeling Tamiya Olive Drab spray paint that I used for the 1/72 Memphis Belle this year to make it look forest-ish at the very least
I had used off-cuts of this tree for previous model scenes over the years, so it also keeps my old back yard alive not just in my memory.
After test-placing the speeder bikes I glued them (and the figures in places too) to make sure they stood still and didn’t fall over when the case was closed..
I added the “trees” and some logs. These would help hide the clear plastic stands that the Speeder Bikes “fly” on. I noted there appeared to be a path of some kind on the background pic, so incorporated that into the corner of the base.
Now it was just a matter of adding the groundcover and lichen bushes to cover the base and any errant gaps in the scenery that popped up.
With the glue dried, ground cover, figures and Speeder Bikes secured I put the clear acrylic case on, literally encapsulating the scene.
Job done!
While I’m not expecting job offers from Lucasfilm, or Disney for my creative effort any time soon, I was still really pleased with the result – It recreated what I saw 40+ years ago and doing so allowed me to “play” with the coolest toys from the coolest movies ever again!
“Regional journalists employed by New Zealand Media and Entertainment (NZME), owner of the NZ Herald, Newstalk ZB, as well as a raft of regional and community mastheads, have released a statement seeking support from their local communities as they face potential job losses.”
As part of these cuts ALL HB Today’s Visual Journalist (“photographer” to us old-schoolers) positions are to be axed.
While many in media say that a journalist with a smartphone can’t compete with the quality of industry-grade digital picture and video cameras, that’s looks EXACTLY like what NZME expect their Hawke’s Bay Today journalists to do from now on.
Oh, and cover a region that ranges from Dannevirke in the south, to Mahia in the north, and has a population of around 180,000.
Six full time-equivalent journalists are enough to cover that entire region.
RIGHT?!
“The changes will ensure those newsrooms have the appropriate resourcing to produce the right mix of high-quality content that better connects with our print subscribers and local communities, while continuing to serve our digital audiences,” NZME editor in chief Murray Kirkness.
Cutting an award-winning newsroom’s staff BY HALF “will ensure those newsrooms have the appropriate resourcing“?
What utter bullshit.
New Shub
Failing to Read the (News)Room
“A key feature of (NZME’s) restructure is the creation of a “hub”, from which news directors and editors will oversee multiple regions at once” Stuff reports.
Sadly this is nothing new for New Zealand’s regional news outlets.
Hawke’s Bay Today itself was formed when Hawke’s Bay’s two newspapers (Napier’s “Daily Telegraph” and Hastings’ “Herald Tribune”) were merged into one in 1999 by NZME’s corporate predecessor APN. It added a section of Tararua District news when the Dannevirke News was also osmosed into the masthead in 2005.
Advertising income dropping? Cut newsrooms! Readership dropping? Cut newsrooms! Shareholders not making enough profits? Cut newsrooms! Online presence failing against entrenched main centre competition? Halve award-winning regional newsroom!
As regional newsrooms were cut to the bone the amount of news they could produce obviously dropped as a result.
As the amount of local news regional newsrooms produced dropped, less and less locals read and advertised in their once thriving, informative regional papers, as due to their corporate masters’ machinations and poor business decisions they lost relevance to the locals.
One of the most startling examples of this in Hawke’s Bay Today was a few years ago, under a previous editor, where there was almost as much in-house NZME advertising padding out space in the daily newspaper’s pages as there was local news content!
There were also “Editorials” and opinion columns galore from NZME’s regionally irrelevant Auckland radio talkback hosts taking up valuable column inches where local news, issues and opinions used to take forefront, too.
NZME can’t even be bothered getting humans to write relevant, topical opinion pieces that get reproduced online and across the country on their regional mastheads!?
NZME then wails that “Facebook has taken our audience (read “profits”) away!”, and cuts regional newsroom staff numbers EVEN FURTHER to try and make up for money lost because of their own big city executive idiocy!
At the same time Newshub had devastated the employment opportunities of New Zealand journalists, competitor and media mainstay for generations, Television New Zealand (TVNZ) did what you would expect absolutely no logical competitor to do and ALSO cut staff numbers as well as long-running, popular AND PROFITABLE shows Fair Go and Sunday.
With all this devastation across the media landscape it might have made it a bit hard to hear the additional regional media losses NZME proposed because, as we’re aware, “regional New Zealand doesn’t matter”, apparently..
And that’s something that none of the coverage of the “twee little café incident” mentioned: An international award-winning paper, that overcame a major natural disaster to get the news out to the people who needed it was having their newsroom staff numbers cut in half.
This isn’t a failure of regional journalism.
It’s the failure of NZME.
This was never an issue of “no one reads newspapers / watches the 6pm news anymore”.
The news in newspapers, websites, apps, radio, and television ALL comes from newsrooms like Hawke’s Bay Today’s.
