A Time For Reflection

Ok are you sitting comfortably as this is a long one, and you will recognise exerts from various emails i have sent around, but stay with this as there are extras added in and it is not the same after all!!

Well I have to say I don’t know where the time goes; I cannot believe I have been here 4 months already! I finally got all my stuff arrive over from the UK so I have a few of my knick knacks around!! Poor Paul though (Double standards are my specialty!!) I made him get rid of so much of his ‘toot’ and then mine arrives, so he innocently asks ‘What is the difference?’ I replied (LOL) that this is mine and that was his! Mine isn’t toot, his was!

Ah and bless him he also had another shock over the xmas break, he saw a photo of himself and identified the fact he has a receding hairline and that his hair style (which hadn’t changed in 35 years) made it look like a 'comb over' LOL, so instead of off to his normal trusty barber he decided to see my 'creative' hair stylist!! LOL. So he is now sporting a very funky 'mussed up' short cropped look. I have created a monster now who is more vain than me, has more funkier clothes than me, and is very fit and trim! Not fair!



Anyway what have I been up to well job hunting (most tedious!!) I remember now how much I hated it before, and believe me it hasn’t changed!!! Only plus point is over here they tend to still do CVs rather than horrible application forms, so a bit easier.

Anyway what else we been up to???

Oh yes I did an Advanced First Aid course last week with the Red Cross as I felt it would be useful to have it for other jobs etc, and I have been doing a Marketing Development Proposal for them so it also allowed me to give some feedback to them on how I felt the course could be improved.

Been working hard finishing all the ‘little niggly’ jobs that need doing around the house and garden. And it is looking really good I have to say. Got Paul to work on a couple of my ‘visions’...............ah yes of course I left you with that little cliffhanger last time didn’t I???

Anyway we finally managed to get the guest room (complete with all Pauls books!!!)finished before Bruce and Ann came to stay.



Our office (note the 'his and hers' respective desks!! LOL)



Oh and my beloved mail box arrived from the UK!



And we bought this well wicked chest that was an old shipping chest from London so it has the port stamp on it, so as you can see now is a lovely ottoman chest affair in the living room, and of course my old faithfull chest arrived so that also is in place in the living room. They are great as we can stash the unsightly stuff like dvds etc in them.

So that leads me nicely onto my 'Visions!!!' yes they sort of became more than just the one!! LOL

Sarah’s Vision 1

Well in all honesty this vision did not appear until our trip to the tip which was to offload all the rubbish we had accumulated during the move. While Paul was doing the ‘mans work’ of unloading the Ute - I have my hands to protect after all!! (And believe me baby soft hands I have not had for many years as a boater and I am enjoying the whole soft hands and good nails experience!!) Anyway to cut a meandering story short I was wandering around all the toot, as one does and there I saw it and it was love at first sight!

A cast iron claw foot bath (without its claw feet mind you)

Visions of a ‘fire bath’ in the courtyard sprung to mind, the vision was unfolding before my eyes and in my brain it was completed and I was already soaking in it under the star lit sky!

Ok back to reality

So I raced and I mean ‘raced’ (I haven’t moved that fast since I was in the senior school athletics team) across to Paul and panted out what I had found, then I sauntered across to the guarder of other peoples rubbish to find out how much of an investment this may prove to be.

Well you had to pick me up off the floor!

$10 (that is about three pounds in the UK)

And so then the fun of trying to get the monster on the back of the Ute began, it took 4 of us, me and the female guarder of the tip to oversee and Paul and some other hapless trash browser to lift it on.

And there she stayed until Bruce and Ann’s last evening when in a blind panic as my dream was disappearing if we couldn’t lift it into the courtyard Bruce and Paul lugged it into its new home.

Prior to Bruce and Ann’s arrival we also needed to find feet for the ‘Vision’ to be complete. So off to the reclamation yard to find some and luckily they had many, but what type did we need that was the question!!

So off Paul trots to get the UTE so we can try out the different types of feet, and bingo! We find some. Can of WD40 later and some strategic filing and grinding, they fitted!

Well this is where I had to actually do some manual labour as the feet were not put on until after Bruce had gone so this meant I had to help Paul to right it, and bloody hell it is heavy!

But now it is happily in its place and we are regularly enjoying a nice hot fire bath of an evening. We have to keep adding loads of cold water as it gets so hot you feel you are being boiled alive!





Sarah’s Vision 2

We had this really ugly bit of the courtyard that needed some serious attention, once upon a time it was obviously a washhouse. Well being as it really was not aesetically pleasing I felt with a little creativity a more attractive option could be achieved.

And so Paul set to work and he has created a masterpiece I have to say. I however had to mow the lawn instead, and I am swaying now towards a Japanese Zen garden as dislike grass intently, especially when you have so much to mow and on stupidly abnormal gradients!

The master at work!



