Talk about starting a blog off as boring! As I couldn't work, thanks to not being able to be paid enough, I spent my entire day, after another Skype home to check on the present situation, reading. By the time the day was out, I'd finished my second book in about 4 days and was ready for my next. Charlotte spent a decent amount of time working at the motel, which was good in a sense because she was earning time and a half, so around $23 an hour. She spent her whole time cleaning, as they weren't aloud to do anything else due to the higher wage. The manager didn't want to pay anyone $23 an hour to do grounds or the pools. When Charlotte arrived home we simply relaxed in the bus and had our second round of ploughmans that was left over from Christmas Day.
Tuesday 27th December
We found it rather odd that I wasn't aloud to work yet another day but rules are rules. We were still up incredibly early though. I dragged myself out of bed at 4am to listen to the Boxing Day football and Charlotte joined me at 5 so we could Skype her Mum, Dad, Brother and her brothers girlfriend, Lianna. After our catch up, we returned to the bus, where I clambered back in to bed and Charlotte got ready to go to work. By now I was ploughing through my 3rd book of the week, which was about a man who hitchhiked from Hobart in Tasmania, all the way to his home in London. It was interesting and got me reinterested in trying to visit the former Soviet “Stan” countries and put me on to trying to convince Charlotte it would be a good idea. Charlotte totted up a big day again and eventually arrived home around 5 o'clock, to find me having not really moved very far at all. I was out of bed, but still lying down, only on the sofa. Not long after Charlotte arrived home, she received a text requesting her to work that night, with no please or any sense or politeness. She did receive a thank you back but the abruptness did put her off. Charlotte venture off and left me to my reading. She returned with no food, so we cooked up our rather interesting dinner. We had 10 rashers of bacon left over from our Christmas Day brekkie, so not wanting them to go off, we cooked them up and had an absolute feast of bacon sandwiches for dinner. Come 1am, we were really degreasing the smoked meat binge and our mouths felt like sandpaper and we were desperate for bucket of water each in order to rehydrate.
Wednesday 28th December
Finally, I could get back in to work, although we knew we were in for a low paying week as 40 hours would have been hard to make out of 4 days, particularly when it's so hot during the day that you can't work. I had a bit of propping to finish off that I'd given up on on Christmas Eve afternoon and then after that I was moved to do some leaf plucking in the Chambourcin. This kept me quiet for the rest of the day while Charlotte continued to rack up the hours at the motel. She did manage to squeeze in an hour with me during the afternoon, which helped out significantly. For dinner, we had something that Charlotte's Granddad Peter would be proud of. The backpacking favourite of beans, pasta, carrot and, the pièce de résistance, sliced pepperoni. It was far from a “dogs dinner”, we thoroughly enjoyed it.
Thursday 29th December
This had been a day that we'd earmarked to have off but with 3 days off during the week already for me, we didn't think it sensible to have a 4th. This meant Charlotte only had to do 5 hours at the motel, as she was in as an extra bod, so she return at just gone one to be greeted by me and a rather large parcel that had made an appearance. The parcel had been sent by Donna and Paul and it was supposed to have arrived on or before Christmas Eve. The reason for this was because it had take 9 days to clear New Zealand customs, eventually turning up 5 days after Christmas Eve. I'll give a little bit of background now. At the beginning of December, Paul had emailed Charlotte and casually asked what foods/drinks we missed from home. We just took it as a genuine question and responded with 6 items each, which fell one short of his requested 7 item list. He told Charlotte that he would treat us both to our lists when we arrived home. Back to the present. Charlotte carefully opened the slightly battered box and had a peek inside. Jut before she opened it, she said “ I hope there aren't any mince pies inside, as I've just picked some up from the shop”. Low and behold, the first item out was a box of mince pies. These seemed pretty innocuous and we guessed, along with Donna’s statement over Skype, that it would all be Christmas related. When the next item out was a box of Shreddies, it didn't take long to click that Paul had been incredibly sly with his inquisitions and therefore, the trend of the contents of the box would start to take. I'll just put now that I LOVE Shreddies and, for whatever reason, they don't sell them in Australia and New Zealand (or mainland Europe or Asia for that matter) and the last bowl I'd had was