The scaffolding came down, the painters finished a couple of weeks ago, and now all the little touch-ups are done.

From this distance, the most obvious improvements are the skirting below the front porch, (which hadn’t been done since we installed it last year), the carport area being black instead of “treated lumber green” and the roof, which had a little rust and a fair amount of dirt/mold/lichen.

But up close, the old paint was quite worn and grubby. There were multiple colours on various parts of the house, and lots of cracks and gaps in the board and batten siding. It’s all caulked up now… we should be warmer and drier this winter ( and I don’t mean from climate change).

The paint color we chose is called “swans down”, and we intended it to be enigmatic. So far, that’s working well… in some light it’s almost a minty green, other times it just looks white or even grayish.

Our two workers were fine… one amazing and one less than, so it averaged out. The boss had injured his knee and was absent, and I think if he’d been there the other worker might’ve been a bit more diligent.

Now on to the next projects!

A couple of pics from metal detecting outings.

Kite surfers had a perfect onshore breeze the other day. And the especially massive pohutukawa tree at Balmain Reserve.

Last weekend we were so pleased to attend Richard and Heather’s wedding. The ceremony took place at the pétanque club… where they met and remain stalwarts … and they were surrounded by their families and many club members and players from around Auckland. For people of a certain age, they make an awfully cute couple, just as gaga about each other as any youngsters. The ceremony was followed up by a lovely meal and dancing.

So I’m out on the beach the other day hunting for bottle caps and bits of foil with my metal detector when a guy walks up and starts talking to me. This happens, it turns out… people are interested in treasure hunting.

He explains that he lives in the house just over there (points at beachfront property just one or two steps below “mansion”). And he tells me that a lady, apparently visiting from Ireland, lost a ring the other day while getting her sunscreen on, just outside his house on the grass verge. He promised her that he would enlist the next detectorist that came by to try and find it.

[May I just say that one of the attractions of a beachfront house must surely be a cavalcade of comely visitors lathering up with sunscreen in your front garden]

And so, as a complete beginner, I began my first ring recovery mission.

And after only about 15 minutes of searching, I found the ring pictured above. It’s small and delicate. When I got it home I found markings inside “10k” and “Michael Hill”, the name of a big jewelry store chain.

Wow! My first ring ever, my first gold ever. It was very exciting. I went to the man’s door, but no answer, so I left my number and headed home.

He called, texts and WhatsApp messages were exchanged, and I got in touch with the lady who lost her ring.

This wasn’t hers!!

I went back the next day with a more experienced detectorist of my acquaintance, but neither of us found her missing Claddagh ring. I offered the ring I did find to the lady, but she graciously declined.

I’ve found a few more rings already since then, but no more gold (or silver).

What a fun little adventure! And just the kind of intermittent positive reinforcement that will keep me coming back for more!

Now I’ve got metal detecting and swimming excuses to go to the beach early in the morning…

… is another man’s new hobby.

I’ve really been enjoying my new metal detector. I still mostly find trash, but I’ve been fixing some settings to learn more about what to ignore, and today I bought a couple of upgraded gadgets that should help me be even more discriminating.

I’ve found a few “spendies”, coins that are just current spendable money, and even a couple of slightly older coins that would be ever so slightly collectible if they were in much better condition. Some of the coins have been surprises, looking just like lumpy rocks on the beach. But take them home and whack them with a hammer, and out pops a coin. No rings or jewelry yet, but that will happen soon enough.

As one of our Christmas presents, we went to a workshop we’d seen on Facebook where you make your own mosaic lamp.

It was fun… you get totally engrossed in gluing the little glass pieces onto the lamp globe.

Here’s the finished product…

We’re headed to a New Year’s Eve party in a little while, so this is the end of the blogging year for me.

I see and hear a lot of people eager to be shut of 2023. Some of them have visible reason: it’s been a tough year to be unemployed, or sick, or heavily into cryptocurrency. It’s been a bad year to be anywhere near Ukraine or Gaza… or lots of other places we hear less about. It’s been a bad year to be one of the many species that vanished.

But in my own circles it seems almost a fad to lament the awfulness of everything. I guess the glass usually has a full part and an empty part, and you can talk about either.

Here in the Shire, here in our house, we’ve been able to avoid nearly all that horror. Instead, I’m constantly reminded that we live in an age of momentous change, an age of science fiction techno-magic. How cool! And also scary… but how cool!!!

If there’s a lord to be praised, and if praising them has any influence on bending the course of events to my liking, then all praises to the most high! Stay the course, o holy one!

But if the world works in some other way, I hope it keeps working about the same here in the neighborhood. Maybe, World, you could just nudge our politicians ever so slightly leftward.

I wish you and yours all the best for the coming year. I hope your glass is full enough that you can look away from the empty part and take joy from the world’s many wonders.

Longtime readers will recognize the setting of the above photo, as I post more or less the same thing fairly often.

But they will immediately spot some differences from the usual. First, it’s a bit later than the usual sunrise shot. That’s because today’s swim was held at a very civilized 8:00. And second, it looks like someone has photobombed me with a metal detector.

Well no, dear friends, that’s actually MY metal detector, a complete surprise Christmas present from Lee.

I’ve long had an interest in finding treasure: cool rocks and arrowheads and fossils as a kid in Colorado, old pennies in a roll from the bank, collectible books and other stuff from the thrift store, money on the street, restorable watches from bulk lots at auction and on EBay. So metal detecting is an obvious next step.

But I’ve always thought the gadgets are expensive, and do I really need another hobby, and so on. So, the best kind of present: something I wanted but wouldn’t just go out and buy.

Sitting on the trowel is the very first thing I unearthed: the ring pull from a drink can.

Here’s the complete haul:

The piece of a plate was just laying there, but I figure it counts because I found it whilst detectoring.

YouTube and Facebook are full to overflowing with detectorists showing off their Roman coins, Napoleonic cannonballs, gold rings, etc. So there’s definitely room to improve. But I think this was the first of many happy hours geekily wandering on beaches and in parks looking for treasures.

Above, the after shot. And below, the before shot.

Over a year ago, during my vehicle inspection, I was warned that I should do something about the discoloration on the van’s headlights. They had gotten quite yellow over time… plastic, sunlight, road yuck…

So finally during this Christmas stay-cation I got after it with a purportedly magical paste from the auto parts place. WOW, how incredibly rewarding!

I’m usually skeptical of products like that… will a $32 petroleum distillate actually work better than baking soda or vinegar or rock salt or whatever? But I’m also too lazy to do my own experimental research. So I plunked down the money and got to work. Maybe next time I’ll try the lemon juice method.

It took maybe 45 minutes of rubbing firmly in small circles, but now I can see and be seen better, and the few chicks who weren’t already swooning over the mighty minivan are sure to come round.

Our neighbor who gave us our first artichoke plant commented that she didn’t eat them, just grew them for the flowers.

We got several good meals this year from the offshoots of that gifted plant. But this one got left on the stalk a little too long, so we brought it inside but it ended up in water instead of in a belly.

Now I can almost see why you’d grow an artichoke plant for the flowers.