Places I have lived part 1

this looks abit like that song, I've been everywhere man. 

Pahiatua (born March 22 1962) I don't remember anything from living here, I left before I was a year old, I do know my father worked on a sheep station here.

Norsewood I remember a lot from living here, even though we left when I was only about 3 1/2 years old. The best story from here, was we had a mother pig that had just farrowed (had piglets) it was cold weather, must have been winter, the sow was inside out of the weather with her babies,   and the light was on for the piglets, I was fascinated with the baby pigs, and spent a lot of time watching them, and laying under the light playing and sleeping with them.

I don't know if you know but each piglet has there own teat for feeding off, and the runt of the little becomes the runt because its born last, and when all the good feeding teats are taken, so it has the teat that has the least milk... You can take one of the biggest piglets off its teat, and put it on another one, it will know straight away that not its teat, and push other piglets off there teat until it finds its own one. Anyway on with the story....
When they were a few weeks old, Mother heard one piglet squealing its lungs out, thinking the sow had laid on it, she rushed from the house to the barn, and there I was latched onto that piglets teat, it was squealing to get it back, and I was sucking away happily, with all the other piglets :)

Haumoana Beach; I was about three and a half when he moved to a camping ground, in Haumoana Beach, we lived in one big room, Mother, Dad, and my 3 brothers. Both mother and Dad would go out to work every day, my two older brothers would go to school, and my younger brother Owen and I would go stay with granny Brown, she lived right across the road, on the beach front, out her back gate was the top of the beach. I have never been back there, but I remember it being a very steep stony beach, that had big waves. I remember Owen and I used to help Granny lace up her corset in the morning, and spending a lot of time playing with Owen on the beach, unsupervised, granny was always inside sitting down, whenever I remember her. 

I remember one day, I was sitting looking out at the ocean, and right across the horizon from Cape Kidnappers across I could see hundreds of dolphins, jumping in and out of the water, as they swam right across, from Cape kidnappers up towards Gisborne I suppose, I don't remember seeing land in that direction when we were there. They were going past for days, most of the time they were single file, but one stage there seemed to be a few rows, deep... I have thought a lot about those dolphins over the years, how many there actually were.
When I got onto the internet 16 years ago, I did some searches, and couldn't find anything about them, but there had been a massive march of crayfish migrating up the coast, in '65 or '66 and I thought maybe it was the same year. 

Havelock North, we moved to a sheep station on Middle Road in Havelock North, Our farm backed onto the Tukituki River, I remember many thing from here, I still wasn't going to school, so younger than five the time we were there. I learnt to drive a land rover there, kids driving farm vehicles was normal are of daily living... the rule was our legs had to be able to reach the break before we could learn, most of the time, Dad was behind feeding out to the sheep, following a ewe with sick lambs back to the shed, or opening and closing gates as we came back from the back of the farm. 

I can remember a great big old tree getting cut down, in the gully behind out house, the logs being cut for firewood, and then a big bonfire being lite to get rid of the rest of the branches etc... and cooking potatoes in the ashes.... 

When I was 4, Mother and Dad had a massive big fight,(nothing new) mother got us out of bed, and told us. with my younger brother who was 18 months younger than me, to run over to the cowshead and hide.

We did, and listened to them fighting for ages, eventually Dad came over, and brought us back to the house, he was carrying the .22, Once home, he lined us up, against the wall, and said he was going to shoot us, and asked who wanted to go 1st.
Instead of being scared, us older kids started fighting about who was going to go 1st, we all wanted to be the No 1... This stunned Dad, and he lost the urge.

As farm kids we were expected to help with whatever work was being done, or bugger off and amuse ourselves. There was an old horse there, that was brought for dog tucker, but she was good with kids riding her bareback, so we got to keep her for the summer.... I can remember mother

helping me put a bridle on her, then me getting up on the gate, and getting on her back. I road about over the range, and down to the Tukituki River and spent the day there, there was a musterers sleeping quarters out the back, and between there and taking the old horse Myra for a swim a few times that day, I had a pleasant time by myself.... Home life was pretty rough for me, so I preferred time by myself. 

I got home after dark, and mother beat the hell out of me for getting home after dark.... I knew I would get in the crap for getting home late, but never notices the sun crossing the sky, until it started to turn twilight, Myra was about 25 or so, so I just had to ride her as slowly as she wanted to go... which was slow lol.... Getting beatings from Mother was no big deal, yes it hurt at the time, but I don't remember the pain now... 
Anyway Dad's drinking started to cause a problem, and I think he got fired from there, so we moved again. 

Hastings: We lived in a couple of places in Hastings I think, but I can only remember one place at the moment, It was on the t inspection, right beside a primary school, it had a big old walnut tree in the back yard, a small corner dairy across the road, a park across the road from the school, and close to a fun park of sorts, with a castle, and canoes you could rent, the highland games in Hastings used to be held there.  I don't remember where my parents worked when we were there. I'm pretty sure I started school there, but was only at school for a very short time, before we moved again.

By Mamamia Motel. This house was a big old concrete house, and lots happened here, a lot of stories about things dying, Uncle Bill died when we lived there, Mum and dad fighting, animals dying, bad Juju when I think about it now... The house was in the middle of a big paddock, and there was a woman that had her horses grazing there. I used to help her brush the horses. 

