Ok now are you sitting comfortably because this is a long one!! Grab a cuppa, get comfy and have a read!
Well just a quick history lesson first for my fellow Brits who may not know much about this.
Waitangi day is the 6th February and has become a public holiday here since 1974. It is to mark the occasion in 1840 on this date when the 'Treaty of Waitangi' was signed by around 500 Maori Leaders and the British Crown and is classed as the foundation document of New Zealand. It is essential that all Kiwis know about the history of the treaty and most jobs in the public sector expect you to have more in depth understanding of the Treaty and how it has affected the culture of the country through time
http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/politics/waitangiday-introduction
http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/politics/treaty/read-the-treaty/drafting-the-treaty
So anyway Paul took Monday off work so we could have a long weekend and we headed off to Central Otago to his mums at Alexandra on Sunday for a couple of days. Now Central is where the more civilised weather may be usually found and true to its word we had sun, lots of it!! 34 degrees worth of it.......YES!!!! my poor Euro-Mediterranean skin has so needed some sun! i was getting pasty and everything!!
Saturday was spent doing all manner of stuff that is possibly too monotonous to remember, you know the sort of stuff, cleaning, DIY etc!
Sunday saw a 'minor' toy throwing session from moi! For the following reasons
I hate having to be tied to deadlines in my personal life and we needed to be in Alexandra by 11am, we were rushing!
I was overtired (we had sat up late watching back to back hours of '24'),
I burnt my hand quite bad on the pan
The croissants burnt in the oven,
need i go on..........
As you can see I was not having a good day and it wasn't even 9am by then, so add to this that I had not consumed the required quantities of coffee to tranquilise a small hippo, I was probably getting near to my psychotic best.
Paul, ever patient, just ignored my stamping of feet and curses of hatred towards the whole world in general.
So off we went in our respective vehicles, me in the Black Monster and Paul in the UTE that needed to go in for its WOF (MOT).
That's was the last we saw of each other until I reached Lawrence (this is about half way so around 1 hour and 20 mins to this point) where by then I really needed my caffeine fix like NOW! the talking book on CD I was listening to and had got quite engrossed in was now pissing me off as it was jumping every other word, so that was about to go flying out the window but being a library one I had to restrain myself! So I pulled over outside a cafe, and then Paul arrives and a latte and a chocolate brownie later I was almost human again!
And then off we head again. The boys and I arrive at Alexandra and I take them into the river Clutha for a quick paddle so they are nice and cool. Paul arrives and we head off to his mums house.
We are greeted by Paul's sister, her husband and daughter and Paul's Mum, shove the dogs in the garage and off we all head for the circus that his mum had booked up for us.
On arrival to the circus Paul and I chant the chant of those that 'don't do children' of the fact that we are entering their environment and we have to respect that! we wish ourselves luck, hope we survive the experience and gingerly step out from the car. Well rug rats everywhere, they are like spiders!
The circus looked quite low budget and we seriously had misgivings about it thinking great, rug rats and a couple of clowns...... deep joy!
Well slap me about with a wet salmon, it was fantastic, the acts were superb and health and safety would have a field day, the trapeze and tightrope acts had no safety nets or harnesses. But they were fantastic, it was most enjoyable and there was only a crew of about 12 of them and they were multi skilled it was absolutely fab. If you ever get chance to see them do.
Kinder Dream - StoryBook Circus
http://www.stuff.co.nz/southlandtimes/3943170a6570.htmlSo from there we grabbed the mutts and headed off down to the Clutha for a wallow and had a great time with the dogs and i managed to get myself 'beached' In my defence the current was quite strong and although only calf deep the base of the river was really stony and hard to keep your footing on.
Well that's my excuse anyway, so get over it, OK now stop laughing it isn't that funny, really it isn't!
We also got me a little scooter from WasteBusters (the tip in Alexandra) one of those 'i have always wanted one of them and it is supposed to be good exercise' moments!! It needed a new bolt putting on it, so it gave us a bit of a giggle having a play on it later!!
