Visit by Senior Citizens with Bay Bus Tours

Forty one senior citizens arrived from Napier in two buses to spend an hour and half in our garden. They were treated to tea/coffee and cream scones and a history lesson by Elaine. I hope they enjoyed sitting in the beautiful garden and wandering through the old historic house.

The Opening of the Waipawa Rotunda

The dull weather did nothing to dampen the spirits at the opening of our new magnificent rotunda.It was attended by in excess of 250 residents. Grown ups and children picnicked in the park while listening to the first of many musical evenings.

Inside the Pines

BelWeb sideboard.
Imbuia Ball and Claw Bedroom furniture. Imbuia is and an African timber.

Piano is a Monnington and Weston manufactured prior to 1940

Writing desk made in Knysna from Australian blackwood.

Waipawa's One Hundred and Fifty Year Celebration

This could be a long post with all the pictures I took of the celebrations. The Pines was part of it as at three o'clock a party of over thirty arrived for a history lesson given by Margaret Gray, Waipawa's historian. I think I have written this before,but if Elaine and I had bought a house in Hastings we would have just retired into the woodwork,but by coming here to 'The Pines' we are somehow so much part of Waipawa.

Well the celebrations started off with a procession and float parade from the town Hall into Ruataniwha Street and down to Coronation Park where there were many many stalls. New Zealanders love their old vintage cars and tractors so they were all part of it .A procession is not a procession unless it is led by by a Scottosh Pipe Band.

During the morning there were people coming into our garden and just sitting or taking pictures of the garden and house and the party interested in the history of Waipawa were taken up to the historic pond constructed over 150 years ago and repaired by me, and were also allowed to walk down the passage from the front door and out the back door.What excitement.

And when it was all finished we relaxed and had tea.

Changing Rooms

The conservatory has become our favourite place.. We have teas and meals there.. It is where we take our visitors, or catch an afternoon nap on the sofa or just a place to sit and be.

However we had a problem. To get there one had to walk through the main bedroom. Not an ideal situation. So for some time we debated whether to change the lounge which was in the traditional front part of the house, with the bedroom which was at the back.

There were issues to consider, such as the lounge being near the front door and having a woodburner fireplace which we so enjoyed on winter nights, and the bedroom’s very convenient main en suite. Also the fact that moving big heavy furniture from one end of the house to another, needed planning and strong arms.. Then last week we knew that that is what we wanted to do. Change the rooms. The issues could be overcome.

The family always come for birthday celebrations and that was a golden opportunity to have willing labour right on hand! After a good lunch we set to work. I had emptied the cupboards and stripped the bed. Most of the furniture could be moved down the long narrow passage, but the two wide couches had to be taken outside through double doors. They could not go round corners or through the inside doors, so were carried round the house to enter double doors through the conservatory. The pictures hanging on the passage walls were removed and the up-ended big bed was negotiated along the length of the house to take the place of the couches.

The heavy baby grand piano was the most difficult piece to move.. All hands were required to lift off the heavy lid and tip the instrument to remove the legs and peddles.. Then it was laid on it’s side on a mat and pulled along the passage to it’s new home. That went well, but replacing the legs and peddles was a much bigger task than taking them off, as the legs had to be put on once the piano was the right way up! While the family held the piano, the head of the house lay on his back underneath, replacing the under structure as fast as he could!. Letting it slip from our hands was not an option!

At last all was in place and a well deserved birthday tea was served..

The bedroom light shade looked decidedly out of place in the new lounge and we have since made a trip to town and replaced it with a beautiful shimmering chandelier. The big screen TV is set up, pictures on the walls and flowers on the piano. The conservatory being part of the lounge now gives us more space and the whole effect is far better than we had expected and we wonder why it took so long.

The bedroom in the voorkamer is really nice too with morning sun and wide views of the front garden. Winter nights could be really cosy with a fire in the stove!

Garden Party at the Pines

Any excuse for a party.

Spring at Last.

Nursery Plant Propagation.

After turning eighty I began to think of how I could occupy my remaining years productively. I really would like to be a molecular biologist and thought seriously of starting a laboratory but with little experience and no backing for the half billion dollars needed I decided to look in a different direction and what better place to look than here at the Pines. Everything is set up already. The nursery is already a fact. It just needs some changes to be made to make it run properly again. Some tweaking. We are going to do everything better. In the beginning I was a little skinflint because we were not sure of ourselves, but now with nearly twenty years experience in propagating plants we can start again and fix the things that were wrong.We actually know how to do things right.

The mist bed is the important part. It was running at too lower temperature because of the high electricity costs in New Zealand compared with South Africa. In1997 that was. So instead of running it at 25oC I was running it at about 18oC. The mister had ceased to work properly because I was unable to get a new part as the supplier in South Africa had disappeared. I have managed to purchase a whole new and different system. The old system was based on a timer which could be set to mist for a short period of say five seconds every ten minutes. This had to be changed every time the weather changed which was a nuisance. It also had to have a day/ night switch. My new system is a balance arm which changes the amount of mist depending on the temperature and goes day and night. It is like an artificial leaf. When the water evaporates from a stainless gauze pad the balance swings and a mercury switch operates a solenoid valve and mist is sprayed . The weight of the water on the pad then switches it off until it evaporates again and it swings back like a see saw. The first mist bed was 'invented' only in 1953 and cuttings were misted continuously. Our first mistbed was at Glentworth in about 1987 where we were able to root Prof. Allen's Honey Gold paw paw cuttings.