One evening RTR Countdown plays the new music video of a song that will quickly gain regular radio airtime. It’s by an African American woman named Tracy Chapman who has short, spiky dreadlocks and it’s called “Fast Car”.
“You got a fast car I want a ticket to anywhere Maybe we make a deal Maybe together we can get somewhere Any place is better Starting from zero got nothing to lose Maybe we’ll make something Me, myself, I got nothing to prove“
While Napier is my entire existence in 1988, I realize it is merely a small part of a much bigger planet, but It’s a good starting point. At ten years old my life and the world lie ahead of me.
That’s 10-11 year old me in yellow, middle row, second from the left.
“Fast Car” will continue to develop and deepen each time I hear it over the coming years. Every time I hear it there will be different meaning in it for me.
1993-95
“You got a fast car I got a plan to get us outta here I been working at the convenience store Managed to save just a little bit of money Won’t have to drive too far Just ‘cross the border and into the city You and I can both get jobs And finally see what it means to be living”
Some time in 1994 I bought my first “Fast Car” – A ’69 (nice!) Ford Anglia, which my Dad helped me paint and get in good running order. The Anglia enabled me to “cross the border” between Napier and Hastings – the Tutaekuri and Ngaruroro river bridges. Owning a car is also a really big step on the way to “adulthood”.
My first car, Circa 1994
Chorus
“So I remember when we were driving, driving in your car Speed so fast it felt like I was drunk City lights lay out before us And your arm felt nice wrapped ’round my shoulder And I-I had a feeling that I belonged I-I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone”
OK, my first car was nowhere near “fast”, I didn’t go very far, and I sure as hell never drove drunk, but owning a car did provide mobility – A highly intoxicating drug for any teenager.
Driving back to Napier from Hastings at night the city’s lights are gorgeous – all the house and street lights on Napier Hill (Mataruahou) look like a sparkling, multi-jeweled crown.
While I wouldn’t so much as hold hands with a girl until 1998 (not for lack of trying!), so snuggling-and-driving was out of the question, I DID feel like I belonged at home with my family.
We were a small unit, but we were tight, and we loved each other.
I was a panelist on RNZ’s “The Panel” six times between 2018 & 2019. The briefest of National Radio exposure
1996-1998
“See, my old man’s got a problem He live with the bottle, that’s the way it is He says his body’s too old for working His body’s too young to look like his My mama went off and left him She wanted more from life than he could give I said somebody’s got to take care of him So I quit school and that’s what I did“
While my Dad wasn’t a drinker and Mum never left us, Dad did have a heart attack around 1997. As I’ve written about before, my parents had me quite late in life and Dad was nearing retirement age not long after I finished school. Not long after the heart attack he ended up taking early retirement. His work and hobbies had always been quite physical and taxing, so it wasn’t too surprising.
We still managed to live happily, never struggling financially despite Dad’s solo income or pension being far less than I would end up earning later in life.
Rather than going to university like so many of my schoolmates, I ended up working back in the same supermarket I had my first job in. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew I didn’t want to spend three years of my life and $30-50,000 on a student loan to STILL not know, so working on the checkout and stacking shelves provided a regular, albeit reasonably small, income and kept me closer to my parents who I was now starting to worry about.
(The line about quitting school to look after a sick relative also reminds me of Toby Morris’ exquisite cartoon “On a Plate” that (very rightly) never fails to anger me.)
I worked at the supermarket during the day, went home, had dinner and travelled out to the station around 11pm to be on air from midnight until 6am. It was physically and mentally draining. Management decisions hardly helped.
At first we were allowed to talk between every few songs, like normal radio announcers. But a few months in we were told we were only allowed to play music. It defeated the purpose of being a “radio announcer“.
Aside from manually queuing up and playing the preset lists of songs on stacks of the station’s compact discs (things were far from digital in 1995/6) we also had menial tasks like doing the dishes and vacuuming the station offices. You got pretty good at being able to do certain tasks in the three and a half minutes it took for most songs to play, then get back into the studio in time to seamlessly start the next song. I didn’t mind doing the cleaning, as it was the sort of things the youngest/newest staff members just did when they started jobs, and it helped pass the long dark hours.
But after being silenced on air us midnight-till-dawners just became some sort of “manual automation”. Taking off secondary tax it soon didn’t even pay enough to get to Hastings and back every weekend, either.
Not long after I left midway through 1996 the graveyard shift was digitally automated/simulcast and what had been the entry point for regional broadcasters for years ceased to exist.
My dream radio career had lasted six months.