That was the place my eldest brother shot me with a slug gun, several times, one slug made my back bleed, and my brother threatened me with a beating if if I told... so I didn't... 35 years later, I had an e-ray done on my back, there was a growth the size of a golf ball, with a dark center.... turns out it was the slug, that my body had grown a large wort like growth around.... That xray was after i hurt my back, and there was a hope that when they removed it, my backpain would go away, no such luck... 

That place was also were my young brother Owen, were playing with the .22 rifles, we thought it was empty. and would aim it at each other and pull the trigger... Owen was a tiny kid, 18 months younger than I. He was getting tired, when he picked the gun up, and it dropped on the floor, he picked it up again, got on his bed, so he could get a good shot, but he couldn't pick it up properly, so it was facing the mattress, when he pulled the trigger, the bloody thing went off hahaha... we didn't laugh then of course, the walls were concrete, so it made a hell of a noise.... So we got a decent fright... they girl that owned the horses was babysitting us, so we got yelled at from her, then when Mother got home, we were yelled at a beaten the snot out of, we both had bruises for a ages from that bit of afternoon entertainment. 

Flaxmere My parents build their own home in Flaxmere, it was a Lockwood home, very flash.... we lived there for a couple of years I think. I has a lot of nasty stuff happen to me there, which I won't go into, I was 8 while i was there, and like so many people I hear talking about stuff that happened when they were 8, it seems a cursed age, or maybe that's when people really start remembering a lot of stuff from their past when they are eight. 

On of the first memories of this place, if I had a bedroom of my own, the curtains had a horsey theme, so horse shoes, saddles, bridles and pony's jumping over haybales.... I loved that room so much.... one day not long after we moved in, I got hold of a pair of dressmakers scissors, and I started cutting single cuts in the curtains, I just loved the sound it made as it cut,,,, after about 20 cuts, it dawned on me, that I was in trouble, and boy was I right, another beating for my trouble .... 

There was a park across the road from our house, and next to it a big paddock of old fruit trees, at one stage they cut the fruit trees down, and bulldozed them into about 10 massive big piles, they were an awesome place for building huts and forts, so all the neighborhood kids spent most days after school and the weekend, playing in the piles of trees. 

I got caught playing "you show me your, and I'll show you mine" in one of the piles.... got in a lot of trouble for that too... at school, a male teacher we had, brought a record into school, and we listened to the moon landing.... 

I got Rheumatic Fever when we lived there, I was in hospital for months, Mother used to say she was visiting me, on the way home from her work, but I only saw her twice in 3 months. She had Polio and Rheumatic Fever when she was my age, the sister of the ward was very cruel to her, and I was in the same ward, I guess it just brought back too many memories, although at the time, it didn't bother me too much, she never liked me, so I just thought she couldn't be bothered coming in. No biggy, the nurses and other kids were pretty nice, and I loved the school teacher that came in everyday.

 I was on bedrest all the time I was there, so I got a lot of stuff to do, I remember making a paper mache pig, starting with a balloon in the middle. That pig in the picture looks very much like my pig I made then. Even as far as the uneven ears. 

My claim to fame when living in Flaxmere, I got the local bus to run into Hastings on a Saturday, so kids could go to the movies, I started a partition, and took it house to house by myself collecting signatures. 

Another thing I did, was get a pedestrian crossing at the front of the primary school, and was the first of two kids to do the the lollipop sign duty....  I was a responsible lollipop sign guard I was :) 

Mother organised with us kids to kill my father while we lived there. She was going to start an argument with him, grab the .22 rifle I was to hand her, that I had beside my bed. There was this whole plan she had worked out with use, for a week before the day, each time day when to work he would be planning. 

She did go through with it, I gave her the gun, she ran into the lounge, and pointed it at him threatening him, got up close, and as she pulled the trigger, he hit the muzzle into the air. Dad was a bleeder, and the sight or something on the gun ripped the top of his hand, and he bleed like a stuck pig, and ran out of the house. Mum called the police, and said she had shot him... the bullet went into the roof, and is still there as far as I know. 

Mother was arrested, and carted off to jail, Dad came home, and looked after us, until Mother got bail, then he left. Mother had some friends in Havelock North, she took us kids over there to live while the court case was going on... 

When she went to court, the judge asked her if she was sorry for what she had done... She said in a big loud voice. "Yes your honour, I very sorry... Sorry I bloody missed him... " Since she had 4 kids and day wasn't hurt, she was given probation. 

Dad owned, bred and raced thoroughbreds, one of his prize filly's Tania was staying out on a farm, and got pregnant to the farm hack, without Dad knowing, she was coming up two years old, so he brought her into town so he could break her in. I didn't have a lot to do with her then, but she became mine, once she had her foal, which ruined her for racing. 

Believe it or not, those where the good or not to bad things that happened when I lived there. So I'll skip the rest.... 


About 6 months after the shooting, Mother and Dad, decided to move upto Otorohanga, and start milking cows. 

Otorohanga. I was about 9 or 10 or so when we moved to Otorohanga, still at primary school, I loved being back on a farm. It was a mixed sheep and dairy farm, Dad and Mother were milking 80 cows, in a 4 aside herringbone cowshed. Us kids had only had hand milked house cows on the other sheep farms we were on. And had never seen, what we first called Tit Suckers.... Owen and I laughed and joked at the tit suckers the first milking, Dad got furious, he must have told a few lies to get the job, so he couldn't have up kids not using the right lingo for dairy farms, they were called CUPS not bloody titsuckers...  I don't ever remember Dad hitting us as kids, he'd yell for sure, lock us out of the house, make us work, but not beat us like the mother did. 