Paul on the scooter
Once we had returned back to Casa Mother McNamara we had a lovely BBQ and then Paul, his niece and I had a game of Pitch and Putt on the lawn and the boys a good munch on some nice juicy big bones I bought them on the way to Pauls mums from the river.
Boys and their bones
Pauls Niece and Brother in Law
The next day involved taking the UTE to get its MOT (it failed unfortunately but hey it is 31 years old!!), a bit of shopping and then we met the rest of the family for lunch which was gorgeous and after we all went back to the Clutha for more swimming. Another beautiful hot day in the 30s and while we all swam to cool down the wimpy excuses for dogs didn't want to go in the water!
The restaurant we ate at
The boys in their life jackets in the river
Pauls family
Paul and I then headed off back home on the Monday around 6pm as needed to get back to feed the cats having been home alone for 2 days, check still had house complete with furnishings as we had left no only one door but 2 doors unlocked. We also had to check our fences in the field as picking the lambs up on the Tuesday (Here lies another story!!!).
Well the drive back was eventful as we came across a traffic jam, all of 9 cars in it, there had been an accident on the state highway and as there are not many roads it meant a long detour, but as the road was unlikely to be back open again for hours we had no choice.
It only added about 45 mins onto the journey in the end.
All was well when we got back and the time away had been really enjoyable, we had a lot of fun too, it was a well needed relax away from chores etc at home for a couple of days and seeing Pauls family was an added bonus.
Here are some photos of the countryside as for those of you who are not Kiwis or know NZ Central Otago is similar in appearance to Arizona in the USA and generally gets pretty hot in summer and very cold in winter.
So this leads me onto the next day!
Well i don't think i have informed you all before, but we intended to get a couple of orphan lambs in around October this year to keep the spare field down. Well we had noticed that the grass was completely getting out of control. So last week we saw an advert for 3 month old lambs that are quiet and may be suitable for a smallholding. Well yes you have guessed it we are now the proud owners of two lambs! And no they wont be ending up in the freezer, they have a job to do that is keep the spare field under control and live out their lives safe and well.
They have their own blog by the way
http://sheep-stories.blogspot.com/
Tuesday morning was spent with Paul making good the fences, and even making a gate for the sheep.
So that was it! Off we went in the afternoon to pick up the the lambs, so we hired a trailer and drove out to Outram to collect them. Well I picked out 2 of the smallest and we loaded them into the trailer. We spent the journey back deliberating how we would manage to get them across the garden to the field. We had visions of them disappearing never to be seen again. Sheep contrary to popular belief are NOT stupid!!!
So we arrive back and work out what we are doing, Paul to take the head end and me the bottom end, i can remember from my younger days helping out Simon on the farm that if you can keep them on their back they remain calm, obviously this is only a short term thing as it can also be dangerous for them. So we put one of the dogs slip leads on around their neck as a precaution with the understanding that whatever happens we must not let a sheep escape with a slip rope lead on as it will end up getting strangled.
Well they were as good as gold! Heavy! but good and calm. So we released them into the field and they are happily munching away. They pop down to near the gate and lie there chewing the cud watching us. We hope that they will at some stage become more friendly and be able to handle them, but at the moment with all the food they have in the field they are not at all interested in the sheep pellets we bought to try and win them around!!
The other thing is they are no longer these pretty little white fluffy creatures, as they are now covered in 'burrs' (Kiwi translation 'biddy bids') all over them so are more brown now!!
So this also brings me onto a few other missions that we have been up to
Paul has put up shelves in the dogs room for stuff like the breadmaker and stuff. He has also been tackling all those little niggly jobs that we hadn't gotten around too as other 'missions' kept taking priority!!
And so onto the Kitchen!!!!