“You got a fast car Is it fast enough so we can fly away? We gotta make a decision Leave tonight or live and die this way”
2001-2004
“You got a fast car We go cruising, entertain ourselves You still ain’t got a job And I work in the market as a checkout girl I know things will get better You’ll find work and I’ll get promoted We’ll move out of the shelter Buy a bigger house and live in the suburbs”
I got a job at Dymocks Booksellers in Napier in 2000. I met my future wife while working there in 2001. She ended up working there part time, too, and would go on to work in the book trade much longer than I did.
Our boss, Jeff, was very good and managed to organize it so we had our “weekends” (usually Wednesday and Thursday from memory) together. We had a fair bit of disposable income and planned to get a flat together at some stage in the near future.
In 2023 the store was bought by new owners, who interviewed us all and asked what our plans / goals were. I said after three years I’d like to move up and become some sort of manager eventually.
The new owners fired all the incumbent staff and took on new employees when they took over.
My wife got immediately head-hunted by a bookshop down the road. She would go back to working at Dymocks until its closure under even newer owners who took over after the owners who fired us failed.
I got a job as an Assistant Manager (the shop had only two staff including myself) at a video game store in the CBD a month after the bookshop let us go. This was “Big Money” in 2023: $10 per hour!
While still living at our respective homes the double income allowed us to regularly go out to the movies, have coffee and dessert on long Hawke’s Bay evenings and go for aimless drives.
We even found a flat with very good landlords who charged below market rates that allowed us to move in together in my childhood suburb of Tamatea!
There’s just something special about sunsets over Tamatea, as the big, golden orb dips below the Poraiti hills..
2004-2023
“You got a fast car I got a job that pays all our bills You stay out drinking late at the bar See more of your friends than you do of your kids I’d always hoped for better Thought maybe together you and me’d find it I got no plans, I ain’t going nowhere Take your fast car and keep on driving”
In 2004 I was finally able to leave low-paying retail after a decade when I got a job in the same company (and office) as my (now fiancée’s) father and our income more than doubled.
I was only supposed to be for a year to cover maternity leave, but the lady who held my position previously decided not to return and I would remain in the job for the next 20 years – a massive change from what had been a natural three-year cycle in different retail jobs.
It meant job security and stability during some very unstable times in my life.
Between 2004 and 2023 my life was a rollercoaster of:
Got married. We honeymooned in Melbourne – our last trip overseas to date.
Not to mention all the interior and exterior crises of regular life, coming to grips with parenthood, and still trying to figure out how to be an adult.
I’ll certainly never be a “deadbeat dad” and have tried to be as involved as I can in our daughter’s life – Going on school trips, coaching her cricket team, doing all I can to ensure she knows she matters, is loved and can do her best.
I’ve sacrificed time, money, and opportunities for my family’s security, but that’s just what you do as a Dad. Right?
Sadly, security is no panacea for the feeling of stagnation when your own life and career goals fail to materialize after years and years of trying to effect change for yourself.
Despite two decades of loyal service and dedication to my job, doing odd hours and going above and beyond, often working solo and still meeting work targets, I still haven’t risen from the position I inherited 20 years ago.
Being unsuccessful in both internal promotions and finding a new career closer to what I actually want to do started to ulcerate some time ago.
Seeing people like Ke Huy Quan and Brendan Fraser win Academy Awards in 2023 showed that good guys with dreams can still get there in middle age, despite decades of feeling redundant or inadequate.
In 2023 Tracy Chapman became the first Black woman to have written a country music number one. She also becomes the first Black woman to win a Country Music Association award for “Fast Car”, 35 years after the song was first released, when Luke Combs’ cover of her song won “Song of the Year”.
2024
“You got a fast car Is it fast enough so you can fly away? You gotta make a decision Leave tonight or live and die this way”
Throughout “Fast Car” there is a beat that ticks away like an old analogue clock, and a plinky-plonky acoustic guitar riff that repeats over and over and sounds like water dripping constantly, endlessly.
I can’t and won’t leave my family, as my daughter is the best thing I have. But I can’t keep going without catching a break.
There is a stage where the line “live and die this way” stops being a way of life and becomes an imminent threat.
The snare and high-hat tick away like a clock. The plinky-plonky acoustic guitar riff repeats over and over, like water dripping constantly, endlessly.
The year started out all innocent and full of hope like so many others (not looking at you, 2020…), but there were early portents of unusual and unstable times ahead.
The fact that so much ruined infrastructure like many of the bridges that were taken out in the flooding Gabrielle caused have been repaired and trains and vehicles are using them again within 10 months of their destruction is remarkable.
Groups of people got together in the aftermath of the disaster and helped clear out properties, remove cubic kilometers of silt and help get others back on their feet as soon as possible speaks volumes of the care and compassion Hawke’s Bay people have for their neighbors and communities.
