Socialising and a cyclone

 Preparations are almost finished for Sis arriving from Aussie on Wednesday night. All I have to do is run the lux (vacuum cleaner) over her bedroom and we'll be ready. Not that she will care if I don't get the floor done, but I will. Then after a week of catching up with people we'll both head over to the West Coast to our school reunion.

In the meantime it has been quite a social time here. We have a friend living in a rest home and her North Island family were down for a few days. I managed to catch up with them over coffee and cake one afternoon. Bob was coming but the man arrived just after lunch to install our new heat pump and was still here at tea time. Never mind, they'll be back again before too long I'm sure.

And on Friday we had a phone call from his sister. "Do you want to meet for lunch, we're on our way on the bus. It gets in just after 11." So we met them for early lunch, I was on duty at the shop filling in for someone, the reason for eating early, but we all enjoyed having a good old catch up on the family news. They usually come out when I'm not working and we can relax a bit more.

And talking about visitors from Aussie, we have friends over for the 50th Anniversary Otago Rally car event. This is the same couple who gave us both a run in his rally car when we were over there in August. I'm not really expecting to see them though as they are quite involved in the rally and now need to deep clean the car before it goes in the container to head home. But it would be nice :)

The weekend was quite eventful as well with Cyclone Vaianu bearing down on the country. It was due to make landfall around midday Sunday  over Auckland city but changed course tracking down the east coast and made landfall further south. I feel sorry for the people in the area, I think this is the third time this year they've been hit with some sort of weather bomb. Roads closed, trees down and slips. So devastating and demoralising for them, but thankfully no loss of life. We were very thankful as it was a big storm and covered the whole of the North Island and part of the South and we have quite a few family members up there. None of them reported any damage except for branches off a couple of trees, apart from that just some rain and not much wind. 

God is good. 

I think that is it from me just now.

Take care, keep well until next time

Diana

A quick round up.

Last Saturday we flew out of Dunedin to Auckland on the first leg of our trip to see the family in Australia. Our youngest grand daughter and her husband took us to the airport and sat and had a coffee with us while we waited. It was a nice time.

 Aaron and Sofi met us in Auckland and we had a nice relaxed evening catching up on the news. On Sunday we all attended the church Aaron is pastoring. The congregation is small but welcoming and consists mostly of pacific islanders. Below is a picture of a tapa cloth on the wall. Tapa cloth is highly valued in the pacific communities and traditionally represented a woman's wealth. It is made from beaten bark.

After church we went out to Maraetai Beach for the afternoon. It was a really pleasant day and we enjoyed being able to sit there in the sun and watch everyone enjoying themselves, swimming no less. 

We had hot chips for a snack with a hot cuppa. 

And just as we thought we were going home Sofi thought it would be nice to show us Sylvia Park Mall, which is the largest one in the country. So we strolled around there for an hour or so and some of us spent money and some of us didn't :) It was a long day.

On Monday we did a trip down to Cambridge to visit our grandson who has a 'retro and collectibles' shop there. AMPERSAND is what he calls it. It wasn't open but he took us in to have a look...

...after which we all went for lunch and then strolled down to the local museum for a browse.

Below is a mosaic on the footpath. 

Cambridge is the main horse racing stud area of New Zealand. This is one of the horses, 'Mainbrace', very famous in its day.

Next day was a rest day :) it had been very busy then on Wednesday we flew to Aussie. Below is Bob coming out of the chair lift from the plane at our final destination - Mackay.

I'll leave you there until next time. 

Have a lovely week,

Keep well and enjoy yourselves,

Diana

Sailing

No, not us 🙃

We have family visiting town on Friday. They're arriving on a cruise ship and will be here for a day.

It'll be good to see them, they all live in Aussie. 

Sis boarding

They left Sydney yesterday evening and are presently somewhere on the  high seas, the Tasman Sea to be precise.

 

 Some of the cruising party as they passed the harbour Bridge.

We're looking forward to their visit. Another 6 or 8 of us will meet for lunch with them. We're booked into a nice wee Cafe in the centre of the cbd so it won't be hard for the visitors to find.

That's it for today.

Keep well and safe.

Diana

Going bush for a day ...

At this time of the year, when the days get just a tad cooler,

my thoughts often tend towards Australia.

One of the reasons is the warmer weather

and the other is because half my siblings,

along with their kids and grandkids live in Queensland.

Last time we visited was back in September,

just because we could, for a few weeks.

We visited with both my sisters, who are in north Qld,

as well as the nieces and nephews of course

and another couple of Kiwis we knew before they moved

to Aussie (a lifetime ago).

One of our nieces and her husband invited us to

spend a day at their 'block',

so we duly got in a car early one morning

 with her mother, middle sis,
and drove for a hundred kilometres

 or so down the road a bit.
We arrived in time for morning tea.

Niece and her husband and family had left much

earlier than us, 6am I think, and had set up camp.