On the second night we were there, dad and Mother were milking the cows, and Owen and I went out to look at the milk pumping into the vat, the vat was getting quite fill by then, and cream had settled on the top. So Owen and I were scooping up handfuls, dirty hands for a start no doubt, and licking and drinking the cream.... it was delicious, and we stuffed ourselves, ended up spewing out guts out, I never drank cream again until about 10 years ago, so didn't drink for 30 odd years. 

I was watching one of the shepherds one day killing a sheep, it was a ewe, and she had a bad bearing, (that means the intestines was rupturing out it rectum)... the ewe was heavily pregnant, and couldn't push the lamb out... actually thinking about it now, perhaps the bearing was coming out her vagina, I dunno all the same area for a kid. 

Anyway, the Shepard cut the ewe's throat,  and while she was kicking out, we noticed the lambs kicking in her belly, so the shepard cut open her stomach, and pulled out twins, a ram and a ewe lamb. I took the ram lamb, it was smaller and sickly,  and the shepherds son got the ewe lamb, we could rear them for the school calf club. 

Mother was going away for the weekend, the about the second day I had the lamb, she told me to put a chook egg in the milk, heat the bottle, and feed the lamb every 4 or so hours, or when it started making a noise... the egg was supposed to work like colostrum and the lamb would only get it for a week or so.... what mother didn't make clear, was the amount of milk to put the egg in. I assumed it was an egg every feed, whereas it should have been one egg a day.... anyway, mother came home, all the eggs used up, lol.... I was thrashed again. But hell that lamb was the healthiest lamb that ever was. It was way bigger than its twin by calf club day... 

I made friends with the girl whose parent's owned or managed the piggery across the road, many happy hours were spend over at the piggery, I always had an affinity with pigs, since that incident at the start of this story. The friend didn't much like the piggery, she just complained about the smell, and want to go home. But I always loved the farrowing sows, a couple of lesbian girls ran the unit, and while I didn't know what a lesbian was in those days, they just lived together, that's all I needed to know, they were very good to me. Anyway, I got to know the girls, and spent most afternoons sitting in the unit, watching the little pigs, those were the best days of my life. 

My eldest brother was still living down in Hastings, so being there was safe, and as close as I've ever been to a normal life I had. We lived there about 6 months. 

Te Awamutu: Then we moved to Cambridge, a Jersey Cow Stud. its a long time ago, but I think there was around about 200 cows milking there. The heard was town supply there, which means cows are calving at all times of the years, so the farm always produced milk, to go to the dairy factory and be made into milk for the townies. 

Because there was always a few calves to feed, I got to know the owner. 

I got friendly with the owner of the stud, and started teaching the show calves to lead, and was often found brushing and looking after the calves. Noel John, was the owner, he started talking me to the shows with him, because his boys were only preschooler and too young. 
I learned to shoot while living there, it was the .22 rifle shooting rabbits and possums, there was a clay-bird range across the road, I never went over, but would often hear the shooting over there.
I was never keen on shooting, after I hit  rabbit, and it took ages to die, and to be shooting, meant I had to be alone with my eldest brother and I always avoided that... 

Dad's drinking was a problem again, and we left there at the start of the new milking season, about 6 months later. on July 30th

Cambridge: At Cambridge we were on another dairy farm, this time 340 cows, but when we first arrived, the cows where all dry, so all we really did was feed out hay to them. 

Then they started calving, and it was insane quickly, most of the older cows would have their calf by themselves, by the first year replacement heifers had a lot of problems, the

guy milking their the year before, had been pissed off at the owner, so had got the heifers in calf to a Hereford bull, they are the ones with white faces, and mostly one colour body's of black or red/brown, have very big heads so calving is especially hard for first time calvers, usually the smallest cows jersery's are a better bet for heifers. 

They are light brown in colour and look more like a deer's head. 

There were a lot of dead calves, and many damaged young cows. Its also their first

time to milk after their first calve, and they don't like being milked, so the jump and kick out at anyone trying to milk them, or kicking the cups off. And they shit everywhere... so it was ciaos. 

I must have been 11-1/2 almost 12 then, and I got the job of feeding the calves morning before school and after school... I loved it, teaching them to drink out of a calfeteria. 

Calves generally are devided by gender, the male bull calves used to just feed until they were big enough to go away on the bobby calf truck, to one killed and made into veal, most where big enough at birth, so it was just a case of feeding them until the next day the bobby calf truck came, generally twice a week, the heifer or female calves, or the better heather ones, where kept to be reared for replacements in the herd, starting milking when they were two years old.  

Once the calves could feed ok, off the calf-teria they were easy to feed, but before that, it was hard going teaching them. 
As I said, I taught them to drink, because I had the most patience, and i would sit over

there playing and encouraging them all the hours I could. Kids were never paid for the work they did, it was just expected you worked if you lived on a farm, that's just the way it was. 

My favourite memory from that farm, was a horse I got, Tania, the filly that had the foal back in Flaxmere, that ruined her for racking, became mine.... oh they were the happiest of days for me. 

I would saddle her up, first thing on a Saturday and Sunday morning and go out riding the whole day. We lived on a ring-road there, the road went in a big circle and met up with itself near the beginning, then if we road about a mile there was another ring road that we could ride as well... I seem to remember it was about 15 miles around both roads, but whatever it was, I could quite easily get around them both, and take the longest way home on the one I started on, and it would take from Early morning to almost dark, if I stopped in along the way and talked to various people, buy this time, I hated being home on the weekend, so any excuse to make the ride last longer, I took it. I would go in the worst weather, kitted out in an oilskin coat.

