Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, Of cabbages and kings, And why the sea is boiling hot, And whether pigs have wings. In other words, a mix of stuff!
Saving hawks, falcons, owls – and chooks
Recently I met John and Jenni Fraser, a couple from Gleniti, just outside Timaru. John’s a former motorcycle racer, a leather dyer and gardener, now retired. John sports an impressive beard. Jenni got involved in a cause, and today it is the dominating factor in their lives. They are raptor rescuers. When I met them they had three owls, two hawks and five chooks all in various stages of recovery from injury or simply being too young to survive.
Jenni shows me images of birds they have rescued. They are magnificent.
Yes, there will be a story.
Forever on the road
As I sit here in splendid Ōamaru autumn weather, it’s just a year since I bought two new vehicles. Well, one was new to me, the other was new new.
The latter is a Suzuki Swift Sport, a feisty little red hatchback with a turbo engine – just the sort of car I always promised myself for my twilight years. I realise that in buying a small car that burns petrol I am going against the trend, as today’s new-car market falls into three categories – big SUVs, big double-cab utes or EV. Sales of small cars are falling. That’s not the way it should be.
But I also have LARGE – the Mercedes Sprinter campervan, or motorhome, I bought at the same time as the Suzuki. It’s 7.5 metres, self-contained and
