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 2021:
Day 1 – A Partridge in a Pear Tree: Part-ridged Pear Tart
Pretty straight forward – as stated above we usually kick off with something involving pears, this pear tart is “part-ridged” – see what we did there?
Day 2 – Two Turtle Doves: Hard shell Tacos / Nachos
Tacos come in hard and soft-shells – just like turtles!
Day 3 – Three French Hens: Ratatouille
Ratatouille is a well known French dish. My wife has been vegetarian/pescatarian for a number of years now, so the hen aspect was off the menu, until…
Day 4 – Four Calling Birds: Karage Chicken Sushi from Tu Meke Don
Tim, Junko and Tane have been our go-to for Sushi for a number of years. and their karage chicken in sushi, donburi and just straight out fried is a favorite. (While I and Miss in Frame had the chicken, Mrs in Frame had Salmon.)
Day 5 – Five Gold Rings: 5 Golden Pasties
Pretty straight forward again – Golden rings of pastry filled with: Roast Carrot & Carrot Pesto, Mushroom & Broccoli, Asparagus & Onion, Roast Capsicum Dip & Feta, and Chocolate Ganache Tarts!
Day 6 – Six Geese a-Laying: Home-made Vanilla Ice Cream
I had to ask how she figured this one, too, but it’s because the vanilla pods’ contents give the ice cream a speckled appearance like the geese at our local park (she obviously spends more time there than I do).
Day 7 – Seven Swans Swimming: Squid Ink Pasta with Garlic and Lemon
Alliteration (using a number of words starting with the same letters / sounds / syllables) is a common trick we use when doing out 12 Days of Christmas. #FunFact: When the alliteration uses “S” sounds it’s called “sibilance” like in “Seven Swans Swimming”. The only swans I am aware of locally are the Black Swans down at the park and they are outright psychotic, so we’re not going anywhere near them. This Squid Ink Pasta is black, like the swans, starts with an “S”, and is far less homicidal.
Day 8 – Eight Maids a-Milking: Mac & Cheese
The predominant percentage of ingredients in Macaroni and Cheese are produced from what the titular maids have been extracting – Milk! (bonus points for it being such a glorious staple comfort food).
Day 9 – Nine Ladies Dancing: Chickpea Carrot Sauté with Homemade Focaccia Bread
While I initially thought the reasoning here was that the Chickpeas dance around the pan as they are sautéed, like the Ladies (“Chicks”), it was actually because most of the ingredients (sans Chickpeas) came from our garden and Mrs in Frame tells me her garden makes her happy enough to dance.
This was also the first time Mrs in Frame made Focaccia Bread by hand – and absolutely nailed it!
Day 10 – Ten Lords a-Leaping: Big English Breakfast for Dinner
To keep in theme with Scottish pipers piping I suggested a bottle of good single malt whisky. But apparently that’s “irresponsible parenting”, so shortbread – another Scottish staple it was.
In related Scottish news – Miss in Frame took up Highland dancing this year and in her first competitive dance WON FIRST PLACE! All the more reason for a celebratory bottle, but I digress… #ProudDadMoment
Day 12 – Twelve Drummers Drumming: Pumpkin Cake
Ending on another sweet note we aligned pumpkins with their drum-like appearance to create Pumpkin Cake with cream cheese icing. Pumpkins and their gourd relatives have been used as many things aside from food for centuries, including basic drums for Twelve Drummers!
So there you go – another Twelve Days of Christmas Deliciousness completed for another year. Sorry for the delay I usually try and get these out on Christmas Eve, but 2021 has been, well, 2021.
All the very best to you and your family for 2022 – May it be more fun and fortuitous than this year, and I’ll catch you in my next post – here’s a hint – the “12 Days of Takeaways” gave me an idea!
This was the late 70s and a lot of the old attitudes and medical practices were still forefront. With my mother being an “older woman” there was a heightened chance I would be born with some form of disability, like Down Syndrome. Except they didn’t use that correct, technical name back then, they used the term “Mongol”.
I apologize for using that expression – I despise it, but I only used it to illustrate that it was something I was reminded of rather frequently for some odd reason. “You could have been a Mongol Child”.
My mother made a friend in the maternity home who had twins the day after I was born. One of those twins happened to be born with Downs Syndrome (and would later attend the Special Education unit at the same high school I went to), so maybe that was just some sort of constant reminder, or little voice of “what could have been” in my Mum’s head.
There were some worried moments when, as a child, I appeared to have a larger than normal head that required a trip or two up to Auckland Hospital for scans. But, as it turned out, it was just aware of how big I would be later in life and was getting a head start (ba-doom-tish!) on proceedings.
School brought new challenges, but also new outlets.
As an only child you can become quite independent (you generally have to be) and very creative thanks to using your imagination to keep yourself busy or entertained most of the time.
It also meant I was a sponge for knowledge – I read and watched and listened to anything I could to keep myself amused, informed, or busy. I was a bit of a swot. It would pay off later in life when it came to quizzes, though.