There were various other farm kids that had horses too, so I used to call in at each

of their houses to see if they wanted to come for a ride. They weren't allowed out for as long as me, so I would ride with them for a couple of hours then they would go back to their place. 

I loved Tania and used her for work around the farm whenever i could, I taught her to work with calves then cattle, she was very good at stock work, and could turn very quickly, it ended up being our undoing, but I didn't know it then. 

I was galloping her through a paddock one day, and trip, and I came off, breaking my arm, it was a very bad break, just a couple of inches below the shoulder, so it couldn't be put into a cast for a long while, and when it was, they put lead weight in the bottom of the cast to pull the break apart for it could heal properly.... those months I had that bloody broken arm were the pits, it was over summer school holidays, so of course i couldn't go out riding.... thankfully she didn't hurt herself too much, she had a limp for a while, but didn't break anything. 

While my arm was broken, mother brought me a pedigree corgi puppy, one of the few nice things mother did for me, she really didn't like me at all .... 

Anyway, that puppy became my constant companion, she was never old enough to go riding with me, and her legs were way to short, but when my arm finally healed, her wee legs were just too short, she would follow along if I was riding around the farm doing some work for dad though. 

She was great at herding ducklings and chickens, and would try to round up the calves but they would just look at her, her her funny wee bark, and go where they wanted. 

She used to sleep with me, and I remember many many nights, she would lick my tears away, and she always knew when I was starting to have a nightmare, which was at least once a night, all my dreams were nightmares by then, and she would lick my face to wake me up, at the very start of them.... She always knew when I was upset during the day, even if she wasn't where i was, she would find me, and lick my face, make me play with her, until I was happy again. She could also tell when I was having flashbacks, and for that she had a different strategy, she would bark 3 times, and it was enough to snap me back to the present. 

She was what they would now call a companion dog, I can see why they are so good or vital for people with depression and anxiety to have. I have never had a dog since Cindy, but one day I will. 

We lived on that farm for almost a year. 

My parents sold the house in Flaxmere, and brought a shop that was beside the picture theater in Paeroa. So we moved again. 

Paeroa '75-'79   It was a coffee shop, bakery, and we opened for the theater crowds. We lived there for the longest time in my life, from when I was 12, until I was almost 15. 

I had to leave Tania the horse behind, when we moved to town, Dad kept promising me he would be grazing for Tania for about six months, then the promises stopped, and I wasn't allowed to mention her. I found out about a year later, he had sold her. 

Remember I said I had taught her to work with stock, and she was very good at twisting and turning quickly, well, he sold her as a polo pony, and she went to live somewhere in Bali, I never heard, but I hope she had a good life she would have been about 4 or 5 years old, so she had a lot of years left in her. 

I was able to take Cindy the puppy. and she lived with us at the shop. 

In the bakery part of the shop, Dad used to bake the pies for the shop, and i was very quickly a pie cook, the big oven used to cook 9 dozen pies at a time, when the rugby games were on at the domain behind the shop, we had a pie booth over there, it was nothing for use to bake 10 oven loads of pies for a big game. 

One time Dad and Mother were fighting again, and day left, that was nothing unusual, he was always coming and going for weeks at a time, anyway they had  massive fight one night before a big game, I cooked all the mince, steak and kidney, and apples for the 90 dozen pies that were going to be cooked during that night... 

When used to also make the pastry for the pies in those days, so I made loads and loads of pastry, flaky for the tops of the pies, short pastry for the bottoms of the pies. 
They were still fighting, so I started making the pies, mostly because I needed the pots to cook the next lots of filling. But also because I wanted to help and surprise them.... 

Eventually I saw Dad leaving again, with his clothes, Mother came down after a while, and told me to just finish up that overload, she was tired and going to bed. I decided to carry on baking, when each oven load when in, I would be rolling out the flaky pastry, it needed time to rest  before it was used. So the bench I rolled the pastry was also the bench where the trays of pies where put to cool done, so I could remove them from their single tins, and prepare the next lot to go in the ovens, it was full on work. But at 12, I handled it very well... 
Oh and I was running big flat boxes of of cooled down pies over to the rugby ground as well, because we were running out of space to store that many. 

Three loads from finishing the pies, I realized I had made too much pastry, I knew mother would be angry, because we used butter in them, which was expensive, and we didn't have a fridge big enough to store the pastry... 

Mother showed up, just as I was putting the last load in the oven, and I was right she was furious, one that there were dirty pots, and two that there was so much pastry left over, probably enough for another 2 oven-loads of pies.  I got yelled at and finally thrashed for wasting money, bigger problem was, the pies were still in the oven while this was happening, so they burnt.... so I got another hiding for that....then she stormed off back upstairs to the house. 

There was enough meat left to make more pies, so a started cooking the meat, and used up all the pastry, and finished the job. Then I went upstairs quietly and went to bed for 3 hours. Next morning, I got in trouble again for not cleaning up properly, but I had to get over to the rugby ground, and set up the shop over there, so I was out of her way. 

I spent the whole day selling pies and fizzy drinks and milkshakes. cleaned up over there, added all the money up ready for banking on Monday. At about 3pm, I went home to bed. Mother never did thank me for that, although years later i did hear her telling a friend how she had taught me to cook so well, I cooked all those pies by myself, she never mentioned the beatings, the friend said I bet you were proud of Lynn, which my Mother agreed that she was very proud of me... Funny, I felt good about that whole thing after that just thinking she maybe didn't hate me so much as I thought, even for that short while. 

