Cool nights and sunny days.

The nights have been cold, sometimes dropping to -5C or below and it usually means we have lovely sunny, if chilly, days. But it's usually lunch time before the sun is coming  through our sitting room windows and we can turn the heat pump off.

It hasn't stopped the jonquils from putting on a beautiful, cheery display along the front of the house though.

The afternoons are fairly warm(ish) up to 12C sometimes and one afternoon last week I went out to a very enjoyable Aglow meeting. The board had gone to the trouble of creating some small vignettes around the room relating to the theme of the afternoon.

We finished off with afternoon tea before we headed home again. It was cooling down again by then.

 You'll have to forgive me for going on about the weather. I don't like the cold. Daughter in law Sofi, says down south everyone talks about the weather - in Auckland everyone talks about the traffic. I'm down south 😄

But in just over a week we're heading to Auckland, where I won't talk about the traffic because I won't be driving in it, and then we're heading to Mackay in north Queensland. Looking forward to some warmer weather in both places.

I'll leave you there.

Keep well and keep warm.

Until next time, 

Diana

An ordinary week

Hoping to join Amy and her friends for 

Five on Friday, if I can come up with five.

So let's have a look at my week.

On Monday youngest daughter sent us a picture of a house 

being demolished and said, "guess where this is". 

We both looked and decided it was house in Port Chalmers 

so just ignored it really. But no, it was a house on our main

 road so we went down to have a look.

It was built in the 1880's and then in the 1950's was converted to a rest home which was run by a christian trust. Unfortunately the trust came to the point in the last year or so where it couldn't 

afford to keep it going and so the home closed and the house

 and site was sold to a developer :(  There were quite a few little boys watching, school holiday time, and quite a few

 bigger boys as well. A sad sight really.

We woke to a nice windy day on Tuesday. Generally Monday is my main wash day but I hadn't done a full wash because the day had started out really cold and bleak. Minus 5C  with a good frost.

But look what I found when I walked out to the letterbox, a tiny daisy trying to open, and another one just in the bottom right

 of the picture that hadn't opened quite as much. Talk about hardy.

Anyway Tuesday, I decided to get the towels and sheets 

out on the line and they got a good fluff up in the wind.

I don't think we saw the sun at all on Tuesday but it was slightly warmer because of the wind. We woke to snow on 

Mt. Maungatua this morning and a cold, biting wind.

On Wednesday our youngest grand daughter turned 18 and 

so we took off for the city to look for some hand luggage

 for her. We found something in our price range in about

 the third shop we went into. I do like these sales :)

 And I don't know what was going on but every shop we went into had done a re-lay so nothing was where it had been and we spent a lot of time wandering around looking for departments. Now tomorrow we need to go back in, but to different shops this time, as her young brother turns 10 tomorrow. We thought we'd find something out here, but not what we are wanting. 

On Thursday I had a meeting to go to and I was also on 'soup duty'. This meant I made a big crock pot full of vegetable soup and took it down to our venue. After the meeting was over those of us who could, stayed for a soup and bun lunch. Luckily for me I had wrapped a big old towel around the crock as somewhere along the way as I was transporting it, it slopped over the top and made a bit of a mess of the towel, but not the car thankfully. I have to admit I went to bed for granny nap in the afternoon, :) No photo's for Thursday.

No photo's for Friday either and it was quite a mundane day. We had 'not quite gale force' winds in the morning and bitterly cold as there was snow about. A bonus with the wind was that we got a few more feijoas from the tree when we thought they were finished. Youngest daughter came in for a visit and a coffee in the morning and during the afternoon we went out to do a bit of shopping and hopefully find youngest grandson his birthday present. My GKB found a light meter for his camera so I suppose that was something and I came home with a pair of tights but that's not what we were looking for.  And that's my five on Friday.

This is the day...

We had another dump of snow over the weekend. 

Now don't laugh at me you people who live where snow

 is a feature every winter. 

We don't get a decent dump very often but this winter

 I've lost count of how many snowfalls we have had. 

Five or six I think. 

At the weekend it was below 200 metres, 

which meant that it settled here.

Little mother decided she wouldn't go to church, 

she didn't want to risk falling. Very wise.

