Week 22- Saxophonist on the Roof

I had to ferry back to the City of Sails (Auckland) first thing on Monday morning for a physio appointment. I feel as though we are making steady progress, even if it is slow. That afternoon I turned my Irish phone on to see that I had two missed calls from a number from Equatorial Guinea. I can only assume they were from a rich prince in desperate need for more help to get his money out of the country. I contemplated ringing back over night (This could have been my big break to get-rich-quick) but when I woke the next morning I had another missed call. This time from Somalia. I thought it must have been pirates who had caught wind of the prince’s plan and were sure to make me walk the plank if I accepted. I decided it would be best to not respond to either call. I had more important things on my mind anyway. I had to register for modules for the following semester and it was imperative I secured these spots otherwise my entire year would be derailed. Unfortunately, there’s a five day wait after applying so I don’t know yet.

Jack returned from his trip to Nelson so I cooked him dinner and then the two of us went to frisbee training. I just went for the cycle and to socialise. Amazingly, I was only marginally slower on my bike than Jack on the scooter thanks to the traffic. The majority of Wednesday was spent in the seated position. Firstly, I found some old footage from when I was still in primary school at sports day (including a video of mum winning the mother’s sack race!). I then finally got around to editing more than two hours of footage that I had taken on the Abel Tasman Trail into a four-minute video. This took pretty much the whole day but you can see the finished article here. After all that sitting, I decided to do some more sitting and went to see Murder on the Orient Express in the $5 Wednesday cinema deal. Perhaps not the greatest film but I enjoyed the story immensely.

Thursday began with Jack and I being told to vacate and strip our beds so they could be loaded onto the car to take to Waiheke. The car was almost twice the height with two beds, two mattresses and a Christmas tree on the roof. I didn’t follow immediately as I had a few things to do in the city and Jack and I video called Sam and his sister, Tara, simultaneously. Once I did cycle the whole way to the batch I helped unload the car before Mark and I went for a walk and saw a huge stick insect. We had mince for dinner and as there was some left-over Clare and I thought that there was no reason not to finish it off for breakfast. Mark decided we were quite strange. I built the new stand for the sink before I had to go back to the city for Physio. It was also an opportunity to see Star Wars Episode VIII The Last Jedi. I won’t say anything about it, other than I was glad they thanked the communities of Kerry, Galway and Donegal in the credits! I stayed in the city that evening to go to my good friend Rory’s 21st (Rory is on the New Zealand u24 frisbee team).

I couldn’t stay away from the island for long and caught the 07:30 ferry on Saturday morning. Two days prior, Jack’s friend had sent him an advertisement for a painting job on Waiheke asking him if it was his place advertising. It wasn’t, but we decided we would apply as we were on the island anyway. We got the job and arrived to start work at 09:30. Our main task was to paint the tin roof. We were using an oil based paint as an undercoat, on a hot roof, on a hot day (We had to carry around a towel as it was too hot to sit or put a hand on) and applying with 100mm brushes so it took pretty much the full seven hours to complete. We went straight to the sea when we had finished to cool off. On our way home, we were asked why we were swimming with a step ladder by the Swiss neighbours but Jack told the truth before I had the chance to make up an elaborate story which included an acrobatic penguin performance.

In the evening, we were joined by family friends, Katherine and Grant, for dinner and also a Spanish student, Adrianna. Clare cooked her famous Stack Chicken dinner. This involves putting a tin can, full of water, up the chicken’s back side and then standing it in the barbeque to cook. Much to Clare’s disapproval, Sam had decided to call it TAC chicken (Tin Arse Chicken) when he visited three years ago. We were back on the job at 08:30 to put on the second coat. Thankfully the day was not as hot and this time it was a water based paint so we finished a little quicker but it still took most of the day with the tiny brushes. We did a small bit of cutting in before we finished, earning a sizeable $620 between us. We headed for a swim again and I tried a short six-minute jog which felt good. We enjoyed a curry for dinner and just as we were settling down for some games the first few drops of rain that I have seen on Waiheke started to fall. I’m sure many of the locals were delighted.

You can see all the photos from the week, including the stick insect video, here.