2 piccies

Fudge, Rowan and the 2 legged guy is Eric.

Chasing only, not hitting I promise. The bugger shouldn't be in my veg plot!

Blog I wasn't going to write.

I wasn't going to write tonight as after a day in the office I didn't have anything to write but then something very strange happened this evening. The girls had announced that they wanted Macaroni Cheese for supper this morning (I had a vegetable pie on my list then remebered we ate that last week). At 5.30pm I told Harriette she was cooking and... she did. Not only that but as they went along A and H did the washing up. Feeling redundant (I am NOT complaining) I went outside to move a very overgrown camillia from outside the cottage. I came back to not only a very tasty MC but they had made 'Mommy a special pudding', melted Energy chocolate (dark choc) with fresh cream to make a sauce to go on ice cream. I suspect the motivation (as opposed to rotovation) was their own taste buds but it was very nice. The cherry on the cake was they did all this without arguing. There is a God after all!!!!

Have discovered Brook Fraser. Apparently she's (world?) famous in NZ but I have just heard her on the radio doing a programme. Very Joni Mitchell-ish and has been writing her own stuff since she was at school. I may jolly into town tomorrow to buy a CD.

Fudge and Rowan have moo-ed frantically today at the sight of anything on 2 legs expecting milk. Poor things. Still, they are tucking into the Mooslee now which is great.

Very sad news from the UK that friends are separating after decades of happy marriage. I thought they were stuck with super-glue. Our thoughts are with them, even though it is very amicable.

Sunday Evening Jotting's

Well what a change in the weather. Over Friday and Saturday we had 36 hours of solid rain. A few days earlier we'd had howling gales and on Saturday the winds took down a tree in next doors paddock (one of those that runs along our drive so we are glad it blew into the paddock rather that across the drive). Today has been GORGEOUS! Not a cloud to be seen and almost shorts temperatures. For me that is, Eric is in shorts almost all the time anyway! Eric has been tending his pool for much of the day. First reading of the season.... 12 degrees C!! Alice wanted to swim today and could not understand when I said 'No'!! 'But we'll put wetsuits on'. 'No'!!

So what have I done? First thing this morning I phoned Cheryl and had a chat. Laura (aged 4) came on the phone and told me she had drawn me a picture. I asked her to send it to me and the rest of our conversation was punctuated with Cheryl spelling our address for Laura who was writing the envelope. She then said she wanted to go and post it but Cheryl managed to convince her that a dark, cold Sat night was not the right time to be strolling down to the postbox to post letters. Actually we had a real treat this morning, CUSTARD CREAMS with our in-bed tea. Now what's the big deal I hear you ask. Custard creams are. Cheryl, bless her had parceled up 3 packets each with a packet of CC's in, one for H, one for A and one for Eric and I. Bliss. Don't anyone tell me you can buy CC's here, they are nothing like those you get in England, especially those from Tesco's. Once again, Thank You Cheryl! Eric's amd my packet came later than the girls one. We then noticed that they had been checked by 'BioSecurity' and resealed. Well there you go!

We did finally get up. Having shoo-ed the calves out the veg plot once too often now Eric and I put another row of electric tape below the first one. Hope that keeps the buggers out. I also planted lots of seeds into trays with Alices 'help'. I had to explain that just because there were 3000 seeds in a packet you didn't have to put them all in one row of cells! I lost my taller 'mini' greenhouse in the storms so rearranged the stuff in the other one and put the seeds in there. I hope it's safe to say there should be no more frosts so have moved the pohutakawa and Kauri trees out. I also moved the sickly-looking lime and lemon trees off the deck, washed down their pots and sprayed them. They've got black sooty stuff all over them, few leaves and looked in need of TLC. I have put them on the pool deck as I think they were lacking in sun at the back of the house deck and didn't cope with the wind when they were at the front of it. Harriette sort-of mowed the lawns but that was such a painful experience for all concerned we won't go there! Eric has once again fixed the sit on mower and disappeared off to do the drive. He thought he had fixed it recently having welded something to do with the gear stick. It had stalled so he bought it back to the carport, was whizzing in all cocky-like and the gearstick came off in his hand (Eric is not renowned for his welding skills, a lesson please Mark when you are next over!. Remember the singletree when No 47 was slotted!!!!!). Apparently he crashed into the back of the carport, though unfortunately I was not there to witness the event!!!

