It's raining! I said that last week didn't I. Well last Monday's rain stopped all too quickly. It is soooo dry here. Actually with Alice off to a bush camp I was quite pleased the rain did stop. Since then it has been hot and dry, yesterday was really hot. I spent the whole day in the veg plot and, alas, did not put on enough SPF. Burnt face, but as I'm reasonably brown at the moment I didn't suffer too much. Still, not good practice. This morning I received some photo's from Stiv's (an old boy several years after Eric was at Duke's) from when he was here in June 2003. The pool had no fence and my veg plot looked pathetic! If Stiv's is happy I will do a 'then and now' thing when I have some more time. Anyway his email started 'It's Mother's Day here..' OOppps! It's in May here and having not bought any cards lately I had missed the reminders 'Mother's Day in the UK is... March this year' I had completely missed it. Still it's still Sunday there (big advantage this being 11-13hrs ahead of the UK) so quick call to Mom. At least she understands the problem.
The weekend has been stressful. H and A have kicked up the usual fuss at being given chores and the issuing instructions 10 times for each task has been depressing. Well H kicks up the fuss, Alice just cannot retain more than one instruction at a time. I went down to the veg plot yesterday leaving a small list of jobs and instructions that they were to get dressed (PJ's at 11am still) and spend some time outdoors today. Came back up to find they had done barely half the jobs given, and none of them properly, had forgotten the rest and made more mess with board games all over the place blah, blah, blah you get the picture. Eric has started uni today and with that and working, things will be very different here for the next 9 months. I am dreading it really, roll on Nov. Saturday Harriette went to Scott's for the day as Sarah had a pool party, sort of a belated birthday.You'll remember they were at The Mount in Jan on her birthday. Well I dropped H. off on the way to town. Getting out the car I was swearing at the children who were arguing, well taking the Lord's name in vain actually, I realised that R+R were talking to one Mom who is particularly religious, a lovely lady, but still probably did not apreciate it. I then embarrassed myself further by swearing again as I ranted about how H and A were driving me up the wall!!! OOOpppps.
On Friday I took the day off and picked Alice and some other children up from camp. They were at Aongetete Camp in the bush on the Kaimais. We loaded them up and took them to Katikati to an outdoor pool at a camp site at Saphire Springs. There they had a swim and burgers for lunch before heading home. All well until Hinuera where I slowed to cross a level crossing then stalled as I pulled away. I pulled over and was about to re-start the engine when I saw smoke coming out from under the bonnet. B--ger! Now luckily I was literally around the corner from the school so walked the girls over and got a Mom to come back and decant baggage into her car to take it to school. Phoned Eric and after discussions about what to do we decided to try and drive it the last 7km (4 miles) home, being an automatic it is difficult to tow. We got as far as the end of our road and it died again. Home for a cup of tea (our cure for everything) and then we tried again and finally got it up the drive. Eric spent Friday evening diagnosing it and reckons it's the head gasket. We had been fooled as the header tank still had plenty of water but the radiator took about 8 litres of water! Anyway, apparently taking the rocker head off should have taken about 30 mins but the gasket there had melted and it took Eric several hours. The turbo he cannot get out at all. He was convinced one unreachable nut was holding it on but I managed to remove that and... it still would not move. He finally had to admit it had beaten him and thinks the engine needs lifting out. Unfortunatly he can do that but the beam that he would need to take it is in the barn and under it are about 300 hay bales!!!!! He is off to Te Poi to talk to Bryce at the garage today. Poor Eric, we need this like a hole in the head at the moment. At least I broke down in spitting distance of the school, close to home, Eric was at home and it wasn't raining!
Saturday night we had a relaxing evening at the Scott's. I took pizzas over (mine) and Robyn did sausages and salads. We watched The Crusaders thrash our local team, The Chiefs, in the Super 12. The Chiefs got to half time OK but a few tries by the opposition at the start of the 2nd half knocked their confidence and they slipped badly from then on. Apart from the loss, a good evening.
Well that brings things up to date I think. Oh I found a dead piglet last Friday. Don't panic D-Man it wasn't Ninja. No injuries evident so I think Mom must have squished her. When are you coming to see Ninja D-Man, you must bring D-girl and D-Lady before they get too big.
I must go and do some work. I'll update you with piggie photo's leter this week.
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