Winter's nearly here

Tomorrow is the first official day of winter, which means for you in the Northern Hemisphere, it'll be the first day of summer!
It's a lot colder, especially in the evening. I had the heater on for the first time two days ago, although I've had the electric blanket on for a couple of weeks. Most of the people I know have had heaters or fires on for almost a month! Me, I keep thinking of the power bill!!
I had a really good few days off work- I was out almost the whole time- visiting etc. Andrew and I went up to Palmerston North to look for houses for sale as well, to see if they were cheaper there. There's not much difference in the prices though. P North is a city of about 80 000 people around 70 minutes drive from here.
I am so going to have to go on a diet- I've been reasonably good in watching what I eat but over those few days on leave I've had more takeaways than I should have!

I went backpacking..

Tuesday I went into town (about 70kms away) and met up with Andrew- we stayed in a twin room with ensuite at a backpackers just across the road from his work. I have a few days leave. Andrew slept during the day, and then when he went to work, I slept in the room during the night. Backpacking has changed since I did it last when the kids were a lot younger! We had an ensuite! We had sheets and duvets provided! There was a heater in the room! Wow, real luxury. The upper floor was entirely taken up by computers with free internet access, a large dining area, two TV rooms, the kitchen, video games, a pool table, and a really nice area with couches around a big fire. This is a picture of the backpackers- you can see why it was painted like that with the name Wildlife aye! I'm going to do it again some time, it was great to have a day away like that.

Christie

Our beautiful girl-cat Christie died this morning, she was 14 1/2 years old. She was Andrew's pet from the time he was 5 and he is very sad. She hadn't been looking good since last night, and died about 11am this morning before we could get her to the vet. We buried her in the country on some land owned by the boys aunt and uncle- that way no matter where we might move, it's somewhere Andrew can always go to visit. Poor kitty, we'll both miss her.

Blackbirds

Hi Karen

When you showed the picture of the merle, then I understood what type of bird it was- a blackbird, at least it looks exactly that. We get a lot of them here in NZ, they would have been brought over to NZ by the emigrants in the 1800s, who wanted things that remined them of "home". So we also now have mice, rats and rabbits (and possums from Aussie, a REAL pest), stoats, weasels, ferrets etc!!! Blackbirds aren't pests and it's lovely to see them. I also like thrushes. Favourites of the native birds are tuis (such a lovely song), fantails, and wood pigeons.

The computer can't type right!

Well that's my excuse anyways- I mean the big hill is 1100 metres high lol

cooler evenings

Definitely late autumn- there's been snow at the top of the big hill behind my town for the last 2 days, although it will have gone by tomorrow. The hill is about 110 metres high, but the snow is earlier than it's been probably in the last 10 years! Maybe it will be a cold winter... I put the electric blanket on my bed 2 nights ago but so far haven't had the heater on at home.

Karen, sorry I can't see word verification again! Fleamarkets are fun aren't they. We have more in the way of car boot sales here, and fairs. Maybe I should put my cell phone on aircraft mode, which means it's on, so that my alarm will still wake me up, but no one can call me or text me!

early morning wake ups!

Well yesterday morning I got an early morning wake up call- an earthquake at 5.32am. Just a little too early for my liking, it could have waited for an hour later surely! It sure woke me up and made the whole house rattle and shake, but nothing got broken or fell off. It was a 5 on the richter scale centred about 40 kms from here. NZ is a "shaky" country, and the city near where I live has a reputation as waiting for "the big one". I don't like earthquakes, you never know if once it starts whether it's going to get worse.

Then on Mother's Day morning, Andrew, who is working night shift, decided to text me then phone on my mobile at 2.30am- to ask for the address of a house for sale that had been emailed to him! Well I was well and truly awake by then, so I checked it out and let him know. Then 6am my cell phone rings again "Happy Mother's Day Mum" said Andrew! Well I guess it's the thought that counts aye!