My creativity took the form of writing (does it show?) and performance (mainly pretending to be presenting my own TV shows), things I excelled at until I discovered girls and those little queries started to speak up, making me think there might be something “wrong” with me.
Achey, Breaky Heart
I was a hopeless romantic when I was younger.
Well, “useless” would be a more accurate description.
I wouldn’t so much as hold a girl’s hand (other than when they had to in “social dancing” sessions of PE in high school..) until I was 21 and it was not for lack of trying!.
I shed numerous tears wondering why I was “unlovable” from Tamatea Primary School, right through to Tamatea High where I was sweet on several girls who had no interest whatsoever in this rather odd, tall, gangly young fellow.
Always the tallest kid in class, I was also always at the back, in the middle for school photos.
Perhaps the loneliness of only child-ness had just had enough, or maybe all the reading, watching and imagining had set too high a bar?
I’d read many books and watched many shows and movies about “true love” and “star-crossed lovers”.
I “tried too hard”, apparently, or “didn’t try hard enough”, or maybe it was just different mindsets? With having older parents and values perhaps things just wouldn’t align.
I’ve used the expression that “I think I was 35 for about 25 years” because it wasn’t until that age, by which time I was married and a new father that women seemed interested in me at all.
It just so happened that my engagement ring was The One Ring from the Lord of The Rings movie trilogy, but rather than putting it on making the wearer invisible, mine made me finally visible to the female populace.
Foreskin’s Lament
“Unique” is probably the best word to describe me throughout my schooling.
“Tall” was another.
“Awkward” and “Dorky” would rate up there too. Basically any John Hughes era movie stereotype that wasn’t “Preppy”, or “Jock”.
My 90s New Zealand high school experience was nothing like those movie stereotypes, thankfully.
I was discussing the experience with a fellow old classmate a few months ago and we decided than, while there were still the general “Sporty” kids, the “Munters” and “Cool / 90210” kids at Tamatea High School from 1991-1995, there was nowhere near the level of extremity or tribalism you stereo-typically see in most (American) media of the time.
There was no hatred of different types. We all, by and large, got on and accepted each other, because these were still the same people you had spent the last 5-12 years going through school with.
I don’t think I ever fitted into any of the specific stereotypes, though, just floated around the periphery, occasionally temporarily osmosing into one cell or the other.
And I liked that uniqueness.
Maybe it was the only child thing – independence, or one’s self was the only thing I could totally rely on.
In fifth or sixth form we did a school play (see, STILL love performing!) called “Masquerade” – A big, song, drama and dance production about the masks we put on in life (just add teenage angst, stand back, cover your ears and brace for the shock wave).
One of the older students (It must have been 5th form, because I’m sure he was a couple years older than me) named Christopher Dann did a rendition of “Foreskin’s Lament” that was just captivating.
Chris was one of the students (I think he was Dux of his year) who was bound for great, oratory things – Either a lawyer, or investigative journalist / breakfast television host.
I still hear him delivering those last lines:
“What are ya?
What are ya?
WHAT ARE YA?!
<lights cut to black>”
I find myself asking myself that same question time and time again.
A self-audit.
So.
“What are ya?!”
What Am I?
Tall. There is certainly no denying that. 6’8″, or 2.04 meters in metric terms.
This can make some things difficult: Legroom in cars and planes, long pants and big shoes can be difficult to come by.
While jeans that only come part way down your shins may be all the style at the moment they were the ultimate clothing faux pas when my growth spurts kicked into hyperdrive in the 80s and 90s.
Most people think doorways are my natural enemy and whacking my forehead on lower lintels is a concern. Not so!
As you get taller you learn to go through doors on the down-step, so if you do hit your head, it’s right on the crown and snaps the head backwards with a bright flash of stars.
Shorter people will never know the struggle.
My height also means being an asshole is never really an option. (not that it was ever in my disposition to begin with) – it’s not like I can easily hide away.
I smile at people in the street, help old ladies get stuff off the top shelves at the supermarket, that sort of thing.
“It’s better to be “always remembered” than “never forgotten”.”
Dad. The only thing I wanted to be in life was a good a father and husband as my Dad was. He was kind and caring. He never swore at, or abused me, even when he was angry with me. He was calm, measured and understanding.
Maybe it’s the idol-status I have for my Dad, but it does lead to a level of insecurity that I’m not doing a good enough job.
Losing my Dad soon after our daughter was born was a massive hit for me. He was my biggest, most constant supporter. When I lost him I lost a lot of my confidence, self belief and motivation.
I’ve had the positivity of our wonderful growing daughter to spur me on and focus upon, but I lost my safety net, my support network. That has been very hard.
I’ve made sacrifices for my daughter and family (more on that later, but that’s just what a dad does, right?
I think my daughter gets a bit sick of me asking her if I do a good job, but the other day she said I was “the best Dad” when we were playing (no bribe or purchases required) so I guess I must be doing something right.
I can’t go past a good #DadJoke, either!