The end result










And so that brings me nicely onto the Demon Monster!

Doesnt he just look so cute!!



Don't be deceived!

The black demon (Merlin the Kitten) is still demonic; we had got to a stage last week where we had to look up for professional help online, we have discovered that

a) This is normal kitten behaviour! – Really? The fact that he is a greater threat to mankind than the average pit-bull terrier is normal behaviour is it?

b) That we were not playing with him enough – pleaseee there is only so many hours in the day and night

c) He needs to play with ‘arms length’ toys that you have on a stick and he can chase and pretend to kill – Fine! If it saves my face being launched at and him attaching himself to my ears whenever I walk past wherever he happens to be lying in wait, then fine that is what I will do

d) If he was still with his litter mates then the rough and tumble play would be more disciplined as he would get his just desserts from them – Ok so this is why they are rehomed at 8 weeks of age is it! Instead we have to go through all this pain!

So this meant a shopping trip to purchase the following

Several ‘arms length toys’ – in case he doesn’t like one or gets bored, or of course shreds it into a million pieces as soon as he is introduced to it. (By the way did I tell you I think he is related to ‘Freddie Kruger’ Nightmare on Elm Street. We did originally think he was from the Omen as there was black bird following us everywhere and the way he studies the fire is scary!!)

Several other ‘killable’ items such as rabbit tails and possum tails

A couple of glittery balls that rattle and such

A couple of cuddly toys about his size that he can play rough and tumble with. His favourite is the Kangaroo (good choice!!) and that gets ‘killed’ several times a day!

Poor Skippy!



Water pistols – essential ‘in bed’ weaponry! Because when he wants blood, he wants blood!! And if the toys and the cuddly toys are not working then it is time to resort to a shot with the water pistol.

The Weapon





So anyway to cut a long story short Paul and I go to bed ‘armed’ on each side of the bed with

An ‘arms length’ toy
A cuddly toy
A water pistol

This is no word of a lie!

And also to add insult to injury, he manages to crawl into bed between us in the night, and ‘watch out flick knives about’ if you try to move him!



Remember i still have claws!!!!



Oh I forgot what joy kittens were!

Ah yes and he is still winding the other cat up huge amounts, and we keep begging her to give him a good beating, but she won’t! He has won his way around Wolf and Simba and is often asleep with them.

Ah yes and you can’t get to eat anything unless you lock him out, then he hollers like anything, thank god we don’t have neighbours!

And this little angel is only 12 weeks old! And I gather it only gets worse until they are around 6 months old!

Deep joy and pleasure!

Moving swiftly onto the boys! Well what can I say about those lazy specimens of canine kind!

We took them for a nice trip to Aramoana it was a calm day and we had the beach to ourselves, but of course the lazy gits could not be bothered to go for a swim!

So off I trotted into the water to coax them in

Then I tried more direct action in the way of pulling Simba in with his ball

And so it went on






Suffice to say Paul had to drive the car home as I was sitting in the passenger seat half naked with only my t-shirt on! Hoping we dont get pulled over by the 'old bill'!

My trainers are still drying

But we have started our own doggy boot camp at home now, and for the present time he seems to enjoy it. This activity ensures Simba has maximum energy expenditure and us minimal. What is this cunning tactic I bet you want to know?

Dead simple, I stand on the top terrace, and Paul on the bottom one and we throw Simbas ball between us and Simba runs back and forth until one of us doesn’t catch it or drops it. Excellent!

Doggy Boot Camp



So what else is new, well I am unsure, ah yes we went to Larnach Castle and to the Penguin Colony a couple of weeks back which was really good.

Heres a pic of us at Larnach and what a fantastic view





And here is a pic of the seals we saw at the penguin colony one is an adult basking the other if you look carefully show some pups playing in a rock pool.




And of course a penguin and their little hides




Apart from all this the weather here is being pretty rotten I have to say, I expect summer will come once I go to work!

Oh and we are surrounded by huge and I mean huge arachnids! Fortunately I gather they dont hurt but man they are big, but they catch the horrible insects so I leave them in peace but you dont want to have one of these mothers in your hair I can tell you.....

Here is one of them that had just caught a blue bottle, and I have to say it was facinating to watch the whole 'packaging and transporting' process. Most companies could learn a lot about logistics from the common spider!



Anyway must go to bed now, oh hang on, message from Simba and the Demon Monster 'they are working on their blogs so check them out tommorrow, as they have a different point of view on things!' Cant see why myself but hey ho!! Oh hang on again Dessie wants you to know she has already published her blog and nobody has bothered looking since she did it yesterday!!

Ok please check out their blogs as it only makes my life more traumatic! take care xx

http://merlinsmovements.blogspot.com

http://simbaandwolfie.blogspot.com

http://dessiesantiblog.blogspot.com






And...... dont have nightmares!!