Seen today in the Waikanae Estuary.

Dispose of trash thoughtfully!

On a wet day and somewhere in the Reikorangi area presumably, a 1915-16 model. (Te Papa collection)

Tomorrow the announcement is made of the annual list of those to get gongs for, if not having become sports, culture or (groan) business icons, then at least for having been around a while.

There are plenty of unsung heros in the community who deserve recognition, but who won’t get it and probably never will.  Any nominations for deserving Kapiti people?

At the Destination Waikanae AGM in August one of the comments about what there needs to be at Waikanae station is some information on what visitors can see in the town.

Currently there is nothing.

These days people can bring cycles on the trains which would be useful for reaching the Nga Manu reserve and, of course, cycling down the river banks.

This sign in Taupo seen in Heuheu Street a couple of weeks ago is obviously designed to resemble a paper clip (although at first glance it looks like an errant delivery vehicle driver has reversed into it) and has several items of info for the benefit of visitors.  An equivalent for Waikanae should be a topic for a WCB agenda item.

We mentioned the satire of children’s picture books from the good old days in an earlier post about We go to the Gallery.  Several more in similar style were published at the end of October by Penguin Random House’s Michael Joseph imprint with spoofs of Ladybird titles from the 1950s and 1960s.

In the old days a book would probably satisfy a kid as a present; but certainly not these days when it is, “Mummy, Daddy why didn’t you get me the latest X-Box, Playstation, smartphone, tablet computer?  They’re only $800 and little Johnny at school has one.” We well sympathise with parents.

He drove a motor scraper at age 15 and now drives a multi-million-dollar business.

Second Generation family owned and run business Goodman Contractors is in good hands. Located in Waikanae on the Kapiti Coast north of Wellington, the earthmoving business has a turnover of around $45 million, employs some 210 staff and has machinery and plant assets in excess of $30 million.

Driver of the business is 48-year-old Stan Goodman, who took over as managing director from his father, Rick Goodman three years ago.

”It all started when I was a young boy playing at home in a sandpit with a toy bulldozer and trucks building make-believe roads,” he says.

read the rest on the NZ Contractor Magazine website

Goodmans have clearly been a major beneficiary from the Expressway works, and with the extension of it to Otaki now confirmed, they will continue to have the status of Waikanae’s biggest business.

‘You are a moron, Gareth Morgan.’

Like other neighbours we regularly get cockroaches and mice coming into our place from the Parkwood property renting business.

This is where our cat Gingernut performs a valuable service dealing with both: with large cockroaches he flips them over on their backs so they can’t go anywhere, and he does what hunter cats do with mice.

A couple of days ago we found the mouse shown above on our cat-themed mat in the kitchen, exactly like this. 🙂

Cats also make lovely companions and the SPCA on SH1 at the northern entrance to Waikanae has plenty for adoption — why not visit them to adopt one?  Cats don’t need much looking after; occasional de-flea ointment and a de-worming pill is about all they need in addition to food, water, and comfortable places to snooze.

Did you know there is a Kapiti in Tanzania?  It looks like a village, though.  That temperature of 18C is the night time, during the day it gets to 30C which is rather nice, but not so much with 85% humidity.