14/2/10 morning out of sorts

My nephew is in hospital. He has been there since Friday at 8am. He needs an abscess draining that is causing him a lot of pain. It is only a ten minute operation but emergencies get priority and he keeps getting pushed down the list. We should hear tomorrow that hopefully it has been done.
Up at 07.20 this morning, but felt it was a bit early. Pottered around opening windows then pottered off back to bed. Got up again at 09.15. Because we have no transport we are stuck here until Fran comes; he said he would pick us up early afternoon. We had toast for breakfast, showered and filled the time with household chores. Had coffee and cake at 11, Mum didn't have cake! Liz popped in from next door, she had bought us a long brush for the floor while we had been away. That will save on the bums up from under the table! It got to lunch time, I made a salad sandwich but Mum just had a cream cracker and a couple of pieces of nougat. Her guts are upset. They are not used to kebab. I was just tucking in when Fran arrived. I thought and so did Mum that we would be going to Kingsley Street for tea, but we were apparently not invited. Fran kindly took us to the supermarket and I asked, after we had the shopping if we would be dropping it back at the unit and was answered in the affirmative, but when we got back he said he might see us later and left. He also said that he thought Liz was having a Scottish Evening and he thought she might invite us. She hadn't said anything although we had seen her twice already today.
Fran also thought it would be a good idea if I walked the 4kms into Cambridge to hire a car, although he had originally said he would check prices on the internet first. He obviously was not going to have us at Kingsley Street. I said to Mum when he went had we done something to upset him? But she couldn't think of anything. So then I got really cross about it. We are his guests and he has abandoned us. We have no phone and no transport. Mother is quite fit, but she is 75. If he was so busy he could have asked if Diane would pick us up, rather than leaving us to walk all that way. I'm still cross about it.

North towards Ruapehu

The voyage lasted three hours, we docked at 16.35 and were off the ship by 16.45. The port at Wellington is so slick we were actually back on the road heading out of town two minutes later. We stopped to fill the car up at Levin and Fran wanted to buy a sandwich and eat as we went but that troubled me when we had such a long drive ahead of us. So I refused and said I wanted to sit down for tea, so we set off again and stopped at Foxton, but there wasn't much there. In fact apart from the video hire store it was like a ghost town. We pushed on, Fran being like every other chap I know, didn't want to stop once he had got going. We got to Bulls, where people like to live; the sweet shop was irrisist-a-bull, the clothes shop fashion-a-bull, the deli delect-a-bull and we even followed a lorry over the desert road that was transport-a-bull. There were lots more including social-a-bull on the local club. We stopped for tea. For one reason or another we decided against most of the few eating houses there were and ended up at a kebab house. I had falafel in pitta with hummus and salad, Fran had a lamb kebab and poor mother who doesn't eat salad, ended up with a chicken kebab iskander that came with rice and chickpeas instead of bread, and we had a side of the hottest chips I've ever had with hummus and mint sauce in a pot to dip in. Fran & I had the usually abysmal NZ tea and Mum had apple tea that transported her back to her Turkish holiday. Feeling refreshed we set off again. Mum treated us to tea; $38 very reasonable. Darkness soon started to fall along with a light rain and the road steadily rose until we hit the desert plateau.
The desert plateau is an upland area comprising of volcanic ash worn away to a black sand by the wind and patches of tussocky vegetation anchoring some of it down, which helps to prevent sand storms. All the ash came out of the volcano Ruapehu and it is a truly vast plateau. As we crossed the expanse the light was such that it was possible to see out of the car and make out features like the mountain range in the distance to the left. To the right in the distance the ground seemed to fall away and a sheet of fog or rain was hanging there looking menacing. Fran said, out of the blue, 'It's a shame you can't see the volcano' then out of the mist a shape appeared and I could see bits of the mountain, then all of a sudden above it the fog parted and the sky was red. I nearly threw a fit. I poked Mum and said 'Look!' She turned round and said '"Red sky at night shepherd's delight", it looks lovely' and turned back round. I stared at the back of her head gob-smacked. Didn't she realise we were about to be blown to smithereens? I continued to watch behind me for puffs of smoke until I could no longer see the mountain. It was raining heavier too but I could still see a red light near it in the sky.
I was glad I wasn't driving because the road conditions were poor. The surface was slippery with atrocious bends and the windscreen wipers were making little difference to the visibility, the road works were unlit with no road markings and loose chippings and the journey just seemed to go on and on. It ended when Fran dropped us back off at the unit at 11.30pm. We pulled our bags out of the car thankful to be back, we waved Fran off, unpacked and sat down with a glass of wine and got to bed about 12.15am.