O
Loyal and Dedicated. I look after my family, friends and those who do the same for me. I love my hometown and region – it’s somewhere I’ve lived all my life, I love to see it thrive and succeed and want as many people as possible to know about it, so they can share the experience too. I do everything to the highest standard I can and see tasks through to completion.
Creative. Writing, pictures, videos, models, dioramas, and occasionally woodwork are all things I enjoy. To make, or recreate something is really fun and something I love doing.
A Would-be Hawke’s Bay Media Magnate. I love writing. I love telling my own, others’ and Hawke’s Bay’s stories, be in in a blog, a video, or radio/audio format.
“Premium” is not the word for the constant enabling, monetization and multi-platforming of terrible, regionally irrelevant takes like these.
Despite my best efforts over the years, I have yet to gain promotional employment here in Hawke’s Bay, and whether it’s just the pandemic, or current direction of content, but I’ve only been commissioned for one piece of local writing this year, not that I’ve had a whole lot of spare time, or motivation to write.
I’m taking what chance I have now to get some thoughts on the page, as I’m having a week off before the run into Christmas and am working the few days between then and the New Year holidays.
My broadcasting aspirations were dashed early last year with the loss of local cricket commentary opportunities and yet more centralized personnel resourcing, with the same people who do the rugby, Olympics, America’s Cup, and all the other events out of Auckland given yet more opportunities to the detriment of everyone everywhere else.
What little exposure I had been very grateful to receive on Radio New Zealand’s The Panel also quietly ceased last year.
It’s not like I used the platform to tout Covid conspiracy, or was eventually let go for leaking private patient details like one of their far more regular guests who was still on multiple times after I was given the heave-ho after only a few appearances.
I was told my removal from the Panelist lineup was because the broadcasting equipment from the Napier studio was redeployed so the network’s presenters could work from home during the Covid lockdown in 2020 (and, no doubt, further extended lockdowns throughout 2021 in Auckland where many of them are now based). Water damage and repairs from Napier’s flood in November 2020 also temporarily put their office out of action not long after.
However that didn’t stop other Panelists from being on the show via phone, Skype, or other means.
While I am fully aware Hawke’s Bay has some of the best internet coverage in New Zealand, it must have escaped their attention, until they had Janet Wilson beaming in across the broadband from Haumoana on the shores of Hawke Bay a few weeks ago.
Man, they must feel so silly…
But it’s not just my creative aspirations, or dreams of local media stardom failing me this year.
After over 17 years of doing my day job, despite requests for advancement or training across multiple bosses going unheeded, I finally had the chance to apply for the position myself.
I was short-listed with the new office graduate, who has been with us for about a yearm for an interview.
Management chose the graduate, because they have a relevant university qualification – Something I have never been given the opportunity to do through work, nor the time with odd and early hours of employment, or money with a family and mortgage to do of my own accord outside of work.
All my writing and media-ing is something I have been able to do after-hours of my day job due to its odd and often early hours.
I call it “Breakfast Radio / TV hours, but without the fame or fortune.”
It has provided a constant, secure income (throughout very insecure times) that has enabled me to support my family, buy a house, pay a mortgage and raise our daughter.
But now that she is getting older and more independent I feel like I can finally do something for myself.
The inability to realise my dreams, or even gain advancement where I have dedicated myself for years has made me feel like a failure, or that I’m being selfish or don’t deserve to do what I want to do.
Years of typing, texting & tweeting eviscerated what was already terrible handwriting…
I’ve never been one for self-help books or schemes.
My chakras are constantly out of alignment, and I’m more into Nasi Goreng than Feng Shui.
Though there is one thing I picked up from one of these sorts of books years ago that I have stuck with:
Each year one of the first things I write in my diary is a list of ten goals I want to achieve that year and ten “materialistic” things I want to do or get.
My goals for this year, 2021, can be seen above.
It’s a good little guide, or set of targets, for the year to come.
“Win Lotto” is never one of those things.
Until this year “Get a new job” was usually at the top, or near the top, of the list. This year I left it off out of sheer frustration. That turned out to be a portent of things to come.
“Effect positive change for Napier / Hawke’s Bay” has been another consistent goal that I like to think I have achieved throughout the years through my writing and social media advocacy.
But this year I feel I failed in that goal, as I got little chance to write or be published and certainly no chance of being broadcast other than social media.
I was, however, able to spend more quality time with my daughter, and that is certainly a great goal to have.
I was also recognised / rewarded for doing something I enjoy earlier this year when I was made a Life Member of NOBMCC – something I have loved doing for 15 years.
Given Covid restrictions “Travel Somewhere Nice” was something remarkable to achieve, especially as one of the places I traveled was Auckland – managing to squeeze in a visit between different stages of lockdown.
I probably would have enjoyed the overnight stay in Taupo the following Saturday more if I wasn’t still exhausted from the 10-ish hour return drive through the early morning darkness on the way to and from NZ’s biggest city..
I was also fortunate to meet more of my online friends in person, several of whom took the inability to travel overseas as an opportunity to see more of New Zealand, including my home town and region!
