My day off.

Our juicy plums. 

Love these flowers, they attract a diverse range of birds.  A lovely Tui fed here the other day.

Monday is my day off. 
I had to get some trays into the Night Shelter early in the morning. I had a bit of an uncomfortable early morning disaster with my catheter and bag plumbing system. Once cleaned up I went back to bed and slept in.  I sent a text to the person wanting the trays during breakfast, collected my tools and we got to the Night Shelter by 10 a.m.  We spent about five hours doing noticeboards, cupboard locks and door locks. Nothing goes as easily as you think.  I did not bring a chisel with me so had to use my pocket knife hitting the blade with my hammer. I enjoyed the time. There are people who say to me that they cannot do DIY stuff.  Though I am not an expert I cannot understand that. If you take it a bit at a time and problem solve you can do it.  But then there are skills I could never master which seem foreign to me, it is just that I am foolish enough to give DIY stuff a try. I began to do the cupboard locks and got stuck, thinking I had bought the wrong locks. I decided to go and purchase the door locks at my favourite hardware store. While there I visited the toilets and as I turned the lock behind me the penny dropped.  "Oh so that's how it goes!" I exclaimed, "I can do that!" Then I felt foolish. What if somebody was in the next cubicle?  I enjoyed doing the plain old physical DIY work. You put the locks on, screw everything in place and you can look at what you've done and feel satisfied, and it stays done. It's not like the work I normally do. 
It was a warm day so we had ice cream for afternoon tea, then we went out to pick plums. We had let the wood pigeons, bellbirds and possums have too many, it was time to get our share. As I was up the ladder there was a Bell bird nearby who was singing up a storm. They normally do not come as close to humans, but he was quite near and quite noisy. Being the bird whisperer that I am I know what he was saying... "Stop stealing my plums you thieving buggers!"  Sorry Bellbird, we got quite a lot of juicy red plums. We left some to ripen for you and your mates.  I look forward to lovely plums in deserts and jam.
I have a date.
This morning I was sitting at the breakfast table reading about the New Zealand cricket team's triumph last night, when our phone rang. I answered reluctantly thinking it was somebody going to ruin my day off. It was a friendly woman from the Urology Department at the hospital informing me of a date, just a month away when I can have my TURP surgery!  After my initial response she said, "You sound surprised? You were expecting it weren't you? Can you make that date?" "Oh," I said, "Yeees. That's good, it is fine, I... I just was expecting a letter?"  "Yes, don't worry you will get a letter confirming it, but we like to ring first."  I did not let on that because of my cynicism about our health system I had resigned myself to a longer waiting period. I am pleased that the date has been set. Potentially my troubles could be over. There is some uncertainty and my lifestyle could be changed, so there is a measure of apprehension as well. I realised when thinking about it, that I have never had a stay in hospital since I was a young boy and have seldom been ill. It will be a different experience for me.
I am a fortunate man.
Last night as we relaxed in front of TV our night was punctuated with communications from our kids. A phone call from our son in Christchurch, and conversations about our grandson. Two emails with video's attached and texts from our son in Auckland. Then a long distance phone call from Edinburgh in Scotland. It was our son talking about their holiday plans.  I felt lucky that we have such a loving family, keen to keep in touch with us and with each other.

Video's of our grand daughter.