I sprayed all my fruit trees with some obnoxious chemicals and plan to continue doing so all summer!!! Last year most of them were decimated by a beetle that I think grows from the grass grub. (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but only if you're a local!) Not only did they get my fruit trees but all the young trees on the drive. When I saw how wonderfully productive Juliets fruit trees had been I decided to declare war on the buggers. Not for these bugs the gentle organic approach, I was going in with big guns blazing. I used 4 litres of the stuff today and plan to attack again in 7 days. I am also going to keep on top of the leaf curl which is a real problem so the Copper will be out mid week. Every year I neglect my fruit trees but this year is going to be different. I'll keep you posted.

Eric was planning to dag the last of the sheep today but just as he went down to round them all up he found a lamb being born so that scuppered that idea (can't round up sheep when one of them is delivering). We have had a 'weaning' day with the other animals. Eric separated the piglets from their Mom's for the first time this morning. He has put them back together for the night time but hopefully a few days of this and they can start to dry off. Don't know if this is the right way to do it but I am applying my breast feeding knowledge from my Health Visiting days!! They are probably supposed to come off 'cold turkey' fashion but that seems so cruel. They are covered in mud with all this rain and look a right state. I didn't have the camera with me but will take some piccies tomorrow. The calves have had their milk cut down over this last week and had their last lot today, mainly because we ran out and I did not want to buy another 20kg bag. They are supposed to be taking a meal called Mooslee (don't you think that's a great name?, it looks like museli!) but don't seem interested so I got Robyn to cast her expert eye over them. She assured me they were fine with just grazing so that was it. No more milk for the calves. I do feel mean, especially when I think of the likes of Chilli and Carol feeding off their Mom's for nearly a year!

Friday I took the girls to WaterWorld in Hamilton as planned. They had a great time and we stayed there about 5 hours. They put the big inflatable thing up at one point and just before Alice had her turn I noticed it seemed to be loosing air. As Alice got on I spotted the air-hose which had disconnected from the side. It was now actually deflating. All the kids were laughing and Alice was told to jump off. She got out the pool in tears convinced that it had collapsed because she was too heavy for it and that all the kids were laughing at her! No reassurance on my part would convince her otherwise. Poor Alice. She did go on it again much later and after they had all had their half hour on the flume. I thought we might go into Hamilton and do some girlie shopping but by the time the 4 girls had finished in the pools it was time to get back home. In the morning Robyn had invited us up to watch the rugby (Waikato v Canterbury) so we decided to combine suppers and eat there too. By pure chance I was doing Chicken Normandie which is something I seem to have cooked almost every other time I've cooked for the Scott's. In fact last time I promised not to cook it again (despite that fact that everybody loves it) and here we were eating it again!!! The rugby was good, well for the first half. At half time the score was 3 all. A disappointment at there being no tries but at least they weren't beating us, as had been expected. However Canterbury took the lead in the second half and ended up thrashing us. Some good tries though, on both sides. One has to add that Canterbury is made up of about 80% AB's! Two years ago when they last came to Hamilton for the NPC we beat them in what Eric reckons is the best game of rugby he has ever watched. Shame they couldn't repeat that on Friday. Never mind, we had a good evening. H and A were meant to stay over-night but H said she wasn't feeling well so came home with us.

Saturday we didn't get up until 9.30am - how decadent is that! Well would you when the weather is foul and you don't have anything particular to do? We did pop into Matamata and do bitty things and decided to go the the video store and hire some films for the coming week. We watched Calendar Girls with our pizzas on Sat night. Now I'm sure that you have all seen it but if you, by some freak of nature, haven't, then you must. It is brilliant. Eric and I had seen it at the movies but the girls couldn't as I think it had a 15 rating and we wanted to suss it out first. Well they loved it, and of course it makes us think of Carol. Aren't Helen Mirren and Julia Walter's just the best of British?! H and A could not believe that Annie in the film was Mrs Weasley in the HP films!!

