Editor's Blog
Poll backs sailor's craving - Renwick pies are best
You might remember this.
The story goes that sailor John Glennie was planning a 10-day voyage from Picton to Tonga as the maiden voyage in his 12m multi-hull yacht the Rose Noelle. He recruited three fairly inexperienced sailors to crew the yacht - Phil Hofman, Rick Hellriegel and Jim Nalepka.
The Rose Noelle set out on June 1, 1989 and after only two days at sea, just off the Wairarapa coast, it was caught in a storm.
Mr Glennie decided to sail on and was confident they wouldn't capsize as long as the boat was heading straight into the waves.
He put out a parachute-type sea anchor as the storm raged on and the Rose Noelle turned side-on to the waves. Even though they were below deck, the four men heard a huge breaker coming towards them and the yacht was flipped over, the mast smashed and much of their gear, food and water was washed overboard.
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Churchill hospital impressive
If I ever need surgery, I want to be looked after by the good folk at Churchill Trust Hospital in Blenheim.
Most of all I like the shiny new hospital building they work in.
The staff at Wairau Hospital are just as qualified and friendly and, in some cases, are exactly the same people, but their new hospital complex isn't quite as flash as the Churchill building.
Which I guess is a good thing. Wairau was built on the public health budget, while Churchill was done with private funds. Wairau provides mostly free care, while the patient (or their insurance company) pays for care in five-star Churchill health unit.
I was among the people who went to the open day at Churchill yesterday for a look around, and was most impressed.
Ah, the life of pie
Mince pies. Love 'em or hate 'em, they are part of Kiwi culinary culture.
I'm not talking your new century chicken and cranberry or beef curry nonsense. I'm talking your plain old mince and pastry basic. Fills a hole on a cold day, especially when you're cold and the pie's hot.
Driving along Scott St the other day, I saw a college boy coming out of the dairy on the corner of Muller Rd munching a pie.
It was about 8.40am and he probably got up too late for breakfast or didn't like the cereal choices at home. He looked mighty happy to be getting his early morning protein fix.
How often does that happen?
How quickly the landscape changes with rain
The last time I was out on my mountain bike, I rode across the Taylor River bed just upstream of the New Renwick Rd bridge in Blenheim and didn't see any sign of water.
There wasn't a chance of getting wet.
If I'd done that yesterday I would have been biking through about 1.5m of dirty brown, fast-flowing water.
Further downstream the river was flowing outside its banks through the amphitheatre by Raupo restaurant and both ends of the Crinoline Bridge were under water. It's only a few days since the weed under the bridge was exposed.
All this rain has come down in a big hurry, but at least we haven't had the deluge they've had over the hill in Nelson.
Changes will ensure the Express carries on
This hasn't been one of the best weeks in the history of The Marlborough Express, or my career as a journalist, but we're keeping our nose pointing ahead.
We've told staff and announced to you that we're having to tighten our belt to the point where we have to make some jobs redundant.
It means we're not living within our income.
In that respect we are no different to any other business in the region or throughout the country. We cannot continue without keeping the ledger in the black.
We either do something about that, or we close the door, and we have no intention of doing that.
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