While things were getting back on their feet, I wrote a rather extensive piece covering the days of darkness that Napier endured and, at the suggestion of Twitter friend Jolisa Gracewood, I sent it to The Spinoff. Editor Mad Chapman graciously published it as their “Sunday Essay” the following weekend and it was very well received. In my last email to Chapman, I optimistically (deludedly?) wrote “see you at the 2024 Voyager Awards!” (We’ll come to that bit later.)
I think having gone through the Covid lockdowns so recently was a major factor in this – Everyone knew they were in the same boat, so help where you can and don’t be a dick.
Sadly, not everyone learned from that experience.
During the blackout perhaps one of the biggest ulcerations and indications of bad things to come that year was the breadth and scale of rumor and conspiracy bullshit that spread around the region and seeped into social media and news feeds.
All utter horseshit. The same “cooker” mis- and disinformation crap perpetuated since Covid that would slowly suck empathy and intelligence from so many in the lead up to the election later in the year..
As our region recovered, I faced more conflicting communication.
Once things were running (comparatively) smoothly I had an interview for a job I had applied for before the cyclone.
I felt the interview went well and, after doing literally the exact same tasks every day, week and month for the past almost 20 years, I’m more than ready for a change.
But I didn’t get this new job because they felt “I was too negative about my current job”?! If I was perfectly happy doing what I do I wouldn’t be applying for other positions, would I? They said there was no question I had the skills and talent, and if anything else came up they would call me.
Similar positions have come up there and they haven’t called me.
When asked why I was applying for their job I had expressed frustration at a lack of development and progression in my current role, while others with less experienced had shot up the ladder. No vitriol, not knocking my employers just facts. The interviewers even said that was not how things were done there and I took that as a good sign.
But not good enough.
How would you feel being trapped in an occupational Groundhog Day for 20 years? Like so many people I’m not doing what I WANT to do, but it supports my family, so I do it for them.
I’m clearly not failing at my job, otherwise I wouldn’t have lasted this long, but there’s no incentive to excel, because doing that has gotten me nowhere either.
Yet, when an opportunity arose for me to be able to leave that situation, those with the power to help me escape and utilize my recognized skills and talents choose to keep me trapped in my current situation?!
Desecrating the sacred place that was my Dad’s shed resulted in me manually loading one and a quarter tonnes of scrap metal that I took to the recyclers.
It did wonders for my bulking up my arm muscles, if only I’d had feeling in them afterwards…
Between selling the scrap metal, tools and other trinkets we made over $2100, which would have been a great little financial bonus, but taking off the cost of the general and green waste disposal and our wonderful tenants having found a new place and moving out only a couple of weeks into their 90 days’ notice, we were losing around $1000 a month for around half of 2023 before final settlement happened in October.
That just added onto general pressures and worries.
While I do enjoy writing and especially getting paid to write, this year has been a hard one for wordcraft.
I had little free time to write. The commissioned pieces I completed were slotted into busy schedules that all somehow worked out in time for their deadlines. But the pressure to complete amidst the congestion of everything else took the fun out of it for me – I didn’t learn as much as I usually do researching the topics, which is something I really enjoy.
When I had the free time to write for myself, I seldom had the drive or confidence to set words down in type. With everything else going on – Disaster recovery, AI technology taking over print, lies and conspiracy running rampant and the media that I aspired to be a part of continuing to circle the drain the drive just wasn’t there.
My optimistic / deluded dream to be nominated for a 2024 Voyager Media Award for my “Napier in the Dark” essay also came crashing down in December when I learned the News Publishers Association, who run the Voyager Awards, have absolutely eviscerated the number of categories for the 2024 Awards. 2024’s awards will have 10 “Print/Text” and 16 “All Media” categories, whereas 2023 had 19 “Print/Text” and 28 “All Media” categories.
“Best First Person Essay or Feature”, the one I had my hopes set on, was one of far too many being scrapped.
In a time when media, news, reporting and even just the truth is under incredible pressure to prove its credibility, worth and quality slashing the ways the best of the industry can be displayed and celebrated is completely counterintuitive!
In 2023 I was giving up on a dream I had only started to get a foothold in over the last decade. As my creative output ascended, the goal I wanted to reach was sliding off towards a nadir on the other side of the peak I had yet to reach.
When we saw a general election like the one we had this year with one party that had essentially no policies, other than tax cuts for their already rich mates, for the majority of the campaign still come to power, supported by minor parties whose sole tricks are racial division and bug-eyed conspiracy peddling things do not look hopeful for our country!
I took me a bit to believe in myself and trust my own skills, but I like to think enough of my father’s innate craft and woodworking expertise eventually osmosed down to me like some sort of neural slow-release fertilizer and I was really proud of the job I did, especially when it came to cutting the plywood for the case.
We managed to travel in late October and early November as, over Hawke’s Bay Anniversary / Labour Weekend we took our daughter on her first flight(s) to Wellington and went to the zoo.