Well I've rabbited long enough. One little gem from Alice. She recently asked for a patch of the veg plot to grow her own veg. At breakfast this morning we were discussing the days plans and Alice said to Eric (thinking of her overgrown patch) 'Daddy can you motivate my bit of garden for me today'. He was later heard yelling at my veggies 'Come on you lot GROW'!!!!

All Better Now

Well Monday I slept on and off all day. I would have had Tuesday off as well but had a meeting at lunchtime and a clinical assessment in the morning. As this nurse has already had to cancel twice in the past I didn't want to miss this one. I struggled through feeling quite dizzy at times (God I'm a hero!). Planned to come home and go to bed but didn't get through my working day until 5pm anyway. Wednesday felt better and apart from being very 'sinusy' am definately on the mend now. Alice is sniffing still and H is starting to go that way.

Had childcare problems Tuesday and Wednesday and ended up dumping the girls at Matamata pools for both mornings (quite legal over the age of 8). Eric is only round the corner anyway. I offered to take them out today (I could have gone to Te Awamutu with work and found them something to do there) but they wanted to stay at home. Was hoping to catch up with Sarah and Kathryn but that did not come off. I have taken tomorrow off so will do something with the girls then.

Feral Beryl (nee Dusty) was 'done' on Tuesday. I was all ready with tea, toast and sympathy when she got home (well maybe not the toast) and she looked pathetic and poorly... for all of 20 minutes. We let her out for a wee and she was leaping around chasing flies. Personally I think they just shaved her and stitched the skin without opening her up! I suppose that she can officially stay out at night now but I guess we'll give her some time to get over it. A month or 3!!

Weather is variable wet when I want to garden, dry when I'm stuck indoors. News is dire and dominated by the, unknown at this point in time, fate of Kenneth Bigley. How we feel for him and his family.

Well I have nil else to report. School hols painless-ish and non descript at present. Hope they get more interesting (if just for the sake of having something interesting to report on blog) and stay painless. Robyn's just phoned. S + K free tomorrow so I will take them all to WaterWorld in Hamilton.

Oh I saw a job this week I'd love to go for. 16 week contracts in a bush hospital in Australia. Airfares, accomodation and food paid for. Working with aborigines. I'd love it but don't think IMAC would give me the time off at such a busy period. The kids hate me going away for one night, don't know how they'd cope with 16 weeks (if I'm honest that goes both ways!!).

Postings From A Poorly Badger

Yes me. I'm sick and feeling very sorry for myself. It is Monday morning, first day of school holidays and I have taken the day off. I started feeling off on Friday, spent Saturday telling myself it was just a cold and I'd stop being a wos. Felt better by late afternoon and in the evening we went to Helen and Phil for supper as arranged. Had a nice time (good food, Phil made the most yummy gateaux I have ever tasted, and good company, the very best way to spend an evening) but ended up sniveling through the whole evening and feeling more yuk as time went on. In fact I felt quite guilty inflicting my germs on them all and will be phoning in a few days to check no-one has got sick. On Sunday I went from feeling poorly to feeling down right ill by mid afternoon. I ached, was shivery, had abdo. pains and was wishing the day away. We had gone to bed at 1.30am (for why will follow) and was awake at 5.30am. At 1pm I thought it must be at least 4pm and, despite a sleep on the sofa, the day dragged terribly.

I fitted being ill around other things over the weekend. Tried to go and plant potatoes on Saturday (had done the digging in the week so it was literally just planting), had to rest several times and gave up half way through as I was so exhausted. Alice came to help. She obviously found it more arduous than I did - poor Alice does not do physical anything! Mid afternoon had a phone call from a friend saying they were in the midst of a family crisis and could she and 3 children come and park in the flat overnight. They arrived when we were at Helen and Phils and hence the 1.30am bedtime. (I took a Sudafed when we got home and soon felt better.) Fed 8 for breakfast and then hit the sofa for the rest of the day. By now Alice is going downhill with a cold and one of the visiting children was also sniffling and coughing. Talk about the house of plague! I was about to doze on one sofa with Alice wrapped on the other one when she said that Bridget was here. She was out on the pool deck talking to Eric who is lovingly restoring the pool water to a swimmable state (you remember how precious he is about this Carol!). They came in for tea and try as I might I could not stay awake so poor Bridget spent her few hours here chatting to Eric and the girls while I slept!! Sorry Bridget!

