So it will come as no surprise that I am a miserable old fit that although I have lived in the same house for 25 years have nothing to do with any of my neighbours

Anyway just got home from work and there’s something in my letterbox. It’s a ziplock with a bulb in it from a household in my street

Says hi we are x. We don’t know many of you But we live at y. We’re the 5th generation of our family to live in the house. The house and family have lived through wars, the depression good and bad times and we will get through this.

We’d love to get to know you face to face but in the meantime we’ve set up a WhatsApp group. Put yr details below and we will add you

Here’s a daffodil bulb. If you want plant it by your letterbox and in the spring it will be a sign of hope and solidarity for our little street to remind us what we’ve come through. As we have a massive street party

It’s really nice to hear something like this so I thought I’d share. I’ve even broken the habit of a lifetime and signed up. I must be sick

Really dangerous - just imagine if BOD's vivid had slipped or run through yr kids clothes.

He could have dyed

Really interesting thread. Thanks everyone for sharing. I guess I should do the same.

I've always been a positive sort of person, but I find that being challenged as I get older. I think because shit keeps getting heaped on when I was planning for things to get easier.

My wife developed MS in her early 30's which got pretty bad to the extent she had to give up work and was in a wheelchair by 38. I spent the next 10 years as the sole earner and a pretty much full time carer too. Would get meals ready for her before I went to work Get up in middle of night to hoist her out of bed etc but eventually it got to the stage where she had to go into full time care as I couldn't cope any more on a diet of four hours sleep a night and she was only getting worse. Hadn't had a holiday for ten years and was working 70 hour weeks.

Massive guilt that she is in a home though. visit about 3 x week.

Then I met someone. More guilt. Both towards wife and new partner because she would like to move in together etc and I'm not prepared to go that far.

Job has become deeply unsatisfying but is well rewarded and at my age - basically hanging out for retirement. Life is work, go for a walk in evening drink too much sleep with weekends with new partner.

She has had a really tough last few years. Was made redundant and took six months to find a new job during which time I helped out financially obviously. Got a new job which she doesnt like and which pays much less so continued to support her. She had first grandson who was born with brain damage so got to spend lots of time at Akl Hospital. Fortunately he's now two and seems to be OK. His mother has had three miscarriages this year. Both of my partners other kids have had issues a bit beyond the normal kids I think. which places immense stress on her.

Her parents are now in their 90's with ongoing health issues but fiercely independent but really can't cope living independently but won't go into a retirement home. So our weekends are a non stop merry go round of visiting kids and parents to sort out their various issues.

Two weeks ago partners mother was hospitalised with a stroke from a brain bleed. Her husband is beside himself . It's sweet to see him just wanting to sit and hold her hand for hours on end but not so sweet to find cupboards full of (literally) shitty clothing etc. Mother was recovering well but on Friday had another massive stroke (on her 90th birthday) and is now in a pretty vegetative state. Husbands hoping she'll get better again and they can go home everyone else is hoping for a quick end. Meanwhile partners brother has cancer of esophagus and has had a series of ops and is now on chemo (again).

Partner is rushing into a job she hates (& where they are only paying the wage subsidy) then to hospital etc and is beyond strung out. I'm supporting her to the best of my ability financially and emotionally but it is tough. Effectively what with a couple of grand a month for my wife's care and several thou for partner I am eroding my retirement savings. Which is fine. It has to be done and it's only money, but as I said at outset this was supposed to be the cruisy years. No travel last two years which is how I keep sane and the prospect of having to work a couple of years longer before I do get to retire with the realization that I'm probably only going to be around 200-25 years if I am lucky and probably the last ten of those I will be health compromised so it irks me to lose a couple of the good years.

Honestly Level 4 when I could let go some of the guilt because I wasn't allowed to visit etc was like a holiday. Like others I have worked through and its bloody busy. Fewer staff means I'm covering even more roles. It's working my businesses are doing well which means people have jobs.

It all raeds a little self indulgent but am I happy. Not if I'm honest - except when reading the Grumpy Old Man thread

@Bovidae Pretty much saved me posting.

I too was at the game and it was magnificent sporting occasion. My brother had some sports ears and it was very obvious that while Poite was telling the Lions what they should do there were no repercussions when they totally ignored him.

Everyone agrees we dominated the first half. Gatland clearly got his troops together and said you've played shit - they're bullying you but your still in this and can steal it. Stop trying to play the AB's at their game and slow the game down and wait for the penalties to come. The AB's are over eager and the mistakes will come.
and come they did - right from the kick off. That penalty to get them to within three - you could see the belief grow in the Lions. Then AB's butchered another try and Kaino was (rightly IMO) binned and we lost the plot a bit.

Meanwhile Roundtree? was on the field every stoppage coaching the players chipping away at the ref - it was fucking annoying but quite effective. He, Gatland and Itoje have faces that just cry out to be slapped.

You could see the Lions stealing it becoming more real from about 20 minutes out so the end result was no real surprise - albeit deeply unsatisfying.