Even that wasn’t without some drama, as our original flight was canceled with engineering issues a couple of hours before it was due to depart. Fortunately, we were able to re-book almost instantaneously and went to Wellington via Auckland – Two first flights (on a prop plane to Auckland, and then a jet to Wellington) for the price of one!
The view of the cyclone damaged Esk Valley as we climbed heading north out of Napier was very sobering, though.
We stayed in Newtown and walked to and from the zoo. The weather and food was lovely and I happened to meet a few online friends in real life by chance on the trip.
A little over a week later I got to go away on camp with my daughter and her class in early November, which was terrific.
The camp was for three days at Tutira, between Napier and Wairoa, and evidence of the damage caused by Gabrielle was still very visible, with loads of roadworks repairing the numerous dropouts, landslides and road undermining despite months of monumental work to get the vital arterial link open again.
The camp was great, the weather was lovely, and the kids were cool, and we all had a great time away from sub/urban life.
My daughter says she “only cried five times because she missed her Mum” (she counted?!) despite her loving, caring Dad being RIGHT THERE…
Our daughter was the star of my year. While hopes for myself dwindled, my hopes for her continue to soar.
She was awarded a “School Values Medal” for Excellence during the year and got an end of year award, too, which was a fantastic surprise to finish on.
She had been in a mixed class of her and about six other Year 5 students with around 25 older Year 6 students and ended up making friends with so many of the Year Sixes that she was really sad to see them go off to Intermediate at the end of the year.
Her and another Year 5 classmate took out two of the three end of year awards for their class, with her best Year 6 friend taking out the remaining one.
She is such a loving, compassionate girl.
It’s this hope for her future that also worries me so much about her future in a world already beset by blatant political corruption and interference in democratic process, the imminent threat of irreparable climate change disaster, the invasion of sovereign nations, and genocide/ethnic cleansing in an age where everyone on Earth is supposed to be happily working together to reach for the stars and travel the galaxies like on Star Trek!
“Concentrate on what is within your power to do. Disregard the hysteria and wrongness around you. Preoccupy yourself with doing what is in your power to be done.”
For me external depressants were hard to suppress in 2023 when for almost every good thing there were just as many, if not more, bad things – A cloud for every silver lining, death of positivity from a thousand newspaper cuts (and don’t even get me started on how Elon Must utterly fucked up Twitter…)
Above the arches that lead from Napier’s Marine Parade to the Soundshell and Veronica Sunbay is an inscription that reads:
“Courage is the Thing. All Goes if Courage Goes.” [The Rectoral Address Delivered by James M. Barrie at St. Andrew’s University May 3, 1922
I would tweak that slightly to read “HOPE is the Thing. All Goes if HOPE Goes”. [Andrew Frame, just now]
This year I hoped I could possibly be nominated for a Voyager Award, I hoped to meet Kane Williamson and Kyle Jamieson, I hoped I was worthy of a new job…
But none of those hopes were, or will, be realized.
But I can’t give up on Hope.
Hope was my Grandfather’s first and Dad’s middle name. I was born the same year as Star Wars: A New Hope.
Hope is what drives me forward and the most powerful force (other than love) that I can offer and support my daughter with.
Hope just needs to be realized, otherwise there is nothing to look forward to in 2024.
This year it was the turn of the traditional “Partridge” version.
Wherever possible she tries to tie in part of the carol lyrics to the dish – i.e. “Partridge in a Pear Tree” will usually contain pears or some kind of bird reference to some degree.
Due to the rather prolific recurrence of birds in the traditional carol (Partridges, Turtle Doves, French Hens, Swans, Geese..), there may also be some sort of alliteration or similar tie-in, otherwise we might as well have the “Twelve Days of KFC”….
When all else fails, a fair chunk of artistic license is brought in. It really takes a fair bit of dedication and imagination to pull off!
I’ll do my best to explain the theory behind each dish as we go.
So sit back and have some fun as I reveal what my true love made for me over the Twelve Days of Christmas Deliciousness for 2023:
Day 1 – A Partridge in a Pear Tree – Yule Tide Log Cake!
Somewhere out there is a chocolate partridge missing their chocolate pear tree, as we’ve harvested it to make this delicious Chocolate Yule Tide Log!
Day 2 – Two Turtle Doves – Chicken Sausage Baguettes with Macadamia and Apricot Stuffing!
The Macadamias (and baguettes) have a hard outer shell, similar to turtles. I’m guessing doves taste like chicken, but apparently everything does…
(Fun fact: For our honeymoon 18 years ago Mrs. Frame and I went to Monreale Estate in the Dandenong Ranges just outside Melbourne, Australia. On one night the estate made dinner for us, which was chicken with this very same macadamia and apricot stuffing!)