Phoned Mom and Daddy for a long chat on Sat am (that's why you couldn't get through Cheryl) and Alice phoned Katie as we had missed her birthday in the week. Katie dropped the phone and cut them off so we phoned back. She then cut them off again and I thought that was enough in overseas calls. Shame as I was really hoping to talk to Helen.

Spoke to Juliet this week. Have been feeling very guilty that I hadn't phoned for 10 days. They seem to be more accepting of the situation and Juliet certainly seemed less stressed. Poor Kev is going do-laley being at home all day. It has been 5 weeks now. I do hope they come right soon.

Bright blue skies outside and I am stuck in here! I may try and potter planting some seeds into trays later today but that will be my limit I think. Time for a snooze now.

One bright thing, Linda Clark is back this morning. Couldn't get used to Linda Berry (or is it Barry). No, not one but lots of bright things; Eric and I are happily married and plan on staying that way forever, we have stable jobs and I need never be unemployed (save breaking a leg or some such thing), we have healthy, happy (well if you ignore hormones!) children who despite all I say, we love totally and we live in a beautiful country and have a fabulous lifestyle.... and very dear friends, even if some of you are the other side of the world. Life is good.

Rain, dogs and a dented ego.

Why oh Why oh Why is it that I take over calf feeding responsibility and the weather takes a nose dive. It's chucked it down for 24 hours now and the wind has been blowing a hooley, intermittently but at the point when I have to go outside and feed. Could barely stand up walking down to the barn this evening AND I found the calves in my veg plot!!! (No damage done that I could see, luckily for them or the freezer might have been home to some veal!).

Ben returned having been found in the woolshed paddock. Poor Eric really wanted an early night. He is skulking today as only 2 comments on 'his' blog entry and 8 on mine. I told him photo's is what makes the difference. Anyone would think it was a competition. He still thinks no-one reads his blog entries after I told him no-one can understand them! So in the interests of Eric's dented ego can I request that everyone go back to his entry and add something, anything to cheer the old boy up!!!!

Off to a supper of Delia's Spiced Chicken and then we are going to snuggle down and read HP The Order of the Phoenix. Harri has requested that I read it each evening in the same way we did when the books first came out. I think this is the 600 odd page one!!!

An average Sunday.

Alice got up this morning, climbed into our bed after making us tea (Sunday is supposed to be Harri's tea-making morning!) and said could she feed her calf. I said only if she got to it before me! She got up, mixed the milk and we both went down. She was away this evening so Eric and I did them both. Harriette has shown no interest! Thank you all for the support and encouragement on this. I will keep you abreast of any developments, needless to say!

Have had a good day. After feeding calves this am Alice and I did some weeding in the veg plot. It is looking very sad but the brassicas (broccolli, cauliflower and cabbage are just taking off and the leeks are coming along) then I did a quick bake (date and cardamon muffins and lemon muffins) as we were going up to R+R's. Eric wanted to borrow Richards dads shearing unit. It runs off a car battery and we wanted it to dag the sheep. It took a bit of getting used to but I think Eric has the hang of it now. We got there to find that it was Matts 18th birthday! We had no idea. Matt being R+R's son. Richard said they had been discussing what he could legally do now he had come of age and did not appreciate me saying that he could legally be gay!!!! Actually we then decided that we did not know what the legal age for gay sex was here. All I know is that it was changed about a year ago. Sonja and Bryce (Richards parents) then came in having just returned from 3 weeks in the South Island. They seemed to have had a great time. They did a 4 days boat tour in Dusty Sound which sounded fabulous. We bought Sarah back with us and left Alice there. They were all going out for a meal in the evening to celebrate Matts birthday so would return Alice and collect Sarah on their way to Hamilton.