Cindy the puppy, was still my companion, but my eldest brother came to live with us, and started taking a lot of notice of her, so she started being very friendly with him, how that upset me.... 

I went to Paeroa Central School, I was a mild mannered, polite kid at school, and usually wouldn't say Boo to a goose, I knew my place, ri be seen and not heard.. I was also known as a dummy, I didn't find out until about 30 years later, I was just duslexic, but in those days I "knew" I was dumb. I only had one dress to wear, for both working in the shop, and going to school, it was a smock, so it washed easily, and dried overnight. How I got teased for wearing that same dress to school day after day. 

The first class i was in, had a student teacher, and after a couple of weeks, he was always calling me a different name, Lynnette Bison, or something like that, he told the class that I reminded him of another fat girl he taught with that name, she was Intellectually Handicapped, the name they gave to people with Downs Syndrome in those day.... 

Hells teeth, as if being overweight, and wearing the same dress all the time wasn't enough reason to tease me, now the kids had this. Everyone started calling me the name, and pretending to be an idiot, by doing their impressions of someone with that condition whenever I saw them, they taunted me for weeks. 

One day this teacher was taking class, and I was talking when I was supposed to be quite, so he told me in a big loud voice, Lynnette Bison, turn you hearing aid on, and listen and shut up. That was it, I turned around, and told him to "Get Fucked You Asshole" I was marched off by the scruff of my neck to the principals office.

The student teacher told the principal what I had said, and I was left to stew in my own juice, waiting to see the principal... it seemed like hours i waited. My parents were called, but they didn't bother to come down, Mother just said she would deal with me when I got home. 

I finally went in, and the principal was really nice. He said, Lynn, you are a lovely kid, what on earth made you say this. I burst into tears, and told him the whole story, he listened patiently writing down stuff now and again. Then he told me to got to sit in the staff room for the rest of the day.  Which while good, left me to think about going home. The only problem was the principal never contacted my Mother to let her know what had happened. 

I'm sure by now, you can guess what happened when I got home, I had brusies on my legs the next morning, when I went to school, I went to class, with my head hung, and sat at the back of the class. 

After about ten minutes the principal came into the room, made me stand up in front of the class, then turned to the teacher, and told him, I believe you have something to say to Lynn. I was so embarrassed, and I could see all the kids were looking at me with glee, thinking I was going to get into trouble again. The teacher cleared his throat, and apologised to me, honest you could have heard a pin drop, and the looks on the kids faces was priceless. I'm chuckling while writing about it. The teacher went on to tell the class, they were not allowed to tease me about his calling me Lynnette Bison, or saying I was intellectually handicapped any more. They still teased me about being fat, and wearing that same dress, but I was used of that. :)

Cindy came on heat, and was tied upstairs on a chain in an attempt to stop her getting in pup. 

I started piano lessons around then, I wasn't any better at reading music than I was at reading books aloud in class, but it got me away from the home one afternoon a week, so I kept at it. One day my oldest brother came to pick me up from music.... something that never happened.. on the way home in the car, he told me Cindy had broken her chain, run down stairs happy to be free, and fallen between the steps, her chain caught, and she had hung herself. That was a pretty bad time for me, and I have never owned a dog since, I'm bad luck to animals... I would really like another small dog now, but the realty is, I'm not able enough to take it for a regular run, or bend down to pick it up, so I guess a pet is out of the question. 


I ended up having that principal as a teacher the next year, and what an awesome teacher he was to me. My birthday is in March, near the beginning of the school year, so I was the first in the class to become a teenager. He had me stand up, and made a big deal about how I was the first in the class to be grown up, and went on and on about Me being a teenager, I was so embarrassed, but also very proud. 

He was also the teacher, that taught me the most helpful thing I ever learned at school, not knowing I was dyslexic, but knowing I was still struggling with with my times tables, he told me to stop trying to learn them, and learn instead to add together all the single digit numbers with each other, so I could add them without counting on my fingers. I worked so hard on that, and within a month or so, I asked him to test me, one day after school, and sure enough I could add all numbers better 1 and 9 to any other number in that range. It has been a great skill over the years... 

I feel in love with that teacher, his name was Roger McClay, I adored him, he would come into the shop sometimes, to talk to Dad about business, and I would sit out the back, looking at him with big loving eyes. He's on of the very few teachers, whose name I remembered, and I still have a soft spot for him, when I think of him. 

At the end of that year, I was most upset that I was leaving that school, to go to the local high school... 

Nothing much I remember happened at highschool, I remember you could always tell if I had a male or female teacher, For Male teachers I would always get a glowing report card, and for female teaches, I was lazy, could try harder. 

I had a particularly nasty English Teacher in the 4th form, I forget her name, but can still see her scowling at me. 

As I said before, my birthday was at the beginning of the school year, and I left school soon after I turned 15. We left the shop a little before then.  

Part 2  
Part 3
Part 4 

• Places I have lived part 6
• Places I have lived part 5
• Places I have lived part 4
• Places I have lived part 3
• Places I have lived part 2
• Places I have lived part 1

Lucy and I

I lived with chronic pain for 20 odd years, I was so crippled up with pain, I couldn't even walk to the letterbox and back. I used a mobility scooter ever time I went outside. My life was waking, getting to the computer, sitting there, usually on facebook, until I went to sleep a couple of days later.
I suffered with nightmares so badly, I had trained myself to only sleep twice a week, generally for 4 hours at a time.