Day 3 – Three French Hens: Corn Fritters
A pretty straight forward one here – Chickens eat corn, ergo corn fritters!
Day 4 – Four Calling Birds: Delivered Takeaways (Hell Pizza)
It’s not just birds that come calling, takeaway delivery drivers do too! Two years ago I did a 12 days of HB Takeaways and, let’s be honest, 12 individual, themed meals in 12 days are a real mission, Mrs Frame deserved the break!
Day 5 – Five Gold Rings – French Onion Soup with Golden Grilled Gruyère Baguette Slices
French onion soup has become a regular recipe in the “12 Days” line up, being adaptable from French Hens to many others, including Five Gold Rings – Gruyère cheese grilled until golden on round baguette rings!
Day 6 – Six Geese a Laying – Vegetarian Scotch Eggs!
Ignoring for a moment that Scotch Eggs may not actually originate in Scotland, Mrs Frame, a vegetarian, replaced the usual sausage meat or mince casing for blitzed chickpeas. The result was surprisingly moreish and doesn’t fill you up anywhere as much as the meat does – I can highly recommend! The “a-laying” aspect can either be seen as the whole egg being laid in the chickpea mixture or the egg, still ensconced in the chick(peas) awaiting laying. (I may be overthinking this one…)
Day 7 – Seven Swams a Swimming – Sausage (and Vegetarian) Rolls!
Before being cut up into individual bite-sized pieces these sausage rolls look like a swan’s long neck. Once cut up the rolls look like cervical vertebrae.
Day 8 – Eight maids a milking: Vegetarian Haggis
Okay, here comes some artistic license: Haggis is traditionally made from sheep (“Vegetarian haggis was first available commercially in 1984, and now can account for between 25% and 40% of haggis sales” according to Wikipedia).
HOWEVER: Mrs Frame’s favorite breed of cow (for milking or just observing – SO FLUFFY!) is Highland Cattle. In the Scottish Highlands they eat Haggis, so Vegetarian Haggis!
Day 9 – Nine Ladies Dancing: Pulled BBQ Jackfruit Burgers!
A bit of artistic license here again: Barbeques are often part of a party, and at parties people dance (the burgers and chips are typical party food, too!) Mrs. Frame discovered this Jackfruit recipe just recently and once again it shows how diverse vegetarian dishes can be!
Day 10 – Ten Lords a-Leaping: Baked Eggs with Truffle Oil!
“Lords” are posh, so are truffles. Discovering truffles might be exciting enough to cause the lords to leap! The truffle cream also makes the baked eggs very rich, like lords.
Day 11 – Eleven Pipers Piping: Enchiladas
Enchiladas are pipes of delicious sauce beans, chilies, and cheese. It’s dishes like this, and so many others on this year’s list where you don’t actually miss meat, with all the vegetables and pulses doing the heavy lifting.
Day 12 – Twelve Drummers Drumming: Ratatouille
We did ratatouille as “French Hens” in 2021. This year it’s Drummers Drumming, as we slow-cooked it in our Crock Pot, which looks like a big round drum (does that make it a slow drum roll?). I added leftover ratatouille to some of the meat leftovers from Christmas day as a refreshing mix in the days following (and to avoid cooking in >30-degree heat)
So there you go – the Twelve Days of Christmas Deliciousness completed for another year. Interestingly, only three dishes involved meat!
All the very best to you and your families in 2024 – May it be more fun and fortuitous than this year!
While we avoided any damage or loss from Cyclone Gabrielle at home I did lose my Rocket Lab drink bottle, along with some other personal mementos when my office flooded with silt, mud and water.
I sent a message on social media to the comms person who sent me the original package asking if they had any more bottles to replace my lost one. I would be happy to pay for it.
They said they would send me one free of charge and the next week a box much larger than just a drink bottle arrived containing a coffee mug, tote bag, mission patch T-shirt, stickers, medallion… and new steel drink bottle!
It was a very cool, unexpected lift after a few wibbly-wobbly working-from-home weeks.
I wasn’t immediately flooded with offers of employment or writing commissions, but I did coincidently get asked to write my first piece in a while for Baybuzz on Wairoa’s post Cyclone Gabrielle recovery for their May print edition.
There were some difficulties getting the article written, as finding the wide range of people we initially wanted to cover proved harder than expected. Some didn’t want to take part, others proved hard to contact (for many in Hawke’s Bay affected by the cyclone “Business as Usual” is still far, far away) and receiving responses on deadline day resulted in an article re-write while I was in the middle of a week’s leave from my day job in the first week of school holidays.
I got there in the end and my editor liked it, but for me it wasn’t accompanied with the usual sense of completion or satisfaction.
Naturally plans and hopes of the new job went out the window.
My workplace was flooded and wrecked.