While I value the bigger goals more, the materialistic goals are also enjoyable – I’ve been fortunate enough to afford some luxuries this year – and helping our regional economy by buying from local businesses is a great way of helping everyone thrive.
The pile of books I have bought from Hawke’s Bay’s award winning Wardini Books this year has grown exponentially faster than I could ever hope to read them!
And there are more to come at Christmas…
Enjoying local hospitality businesses and the produce from local food and drink artisans has also been a highlight.
I still managed to achieve one of my other goals of losing a bit of weight throughout! (Only 5kg, but given the comfort eating I had been doing over the year, a rather miraculous goal…)
As we wind down 2021 and look forward to 2022 (dare we even look forward, or speculate on what could be?!) what are some of the things you would like to achieve, or buy, or do in 2022?
When Covid 19 landed in New Zealand last year I was due to go for my final appointment, but I was too busy working solo, so it was delayed. Until the first week of the country’s month-long lockdown! Unsurprisingly that didn’t happen, either.
Earlier this year I finally got a call for that appointment again, so early one morning I once again got in my car (our new one, this time, as you will remember the previous vehicle had issues when I got to Auckland, which led to us trading it in last year) and heading north long before the sun had stretched, yawned and scratched.
Once again I hit thick fog (or cloud in some places) from the Rangitaiki Plains all the way to Tokoroa, which made driving just that bit more nerve-wracking, but made it safely and smoothly to Auckland by morning tea time.
I fuddled around Mount Eden Village before meeting a Facebook contact who was buying some of my vintage toys – primarily my old GI Joe Tomahawk helicopter and completing the deal, which have me some spending money for the trip.
After that it was time to check into my motel for the night and walk next door to Greenlane Hospital for my appointment.
The check-up went fine, I got the all clear, though the doctor chose to snip a bit of scar tissue inside my nose there and then which involved some sharp objects going where they usually don’t go on Monday afternoons.
After a bit of recovery time I ventured out again to investigate more of Auckland than I had been able to previously. My new car’s GPS proving invaluable in guiding me around the suburban streets.
I visited and had coffee with Jeremy Dillon, creator of The Moe Show, that I have written of previously. Jeremy showed me his company’s latest iideas and nnovations. It really is a cool company with a real “Muppet” spirit.
After that I headed out to St Luke’s Mall – somewhere I haven’t been for 30+ years to get a gift for my daughter and some clothes on special for myself (I am apparently now old enough to rank this as a genuine trip highlight?!).
After sourcing dinner via Twitter recommendations from a Thai restaurant near Potter’s Park, and its giant Wally, I headed back to my motel, via an elongated and delayed route care of Auckland’s “rush hour” (a truly oxymoronic term in Auckland, as the mass of vehicular congestion prevents anyone from rushing anywhere) traffic.
With a near-constsnt stream of traffic outside my accommodation I decided that was it for the day and stayed in, staying up surprisingly late, given the level of exertion I had exerted that day.
I woke just as early the next morning as I had the previous and, rather than face more congestion hit the highway heading south, skirting Hamilton and Waikato University due to the fact I had missed a turn on State Highway 1B in the darkness.
The final stage back over SH5, the Napier-Taupo road was much easier in daylight and I was back home before lunch.
In total I had traveled a little over 1,000km in around 30 hours. An I would he travelling even more that week, as we had a family weekend back in Taupo the following Saturday – quite a paradoxically exhausting experience for me overall.
It was fun and interesting to be able to get out and see more of Auckland than on previous trips. It was also a bit odd, as the city was just coming out of a localized Covid lockdown, and perhaps a bit of nervousness or paranoia accompanied the journey – scanning and sanitizing were common practices on the trip.
Hopefully I might get to take my family back there on a holiday that doesn’t involve poking, prodding, or doctors sometime soon as, while Napier is a fantastic place and our home, it’s good to be a Visitor From Hawke’s Bay every once in a while!
Over the last few years I amassed quite a collection and, rather than keeping them in a plastic bag in a draw, I wanted to display them, but had nowhere appropriate to do it.
So I decided to make something.
Cleaning up our woodshed one day I came across a pile of old, native Rimu wood floorboards:
There were enough, and of sufficient size, to make a display case for my PSH!
I measured them out, cut them to length and cut off the tongue and groove edges:
I put a call out on Facebook for some kind of planer to tidy up the boards, and my old Tamatea Primary School friend, Mike Wyatt, put them through his thicknesser.
The gorgeous results had me moaning “Grains, GRAINS!” all zombie-like:
More cutting for plywood shelves to slide in and the potential for a Perspex front got us to the framing level:
A thin plywood back gave it some solidity and rigidity, too:
Now, to sort out what went where – Easier said than done with a rather diverse collection and several shelves. Do I dare mix DC and Marvel characters?
