A year has been completed and this blog has been read over 1200 times....who are you all?
Autumn is nearing an end and we are now back to where we
started, i.e. this is what the countryside looked like when we arrived a year
ago. The autumn colours are beautiful in the vineyard across the road. The
grapes are all harvested and unfortunately I was teaching on the last day of
the harvest and so missed the end of harvest party.
We have marked our first year in NZ in the same way we
celebrated things in NI. We opened a bottle of bubbly (made across the road and
called Mahana) and had a few friends round for a meal. As I look back at the blog I see that I
thought Judith would be a good friend. As it turned out we hardly ever see her
and she has less interest in us as she can’t sell us a house! However Roger and
Adele have proved to be good friends and we shared a meal with them on Friday
night. Then on Sunday afternoon we invited the Thursday cycle group over for a
meal and house warming/ 1st year celebration. There were about 20 of
us, but at least it was kiwi ‘pot luck’ catering. That means everyone brings
something to eat, in a vaguely organised way. We ended up with plenty to eat
and drink and the house was well ‘warmed’. In celebrating we feel very
fortunate to have met such nice people and yet we miss sharing with our good
friends still in NI. When they visit we
will have a lot of celebrating to do again.
We have had approx. 6 weeks of sunny and warm autumn
weather, but for the last week things have got a bit changeable and it has
rained for some or all of the day, almost every day. The llamas are enjoying
the autumn sunshine and Snowy is doing well.
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| Snowy, getting bigger by the day |
The temps are slowly
dropping and we light a fire every day. We still wear shorts, but perhaps not
every day. We started wearing shorts in October and I would be surprised if we
don’t wear them throughout the year. Last week we took delivery of our winter
firewood. It all got tipped out of the lorry in a pile, and I spent the rest of
the day stacking it into the shed…who needs a gym. We also have lots of
gardening to do, so never a dull moment
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| The wood shed, ready for winter |
Lisa was involved the ‘Great ice cream challenge’. It
involved Lisa on her race bike racing Roger on an electric bike from Corrugate
to the wharf, eating an ice cream and then cycling back to Corrugate (uphill
all the way home). A total distance of about 7miles. Most people backed Lisa
and as the race unfolded it became too close to call. They both arrived at the wharf
together and ate their selected flavours of ice cream. Off they went, mostly
uphill, passing a group of cyclists who were stunned as the two racers sped
past. As the finish line got closer, Roger put in a final burst up the last
hill to get a gap, which he held onto and collapsed over the line, as ‘the
crowd’ clapped in a stunned kind of way. Lisa finished about 10 seconds later.
It was all over in 17 mins.
We are making some improvements to the house and our solar
water heating is working. We are getting a grant to help with some of the cost
and I had to fill in some paperwork. I had to return the documents to the
person in charge, called Grant Fidler …..true
We are getting a solatube installed (a tube that will light
up the hallway by directing daylight down a tube from the roof). I wonder who I
will send the paperwork to for that.
This week we flew down to Christchurch and collected a ‘new’
car and drove it home. The flight was
amazing as there were clear skies so we could see the stunning scenery. The
flight was 50 mins and our return journey took us through equally stunning
scenery and took approx. 5 hours. We have got a Toyota landcruiser Prado, which
can seat 8 people and will be used for business. It is 12 years old, not old by
NZ standards !
It is my turn to host the Faculty (Garin College, Social
Sciences) dinner today. We are going off for a cycle around the vineyards, then
back to the house for a meal. Partners are included, so there will be a total
of 9. Better go and prepare.