when we made our detour to Edinburgh for our Chinese Visas. Next out was McCoys Crisps (my list), Robinson’s squash (my list) and Mars Bars (although in the form of a big selection bag of other Mars chocolates). I was doing pretty well, whereas Charlotte wasn't. That probably served her right for putting mini kievs, paella, sausage rolls/pork pies and casserole on her list. Most of them did eventually emerge though in the shape of a jar of Paella pasta, a sachet of casserole mix and, in place of what both our families (my dad excluded) call “octopus spaghetti”, was a bag of hollow spaghetti. The other British delicacies to emerge from the box of wonders were a packet of custard creams (again, from my list, it wasn't exactly a healthy selection), Christmas selection box, PG Tips, choccy coins, a huge Christmas cake, a box of peanuts and raisins and another box full of goodies. This second one was a Christmas box containing everything we needed for a slap up Christmas dinner. There was Paxo stuffing, Bisto gravy granules, trifle mix, Christmas crackers, Jacob’s cracker selection and a luxury christmas pudding (smaller than the first one). We were really impressed, although, we'd already eaten loads over Christmas, by the time my Mum and Dad arrived in the country we would be unrecognisable for all the weight we'd piled on. Not wanting to be rude, we tucked in to some choccy straight away before stashing everything either in the fridge or in our under seat larder. So thank you very much Donna and Paul! After our over indulgence, we thought it was high time we got out and did some work, so we slapped on the sun cream, donned our hats and headed out to the vines. Our first quick job was to hang up some irrigation piping so John could strim the weeds underneath and around the vines. Once we'd polished that off in not time, we spent the remainder of the time plucking the Chambourcin vines. We clocked off at 6 and popped out quickly to a local shop in order to buy myself a pair of new combat trousers. My previous ones had started off with a small rip in the leg, which had eventually turned into a tear from the waist, all the way down to the ankles. If I'd been around in the 70’s, I'd have been the height of fashion. The new pair we picked up were in the Boxing Day sale, so we snatched a bargain. We returned to the confines of the bus and cooked up a stir fry for dinner that we ate with a pitta.
Friday 30th December
Charlotte was starting to get to her wits end with the manager at the motel. She almost seemed scared to talk to Charlotte directly and got another lady, who Charlotte happened to get on with really well, to do her bidding for her. This led to Chalotte being told, indirectly, that, despite originally being off in New Years Day, that now, she would be working, in place for some lazy toe rag who wanted it off and who had also had all of Christmas off. Charlotte’s “x” on the timesheets had been tippexed out and replaced with a tick but until the manager informed her directly that she was working, she refused to go in. Charlotte was really looking forward to quitting in under 2 weeks time and it was making her even more content that Marion, the aforementioned lady who Charlotte gets on with, would also be leaving around the same time. This would leave the manager in the mire, as no other staff members there are willing to do a proper days work but both Charlotte and Marion couldn't care less. Meanwhile, I continued the plucking of the Chambourcin and once that was finished, moved on to my old nemesis, the Pinot Gris. I attempted to work after I'd had my lunch but the sun was fierce, so I took cover in the bus until Charlotte returned home. When it had cooled slightly, we both went out and did an hour and a halfs work each. Just as we were finishing, we could both hear a tiny chirping nearby. We guessed this meant there was a nest in one of the vines that had new born chicks inside it. We couldn't see any in the vines but I did find a load of hatched plain white eggs amongst the tall grass in the aisle. Charlotte came over and we looked for the chirping and then suddenly saw the culprit. It was a tiny yellow/brown bird that was crawling along the floor towards us. I held my hand out and it clambered on board and started enthusiastically pecking my hand. A large bird, who we guessed was the chick’s mother had not long run past us and then flown off to a nearby field. Unfortunately, we didn't get a clear glimpse, so we couldn't determine the type of bird it was. Charlotte guessed at a pheasant from the brief glimpse we got and when we checked later that evening, it turned out she was correct. We'd left the chick near its nest and kept our fingers crossed that the mum would return to tend her chicks. charlotte had work at the restaurant in the evening and kept up the run of not returning with any food. Whilst she was working, I prepped a heavily cheesed pasta bake that was as good as ready for her return.