 

Out town is in a rural area although it is now classed as a city suburb and we are on a plain surrounded by hills and mountains.

Which still have quite a bit of snow on them.

The higher hill suburbs are still covered as well and I'm pretty sure

 the kids have had a day or two off school this week.

Earlier in the week when we went outside, 

the snow had gone from around about but it was still cold.

We'd had minus 7 C. overnight and a good, hard frost on top of it.

The picture above is of frozen raindrops on a small tree next to the fence.

Today I noticed the aloe vera was turning black,

I rather suspect it had frozen solid with the frost

 and cold and died when it thawed.

I'll have to get in and cut that out, but not for a day or two,

 it's too cold for me to do any gardening yet.

I thought I'd go for a walk along the flood bank today.

Let me tell you it was very a short walk. 

The wind was very cutting.

I stayed there long enough to get a couple of pictures of the ducks,

 who didn't appreciate me coming along and disturbing them.

They went down the bank, into the water and up the other side.

Oh well.

Then it was back home for a hot cuppa,

which is one of the pleasures of the colder weather...

...along with not having to make excuses for reading,

 watching telly, doing jigsaws, taking up knitting again

 and just generally slothing about.

And it's a good time to eat all that comfort food

 you go without in the warmer weather!

I think I told you that our Claude has only recently 

discovered chairs, couches and beds.

 During this cooler weather our outside cat 

has been found occasionally on the end of our bed,

 particularly if I won't move and let him sit in my chair.

I know, I'm mean.

But despite the cold, most days I still manage to say

'This is the day the Lord has made, 

I will be glad and rejoice in it'.

Ps. 118:24

Joining in with:
roses of inspiration

Have a lovely week,
keep well until next time,
Diana

jigsaws, books and feijoa jam

It's a strange winter - not as wet as usual - but the temperatures are still way down there.

The nights draw in early and the drapes are all pulled around 4:30pm on a bleak day.

And that makes for long drawn out evenings.

So what to do on a long winters night?

Well I don't know about you but I get a bit
fed up with the fare on the telly,

 although there are one or two programmes I like:

Once upon a time.

Castle.

Weekend murders.

Undercover Boss.

Junior Masterchef.
Missing.

just to name a few.

So to while away the time I dug out some jigsaws.

 I haven't done a jigsaw for quite a few years so
 I thought I'd better start slow and easy,

 like a 500 piece one.

It only took a few days so I got brave
 and pulled out a 1000 piece box to do next.

One Sunday youngest grand boy came in and was really
 fascinated by the size of the puzzle and how
 small the pieces were. .

so seeing as he had a birthday coming up
I thought I would see if

 I could find him one that was not too big.
I managed to find a

 60 piece map of the world with some stand up icons
 and he was really pleased with it.  

He rang that night to tell me he had finished doing it
 in one afternoon,

 'not a week like it takes you Granma'.

Don't ya just love 'em?

I also went along to the library and got an armful
 of books out, 'cause I just love reading.

Unfortunately I can be quite anti social when I read,
I get really lost in a book if it has a
good story line, then have to run around like
an idiot getting things done.
It's just as well my GKB doesn't mind, he likes his telly,
I like to read.

I've also made some feijoa jam, it turned out horrible but edible,
 so I am eating my way through it.
Thank goodness it is only a couple of jars.
The next door neighbours have a couple of trees on our fence line and I harvest the windfalls, well the 2 little grand boys do.
 They love going out with a bowl and gathering the fruit up,
though I think they may not all be windfalls,
 but what I can't see isn't hurting and the neighbours don't mind.

The boys are allowed to pick the berries
on our side of the fence in season too, raspberries,
blackberries and there is a nut tree as well,
hazelnuts I think. I can never remember what they are.
We have to wait for them to fall as well,
 they're practically invisible on the tree.
Youngest grand boy loves cracking the nuts open with a rock.
And not many of the berries make it inside either!!

It's 3 degrees celsius outside just now and will probably drop below freezing overnight, which will mean a good frost in the morning and hopefully a nice winters day.

Have a good week everyone, wherever you are and whatever you are doing.

Diana