While we were in Alexandra we bought some cheap carpet, as lino is so expensive and anyway we want to eventually put down laminate wood floor so this was a quick and dirty option instead of the hardboard that is down at the moment! So on Thursday I amid some cursing and cussing managed to lay the first half with a degree of success, oh what a fool I was!!! And onto the next half and I just get to the last corner of it and look around to check all is as it should be and I make the final cut, and you wont believe it but the blasted carpet had moved! I now had an inch gap in the opposing corner! And unfortunately this was smack bang in the middle of the kitchen, so not even an option that one could hide it. So anyway I get some more of the spare carpet and find a large piece that can be cut into the section so instead of only having one join in the carpet there would now be two, but if they were of a decent size it wouldn’t look odd. So I get the piece ready but think I will wait until Paul gets home so he can lie on the carpet to stop it moving as I cut into the two sections, fair enough, sounds like a plan! So I change the Stanley knife blade in preparation and wait for Paul. So there we are ready to cut Paul in sat on the carpet holding a long length of hardboard over the area I need to cut into (to make the clean join I would need to cut the new section on top of the piece I was replacing so the join would be unnoticeable if you know what I mean) so off I go……
Damn and blast when we went to remove the cut piece, fine! But the underneath piece hadn’t cut as the blade was a blunt as hell so that screwed up that clean cut totally. So with fixed grins and a few mutterings we eventually manage to finish the carpet, however ran out of tape so would need to complete the job but sticking it down the next day. But hey it looked damn good!!
Here is a picture of the job halfway through
So off to bed
The next morning……..
This is where Paul is irreplaceable and my rock of sanity!! He calmly advises me that I may wish to come out to the kitchen and that I must remember that I really love my dogs!!!!
Are you starting to get an idea of what I am about to tell you????
Paul is standing there doing a great example of Eros’ pose (on one foot) surrounded and I mean surrounded by diarrhoea all over the new carpet! Usually the dogs are shut in their room but we decided not to bother the night before. BIG MISTAKE HUGE!!!!!!!!! I mean there was not a square foot of unmarked carpet! (it was the old boy wolf, who must have eaten something that didn’t agree with him so you cant be mad really, however I did indeed wish to kill said dog)
So that took us both a good half hour cleaning it up and pulling up the unstuck down carpet and hosing it off etc. It is still drying but I am ever hopeful that it will fit back in nicely or at the very worse have stretched and not shrunk! The other half that was already stuck down has come up really well so that’s something at least, but I have visions of the other half looking like a patchwork quilt as we are having to cut in more pieces if it has shrunk!! I will let you know!!
So that’s you up to date on the house now onto the garden...
So it is a mega nightmare to have such a large estate, especially one that you cannot use a ride on lawnmower on, that had gradients that one really could use a ski lift for, and that is right near a fertiliser plant so grows like buggery!! That is just the garden; I haven’t even gotten onto the field!
So it takes around 4 hours to mow the lawn and a further 4 hours to strimmer the areas you cannot reach with the lawnmower. And this needs to be done every week really, but add into the mix the good old Kiwi weather and yep you have got it, it just doesn’t happen that way, so instead of being able to keep on top of it, not having to use the grass catcher (saving a lot of time humping grass cuttings about) we have a groundhog situation every couple of weeks!
I have just finished my 4 hour stint this morning of cutting the grass, but hey it does raise a sweat, so hoping it may make me fit if it doesnt kill me first!!
also I bought a couple of apple trees which we have planted in the garden so hopefully get a nice crop of granny smiths next year.
Ok onto the other stuff, here we are!
Just chilling, watching '24' back to back with Merlin! We are now on the 2nd series of it!! Yep you guessed it hooked as neither of us saw it when it was on TV so we hired it from the library!
OK thats all from me, all of us are well, the animals are all going to update their Blogs tonight and tommorrow, so they will send their own update notifications to you as they do it.
Till next week or if i have more news to tell....
You can just about see the little 20ft mooring boat at the bow heading towards the pontoon on the left of the picture
The ship is called Pos Brave from Hong Kong