On return we did my least favourite farm job 'the sheep'. This meant rounding them up, docking lambs tails and other 'boy bits', dagging (ie trimming the hard poo-ey stuff round their backsides, called dags) worming (squirting stuff in their mouth), vaccinating the babies and doing their feet ie trimming hooves, detecting and treating footrot and looking for abscesses etc. Next to treating fly strike it is the yukkiest job. Cyril the older ram is looking seriously past it and will find himself in the offal hole after Novembers shearing. Lila will also follow I think. Eric is talking about getting Wiltshire horns as they are non sheared hardy sheep. We did not get the job finished so I guess, weather pending this will be ongoing through the week.

Gave this up when I started to get chilly (I'm the first to admit I'm a fair-weather farmer) and came in to cook the lamb. Leg of the hogget Eric did a week or so ago. It was GORGEOUS. R+R called in to collect Sarah just before we served. Robyn said it smelt so nice she would rather eat here! Alice came in looking very glum. She'd had 2 nose bleeds (or blood noses as they call them here) and had hyper-extended her back whilst on the trampoline and hurt it quite badly. Poor thing. She's had a Nurofen and a hot bath and is much better now.

Whilst I have been typing Ben has gone missing. Eric has searched for ages and I have told him to give up, he'll come back in his own good time. He's (ie Ben) under threat of death at the moment and, as you can imagine Eric is livid. I'll let you know the outcome on next blog!

Something I forgot to mention yesterday. I think I wrote a few months ago about 'Baby Charlotte'. She is an 8 month old who contracted Meningococcal B disease and survived but became a quadruple amputee. Well her father, Perry Bisman, gave the opening speech at the Conference. Perry spoke for 50 minutes and had us all in tears. I have never heard such a moving account of a family's suffering in all my life. He showed us tens of photo's on the screen of Charlottes tiny body through all the phases of her battle. Not only has she has 4 limbs removed but on her left arm and right leg they had to go back and take more away more which meant that those stumps will now never grow so limb prosthesis fitting will be almost impossible. Perry was eloquent, brave, questioning and just amazing. You can imagine how angry it makes me when the anti-immunisation lobby, which is quite strong in NZ, then says we don't need to vaccinate against this disease, a healthy diet and good housing will irradicate it. Charlotte was breast fed and from a 'nice, middle class, professional' home but that didn't help her. Well on that thought I will say 'Night night world'.

A few days away.

Hi all

I firstly have to just make it clear that the only thing that stops Eric from going to OB's is money. I'd be happy for him to go every year if the airfare alone did not equate to 3 weeks income. Or even if it did but we could spare it. As it is the purchase of a tractor is a much higher priority!

Well I have come back from Rotorua to find that the girls tied their calves up this morning after feeding them (Eric had said he was going to put a rubber band on them today - you can work out where, I'll give you a clue, we are talking bull calves!) and at 5.30pm have not been back to them. Alice's one could not even get to the water! Luckily Eric had been down this morning, done the deed and let them loose but H and A did not know that. I have told them that they cannot do calf club (ie show their calves at school) and they are gutted. I HATE doing this. Alice has sobbed and begged, got cross, hugged me and begged more. I feel absolutely wicked but they just don't learn. Every single day we have to hassle the girls to get the calves fed and they do nothing with them unless we nag, and I do enough of that during calf free times!!!! Anyway I am persona non grata at the moment and Eric is convinced I am going to give in.