Before we got all this going I had looked at the propagation tunnel and just wished we could start again. The mist bed was falling down and I thought it would collapse all together. Elaine appealed to four Mormon boys to help us. In two hours they removed all the sand from the table scraping the dirty sand from the surface and separating it from the clean sand, then together we heaved it back into position. I was then able to concrete the legs in place. The clean sand was replaced and the heating cable realigned. We then covered the bed with weed matting to prevent the potting mix getting mixed up with the clean sand.

The next thing to get right was the rooting medium. We have always used potting mix, but this is not the best because it contains fertilizer which inhibits root initiation. I have located a good rooting medium so hope for an improvement there.

All the old badly shaped plants have been removed from the growing tunnel so we can start again with new plants and try to keep pruning them to have a good shape when they are ready to sell and lastly I am learning to take the cuttings to help Elaine out.

After just four weeks new cuttings are rooting and I have already started potting them. Once potted they are placed on the mist bed but on a section that is not heated, just to help them on their way. All we need now are customers.

I think I will put my day/night timer back for safety sake so no water will be sprayed at night

Memories of 1984

The South African Connection. Sir George Grey and Dr. John FitzGerald.

Recently I've felt quite close to history. We have had some exciting visitors from across the Tasman! An historian in NZ traced descendants of Thomas FitzGerald who built this house, to Australia, and three great grand daughters were invited to visit us here. Fitzgerald was an amazing man who at 19 years old came from Ireland to survey land in NZ. He led a party up the Tukituki River to this area and set up trading stores and built this house and later several others. Many of the historic places in Napier such as the Catholic church were built by him. He became the first superintendent of Hawke's Bay in1859 to 61. Then he and his family went to Australia where he pioneered the sugar industry and founded the town of Innisfeil and surveyed McKay and laid out the streets giving them the same names as found in Napier.

We cleaned and smartened up the house. Keith mowed and trimmed the lawns and Elaine and I did the flower pots and outdoor table, which we could not use as it rained! Instead we sat round the big dining room table for a cream scone afternoon tea and talked and drank pots of tea. What delightful people they were. Living in this house has certainly given us an interesting life style that we would not have had anywhere else.

Thomas Fitzgerald and Sir George Grey became great friends while Sir George was on his first tour of NZ as Governor. Grey served as Governor of New Zealand twice. First from 1845 to 1853. and then again from 1861 to 1868. He was arguably the most influential figure during the European settlement of New Zealand during much of the 19th century. He was also prime minister of New Zealand for two years. Grey was Governor of the Cape Colony from 5 December 1854 to 15 August 1861. It was Governor Grey that persuaded the third owner of the Pines Dr Todd to take up the position of medical superintendent for this area. Sir George Grey was also a great friend of Thomas FitzGerald's brother Dr.John FitzgGerald who was his Medical Advisor and when he went to South Africa in 1854 as Governor he invited John FitzGerald to be his Medical Advisor there and to build a hospital at King Williamstown. This hospital became Grey Hospital ..

Grey was the moving force behind the creation of proper hospital facilities for the Xhosa population for the Ciskei and further afield. Gray's first step was to appoint FitzGerald as Superintendent of Native Hospitals. FitzGerald opened the forerunner of Grey Hospital on 28 April 1856 in 18 cottages in the Pensioners village in King Williams Town. During this phase the Superintendent played a major role in relieving the suffering during the cattle killing mania in which an estimated 50000 Xhosa eventually perished. He and Grey were also largely responsible for the erection of the native Hospital which was designed by Woodford Pilkton. The imposing building cost over 16000 pounds and was opened on the 14 June 1859. As a fitting tribute to Sir George Grey, the building was officially named Grey hospital in 1887. This declared monument is today the oldest and best known institution in King William's town and is still in use as a hospital.'

A sixteen year old girl, Nongqawuse, had a vision on the banks of the Gxarha River. She saw the departed ancestors who told her that if people would but kill all their cattle, the dead would arise from the ashes and all the whites would be swept into the sea. The message was relayed to the Xhosa nation by her uncle, Mhalakaza. Although deeply divided over what to do, the Xhosa began killing their cattle in February 1856. They destroyed all their food and did not sow crops for the future. Stored grain was thrown away. No further work was to be done. Days passed and nights fell. The resurrection of the Xhosa dead warriors never took place.
In his book The Dead Will Arise, historian J.B. Peires contends that by May 1857, 400,000 cattle had been slaughtered and 40,000 Xhosa had died of starvation. At least another 40,000 had left their homes in search of food. According to Dr. John Fitzgerald, founder of the Native Hospital who witnessed the events, one could see thousands of those "emaciated living skeletons passing from house to house" in places such as King Williams Town. Craving for food, they subsisted on nothing "but roots and the bark of the mimosa, the smell of which appeared to issue from every part of their body."
As the whole land was surrounded by the smell of death, Xhosa independence and self-rule had effectively ended.'

Well I have good reason to believe that Sir George Grey visited Dr. Todd here in this house after he arrived back for a second tour of duty as Governor beginning in 1861. Waipawa was the only centre of significance between Wellington and Napier and it would have been a good place to stop off on the long journey. After all it was right on the main track just after the river crossing at Abbotsford, as Waipawa was then known as.

His memory lives on in South African names, Grey's Hospital PMB. Greytown, Greyton, Grey High School in PE Grey College in Bloem. and and of course Lady Grey. . In New Zealand, Greytown, Grey River. Greymouth and suburb of Grey Lynn in Auckland.

Daffodil Day

The Twenty Eighth of August is Daffodil Day which is a day to raise money for the Cancer Society so they can continue the valuable work they do in helping people with Cancer. It is also a day to raise awareness of cancer in our community.
These photos were taken at the beautiful Daffodil farm near here. The daffodils were lovingly planted one bulb at a time, year after year and now it is a breathtaking sight for us all to enjoy.Click the photos to see them properly.