We had some left-over Resene Test Pots from rock painting and other art projects with my daughter, and one left-over pot was just enough to paint the interior of the display case:
A top coat of some metallic paint we used for highlight stripes in my daughter’s room a few years ago added some comic book pizazz to the finish:
A sheet of clear plastic from Napier’s Classique Plastics slid perfectly into place (after a little bit of extra chiseling – my carpentry is still far from perfect..) to keep dust off my collection:
And I glued each figure onto the shelves to avoid them all rolling about at the slightest bump:
The final result looks pretty fantastic, if I do say so myself:
It’s America’s Cup time in New Zealand, but I’m just not feeling it.Aside from all the global pandemic problems taking focus and fans away it’s just not the same any more.
Or that the billions of dollars involved in a single competitor’s campaign would make any Auckland real estate agent’s commission look like loose change;
Cast your mind back to 1986-87 in Freemantle, Western Australia and how it seemed our entire nation got behind KZ7, made of fiberglass & Kiwi innovation – “The Plastic Fantastic”!
“Dirty” Dennis Conner saying “You’re a loser, now get off the stage” to NZ designer Bruce Farr.
In the vein of Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” and USA for Africa’s “We are the World” New Zealand icons, TV and music stars even came together under the name “All of Us” to sing “Sailing Away” (I still have the vinyl record) – The only true New Zealand America’s Cup song. Listening to it 35 years later still brings a bit of a proud tear to the eye.
The New York Yacht Squadron could stick their Manhattan millionaires where the sun didn’t shine – We’ve had Barry bloody Crump SINGING A SONG!!
(Special musical mention goes to Dave Dobbyn’s “Loyal” for the 2003 America’s Cup campaign but, from memory, I think it got hijacked into a Lotto advert, sadly).
Even I got into the spirit of things – I would put my bike upside down on the deck of our trailer in the back yard.
The front wheel, turned side on, was KZ7’s steering wheel; The up-turned pedals were the grinders’ cranks.
The trailer’s triangular draw bar was the bow and the jockey wheel handle at its end cranked the sails up and down.
I raced for nautical miles and miles never leaving our grassy backyard in suburban Napier.
KZ7, of course, didn’t win.
Core samples, cries of bad sportsmanship and a yacht race that became billionaire backers racing lawyers.
Great, patriotic times (even if still today most New Zealanders couldn’t tell their spinnaker from their forestay and think that a “Grinder” is a dating app on their phone)!
The races were held in Bermuda, and the coverage and time difference meant it wasn’t as wall-to-wall as it had been in previous years.
There were even indications that our team, Team New Zealand, the ingenious kiwi battlers of the 80s were becoming.more and more like the rest of the syndicates and focused on money and power.
So was it becoming a case of “All of Us” becoming “Us vs. Them”?
In a time when the country was facing up to profound levels of inequality and housing unaffordability so much being spent on something so unrelatable to average New Zealanders, or seemingly frivolous given the overarching societal circumstances rankled with lots of people.
Even the fact the race seemed preordained to be hosted in Auckland no matter what riled a few.
This is a 1/48 scale Valentine tank I built earlier this year. My Dad drove them as part of his Compulsory Military Training in the 1950’s, so I built it to honor his memory and service.
A few years ago I found a rare 1/48 scale model of a Valentine Tank – the type my Dad told me he drove when he was doing his Compulsory Military Training years ago.
While clearing out one of their sheds I even found the pennants from his intake!
I discovered a few years ago that he might be eligible for the New Zealand Defense Service Medal, as the government had opened the criteria to include those who did CMT.
Dad was never much of a medal person, but he was a hero to me and he spent a lot of time serving others – having been a public servant for various central and local government departments for years of his working life.
So I applied to get his military records and then applied for and, in turn, received his medal last year.
Dad always spoke favorably of doing his CMT and it was heartening to discover he got promoted from Trooper to Lance Corporal during his CMT service!
So with the tank and his medal as well as his old beret badges and a glass case I repurposed from a diecast model I had recently sold I wanted to make some form of memorial plaque, or diorama to honor him.
I headed onto social media to see if any of my friends had a piece of native timber that I could use as a base and Ben Keehan provided the woody goodies!
I’ve never been the most tool-crafty person (this was Dad’s department), but I wanted to make an exception with this project and, with the hardware of my father-in-law’s garage and some supervision from him, I was able to cut, drill and sand the rough piece of timber into a gorgeous, grainy goodie!
With the glass case seated nicely I made a few fine-tunings (including using our neighbor’s mitre saw to angle the front of the base in the middle of cutting posts for the new fence we were building between our properties) I gave it a couple spray coats of varnish and glued on some model train ballast to give a more realistic base for the tank.
The results were just what I wanted:
Dad’s medal memorial will take pride of place wherever it is placed.
A great reminder of my Dad, his service, commitment, and even a homage to his fine carpentry skills that may have not been completely lost on me after all.
It is a wonderful wee thing to look at now, knowing that I was able to do it.
From plagues, to floods it has been an interesting 12 months. For me it’s been tiring and painful, but we’ve made it and I still feel like I have some fuel left in the tank, unlike 2019 which couldn’t have gone on for a week longer.