Fortunately, we had been told to prepare to work from home on the Tuesday the storm hit, so I had all the gear I needed to work from home with me. In the flooding’s aftermath our company’s owners said they were dedicated to continuing and rebuilding, so my job and income was safe.
I was back working remotely before some of my colleagues even had power restored. A little over six weeks after the cyclone we had new, temporary, offices to work out of. Some semblances of work normality, but a different location, different surroundings, different processes and habits to form. Familiar and unfamiliar. All just slightly unbalancing.
A fortnight or so after Gabrielle my phone rang.
I got an interview for the new job I had applied for weeks earlier.
I felt the interview went well.
When they asked why I was looking at leaving my current job I answered honestly – Despite 18+ years of my dedication and service there was a lack of opportunity. I had been overlooked for a promotion recently and outright ignored for internal positions I had applied for previously.
They thanked me for my honesty and providing context and said treating established staff that way was not their company policy.
I though “Great – I’ll get a chance here!”
I left feeling positive about the opportunity that was potentially before me.
But I also felt guilty to be potentially leaving my colleagues in these uncertain and unstable times.
I needn’t have worried.
A couple weeks later I received a call to say my application was unsuccessful.
When I asked why, or how I could improve my chances last time they said I had the skills and talent, but it was because I was “too negative” about my current job.
“Too negative”?
If I was completely positive and happy about my current position why would I be applying for a job elsewhere?
During the interview they had said they understood why I would tell them my reasons for wanting to move on and that how I had been treated didn’t seem fair.
But now that was “too negative”?
I was being honest!
I was sick of being undermined, ignored or micromanaged by people who benefitted from my work more than I did – That’s why people change jobs!
This wasn’t just stopping me finally getting the sort of job I had been after for years, where talents I don’t currently get a chance to use enough could be recognised, developed and rewarded, It was basically saying I wasn’t allowed to feel aggrieved or call it out unfair treatment.
I somehow DESERVE to be denied career development or progress and spend almost 20 years doing the same thing every day, every week, every month, every year.
But I’m not allowed to be or feel “negative” about it?!
I give up!
House Keeping
For the past year we have been negotiating to sell my childhood home to my in-laws, who want to subdivide the section and build themselves a new, smaller retirement house down the back of what must be one of the last (almost) quarter-acre sections on its street.
Selling my old home will pay off our mortgage (and every other debt, loan, credit card etc. we have) several times over (we bought our house almost ten years ago before real estate succumbed to surreal prices) and free us up financially – Something not many people can do these days.
My in-laws plan to live in my old home while construction goes on down the back, and then sell it off to recoup some costs upon completion. With Cyclone Gabrielle reconstruction already pushing builders and building supplies to local limits, it might be quite a task!
Nevertheless, they decided to go ahead with the plan a few weeks after the cyclone hit.
As part of the deal, we had to give our long-term tenants notice of end of tenancy.
I felt guilty as hell.
They had been our tenants since we’d had to move mum into care years ago and looked after the place wonderfully. They tidied the house and section up after mum had been incapable of doing so, even improving bits and pieces like replacing old kitchen benches and bedroom carpets.
It was our house, but it was their home.
Renting out the house was never about money for us and because they looked after it so well, we charged them about half what market rents apparently were.
But I still felt horrible giving them their 90 days’ notice – Especially having even just a general idea of Napier’s rental market and how much more rents were likely to be.
As it happened, they found a place in Havelock North (Napier was just too expensive) only about a fortnight later, so my overdramatized fears of them being out on the street were, thankfully, unfounded.
It did mean, however, that I had to get back in and totally clear out the last of Mum and Dad’s things that I had left stored in the garage and shed on the property, as they would all be coming down as part of the subdivision.
I started making slow in-roads over recent afternoons and weekends, initially muttering “Sorry, Dad! Sorry, Dad!” guiltily as I went.
I can already see the piles going to the tip, metal recyclers and auction house / charity will be immense. Never mind all the ancient paints, cleaners, varnishes and weedkillers that will need to be taken away by hazardous waste removal.
Always the tallest kid in class, I was also always at the back, in the middle for school photos.
First Star to the Left and on till Mourning
It’s not just the waste that’s hazardous – As I go through all the stuff I’m flooded with memories.
Memories of Dad and Mum, memories directly related to certain items and just memories of my first home.
Some memories clear and present, others foggy and indistinct.
Also, a fear of losing memories.
The former house of one of my Dad’s closest friends down the road from their place went up for sale recently. The people who bought it off him are moving on. I went to say “Goldfinch’s’ house is for sale!” out loud but stopped. Realising I’m the only living member of my family who would know what I was talking about.
Now, at the age of 45 I realize it no longer just seems so far away now. It is far, far away.
Between plagues, floods and whatever the hell else we get thrown at us next that reassuring feeling of loving security our parents provided when we were young may as well be as far away as the stars.
