Tag Archives: park

74. Really, What Do the Stars Have Planned Next For Us?

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I opened the door to see a couple of smiling police officers.  They were there to gather our information to make their incident report.  They informed us we may have to appear in court at some point.

The next day a nicely suited man came to our apartment to talk with us for a bit.  He actually said many sympathetic things including, “Somebody was definitely looking out for you and your family.”  Diana and myself couldn’t agree more with that statement.  

He also mentioned there had been complaints filed against this man in the past.  He shared it was felt this man wasn’t entirely stable.  The nice young detective also apprised us a little of this man’s past saying, he and his family had pulled up stakes out of the southern U.S. to settle here in California.  

The police would hold him for his hearing in 10 days.  “…looks like he’ll get a couple of years.”  For us it seemed there would be a few quiet days and nights ahead, thank goodness.

We spend one more Christmas at the Pico apartment building when we realised we’d have to make yet another move.  Things generally speaking were pretty good but as the rent increased my salary just wasn’t quite enough, at best it was about $350 monthly.  

Little did I know I was also about to switch jobs.  So I say we were very fortunate to find another nice apartment.  It was comfortable, affordable and closer still to the beach.  In fact we gained an extra bedroom; see how these things work themselves out.  It was on 4th street, west of Lincoln, still in Santa Monica, always in Santa Monica.

This place had a nice living unit on top of the owner’s garage which was divided into two rentable spaces;  a single unit and a family unit.  The owner of the property resided there as well but in the single family dwelling up in the front.

We had the larger of the 2 units and next-door to us was already residing a caucasian man, older than me to be sure but hardly a senior.  

Everything was good as we went about our daily lives; my going to work, the normal mother at home stuff for Diana and going out to the park and beach as often as possible with the kiddos and my wife.  We always enjoyed these outings, the kids loved it as much as we did.

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10. Kiwis For a Queen and Aussie Burgers For Me! – part 1

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It was four days journey to Wellington, our first harbor in New Zealand and its capital city.  A portion of the lumber and produce was unloaded here.  

Looking around to absorb all I could I felt as though I had arrived into another world.  What beautiful hills and a city layout that made for a stunning sight.  And windy, oh yes!  *hold onto your hats and take some deep breaths!

I was able to enjoy two days here at this marvelous location -never enough time for most of the ports I found myself in- and now that I am seeing it, even a little tempted to move here:  I had a couple of female pen pals that were from here in New Zealand and we had become fairly well-acquainted over time.  One of them even visited me in Fiji with her family.  What a grand time that was; good memories.

Edging along the Canterbury Plains is Christchurch and this was our second port to unload more lumber and Fiji produce.  These plains stretch out to the Southern Alps; yes I did say Alps!  Magnificent is just a thought and I had two days to enjoy that.  I remember seeing a lot of sheep and thinking how quaint it all appeared to be.

Onward to Dunedin to unload the last of the New Zealand cargo.  We had loads of lumber still but that was for Australia.  I got lucky with three days here in this wonderful South Island city!  

I saw a lot of beautiful old buildings, inviting residential streets and lovely green city parks interwoven throughout the city.  Nature respected.

It was about the last week in January as we were finishing with the New Zealand/Australia run and this is warm weather season below the Equator, remember.

Well what have we here?  The Gothic seems to have caught up with us!  

It was here in Dunedin when I finally laid eyes on the very beautiful, young ++Queen Elizabeth II; she was waving to her subjects of this absolutely gorgeous country with her husband Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh by her side, from the balcony of the Dunedin Town Hall (I do believe that was the building where I saw her).  

I overheard in some conversation that she was there to enjoy a royal concert that night.

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* I asked some questions to learn a little more about my current surroundings.  Most fascinating to me was the windy, intoxicating air.  Let’s see if I remember this correctly; Wellington sits on this southern point of the North Island of New Zealand, basically where the Tasman Sea meets up with the South Pacific Ocean [Cook Strait] and between these two islands, the wind comes in from the west and will squeeze its way through a gap there and this apparently causes it to pick up speed.  See?  It has cleansed the air along its way – Chicago’s match below the Equator perhaps?

++ It was just recently that I read somewhere of Queen Elizabeth II’s popularity (at least at that time) among the people of New Zealand.  It was said 4 out every 5 people came out to see her during that coronation tour.  While I certainly hadn’t planned my day around seeing her, I got lucky and happened upon the chance sighting, quite clearly too I might add.  I was glad of it too.