When The Nutters Club 1st moved to Newstalk ZB, I moved radio station with them, and I started listening to several of their shows each week. I've written before about how I was suicidal for several years, and every now and then I would ring the various hosts, when I was particularly bad, and talk about how I had nothing to live for anymore.

I never knew of course, but there was another Nutter her name was Lucy, she lived in the North Island, that also listened to that station most of the time, she heard several of my calls. Both the calls when I talked intelligently on some topic or other, and those calls, when I was I would talk about how I had no family, or friends, no hopes for anything, nothing to live for.

The last time I ever rang The Nutters Club, while suicidal, after my call, Lucy rang the show and asked them to let me know, she had left her phone number, so I rang back, and gave her a call. She must have spoken to me for a couple of hours that first call, then rang me several times over the coming days, then 2 or 3 times a week, once a week, generally on Sunday evening, before the Nutters Club show.

Lucy lives with chronic pain and fatigue, and it was great having someone that "got" what that is like, she also had a physically  abusive childhood, my childhood was filled with sexual abuse and neglect, we'd both recently come out of long term relationships, so we have a lot in common.

There were several occasions when she let me talk my way out of other suicidal nights. The more I talked, the more she listened, and when she knew I was finished, she would talk a little about herself.

Although I always enjoyed her calls, I often felt uneasy between calls, because it always seemed I was taking and she giving, it didn't sit right with me.

Anyway, the months went on, Christmas came and went, and around Feb this year, I came out of the depression I was in, I have written before, about how that happened,

Our phone friendship changed and we started talking about other stuff, vitamins, effects of various medications, making small changes in our diets, various things we had tried over the years, physical and emotional therapy's, various councilors their techniques if they worked or not, something we would try over the coming week.

We both had small voluntary jobs, mine was working on a website for a community group, and through  that job, I moved to the area about an hour from where Lucy lived, the 1st weekend I was there, she borrowed a car, and came to visit me, it was a big deal for her to do that, it was wonderful to met her at last.

As it turned out, that 1st place I went, wasn't suitable for me to live, and I went to stay with some new friends up near Taupo.

By this time, I had my pain controlled well, had stopped taking all the various painkillers, and antidepressants, sleeping pills, side effect meds, etc  etc  etc I was taking, and I was beginning to walk well, I didn't really need my mobility scooter. I started playing with the idea, of giving my scooter to Lucy,

Why not? It would make her life so much easier, I was going to be moving to the country, so the scooter wouldn't be any use there, so next time we talked, I put the idea to her, she was excited, but said she wouldn't just take it, she would loan it, use it, and care for it, she would also apply for her own scooter, and when she got it, would help me sell my one.

Within a month, the scooter was delivered to Lucy, but the 1st week or so she had it, it rained or was cold and windy, finally there was a fine day, and she went out for s a ride. She has a Jack Russell, named Pip,  at 1st Pip didn't like riding on the scooter, but she loved running alone beside.

I spoke to Lucy after her first ride, she was telling me about how much she liked it, how she could do so much more when she got to the shops, how she could bring more than one book home from the library, how she could now do all her grocery shopping at once, and best of all, how she wasn't to any extra pain like she usually was after walking to shops, and then struggling home, carrying whatever she had brought.

She had all sorts of ideas, about future trips she could take, and things she could now do, so many plans and ideas. I'm so glad we were talking on the phone, because I had a grin from ear to ear and was chuckling to myself, and she would have gotten self conscious if she could have seen my face.

Lucy has had the scooter for about a month now, and although she is struggling with a nasty flu, having the scooter has been wonderful for her, and wee Pip, who is now quite happy to sit down near Lucy's feet or on her knee, in between getting off and having a good run. .

About a week ago, I got my 1st mobile phone, so Lucy and I text each day, sometimes just to say Hi, thinking of you, other times, the texts fly back and forwards for a few hours.

I'm so pleased that now our friendship is equal, we both give and take, we each have good days, and encourage each other at times the other needs it. Life is great. :)

