A Disturbance in The Force

I was in Christchurch all last week at our National Age Group Championships and the SNZ 'group of us' came across a ‘British’ shop on the way to the restaurant strip. One of my blonde colleagues is from Northumberland and she was as entranced as I was by the goodies on offer. However what I couldn’t see through the darkened window (after hours!) was my all-time favourite, ‘Uncle Joe’s Mint Balls.” We stood outside peering in and saying, ‘Where are they? They must be here somewhere.’

The time-constraints of the week overtook us and we never got to the shop during opening hours; more sad fools us! The imaginary vision of 'Uncle Joe's' started on Tuesday evening and we were in 'Chch' until Monday morning.

This week we are all back chained to administrative desks (Yeah, right!) in Wellington. Yesterday the mail arrived and I had a parcel from the UK. Interesting. I recognised the return address as Shelagh who swam medley at the 1968 and 1972 Olympics and whose father was my yoga 'guru'. Of all places to settle in the world she lives in Rochdale; there's no accounting for taste or style :) I ripped the package open in great anticipation and, guess what? A tin of Uncle Joe's Mint Balls. I kid you not; there it was in all it's red glory. My God, they're good. I think they maybe a secret recipe for eternal life or certainly a selected collection of super-powers.

So far, so good, eh? Coincidence; I think about Uncle Joe's and, lo and behold, they appear. Also last week I was explaining to the Blonde about the frozen pensions of British ex-pats in Commonwealth countries. You didn't know about that, did you? If you are a pensioner living in the UK (Britain and Northern Ireland) or any country of the European Union, or Croatia, or Turkey (I could go on) you get 119.13 GB pounds each week. If you are a UK pensioner living in New Zealand or Australia or Canada you get less than 34 GBP per week and it has been frozen for 20 years. How equitable is that? Anyway, I was explaining this to the Blonde who is not of pensionable age, last week and, again, lo and behold, a letter from G'ma on Monday contained a copy of Issue #1, 2008 'Justice for Expatriate British Pensioners' newsletter.

Coincidence? No way. there's something going on and it's definitely in the wooaahh, wooaahh, wooaah, category of occurrences.

... and G'ma also included a lovely example of corporate family values when Tom had a recipe reproduced in the local paper and he was very clear about the importance of caffeine :)