Martin Paulo: Letters

Sat, 07 Aug 2004 21:13:19 GMT

Trust me: the food you eat will kill you

Terry has been at her wits end. Kylara has been, now how shall I say this, Kylara has been a little defiant. Ok, perhaps more than a little defiant. Rude and obnoxious, behaving like one of the more spoilt brats in town. Terry has born the brunt of this wilfulness. Me, I just go to work everyday and miss out on all the real explosive fun.

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Sun, 18 Jul 2004 09:09:10 GMT

Nicks Shed

Everywhere I go in NZ I seem to find oddly crafted sheds. It seems almost to be a symbol of ability - "Oh, I built the garden shed out of a few bits and pieces. Just threw it together over the weekend, and there it is." I have decided that I will start to chronical the more intersting ones that I find.

This one is Nicks. It is made out of old bus windows. It works very well as a potting shed. If you have an old bus that you don't know what use for anymore, let this serve as inspiration.

Mon, 12 Jul 2004 08:30:19 GMT

Oh, and yes, people matter too...

I thought that I should also try to describe the people of this wonderful country to my South African friends. Well, at least the differences...

Sat, 03 Jul 2004 02:26:21 GMT

New Zealand for South Africans

I have had so may of my South African friends asking me about visiting New Zealand that I have decided to munge the stuff that I have sent them into one short writeup. And so avoid future write ups. Lazy, no?

Tue, 29 Jun 2004 02:31:27 GMT

The word. Or, in my day, things were different (really).

For whatever reason I landed up walking Tessa down to her school one day last week. I delivered her to her classroom, said goodbye and then walked across the playground on my way to the station. The children in the playground were, as one would expect, playing.
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Sun, 20 Jun 2004 19:09:18 GMT

Everything must go

In New Zealand superb wood burners are available. Terry and I have always wanted one. Our desire to own one was kindled on the skiing trip we made on our first visit to this country. We used to return from the icy ski fields and warm our frozen bodies in front of the roaring wood burner in the lodge. I am prepared to admit that perhaps we may have a romantic and idealized memory of how wonderful they can be...

Link, (Pdf, 347Kb)

Thu, 17 Jun 2004 19:38:34 GMT

Alas, poor Scruffy

With the passage of time it became clear that our fears were not well founded: we only had two roosters in our collection of chickens, not the seven we originally suspected. As they grew the two roosters were starting to fight, and thus one had to go. Scruffy. Why Scruffy? Well, not only was he the smaller and the less dominant of the two, he was also not quite like other chickens. He had two extra claws on the one foot, and one extra claw on the other. And between the claws grew great big feathers...

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Tue, 15 Jun 2004 19:01:37 GMT

The summer of the chickens

We have had five days of glorious summer weather. But I think that we will remember it more as being the summer of the chickens. Terry was given six bantam chickens and their mother hen by friends of ours. So in the run up to Christmas I was hard at work, in the pouring rain, rebuilding the derelict chicken coop that had been created by a previous occupant of our house, and extending it with a run for the chickens to play in...

Link, (Pdf, 430Kb)

Sun, 13 Jun 2004 19:14:35 GMT

Us, the revolting peasants

Terry and I never set out to become members of the PAC. But when we returned from our South African holiday we found to our surprise that the New Zealand government had decided to close our local school. The one that the girls go to. As we were very happy with the school, and because it was very conveniently situated, we found the governments plans more than a little irritating. So we set out to protest...

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