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'!!!!
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