The year started off simply enough: Jokes about “2020 vision”, looking forward to an extra day tagged onto the end of February thanks to it being a leap year, Oh and Australian bush fire smoke turning our skies all shades of yellow and brown and almost blotting out the summer sun!
(We really should have taken than as an indicator!)
Over the space of one January weekend our neighbor and I drastically changed the landscaping of our properties’ border, cutting down several trees and clearing a ton of dirt and green waste in anticipation of building a new border fence (due to 2020 in general we hope to get around to STARTING this fence in January 2021..).
It was one of those very hard, manual jobs that you sit back and admire once completed with a real sense of satisfaction of a job well done!
When not using big, brutal tools, I also made a couple of delicate 1/72 scale models that had been sitting in my garage for too long: A Bristol Beaufighter and a North American Sabre. I had only built one kit in 2019, almost as an after-thought and really fancied making more, as my stash of kits was surpassing “sizeable” and heading into “hoarding” territory, so decided I’d better keep building while the flame was lit (possibly not the best metaphor for a hobby that involves flammable paints and glue..).
I commentated double-header Supersmash T20 games at McLean Park on the second of January – The Central Hinds and Central Stags played the Otago Sparks and Volts respectively in back-to-back matches. I got to go out to the central block and watch the coin toss for the Stags’ game – a bit of a dream come true.
As I’ve written before, I enjoyed the commentating – It was a great new, unexpected broadcasting opportunity that arose for me. Then it sadly evaporated even more quickly when, a month or so later, NZ Cricket announced it was not continuing with Radiosport as its radio broadcast partner and then, as if to plunge the dagger in even further NZME closed down Radiosport altogether as the wider effects of Covid 19 took their toll on gatherings, including team sports.
This wouldn’t be my only media let-down of the year.
I don’t know what I did, or didn’t do, to deserve this snub, as they never replied to my tweets enquiring why. But given they had Michelle Boag on three times in almost as many months in the early part of the year (and look how that ended up) it might have been a bullet best dodged after all.
I played my one and only game of cricket for the 2019/20 season in February and took two catches – A new personal best!
Then along came Covid 19
There had been stories in the news since late 2019 about a respiratory disease that had started spreading across the globe after ravaging China, Iran, Italy and a number of other countries. With the nature of international travel it was only a matter of time before it reached us here. On March 26th New Zealand went into a nation-wide isolation Lockdown.
The lead-up to Lockdown, for me, was madness.
For the last sixteen years I have worked in the same office as my father-in-law, splitting 5am starts between the two of us on alternating weeks. But my FiL has chronic asthma issues and has been sick off and on for elongated periods over recent years. He had gotten sick after returning from a trip to Australia in February (non-Covid related despite it involving a cruise too!), So I was on early starts, working solo for almost a month at the start of the year.
I was still tired and worn out from 2019 and covering this February holiday when the Covid lockdown levels were announced. With his health issues putting him in one of the at-risk categories, he had to work from home from level 3, which meant I was working solo then, too. But with the added impending doom of a looming pandemic, in a job that involved interacting with hundreds of people each day (either personally, or via documents others had handled, so having to wear masks and gloves) I ended up having what turned out to be an anxiety attack one evening (I only realised this the next day when, using a work bathroom, a aptly-placed mental well being poster just happened to list all the things I had felt the night before).
The stress of getting everything ready for lockdown didn’t abate until the lockdown itself took effect. I wasn’t given a work computer or phone, so couldn’t work from home giving me, essentially, an enforced four week holiday.
For the month of Marpril 2020 (yes, I do consider that a viable month) New Zealand stayed at home, in our bubbles.
We shopped sparingly for food, keeping personal distances at all times. Our children learned via the internet and “Zoom”, while adults primarily used the internet for social media and ordering alcohol for home delivery.
While I would have loved to have written more during lockdown I only managed to write one thing:
Explaining the mystery of why Napier has two Countdown supermarkets across the road from each other.
Amazingly it has had over 4,000 views since then – By far the most viewed thing I have written on Napier in Frame!
Otherwise, we read lots, played games with our family, tweeted lots, I made some more models and, as a nation, we made a metric $hit-tonne of sourdough and other baked goods (because those 20kg bags of flour that were the only available purchasing option weren’t going to bake themselves!).
Personally, I got to sleep in more often than I ever had in the past decade and a half, and have more concurrent time with my family (and snuggles with my daughter) than in a long, long time.
Just like tropical hurricanes in the Caribbean the storm builds and builds, until you get to the “Eye Wall” – where the wind and rain are at their strongest and the worst.
Then you get into “the eye of the storm”. The sky is clear – often blue, calm and sunny. But with the worst part still on every horizon.
That is what lockdown was like for our family. The weather was warm and summery (despite it being Autumn) and things were quiet and calm, yet we knew there was danger all around.
Then, as the country went down to level three, I went back to work (still sans father in law), and the other side of the hurricane’s eye wall hit in the OPPOSITE direction as we played catch-up.