Tribute to my Wife

Tribute to Wife, Kym
I first "met" Kym some time around the year 2000.
She was a Californian, born and grew up in San Diego, I was a Kiwi, born and bred here in New Zealand.
I was a tutor, for a graphics program, in a Yahoo group, and she was one of my students. Kym was a very talented artist, but until then had only painted, on canvas. I used to teach the total newbies. And although most people would just follow the tutorials exactly, but Kym always added her own flair to anything she did.
It was my job to help out students to do each tutorial, then check everyone's tutorial and send feedback to each student privately, giving them pointers, or just commenting on their work.
But since Kym always sent in outstanding work, after first two or three lessons I started emailing her asking privately about her very obvious artistic eye.
After a couple of weeks, Telecom had some special that you could ring America and speak up to 6 hours, for something like eight dollars. So I asked if I could ring her, and that first conversation we spoke for the whole six hours. I loved her accent (was't too much like a yank), and she loved my Kiwi one. It was during that first conversation, in fact the first 15 minutes of that conversation, that she worked out that I was dyslexic.
Back in those days, emails that I wrote, hardly ever had words that were over five letters long, because I couldn't spell the words I needed. I would go to all sorts of lenghts to not let people know I was a dummy. But like I said, once Kym heard me speaking, she knew that I spoke clearly, and that my vocabulary was in fact extensive.
Once the call it ended, about two days later, I received an email from her, when she explained what dyslexia was, and sent me a link, to a website about dyslexia, and in particular a list of symptoms of dyslexia, there was a list of about 50 things, and I had 47 of them. LOL
Kym made my dyslexia a challenge, and started searching the Internet for things that could help me, she found a little program that would read the words on a webpage, or any digital file. It had a funny robotic voice, and of course it's pronunciation of some words was humorous.
She also found me a really neat program that I still use now. It was dictionary, thesaurus type program, and although dictionaries aren't a lot of good if you can't spell the word, I could copy and paste words into it, words are found on webpages and it would tell me the meaning of the word, I found that really helpful, I've never been able to understand the pronunciation characters in a dictionary, but that little dictionary has a feature to pronounce words. And of course this thesaurus was really good.
She found me lots of programs over the years, she even got an illegal copy of mircosoft office, and help me said it up so it would auto correct many of my spelling mistakes. I learnt to use all the programs really quickly, I am clever like that, I never use a help file, never found a very helpful, but can nut out how programs work, with ease. I used to download programs for the one month trial, learn to use them, and not bother with the many more because I had no need for them, I just used like a challenge. Photoshop was the most fun, still love that program.
We quickly became great friends, and would spend hours and hours and hours chatting on MSN live chat, which was sort of like Skype is now, except you didn't have videos, so it was just chatting back and forth using a headset, often times the connection on MSN was better than talking on the telephone. It wasn't the lag the telephone often had.
Back in those days, I was crippled by back pain, and spent my life in a single bed, that bed was straddled by a kitchen table, which had my computer monitor on, while I laid flat and bed, with the keyboard propped on a pillow on my stomach, and the mouse I used on a book that laid beside me.  I was never able to learn touch typing, and even to this day I need to see the letters on the keys when I type.
Anyway, back to Kym, she was looking after her mother at the time, who had some kind of heart disease, so she couldn't talk to me while her mother was awake, but as soon as her mother went to sleep, she would come on the computer, about 6 o'clock my time. And we would speak until midnight, Kym would often go to sleep, with headphones on, so I would listen to her sleep, and carry on with what I was doing. I knew long before I ever met her that she didn't snore LOL.  Sometimes I would just keep talking, and I hear Kym wake up, and she go off-line, and get a couple of hours sleep... in a bed.
Kyms Aunt, was planning a trip to Australia, but changed it to New Zealand and asked Kym to come along with her. Kym and I knew before that we were destined to be together, so Kym stayed behind, after their 2 week holiday and Akaroa and Christchurch.
We first met in real life on valentines day 2002, we always considered 14 February, our anniversary.  I'll never forget waiting at the Christchurch airport, and finally seeing aunty and Kym come down the escalator, the laughter, the tears of joy, the hugs, more laughter or tears.

Right from the first day, Kym started doing acupressure and massage on my back, and got me up and moving around, I was slow, and the pain was still there a lot, but not nearly as bad as it had been. We began going for walks, firstly just a few steps, and adding one step each time we walked.
I lived in Invercargill, so after dropping Aunty at the airport, Kym and I drove back to Invercargill. We both had digital cameras, and Kym was so blown away with the scenery New Zealand, so we arrived home with memory cards full, of photos were taken on our two megapixel cameras.
The first day, Kym saw the set up, I used to use a computer, she decided she would go out and buy me a La-Z-Boy chair, so I could sit reclined, rather than laying in bed.
We had to share a computer for about two months before her one arrived from the states. We didn't really use the computer very much, we didn't need to, we were together.
We took an awful lot of photos, in those first7 weeks she was here, we travelled day trips all-around Southland, taking photos.
Then on April 1 disaster struck, my computer had a virus, I didn't know about, I turned my computer on, or went to turn it on, on April Fools' Day, and there was nothing there, the harddrive was totally wiped.
We were gutted, I didn't know how to reformate in those days, so we dropped the computer off at the computer fixit place, they confirmed everything was gone.
We went home in shock, leaving the computer to be refornatted. Drinking a coffee, and having a cigarette or 6, wondering how it happened, and me crying over all those photos gone. I looked outside at the sky, it was a beautiful photo taking day, so I said "stuff it, lets go get some new photos. "
We went out to small beach cove called Cosy Nook, arrived later that day, and got a few photos, then I could see the sunset, was going to be gorgeous, so we filled our cameras memory cards.
We picked up the reformatted computer, on the way home, got home and downloaded the photos, they were some of the prettiest photos I've ever taken before or since. I don't have any those photos or many photos that we took over the coming years, at one stage did a rough count, we had upwards of 65,000 photos, of various parts of the South Island of New Zealand.  We only ever kept the best ones, so goodness knows how many hundreds of thousands of photos we took together.
Time moved on, and the time that Kym could stay in New Zealand, legally, was almost at an end. She started the immigration process, but there was a stumbling block, although Kym was over 50 then, she had been naughty, okay done some really bad things when she was young, and spent time in prison, and of course immigration wanted a police/FBI record.
After a lot of buggering around, Kyms file from the FBI and police arrived, I only checked the 1st couple of pages, I knew about what was there, and didn't bother to read the other 50 or so pages, it was obvious she was never going to be allowed to stay here permanently. So we spent the evening tearing up and burning all these pages, and she stayed here illegally the next eight or nine years. So much for, you do the crime, and you do the time, and get to live life again.
We moved to Christchurch, a couple of weeks after that, I had taught Kym to hand code websites, which means build websites without using a program.
And she being a graphic artist now, started to build the odd website.
As I said before, we had a lot of very nice photos of New Zealand, so I built a website displaying, the photos, which became a stock photo bank.  We had 40 photographers from around the world, and about 60,000 photos at the end, we didn't have a lot of sales, we just didn't have the money for advertising.