As for the ground itself. Monumental experience Worth every cent all 50,000 of them. I've read a bit about how the Lions fans out-passioned our support and we have to learn from them. Well while that is true I think by the 3rd test we Kiwi's had learned and certainly in my part of the ground the Lions were no more vocal than the locals. Every time a Lions chant went up or we felt the AB's needed our support the crowd were up to it. It took many cleansing ales and until about 3am before I got my voice back.

So while it feels like a series lost, we have an opportunity to learn from this. We're not as good as we thought we were, but we're still pretty good and unlike some I think Hansen will take a lot out of this and we will be all the better for it come Japan 2019.

Great night, great test shit result

@synicbast I was going to post that Kimber article - and written by an Aussie.

Says it all really and distills perfectly the essence of supporting NZ.

My memories of NZ test go back a bit further than yours. I can remember our seventh ever victory - fittingly against India away and recall that commentators saying we were fighting it out to avoid the wooden spoon. I remember Turners heroics in the drawn series in the Windies, the match in Nottingham in 73 which we should/coulda won and I listened on the radio at school (thanks to a cricketing tragic geography teacher who knew beating Oz for the first time was way more important than population studies) as Turner Collinge and the Hadlees took us to victory.

However it is ironic and incredibly apt for a Kiwi supporter that the match that really got me hooked on test cricket is just one in a long line of glorious battles to no affect. I sat glued to the TV and watched every ball as Collinge and Hastings set a world record 151 10th wicket stand. Glorious stuff but apart from the stat meaningless as we lost the series having been hammered in the earlier test.

Until yesterday that was pretty much summed it up for me and NZ cricket. Low expectations that too often were proven to nevertheless be unrealistically high. Favourite players like Burgess and Coney that were quirky grafters rather than stars. Magnificent guns blazing losing efforts like Astles double - summed up by 2019 at Lords. Don't hope coz like the last tour of Aussie it'll just break your heart. We're in the Boxing Day test - oh... Fuck!

Yesterday changed all that. I've always loved my cricket - more than any other sport TBH and Thursday morning paid me back in spades for over 50 years of suffering and torment. I watched till midnight and again from just before 4. I coudn't log on to the Fern as I couldn't tear my eyes away from the screen. Dare I hope. We'll get there in 5's boys. 50 to go - sti;ll time for a collapse 45 fuck my blood pressure. 20 Surely we've got this now. Then it changed to I want these two to be there at the end and then screaming my head off alone in a cold dark wintry house. Who gives a fuck WE WON.

It's not a story of redemption but it is the culmination of a journey that even in the bad times has been a delight but fuck winning feels so much better than gallant defeats. Thanks guys for everything.

It gets really tiresome so many threads being hijacked by Trump apologists
1 Hilary has publically stated that she is appalled by Weinstein and he should suffer full consequences of his actions
2 Yeah Hollywood majority is liberal but given the Sec State allegedly called Trump a moron why shouldn't an actor
3 Weinstein's abhorrent behavior doesn't excuse Trumps abhorrent behavior. There's plenty of allegations about him doing more than just grope but he's made to POTUS
4 Although it seems knowledge of Weinstein's behavior was indeed widespread politicians and political parties of all persuasions take money and endorsements from all manner of scumbags. Is it hypocritical to blame one when you have direct knowledge of the other and still cosy up to the second. Definitely but everyone's doing it - unfortunately.
5 The direct knowledge thing is interesting. Don't underestimate peoples ability to ignore stuff that with hindsight is obvious - not because of any benefit they receive - but because the facts are just too heinous for their mind to accept. Unfortunately I have some experience here. A guy once worked in one of my sites. He was an evil paedophile of the worst order. His workmates were defending him rigorously despite evidence to the contrary right up until he confessed because they could not believe someone they worked with and knew was a monster. I'm sure we've all had conversations like "wouldn't surprise me if X was done for Y" but we do nothing about it because we refuse to countenance reality and fall back to thinking he's a bit strange sure but No way. That's before you factor in the power and influence, money and lawyers and shit that Weinstein employed to ensure he could maintain a patina of respectability.

@hooroo Only what is in the media but I do have a few immediate thoughts.

• lt's being touted as a free stadium - but its not going to be free. At a minimum I would anticipate that the private investors would want the land gifted to them. That land being Bledisloe Wharf. I guess that this implicitly accepts that the proposal pre 2011 was never going to work as there was insufficient space

• PoA are in the very early stages of examining alternative sites for the port location, but any relocation is decades away. Losing Bledisloe at this stage is not commercially viable

• More commercial realities. Moving the port (probably to Firth of Thames) will cost shit loads. the cost-offset is the development of the existing port to unlock its land value. Plonking a stadium down wastes this land value effectively making the port relocation more expensive.

• A stadium is a poor use of such a prime site. As I have said before - there's a reason renders of stadia are always night shots with stands brilliantly lit up a people spilling out into the surrounding area. The reality is that during the day every one of them is effectively and blank walled citadel 13 stories high with no activity or street level engagement.