Houses, houses

Andrew has been looking into buying some real estate. He went to see a mortgage broker and she said to him she may be able to get finance of around NZ$230 000. So he spent a very busy 3 days going to see real estate agents and looking at houses that would be good to do up with him and I living in it for 2-3 years and both contributing to expenses. He was getting quite excited by the proposition of doing it! However he heard back from the mortgage broker last night- the first bank is saying only $140 000! Andrew is gutted and sooo disappointed. That figure will not get us a house or a flat or anything in the area we live. Even in the areas that have houses at those prices it wouldn't work out. Andrew and I couldn't live there, too far to travel to work... and a tenant wouldn't cover the cost of the mortgage.

So he really doesn't know what to do anymore. Our lease runs out on our rental house in September and we don't know if the lease will be renewed this time. I could get another rental but we both would like to be in something that's ours. I can't afford to borrow more than $80 000. We have looked into both putting into a house, but what happens if Andrew moves away or wants to do something else- I'd be left looking for somewhere to live with a loss on what money I would have put in. So we won't do that.

Maybe I will discover an unknown uncle??? Or Andrew will win Lotto? You never know what could happen in the future!

Blogger's done it again!

Blogger's done it agin- I could view the word verification for a whole two days- check it again today and nope- not there!

Karen, may you have many happy days with your Ogo :-)

Autumn

Sunset from the sandunes. Pretty aye- this doesn't do it justice! The glow of the setting sun was orange and yellow and the clouds had tinges of pink, while the sea was a translucent blue. Sunset is at about 5.20pm now.

I could see Mts Taranaki and Ruapehu, both a couple of hundred kilometres away, the air was that clear.

I didn't have time to go for a walk, just drove to the car parking area and stood on the sandune and admired it!

Blogger word verification

Well, I just can't view Blogger's word verification at all, so can't post on Blogger blogs. I've tried it on both computers here at home and the computer at work, so maybe it's a NZ thing? I've turned off the word verification on my blog in case others are having the same problem.

Karen, the tulips look just lovely, and the fish in the pond too. It's great to hear that your weather has now improved. I hope that many trips on the Kiwi are on the agenda and I'll be looking forward to photos.
Our taxes are done automatically here by Inland Revenue and our employers: makes it sooo much easier. We just get a bill if we owe lol!
Sorry I can't post any comments to you at the moment, but hopefully you'll still call past here so I can comment here instead!

Kathryn has put my name into a Mother's Day competition, I doubt she will win but isn't it lovely that she entered?

I must be getting old!

Here's a picture of Yana in her exersaucer taken when we visited yesterday.

It's only just after 8.30pm and I'm almost ready for bed lol. I've been cleaning up the house as it'll be our 3 monthly inspection of the house by our property managers in a week or so. I've been cleaning off the flyspots from the ceilings and lights, cleaned the fridge freezer, completely turned out both bedrooms and done most of the bathroom (skirtings etc).

It's taken a few days, but the house is looking pretty good now. I've still got the oven and the vinyl floors to do yet- oh and more of the garden, it's rather neglected I'm afraid. I wish I was a good gardener but I'm not. We've got a lot of buffalo (couch) grass and it gets into the garden beds and the roots are so extensive it's impossible to get rid of it completely.

Oh, has anyone else found that the letter verification pic isn't there on Blogger, so I can't post any comments at the moment.

May Day

I know, planes again! I went to the aero club yesterday because I knew this plane would be in town, and I know the pilot. Dan is the brother of Simon, who was my flying instructor. Last year Dan got a job in Queenstown flying for Actionflite as an aerobatic pilot, flying the Red Bull Pitts Special. He's been on a tour around the country, and was at my local airfield taking people up for flights.

No, I didn't go up- at $235 NZ it's beyond my pocket money! It's a fantastic plane, very fast and agile. It pulls +6g and -3g at it's most extreme.It was good to see Dan, he is loving his job.

Today (Monday) was my other day off (I worked Saturday) and Kathryn and I went over to see Yana. I'm having a bit of trouble uploading the photos from my pxt phone to my email, I have a feeling that my email is treating it as spam and deleting them before I can get to view the pics.
The pxt of the Red Bull plane I managed to get as I sent it to Andrew's email.

Sarah has given me a digital camera but it may not work properly as it had been dropped. It doesn't turn on and off properly and the zoom doesn't work very well. The battery has run out and there is no USB cord- but hey, you never know, maybe we can get it to work sometime!