The Conference. It was the bi-annual Immunisation Conference that NZ has and is organised by IMAC. This years co-incided with the launch of the MeNZB (NZ specific strain of Meningococcal B vaccine) and was pretty full on. I have mixed feelings about how good it was. The venue however was excellent, we were in one of Rotorua's nicest hotels. The food was great, lots of fresh fruit (melon and pineapple) at every feeding session and lots of variety of nice food. The hotel had a pool (hot mineral of course) and both evenings saw us in it after dark. I got up on Friday morning and went for a walk down footpaths that took me round lots of hot pools. Imagine doing a riverside bush walk but the river has hot water and steam fumaroles everywhere emitting very sulphurous smelling steam. I didn't say it was nice, but it was different. I went down on Thursday for a day of training which was rather dis-jointed but probably because they took advantage of the overseas speakers here for the conference and had them addressing us on different subjects. Thursday night I went out to an Italian restaurant for a lovely rissoto with a few colleagues. You remember a few months ago I talked about a colleague who had made my life a misery one week when we shared a room in Auckland. She seemed to have been at the point of breakdown (not because of sharing with me I hasten to add) and subsequently went on to have 2 months off work. We had had a conversation about her behavior and she had apologised profusely some time ago. Well she has recently returned to work and this week was the first time I'd seen her. WHAT a difference!! She was a pleasure and very appreciative of my 'forgiving approach'. It is so nice when such mis-understandings can be cleared away. I am also so pleased for her that she has managed to sort her problems. On Friday I phoned Eric and told him that we were attending a Maori Cultural evening which included a hangi (food cooked in a pit) and did he want to bring the kids. I knew they would be so disappointed to have missed. I think it was the realisation that he would not have to cook supper that swung it for him. Alice totally embraces Maori culture but Harriette is a bit resistant (nothing to do with her father you appreciate) and had had a bellyful of it at school that day so she did not enjoy it so much. She did enjoy the buffet style meal though and watching her father up on stage being taught how to do the haka! He had the misfortune to be the only male on our table and was volunteered.







For some reason "I can't squat" comes to mind!!!

After this we all swam in the pool and lounged around in the spa chatting with some colleagues. A very pleasant evening.

Today was seriously full on. We started late, the 30 minutes of Maori greetings and singing was not not included in the timetable and consequently we did 4 hours straight off. I was told this was the Pacific way to do things but that doesn't mean I had to agree with it!! I cannot tell you what a pleasure it is to pull into my drive and see the sheep, cows and piglets after being away! Eric has just walked in with 2 perfect looking pizzas and Alice has put the second HP video on so I will finish. A 'proper' Sat evening!!!

Just another day at the office.

Evening all. Old habits die hard! M is away at a conference for several days so you've got me to read tonight at least. Tomorrow I am to get home from work and feed the calves etc before taking H to piano then driving to Rottenrua for a Hangi and concert. M felt that the girls would be too upset if she came home and said that she had been and they hadn't. I have to go as I am the driver before you ask. The real reason as we all know is that M can't bear to be separated from the Herberts, but then she can't stand being with them either! Catch 22 I believe. Well , what can I bore you with tonight?

I am dealing with a griefy dog bite at work currently. A chap had a lump ripped from his inside thigh by a delightful pig dog mutt cross. The owner has said that he isn't going to have it put down regardless and, being a good upstanding citizen would consider putting it elsewhere first! I ask you, what sort of pratts are these people? Anyhow, he is coming to see me at my office in the morning so I shall be Mr Diplomacy. Difficult to see that? I shall point out that if he wants to keep his dog, he is welcome. I shall then explain that he will have to comply with the Dog Control Act requirements for possessing a dangerous dog and the issue will go to Court. The Court have to make a destruction order so it is 99.9999. safe that he will be losing the case at great cost to himself! He will have to have his precious 'pet' sterilized. I believe it to be a male dog, not that that is at all relevant. Make a secure enclosure within his property etc etc. Oh yes, he has to register it too! Now, the fee here is $100 for a full registration. Add, 50% as the dog wasn't registered on time, becomes $150 plus if he agrees to his pooch being a dangerous dog a further 50%, $225! Would you? Or would you gratefully accept the offer of me dispatching the same pooch at home in th comfrt of his surrounds or even at great expense to the rate payers of Matamata-Piako district, taking him to the vets if you could bear to be parted from him? I think I know which way I'd go. Watch this space!!

Rant over.

Cx darling, I want to hear all about it. The Calf leading. I never actually did any showing for Di as when she invited me to lead one of her bulls at a show, it was cancelled due to Foot and Mouth. Prince would have won too I'm sure, we bonded well. He used to love having his back massaged. All I could think of was tenderising the sirloin steak beneath. I was always wary of his size and power, but he was a gentleman bull. It would be stupid to ever be in his pen on my own on the farm and I never was, but he was always placid until the cows came in or he went out to them! Bloody showoff. Pole vaulting around in such a manner as to make a grown man cringe. I hope you get your ribbon. Dexters are pretty sweet aren't they?