All up I worked solo for about three whole months this year. It pretty well buggered me. It took up lots of my time that would otherwise have been “spare” and, when I did have “spare time” I didn’t have the energy, or the motivation to do anything!
The day after it was announced we were going down to level two and I could relax a bit with father in law and others returning to work I got a call from the hospital asking to operate on me.
Late last year I had been in for a check-up on my BCCs (Basal Cell Carcinomas) and they had identified some more that needed removal. Covid and the lockdown had put any work on hold, so at the first opportunity I was one of the first people they called and a week later I was in getting seven BCCs removed in one fell swoop (more than on my previous trips down to Lower Hutt) at the Napier Health Centre.
Maybe it was the sheer scale of the procedure (I ended up with at least one significant scar from where one BCC which hadn’t been fully removed the first time years ago had grown back and needed removing again), or the overarching stress of the year, but my recovery was longer, and felt more physically and psychologically painful than any of those that preceded this year’s surgery and a few minor complications did not help matters.
I had only just recovered from the first round when a second lot of surgery removed some more BCCs a month later.
I felt ugly.
That didn’t seem like a regular thing for a kiwi guy to say or think, but I did. And I was annoyed at myself for feeling like that.
I didn’t hide away like she did, but I still felt it.
Fortunately around the same time, as we headed into winter, I managed to get some new clothes, either on sale, or from vouchers I had earned from online Nielsen surveys and the like.
After months of nothing but fluro hi-viz, polar fleece and bandages I was able to treat myself to new jeans, a new shirt and a merino jersey. I felt like I looked better and at least one of my sartorial superheroes agreed.
After lockdown and surgery issues had abated I had some time to write, which was good, because Bay Buzz magazine would end up commissioning me to write three 1,500+ word pieces this year – another personal best!
Also making me proud of Hawke’s Bay was our local NPC team the Hawke’s Bay Magpies!
After last holding the Ranfurly Shield six years ago they beat Otago to reclaim it again this year, and successfully defended it throughout the rest of the season, with Hawke’s Bay now holding it over the summer months (and almost every single person in the region who hasn’t already had their photo taken with it pretty well guaranteed of the opportunity now)!
The Magpies also won the Championship title to cap off a great season.
There’s Something About those Magpies. It’s not just a rugby thing, either. When Hawke’s Bay’s rugby team do well it seems to lift the mood and spirit of the region.
We needed to recover from the lockdown economically, commercially, and socially and by most indications it looks like Hawke’s Bay is recovering better than other regions. It just so happened to be at the same time as the Magpies were collecting all the silverware!
I know.. “correlation does not imply causation blah, blah, blah…” but it’s worked for us so far, so there!
Although, perhaps it was more “pride coming before a fall”, because just before the end of the rugby season 2020 had another go at us.
On the 9th of November Napier, and in particular the city’s CBD and suburb of Marewa suffered significant flooding and related rain damage after one of the longest, most contunually persistent downpours in an afternoon than most locals had ever experienced.
We were caught on the edge of events, getting drenched picking our daughter up from school, then coming home via main roads that would soon be impassable to watch our front and back yards get slowly inundated with rainfall and yanking out our downpipes from the roof gutters as they had begun to overflow.
We stood at the window watching the creek we live across the road from rise and rise (about 15 meters across for every one meter up, just to give you an idea of just how much water this event involved.) The next day a “high tide mark” of leaves, sticks and so on would reveal the creek was a mere meter away from breaching its bank opposite us and overflowing into the street!
A kilometer or so down the same road from us people were not so lucky. Streets, and almost the entirety of Whitmore Park (the big, rectangular lake in the aerial shots of the area) were inundated, houses flooded, possessions lost and people displaced. Many have still yet to return to their homes, which still require repair as I write this on New Year’s Eve.
“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.”
It’s just what David did, too, as Stuff (still under Australian ownership at the time) let him and several other womderful wordsmiths go around the same time other NZ media were being closed down or severely cut back by their owners in the face of Covid’s financial fallout.
David “preoccupied himself with what was in his power to be done” and started his own page “More Than a Feilding“. It has gone gangbusters!
He is a lovely, literarly inspirational man!
I needed stoicism for one of my new ventures this year, too: I became a Hawke’s Bay Cricket Umpire!
After about 15 years of playing and player-umpiring I was invited to join and have spent the first half of this season umpiring T20 matches, including two weekends of HB’s famous Kilbirnie T20 tournament.
It’s a lot easier and more enjoyable than player-umpiring I must say. As, rather than having to worry about what the score is, who is batting next and do I need to go and pad up, all I have to be concerned with is counting to six and deciding if the ball that just hit the batsman on the pads would have hit the stumps if their leg wasn’t there. Plus you occasionally get lunch and beer!
It has been a tough year. Lots of ups and downs, with lots of unexpected twists and turns, but we’ve survived!
For now.