Below are some photo's taken on the day, at the block,

7 1/2 acres in all, and it's amenities!!

There were also goats, cows, fruit trees and sugar cane.

And a pond for swimming.

The bunkhouse and alfresco dining room

Goat shed in the background.

The welcoming 'longdrop'.

Outdoor ablutions,

I had a wonderful bath under the stars that night

 before travelling back to civilisation again.

Kitchen amenities, with some of our lunch cooking.

Fish caught on the block, oysters bought on the way in.

Home grown salad greens to go with it.

What more could you ask for? Delicious!

Some of the 'muddies' (crabs) caught during the afternoon, for tea.

The blokes are very much into the hunter gatherer thing

and my GKB thoroughly ejoyed a great afternoon out with them.

The dogs having an afternoon nap on their 'bed'.

 Raised to keep them off the ground because of

creeping/slithering critters and to keep them cool.

Me, with my GKB, holding Blossom, a week old kid.

I was allowed to name her :D)

A couple of the young blokes getting the fire going after tea.

We had a lovely day out and were invited to stay the night

 but elected to travel back.

I'm a bit of a soft city slicker and enjoy

 my home comforts I'm afraid.

Well I hope you enjoyed our day out,

this is just a few pictures to give you a little bit 

 of an idea of what we did one day in Aussie.

There is so much more to tell, but maybe another day.

Central bunnies and Dunstan gold

I have just finished cleaning and tidying the room the 2 little boys use when they are here - for playing in, not sleeping. I found among other things, a bright red plate with what looked like someones science project growing in it, lurking under the couch. Anyway that is a job I have been putting off and it is now done - just looking at the mess was daunting, mainly toys scattered about amongst cushions and blankets but daunting all the same. It only took about 20 minutes when I finally got round to it.

What has this got to do with bunnies or gold you may ask? Well nothing really except that Easter has just been and gone and  I believe the Easter Bunny was very good to these two wee fellows :D) And Easter is a season of golden promise.

But we, the GKB and me, did happen to be in Central Otago when the big Easter bunny shoot was being judged in Alexandra and went to have a look at what all the fuss was about, not realizing really what we were walking into. We had wondered why we couldn't get a car park anywhere and had to park down a side street and could see a couple of marquees in the playing field so went to be nosy. Thousands (22,904 according to the paper) of bunnies lined up on the field waiting to be counted and judged. Probably hundreds of hares, lots of ferrets - I loved the creamy brown coats on some of them - six turkeys and a goat. And a little black rabbit ...

The presentations were being done as we walked through and a young bloke from Aussie was getting a bit of stick for not being able to understand proper English, but it was all in good fun and he got a prize for being the competitor who had travelled furthest to compete.

I know a few young blokes in Aussie who would probably love to make up a part of team sometime in the future, it's real man stuff, helps to keep the rabbit population under control in a small way. Oh did I mention there were also several dozen of those Aussie pest, the 'possum among the count?

And Dunstan Gold. Beautiful autumn colours on the poplar trees. I love these trees. Although close up they are not very inspiring to look at and you would probably never pick them for a landscaping project the wow factor in the autumn couldn't be any better. If you are lucky to see them en masse in the autumn, and if you are lucky enough to see them from above and from a distance they are the most glorious trees about. They turn bright golden before the leaves drop. To me they look like golden fingers stretching to the heavens and it is not hard to believe that God's creation is reaching up to Him in worship. Every branch is pointing skywards, each little baby branch is reaching skyward, the leaves all reach to the sky - absolutely beautiful.

Strangely this year, and I guess it has been such a funny season, some of the trees were bare of leaves at the top, were golden in the middle and still had some green growth at the bottom, but still lovely in a quirky way.

So that is my bunnies and gold story from my Easter break away in Cromwell in Central Otago. (An extra week would have been good, oh well...)

plovers, blackbirds and starlings...

I have just climbed off the bike. I am going to sleep at the computer, well I feel like I am. Today we have been into the city to look for new carpet for the hallway so the GKB and I have both pounded the city pavements, it was cooler there than at home too. Decided to get new vinyl for the kitchen but now have the samples at home and don't like the colour of the vinyl, maybe it will grow on me, maybe. It doesn't really go with the carpet samples.

My sister is in the air on the way over from Aussie, we're picking her up at the airport in the morning. She wants to walk the country block and see the alpacas down the road, so we will get in at least one walk while she is here.

Late in the afternoon I took a walk around our block and surprisingly saw a pair of plovers in a playground, along with the usual blackbirds and starlings, all after the worms and grubs in the grass. I've never seen plovers over this way before. Then another half hour or so on the bike and I have had it. So it has all been concrete and pavements today apart from some time out in what passes for a garden at my place. I couldn't pass up on the opportunity to get out in the sun after a mixed week of storms, hail, snow, and brilliant sunny days. The brilliant sunny part quite often happened after I had gone to work in the afternoon.

Anyway, bed calls, so goodnight all.