Reliving History
Recently I went to Onekawa New World, the supermarket I had my first job at. I go there reasonably often – it’s not far from (either) home. It has markedly changed since I worked there off and on between 1993 and 1998.
I had stopped outside the shop’s stockroom doors to check my list and was just idly looking through the door at the space beyond when a staff member inquired if I needed assistance. I explained that I used to work there (before they were born, it turned out) and asked if it was possible to have a look out the back to see what had changed.
They kindly obliged and for the next 15 minutes or so I gave them a run-down of what the space was like a quarter of a century ago (yes, I had to do the maths on that, too). Removed walls, doors, offices and toilets, but new shelving, walk-in chillers and freezers.
I walked both past and present tense simultaneously, occasionally going back and forth to ensure my memory was in the right spot. The two staff who ended up accompanying me on my modern historic tour seemed quite fascinated.
I felt both incredibly present and temporally displaced.
Many of the dreams and goals I had when I worked there and lived with my folks have changed so much. So many never eventuated at all (never mind recent career goals…).
So much has happened in all those years. So much life, love, marriage, (doing the same bloody job over and over..), fatherhood, activities and events all packed into them.
But there also feels like so much wasted opportunity and time that I’ll never get back.
I don’t feel (or look, apparently) as old as I am, but when I do it’s enough to instantaneously add even more grey hairs to my head.
Selling my childhood home makes me feel just that bit older and more distant still.
The fact it’s going to the in-laws will keep it in my extended family, but it will no longer be “mine”. Knowing they intend to sell the existing house upon completion of the subdivision and new house build adds a drawn-out sense of inevitability.
Other inevitable things have been distracting me this year, too.
While no one initially knew what was wrong with me, Eddie, who was 15-20 years older than me was waiting in Hawke’s Bay Hospital Coronary Care Unit to be sent down to Wellington for a stent to help clear a narrowed artery. It turned out he needed more than that and ended up down in Wellington briefly with me to receive a multiple bypass – a significantly more severe procedure than the mere tests, scans, pokes, prods and eventual biopsy that I was exposed to.
Being in coronary care has been compared to being in battle. You’re isolated from the outside world and are neither alive nor dead, but can be very close to being either during the time you are there. You can never know what it’s like unless you’ve gone through it, so you connect with others who have been through it with you.
I saw Eddie a few times over the years since our time in “Six South”. We would catch up and chat occasionally. I discovered he lived just around the corner from Mum and Dad’s house.
After doing some clearing out one weekend after our tenants had moved out, I drove home past Eddie’s place and noticed a lot of cars and people at his house. I had texted our tenant about something that day and he had replied he was at a funeral. He happened to work for the same organisation as Eddie and when I saw the congregation of people, I put one and one together and texted out tenant back.
Eddie had died suddenly earlier that week.
I was shocked.
“Suddenly” to me usually denotes a coronary incident, although the recent pandemic has also claimed many lives in similar sudden circumstances and symptoms.
If I wasn’t already feeling old, tired and useless enough, Eddie’s sudden passing just ramped up the downward spiral being so close to (figurative and literal) home.
Eddie was older and, back then, obviously far worse off heart-wise than I was. Losing Dad taught me that heart attacks seldom happen as unique, single occurrences and the first one is seldom the worst.
What happened to Eddie was unlikely to happen to me, as we were two completely different cases, but losing a comrade I had been through an experience like that with was shocking and unsettling in already unsettled times.
It didn’t ease my stress levels that around this period my cardiac fibroma happened to be front of mind, because Eddie’s passing happened just when I’d been scheduled for my annual echocardiogram to make sure the lump hasn’t changed or grown drastically – A fear that has been ever-present since its discovery years ago.
The scan came back unchanged in size, and my cardiologist decided we could move to two-yearly scans due to the continued lack of change, which eased heightened tensions.
But the quiet concern leading up to the appointment had just added fatigue upon fatigue, upon fatigue.
Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey,,, Stuff!
So there you go. Yet again we have somehow managed to fit about a year’s worth of issues, stresses, worries and natural disasters into a mere four months.
All perfectly normal and healthy, right?
So often in recent years there has been so much going on all at once and it all needs doing “Now!”
Somehow, I always get it all done “now” (but have stopped bothering to hope for a reward, promotion, or new job out of my consistent, reliable performances) mainly by compartmentalising tasks – I’ll do this before lunch, and this in the afternoon. Or spend three days targeting three tasks – one task per day.
But the repetition, fatigue and detachment required to keep on keeping this up is taking its toll.
I’m losing big bits of my past, presently stuck in an endlessly repetitious work cycle and having to be the one clearing out parts of my own history in the present, while unsympathetic job rejections and front row seats to drastic climate change don’t exactly put a silver lining on the cloudy future!