New Zealand’s “Tyranny of Distance” turned out to be quite beneficial in some respects. But it will also provide lots of challenges in the coming months – just look at the backlog of cargo ships waiting to unload out off most of New Zealand’s ports right now.
I am, as always, thankful for my friends (online and real life) and family this year.
I am grateful for the opportunities I have been given this year (does that mean I get to be UNgrateful for those I wasn’t given?).
And I am most inspired, humbled and amazed by my wife, and my daughter who turned seven this year and completing her second year at primary school.
The care, compassion, intelligence and love she shows continually amazes me.
On her end of year school report her teacher closed it out with the phrase:
I had to Google what that line was and I have to say I teared up a bit because:
I hope your 2020 wasn’t too disturbed, wet, or worrisome and your 2021 will be steadier and more illuminated.
As always, thanks for reading and all the best for next year!
For almost 15 years now, Mrs InFrame has been coming up with a special 12-day menu to celebrate the “Twelve Days of Christmas”.
She alternates each year between the traditional and the New Zealand version, otherwise known as “A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree”.
This year was the Kiwi Christmas Deliciousness Edition!
Most of the dishes usually have a direct correlation to the songs (Five Big Fat Pigs = Pork/Ham/Bacon), others use a fair chunk of artistic license as, with the original “Twelve Days” song we’d be swimming in poultry with French Hens, Swans a Swimming, Geese a Laying etc. etc. otherwise.
As an added challenge this year, Mrs. Frame decided to make the entire menu VEGETARIAN (So long Swans, Geese, Turtle Doves and Partridge..)!
All but one day’s recipe were from Yotam Ottolenghi’s “Plenty” cookbook.
I’ll do my best to explain the pairing concepts as we go.
So sit back and enjoy as I reveal what my true love made for me over the Twelve Days of Kiwi Christmas Vegetarian Deliciousness for 2020:
A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree
Noodles with Wakame
While Pukeko, otherwise known as the Australiasian Swamp Hen, actually spend most of their time on the ground (and, more riskily, on or near roads in varying forms of dimension…), were they to reside in Ponga trees they would need a nest. Wakame and noodles would make the perfect nesting material!
Two Kumara
Two Potato Vindaloo
Kumara are a sweet potato. This dish combines kumara and white potato in a yummy curry!
Three Flax Ketes (“Kits”)
Brandy Baskets
This is the one non-Ottolenghi dish. Woven flax Kete are used as baskets and bags to carry things like food. Brandy Baskets make a sweet representation of them.
Four Huhu Grubs
Stuffed Onions
Huhu grubs are a creepy crawly delicacy at most “Wild Food” festivals, mainly for their gooey-squishiness when you bite into them. The onion layer looks just like them and a gooey vege filling adds to the effect.
Five Big Fat Pigs!
Polenta with Mushrooms
Pigs like to eat and one of their favorite foods is a mix of scraps called “slop”. Polenta s very sloppy while cooking. The mushrooms and gravy add to the “sloppy” effect.
Six Pois a Twirling
Mushroom Parcels
Poi are little bags on woven string used in Maori dance and cultural performances. Sans string, these mushroom parcels look like Poi, E(h)?
Seven Eels a-Swimming
Parsnip Dumplings in Vegetable Broth
The Longfin Eel are native to New Zealand. and can be found in lots of waterways – even the creek that runs past our house. The parsnip dumplings swim in the cloudy vegetable broth like the eels swim in muddy water.
Eight Plants of Puha
Mixed Veges with Parsley Oil and Halloumi
Puha is a leafy, green, wild vegetable that usually grows near water, so the green of the parsley oil and courgettes represent puha.
Nine Sacks of Pipis
Stuffed Tomatoes
Pipi are a bivalve mollusc like cockles. The stuffed tomatoes represent sacks stuffed full of pipi!
Ten Juicy Fish Heads
Chilled Asparagus Soup
Fish heads can be a bit stinky when left out in the sun. Miss Frame thought this was a bit stinky when her mum was making it.
It’s got nothing to do with the way asparagus makes your wee smell, apparently…
Eleven Haka Lessons
Royal Potato Salad
The Haka is, of course, synonymous with New Zealand’s national rugby team. Mrs. Frame considers seeing the haka as been very important. Royalty are regarded by many as being important, too, hence this connection.
Personally I think the eggs and potatoes are rugby ball shaped and the peas and pesto that goes on it looks like a green rugby field.
Twelve Piupiu Swinging
Soba Noodle Salad with Aubergine and Mango
Piupiu are a Maori grass skirt, as can be seen in the Poi e video above. When the dancer wearing it sways or spins the individual threads spread out and sway like soba noodles cooking in a pot.
We hope you’ve been inspired to try some of these, or your own version next Christmas.
From the Napier in Frame family to yours, we wish you a Merry Kiwi Christmas and a safe and happy New Year!
With international travel currently off limits I know many social media friends who have only just visited Hawke’s Bay for the first time recently and loved it!
We may even let you have your photo taken with the Ranfurly Shield! 😉