Stan, what news of your leave? It has gone quiet for some time on that front I fear. Let's faceit, the Mets want you over here anyway! Apert from Antarctica, it is about as far from London as they could hope for.

I am trying my best to win the ticket home for Old Boys by being good and creepy but I don't think I'll hold my breath, nor should you. Hx, sorry sweety, I feel that this therapy thing will have to go on a bit longer! Apologise to all the sweet lost things out there in the same boat won't you?

Anyway, enough of my drivel, we will next catch up on Saturday or Sunday. Take care out there.

All better

Haven't looked at the damage under the plaster but the finger feels a lot better-Thank you.

Now where was I, yes the weekend. Juliet and Kev are having a rough time of it at the moment with Kev having lost his job when the company folded out of the blue. He is waiting to hear on several interviews and has several things in the pipeline but everything takes so long. We invited them down with the intention of spoiling them and having a boozy evening or 2! Emma and Hannah stayed in Glen Murray as they had important netball matches to play so it was just the 2 of them. On Saturday we went for a walk on Te Puri, a large hill between us and R+R, sort of. Anyway Eric said it would take 10 minutes to drive there and it took best part of 30mins! The walk was lovely. We left H at home and just had Alice with us. Now Alice is always dragging up the rear and we are always having to stop to wait for her when we walk. Not today, it was like we'd bought a different child. She raced ahead and kept calling for the oldies to catch up. Now me and Eric you can understand but J and K are pretty fit. I would gasp and struggle up a hill wondering how anyone could have enough puff to talk and I'd catch Juliet up and she wouldn't even be breathing hard!!! I always worried when we had a long downhill slope as I knew we had to walk up it on the way back. It was very beautiful and is hunting territory. Eric and Kev got into discussion about a hunting trip and talked about us all doing an overnight trip into the bush as a recce. Sold it to Alice as a Famous Five sort of adventure. Well Alice took to this idea in a big way. Came home and has started a PowerPoint presentation for everone on the plans for the trip, has done a roster and this morning, wondering why her backpack was at home when she was at school, found it packed for the trip!! She was a bit perplexed when last night we told her to take these items off her packing list; walkman, earphones, spare batteries, several books, games, stools, pillows, blowup mattress, gun (Eric). I don't think she has quite got the gist of things!

Saturday evening saw me trying to serve a meal with too much Gin on board on a very empty stomach. Eric had verbal diarrhoea and slid into the role of careers adviser (I mean Eric, of all people, can you imagine, he's had one career that lasted 3 years in his whole adult life!!). Anyway they had just about written the business plan for a viticulture enterprise by the evenings end. Luckily Kev was in the same state as Eric. It was a good relaxing evening. I had my first hangover since the Halloween evening, but no nearly as bad as that one.

Sunday was just a late breakfast (homemade sausages and bacon, home grown lambs kidney, shame about the eggs and tomatoes!) then J and K left to gather up daughters. Eric and I pottered and sorted out my compost heap which was falling apart. The posts were struggling to hold back half a tonne of pig bedding and manure so were replaced with warratahs. Looks much tidier now. I weeded the rhubarb and divided that also. My celariac seeds still have not germinated (in the greenhouse) and neither has the spinach :(

Eric laid in bed this morning listening to the news and suddenly announced 'It's not fair'. 'What' I said'. 'Well for everybody else it's still Sunday and we've got to get up and go to work'!!!!! The poor boy!!!

Alice went to Daltons today as part of her class's study on how compost is made. She was busy telling us all about it and announced 'It takes 2 years and half a day to make compost' We fell about laughing and she could not understand why. 'What was the half day for Alice?' We never did find out! She won a cap for getting a question right. I am just going to check that she is not wearing in bed!

Night night all.

No Blog Tonight

Would blog but when washing up I picked up, and dropped, a carving knife. It flew through the air and caught my forefinger on the way down, not serious but makes typing difficult. Will blog tomorrow and tell you all about our plans for a Famous Five overnight camp in the bush (but I'm not backpacking in lashings and lashings of ginger beer!) and our w/e with J and K.

Slotting tonight.