• It appears there has been an attempt to mitigate the above by part sinking it into the harbour. LMFAO way to dramatically increase costs. I can't imagine the millions of litres of water that will continually have to be pumped away but when Britomart was going to be 5 levels deep it was an astronomical figure.

• By all means move the port and develop the land - at some point in the future, but IMO such a development should be a combination of public space and residential. This both by the "private investors" and Goff just screams vanity project. We have a history of doing things like this on the cheap. Just what Akl needs a cheap plastic box right on our foreshore that will become effectively an industrial wasteland for 90% of the time. If there is a real desire to move away from EP then a proper site should be identified and developed. The whole perceived need is actually down to a ham=-fisted attempt to rationalise Akl's sporting venues and gather public support through a smoke and mirrors conceptualisation of something that would turn out far different to the pretty pictures Granny Ferald publishes every 6 mths or so

Unfortunately complacency seems to be hard wired into Kiwi DNA.

People not getting tested when they had symptoms is inexcusable.

Doctors not testing people who had symptoms is inexcusable.

Fuck knuckle retards trying to break out of (and into) isolation is inexcusable.

But the government has to shoulder a massive amount of the blame because there was plenty of evidence even before COVID that there is always a hard core of the population who won't do the right thing and feel laws and regulations don't apply to them.

We all know it so why not plan to counter it.

What is really criminal is the apparent disconnect between the public pronouncements about vigilance, the border is our defence, don't relax your efforts, COVID is a tricky virus, it will come back etc and the lack of action to enforce those blithe utterances.

If the border was our first defence what's the penalty for abandoning your post in the face of the enemy?

After decades of supporting NZ cricket sides through thick and even thicker these last few years have been revelatory.

So pleased for the team to have a tangible trophy to solidify their reputation as NZ's greatest ever side.

On and off the field they make you proud to be a supporter. They epitomise everything that we like to think is good about the Kiwi psyche. Humble, hard working, sense of humour, determined and clearly a bunch of mates digging deep for each other. Was great to see when the dressing room erupted that the whole squad were all involved.

Lot's of previous cricketers for NZ and a few sides have also played above themselves - this one has had the advantage of consistent selection and more than a few world class players. No more the plucky losers that the rest of the world can condescendingly look down on - WE ARE THE FUCKING WORLD CHAMPIONS!

Great match in the world. Full dues too to the Indian's for contributing in full with skill and spirit to what has been a momentous occasion for NZ.

@Winger This is precisely why I went long on tinfoil futures in February.

@taniwharugby as long as women continue to eat meat...

@booboo I thought Kuranda was massively over-hyped.

Do agree about the Tablelands and Daintree though. Cape Trib is awesome

Do not under any circumstances think a day trip to Undarra lava tubes from Port Douglas is a good idea. In particular do not leave at dawn, drive for bloody hours only to arrive and find out there are only two tours a day, you've missed the first one by 15 minutes and the next one isn't for another 5 hours.

@crucial

May 2019 was last trip to Raro. That was my last overseas holiday before these last two weeks in New Caledonia. I don't really count raro as a proper overseas jaunt - more like going to the Coromandel so it was four years between northern 'Nam and New C. A bloody eternity.

We always rent a place. Last time was just at the southern end of Muri. We just had a couple of old bikes for transport so Charlies was a bit far after dark. Usually sat round the pool at Nautilus

@Nepia

surely fewer ferals than the Tron is credible, if nothing else?

There are 100K more 'people' living in Hamilton. Most of whom in my experience have four thumbs...

@voodoo Ouch

I've had to stay in Palmie a couple of times recently and I must say I was pleasantly surprised.

Fewer ferals than the Tron, nice after work walk along the river, a decent craft beer place for a few jars and a fucking brilliant Vietnamese for a follow up Pho.

It really was a bloody enjoyable stay.

@MN5

Ri-ight

Jack died last July

@MN5

I thought Trader Jacks had closed when Jack died

@Nepia For that price I would expect to buy the Cooks.

Been there three times already. I reckon they'd recognise me if I walked into the yacht club at Muri

@Crucial his Live at the Great American Music Hall album is a goody.

Lost all his toys and a lifetimes memorabilia to California wild fire a few years back. I visited his vineyard in 2008.

Living the dream. Acclaimed musician, no real money issues, semi-retire to produce Syrah

@canefan Yep. There were very few foreign tourists about and most seemed to stay in Noumea or else were flying in and out of one of the resorts. Cruise visits are just about to resume and it seems a lot of the tourist infrastructure is geared to those.

Got the impression that otherwise the market concentrates on the budget traveller or the wealthy retiree's and we fell in the middle, which was not that well catered for.

I think they are also doing what Queenstown has and ramping up the prices to try and claw back the losses of the last couple of years.

One weird thing when you return your hire car, not only do you have to fill up the tank you have to clean it....

We were dropping car off at Noumea's domestic airport and fortunately found a car wash, otherwise who knows what I would have been sprung for le valet! We had driven two and a half hours already and had three hours before our 20 minute flight to Isle of Pines only to find the sodding airport didn't open till noon!