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

That was a week, that was

We had a storm blow through the country this week. It was quite devastating with a lot of property damage and one person dead after a tree branch fell on him. I know it is the spring equinox and we always get wind at this time of year but I can't remember it being this bad before.  The whole country was affected, with the wind starting in the south and travelling north.

We have trees down

Roofs off.

Fences where they shouldn't be.

Telephone poles snapped.

And debris all over the place.

We were fortunate that the only thing to happen to us was that my irises ended up horizontal to the ground and needed to be tied up and we had to pick other peoples rubbish up from around the yard. The worst day of the storm was also rubbish collection day.

The wind started gently enough on Monday and gathered in intensity over the course of the week with the worst of it happening on Thursday and finally abating on Friday. Thousands of homes are still without power and we have been asked to conserve water in our area. And now we are being told there is more to come.

But today, Sunday, our church ladies were due to have a high afternoon tea, so we did. It was a good way of  getting to know each, being a new church. And putting names to faces. So scones, savoury and sweet, and cake was the order of the day along with tea or coffee. Kelly and Maria did a wonderful job and it was a pleasure to sit at such a beautifully set table. Bone china, lovely glassware and dainty silver teaspoons and butter knives..

A great way to finish off a horrible week.

Until next time

Diana

Edit: we didn't go out looking for storm damage, the photos are from various members of the family taken in their areas. Thankfully none of us sustained damage to our homes or properties but daughter's partner lives in another town and he was without power or water so drove through to her place for a shower and a hot meal then headed home again. A lot of work to  be done where he lives he said.

Oh this spring weather...

This is what it looked like a couple of days ago even though the forecast had been for rain, hail and snow to low levels.

Well it did arrive and although we didn't get snow here the temps have dropped dramatically and it feels like winter again. This is how it looked a couple of minutes ago from one of my front windows.

A lake is forming in the yard.

And the storage bin began to float...

.

...so my GKB had to go out and rescue it.

It doesn't look like a lot of water but it is!

A pot of soup is cooking on the stove - winter comfort food :)

If only I could I'd send this rain to California.

***********

Well things got worse after I had written this. Flooding, shops, businesses and some homes sandbagged. Some people were told to prepare to evacuate, roads have been cut off and trees down as well as slips. And our power was out for a couple of hours. Apart from that all we have had is a leaking window. Thankfully we had our roof fixed back in February otherwise I think it would have been a different story. It was quite a weather bomb with more to come apparently.

Odds and ends

Just a few words and pictures to catch up with everyone.

First I've been locked out of Google for a few days but

 number one son now has me up and running again.

Middle sis has been over from Aussie and is now away home again. She likes a busy holiday so that's what we have been - busy.

Amongst other things we have been to the Chinese Gardens to see a Chinese opera.

We have visited family, eaten meals together

 and then relaxed and just enjoyed each others company.

We've gone for drives and ended up drinking tea,

coffee and hot chocolates after eating more food.

Some of the places we went had some fun décor as well.

And on top of that we have had our roof repaired.

We lost some of the ridge iron during a storm last winter

and have been waiting for about 5 months to have

 the whole roof repaired. It was finished the day before

another torrential storm hit us - phew :)

And now I am preparing for my youngest sister to arrive.

Also from Australia but that is not for a week or two yet.

So some breathing space :)

Weather watch

 I wondered what I was going to share this week as it has been a quiet time around here. But the last  24 hours gave me something, be it ever so little. A few of you might have seen the odd post where I've shown our benign Silverstream. Well it's benign in the summer but today that has changed.

summer on the floodbank

We had some of this weather below today which rapidly changed

 to extremely strong winds and very heavy rain.

autumn on the floodbank

Resulting in a not so benign Silverstream.

today

A lot of sandbagging was happening in the Silverstream area during the day.  This is at the bottom of our street but our house is built quite high off the ground, luckily. The rain is still coming down, it hasn't let up since it began this morning.

So now we wait to see whether it breaches the floodbank.

Well that's snow and rain out of the way, I wonder what's next?

Diana

Oh dear, there's just been a snowy forecast for tomorrow :)