C'est moi, as if you couldn't guess from the title! M decided that we needed a lamb 'doing' for the freezer last night. I got home from work and grabbed a bite to eat, cold rib of 47 sur pain et du butter, sharpened me instruments and set to. Normally, I don't have any difficulty working out which of our lambs is due for the table, only this time round, we missed shearing and have held off whilst the little fellas make their debuts. Ah ha. Not to be fooled, I thought of a cunning plan my Lord! I placed ear tags in the right ears of the wether lambs and left ears of the ewe lambs. Simple? No. Some have worked out why I put the tags there and removed them others stood with their bums facing me and determined never to show their faces all the time I had a rifle in my hands. Then some silly boy poked his ears up above the parapet of wool and I had him marked for din-dins. I can't really brag about dropping him in the paddock as despite it being a perfect shot, the poor thing was only 10 yards away. Now, why is the man doing this on a Thursday afternoon I hear you ask? Well, it is very exciting really, I am taking tomorrow off as time owing. So is Michelle, that makes it even better! Anyway, it means that I get to butcher it tomorrow morning whilst it is still cold. I hope that it chills down with the predicted Southerly wind, there is alas no chance of a frost tonight, that would be too much to ask. This would set the meat perfectly but one must make do.

Juliet, Kev and the Kids are down over the weekend and we are eating lamb tomorrow, beef on Saturday and a nice pork roast on Sunday. All home grown and gathered if you follow my drift. I must say, I think it is much better done by myself a) it is quicker, b) they know nothing about it, and c) I know it is my own animal, cut the way I want it, and what has gone into it since birth. Still, the menu looks fab, I look forward to it. Time for me to relinquish the reins now as M wants to put something prissy about rainbows!

'Looks fab' has anyone ever heard Eric use the word 'fab'?!?!?!? Thank you for the complement on the menu though, hope it all tastes as good!

My rainbow, yes. I have to describe this as I saw it while driving home from Hamilton about 5pm today. It was showery, not much sun and a small section of rainbow appeared about 1 o'clock to me. As I drove it got bigger and bigger until it was a full bow. I drove round one bend the right end of it fell into the middle of the road and was so incredibly wide. By now the sky was that strange dark grey, with sunshine. I have never seen such a bright, wide and complete rainbow in my life. As I drove a second one appeared above the first, not so bright. I was totally mesmerised and had to be careful to remind myself I was driving. what was also very strange is the way it clearly hit the ground on both sides, and so close to me. I looked really hard for the gold but couldn't see it! Then it started to rain and all colour was lost.

Harriette is at Ellice's and Alice is in her room doing a weeks worth of home work. Supper cooking and all is quiet. Bliss!!!! I plan to finish my book tonight. Have heard several book reviews on the radio today, took note of the authors and plan to rummage in the library tomorrow. Linda Clark is on leave this week and I have lost all interest in morning radio. Hope she's back next week.

High Jump or Javelin

Alice watched high jump during the Olympics and asked Harriette why the guy didn't let go of his javelin!!!!!! Isn't she precious. That's as bad as me asking why the cook is giving all the interviews about the NZ Olymipic squad when they kept interviewing the 'Chef de Mission' - I never was any good at French (in fact after 10 years of frech at school I think I have a vacabulary of about 15 words, and they would be badly pronounced)!

I should be quiet at work but am not. I have identified a group of GP's who have no idea how to look after vaccines and this has quadrupled my workload. Once I have these sorted out I would have finally got round all my practices.

Had a great chat with Carol on Sun night. Badly planned really as we were close to serving Sunday dinner (roast rib of No 47). Should have arranged to eat earlier. Bless her, she wrote on blog that the only thing she would stay up for after a night shift was an early morning chat with us. She had the cheek to insinuate that I was developing a hint of a kiwi accent! Alice is a total lost cause (we can't understand her sometimes) but Harriette still sounds quite English. Well I think so anyway.

Harriette has her school friend here for supper. They are working on a joint science project which involves rotting bananas and carrots under various circumstances around the house. We are on the last run of this. Rust seems to think that these items have been left around for him. Wonder if they have taken into account the chemical effects of dog spit!!

Nil else to report. Night night all.