It been a while

I miss my newfound friends / We were a family for a short time / Learning from life together

- The Impossible Shapes – Infinity’s Lips

Dedicated to Lin and Graeme in Kerikeri. Yep, its been over a week, I know. Lets talk some music first, since listening to music has been the most popular past time on this trip. I’ve been introduces to lots and lots of new artists/bands which is only good. Swedish music is a reason to forgive almost all those ice hockey games during last ten years. 70′s was the golden age of music and the guys behind Circle are musical gods. There, some random thoughts I’ve gathered so far. Oh, and Interpol is the band when talking about modern rock. Also remember the name didier Labbe octet while Im on the subject.

Leaving Kerikeri

Nick Cage is one of the best actors around btw, though he makes crap movies. Sunday was our tourist day as I might have mentioned. We went south to Bay of Islands. Visited Paihia and the Maori treaty grounds in Waitangi. It was a cool but exhausting day . Monday Chris left us and me and Linette made a path between the two clearings in the jungle. It turned out to be awesome, and I have a video which Im gonna post to Youtube pretty soon if its possible. Tuesday was all about chilling and preparing for a big last day in Kerikeri. I watched some movies and took it easy. On Wednesday we went to this small beach during sunrise, collected some seaweed for the garden and took a dip to the ocean! It was more than awesome. After the morning refreshment we ate some breakfast and the rest of the day we were on the move, driving around picking up stuff etc. Graeme also took us to central Kerikeri to have a look. There was not much there obviously, but I managed to found Terry Pratchett’s Fifth Elephant to entertain me for the next couple of weeks.

Back to Mangawhai

Thursday was a sad day and a happy day. It was sort of sad to leave Kerikeri but it was nice to head to a new place, which I knew to be terrific. I visited Ngaire and Jim briefly, when I was staying with Craig, to see their place and get to know what the work was gonna be like. My bus left Kerikeri at 7.30am and all the way to Paihia I was the only passenger in the whole huge bus. The bus driver was really nice and we had a good chat until other people filled the bus in Paihia. Ngaire picked me up from Kaiwaka 10.30am. We started planting a few trees to their soon to be orchard but Thursday was mainly laid back. Thursday was also my mother’s birthday, so once more: Happy Birthday Mom!

On Friday Jim had some business elsewhere, meanwhile me and Ngaire worked on the orchard and planted around 20 trees there. Got it all done which was awesome! On Saturday we did some work at Ngaire’s raised bed gardens, cut down some bamboos to build wind shelters for the newly planted trees. In the evening Ngaire’s mother, sister and her sisters husband came to have dinner with us. It was a calm evening and we had the dinner outside by the fire. I think the vegetarian died was good for the two weeks, but Im back eating meat and having beer, which is all good . On Sunday we were all pretty tired, but worked as long as we could.

Oh and its raining again, loud on your car like bullets on tin

Moby is also a genius. Today I woke up to the sound of rain, I hope its not gonna rain much. Soon me and Ngaire are gonna go play some tennis(!) and in the afternoon we’ll plant some stuff in the garden. The forecast for tomorrow is rainrain, so we’ll see what we come up with.

Next Sunday my partner in crime is gonna leave Finland! Have an excellent flight and a good time in Hong Kong mate, we’ll be in touch and Ill see you very very soon!