We had the stock photo bank, for about five years, I was always a people person, and Kym kept adding to the website.
As we could, we kept going on photo trips, and taking more photos.
Then, I started having seizures, and an MRI scan showed that I was developing some mysterious illness, which was showing as tiny white mushrooms growing on the top of my brain stem, and my brain was developing mysterious dead spots, not big spots only about the size of a pinhead, but there were a lot of them, and hell of a lot, so not wanting to tell anyone, we just said i had a heart attack, and we closed the stock photo bank, and concentrated on building websites.
Another couple of years past, and Kym's cousin back in San Diego became very ill, and Kym decided she would go back and take care of him, she was to go back and find an apartment and I was to sell up everything we had in Tauranga, follow in a couple of months.
I arrived in the USA a couple of months, before Pres Obama was elected for the first time. Kym married me, the first week I was there. Yet I don't remember the date, as I said, our anniversary was always Valentine's Day February 14.
I was, quite a hit in the states, everybody loved my accent, and my bubbly, honest if not naive, delightful personality and I think every job interview went to, we got the contract to build their website, and would do the website, and I would make that website, very easy findable and Google. A skill called Search Engine Optimisation SEO.
Most places would advertise search engine results, on the first page of Google, I would offer, and could deliver, the first 9/10 results on page 1 of Google.
After about 2 years, we grew canabis, just because I wanted to, because it was legal there. That was a lot of fun, little did I know that it would be the beginning of the end of my pain, the first time. I was going to a chiropractor, who encouraged me to smoke cannabis, or use it before the appointment, to relax my back so he could adjusted easily. I never liked smoking it, but used to add it to food etc.

Then, and May 2011, we were driving home from the chiropractor and I just said to Kym how my back was feeling so much better, and how I should be going to see him less often.
We stopped at the traffic lights, and will rear-ended by a woman who was talking on her cellphone.
Our car was a write off, her insurance company settled with us, three days later, and seven days after that, a blood clot I'd received and my neck from the accident, broke loose and went up to my brain, and I had a stroke.
The stroke effected my personality drastically, I went from a mild-mannered yet fun loving woman, to an angry, verbally abusive bitch.
A month, after the stroke, I knew that I would not be able to work for a long time, so I got an extension on my credit card, and booked a flight home to New Zealand. It was way too expensive to die in the states.
Kym and I stayed friends for about nine months after I came home, then one day she stopped talking to me.  The last message I ever got, was a couple of days before Valentine's Day. We would have been a couple for 11 years.
It may have be silly of me, but I always expected we get back together one day. But it wasn't to happen. About eight months later, I heard that she developed cancer, then about a year later, I heard she had finished chemo and was doing very well.

Time past, and I was pleased she had moved on, but sad she wouldn't talk to me, actually I was gutted she wouldn't take to me. About 18 months later, out of the blue, about three weeks ago,  Kyms new girlfriend contacted me, and asked me to pray for Kym. She was very ill and had developed several brain tumours. I'm not the praying type. but I sent her a lot of good thoughs.

Over the next week, this woman wrote to me three or four times, telling me how Kym was pretty much a vegetable, she didn't recognise anybody, couldn't speak, but would sometimes smile. It broke my heart, think of Kym like that, we had ups and downs, and the end was messy, but no one deserves that.
I rang Kym's aunt, a week ago today, a Thursday, and she thinking I knew Kym had died a couple of days before, mentioned something about Kym's funeral,  I was gutted, and couldn't speak so ended the call. Kym died, oh Kym, I wish we had at least been friends at the end...

17/7/2014.
I was to travel to Auckland, to be a guest speaker, on a radio show called The Nutters Club and Sunday Night. I cried for a day, and on Friday night made a deal with myself, that I would stop crying until after I got home on Monday, then I would do my grieving.
I have been tearful a couple of times, since been home, her ghost visits when I close my eyes.

3rd April 2015. So many tears in the past 10 months, I think of Kym so so many times a day, often dream of her, I miss her so badly. I know it was years we never spoke before she died, but I always thought, that one day, one day she would forgive me, for whatever it was I did, sometimes i want to know what it was, most of the time, I know it would just be something else to haunt me. .... now of course thats not possible.

Thank you Kym, because of you, I no longer believe I'm dumb, I have seen so many beautiful things in my own country, I've learned so many computer skills, I'm writing at last, and one day, I will publish my story, our story, and now my story of what happened after you. I saw the Grand Canyon, I got to grow marijuana legally, I discovered how to make Marijuana pain gone cream, I took some pretty awesome photos over the years. Best of all I met your Aunt and Lee, I have gotten to know Kasey, very recently, she is a lovely woman isn't she. She has a job where she wears a Tux to work, she said one day she will take a photo of herself, so I can have a look for you. I have seen so many beautiful things through your eyes, Kym, things that would never have looked so lovely, looking at them without you there.
Kasey looking at the photos I have on facebook, Liking and commenting on some, I have got to remember some of the lovely times you and I had.

Adios Kym, I really did love you, I just didn't know how to show you, and was just too screwed up to believe I was lovable.


Anytime you see a reference to this song, or Kym, if I am playing it on youtube, its me feeling this was about you Old Girl