Saturday 31st December
The final day of 2016 wasn't any different from the previous 45 of the year. Charlotte headed to the motel and I went plucking. Mercifully, there was plenty of cloud around, which made it considerably cooler than it had been over the week. In fact, it had got so hot that I'd taken to wearing a Lawrence of Arabia style head scarf to keep my neck from sizzling in the sun. My day had been going well until I asked John on my lunch break if it was only New Years Day and the 2nd I had to have off and he told me it had to be the 3rd as well. This would mean 2 short weeks as far as income but there was nothing I could do about it, so I would just have to enjoy the huge amount of reading I'd inevitably do. After lunch I dropped the irrigation pipes we'd elevated the previous day, finished off the aisle of Pinot Gris I'd been plucking and finished the year with a bit of weeding, mulching and soaking. Charlotte helped me with the final tasks and informed me that she would definitely be working on New Years Day and that she wouldn't be starting until 10, which was a bit annoying. We just had to keep reminding ourselves it was time and a half though. The restaurant had had Charlotte penned in for New Years Eve for quite some time, so when she headed off to wash, after an early desert of mince pies and custard, I took advantage of the peace and quiet to catch up with this thing in order to be able to start the New Year up to date. We had a late dinner when Charlotte arrived back from the restaurant of pizza, salad and chips and were then both fast asleep before midnight, so we missed all the celebrations.
Sunday 1st, Monday 2nd and Tuesday 3rd January 2017
I've combined these 3 days together under one heading as I had them off and ended up doing pretty much nothing the entire time, apart from reading. Charlotte however, worked all 3 days, keeping the income ticking over nicely. The highlight of the time was one evening when we were Skyping Charlotte's family. All of a sudden through the darkness came a noise that sounded like a chainsaw being started up. We jumped out our skins and it made for highly entertaining watching for those on the other end of the call. It turned out to be a possum and continued to make the noise until we removed ourselves from the table we were sitting on. We made such a commotion about it that we even ended up waking John and Aynsley in the house. I won't bore you with 3 dinners for the 3 days, so that will be that for that little segment. Oh, I forgot, on the Tuesday evening we went for an evening out at the cinema to watch a film called Assassins Creed. It was good, if slightly confusing but we were just pleased to be out of the bus.
It was back to work after my 3 day break and it meant that we both had 12 consecutive days of work remaining before we'd be departing Kerikeri. It was mainly the bus we were looking forward to escaping as we were fed up with the constant mosquito whine that we could hear every evening when in bed. It seemed as though it was plucking from here on, and I had 2 rows of Chambourcin to get through before returning to the Pinot Gris. At the motel, Charlotte had a bit of painting to do before the owner arrived on the Friday. What needed painting were the parking space lines and numbers, although she couldn't do them all as there were cars parked in the way.
Thursday 5th January
It seemed that from now on it would be plucking Pinot Gris all the way through to us leaving, which was good in a way, as I could just get on with it and not worry about anything else. Even Charlotte was back to just doing rooms at the motel, so it felt as though we were really starting to wind down to the big finish. This marked the day that we received our final Christmas package/card from home. It was from Michael and Lianna and contained a card, a personalised tree decoration each and a pot of fake snow each, that we would experiment with over the weekend. Thank you very much! At this point, I'm even loathed to write about our dinners, as they are becoming like a Scooby Doo “running down the corridor” scene, beans and pasta, rice and veg, beans and pasta, rice and veg, beans and pasta, rice and veg…..
Friday 6th January
….having said that, we were just getting in a position where we could start getting back to “normal” dinners. We picked up various packs of reduced meat on one of our infrequent big shops and we hadn't really utilised it much. With only just over a week remaining, we needed to get through it and started with the meatballs that we used with the spaghetti that had come in our aid package from home. After weeks of constant plain meals, the meat was a welcome change.
Saturday 7th January
Despite our best efforts, we didn't quite reach the 40 hour mark on the vineyard for the second week running. The 3 days off just made it too hard. With Charlotte's help though, we did get to a respectable 36 hours, which we were pretty happy with. It also helped that Charlotte had been getting fairly decent hours at the motel as well as earning time and a half for a few days she'd worked. On top of that, Charlotte also went in to the restaurant for her second consecutive evening.
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