it’s pretty upsetting. i had to dig up three plants just to get one meal. normally there’s too many and they end up being stuffed into cupboards and tumbling out when all you wanted was a plate. then you can’t shut the cupboard again because there’s spuds all bulging out. there is a bunch of spuds down there in the soil but most of them are the size of coins. the foliage has recovered and re-grown. but not my potatoes. i am going to become too despondent to finish this if i sit here and think about it for much longer. ah, well. righto.
i dug some potatoes on monday. the old bugger wanted me to go and visit one of his friends to fix their wifi. it wasn’t broken. the signal booster just needed to be explained. the old grandpa wasn’t home so i got the old nana to get her phone out and connect to the booster. she was actually quite technologically advanced. i’d heard the old bugger say she’s always baking so i was quietly expecting some cookies but nope. bugger. they’re there somewhere, i fucking know it. i think she got a bit flustered though because she said she had a bunch of other technological questions to ask me but she was all, “oh, ahh… um, ooh, well… um, oh dearie me! um,” and on and on until i just told her to write them down as she remembers and i’d come back some time. i didn’t add that there’d better be some tasty cookies on the bench. but there better be. banana chocolate chip.
i went back and did a bunch of weeding on wednesday. pulled out the row of broad beans that had been thrashed by the hail. the old bugger wasn’t there when i got there in the morning. he turned up at lunch time. he’d launched his fishing torpedo with the friend he’d sent me to, to fix the wifi. but hurt his back in the process. the torpedo and other gear needed the salt washed off it and to be put away. he looked a wreck. i told him a bunch of times not to worry about it. i’d sort it out. he wouldn’t listen. he went to get the garden hose and couldn’t even drag it around the driveway. i thought he was going to fall over. so i told him off. i had to tell him to fuck off, fuck fuck’s sake, go on! off you go, fuck off inside and sit down. i’ll sort it. sometimes you have to speak his language to get through to him. “yep, okay, okay. i’m going inside. ooh, i might have a whiskey too,” and off he stumbles.
he comes back out about an hour later, slightly tipsy and unusually friendly. no, i wasn’t actually mad at you, you fucking stubborn old mule. i had all the gear washed and put away by then. he said he didn’t ask me to help launch the torpedo that morning because he thought i was in hospital that day. he called the next morning and asked if i’d go and spray some weeds for him. i sprayed probably three weeds and we spent half an hour or so talking. i think he was just still worried that i was mad at him.
jimmy was here over the weekend. he looks exhausted. the silly season, i guess. we were going to try launch the boat and have a look at the river but we couldn’t find somewhere safe enough to get it off the trailer. so we took it to another river. that didn’t have enough water in it. so that was a lot of pushing. and dodging tree branches. we got over that in a hurry. went home.
the boys were here on sunday while my brother and natalie went to christchurch to replace their car that’d been written off for hail damage. it didn’t pass an inspection. i asked bryce about his garden at home, i think he loves grubbing in the dirt as much as i do so i took him up to my garden to pick some peas and beans. rather than lose my patience and just tell him off for breaking garden tools i taught him how to use some of them. he recognizes almost all of the vegetables in there so hopefully that wasn’t a mistake. well, at least, setting him to weeding didn’t end up with a completely demolished patch of dirt.
i took a nap after that. woke up. jimmy wanted to take the motorbikes over to the river to have a look at it since we couldn’t get the boat over there. that felt like hours of effort pushing bikes through mud, water and debris to make it a few hundred metres just to get to the river and stand there with your hands on your hips, look around and say, “yep, she’s well fucked,” then turn around and go home. i’m not fishing this summer anyway. i hope it stays unfishable all season. give the salmon a chance. but some, or most people will probably still be out there trying to catch them even when there’s none left.
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