Happy New Year. We hope that 2008 is a good year for you all. 2007 was a very good year for us. Eric’s first full year as a solicitor, me settled in my job and the girls both had good years at school, with Alice shining particularly.
It is Sunday morning, 10am and I am still in bed. Well I have been up briefly. I adjusted the irrigator (we have been a way for a few days and it had stopped rotating), fed the chooks and dogs and have returned to bed with tea. I did set the alarm for 7.30am. We are on almost 4 weeks leave and have been very lazy, sleeping in late and spending large chunks of the days reading on the pool deck I decided that we should try and be more productive this week and get up a bit earlier so that the 6.15am starts next week won’t be such a shock. I explained this to Eric this morning when the alarm went off and he said “But it’s Sunday!” Ooooppps. I had forgotten that!!!!!
Last Sunday was out 15th Wedding Anniversary. Which means Eric and I have been together for 21 years now. Those of you who knew us back in the early days will know that Eric was my whole life then. I knew within 2 days of meeting him that this was the man I would marry. I think Eric knew this pretty early too but he was very young then (only 21 when we met!!) and by the time we were set on this course Eric had been shot and we knew he would come into a significant amount of compensation. Our plan was to get married at Victoria Falls when that came through. The earlier than planned appearance of Harriette bought matters forward a little and when we finally got to Vic Falls Harriette was 10 months old and I was 7 months pregnant with Alice. Not quite the romantic trip we planned but fabulous anyway. “Eric was my whole life” That sounds like he isn’t now. Well I guess that is the case. I still love him dearly, and he is the best thing that ever happened to me, but when you have children the centre of your world encompasses more than one person. We are both lucky to not secretly have favourite children as I know some people do have. I go through phases of ‘liking’ one child more than the other but that is more to do with the time of the month and varies regularly! As our anniversary comes right at the end of the year it is inevitably a time of reflection. Every year I conclude with a summing up (‘Thank God that’s over and roll on 200..’, or as in 2007, ‘That was a great year, may next year be as good please’), that varies a lot but reflecting on another year of marriage I always count my lucky stars, God, or whoever is responsible. We always have good years, some are just better than others. To celebrate 15 years we decided to have a romantic get away on a Pacific Island but going over New Year was a) expensive, and b) meant someone would have their holiday time put upon with having H and A in their care. So we decided to go when the girls are back at school, the prices are more sensible and the holiday season peak has passed. We have booked 5 nights at a superior fare at Fafa Island Resort in Tonga. Google it and drool! We go in Feb and I can’t wait. For our actual anniversary we decided on a day at the beach rather than dinner out and went to Whiritoa on the bottom of the Coromandel’s east coast. It is just over an hours drive and as we pass through Paeroa we called in to Mom and Daddy for tea on the way home. It was the first time we had been to Whiritoa and we will certainly go back.
It is Sunday morning, 10am and I am still in bed. Well I have been up briefly. I adjusted the irrigator (we have been a way for a few days and it had stopped rotating), fed the chooks and dogs and have returned to bed with tea. I did set the alarm for 7.30am. We are on almost 4 weeks leave and have been very lazy, sleeping in late and spending large chunks of the days reading on the pool deck I decided that we should try and be more productive this week and get up a bit earlier so that the 6.15am starts next week won’t be such a shock. I explained this to Eric this morning when the alarm went off and he said “But it’s Sunday!” Ooooppps. I had forgotten that!!!!!
Last Sunday was out 15th Wedding Anniversary. Which means Eric and I have been together for 21 years now. Those of you who knew us back in the early days will know that Eric was my whole life then. I knew within 2 days of meeting him that this was the man I would marry. I think Eric knew this pretty early too but he was very young then (only 21 when we met!!) and by the time we were set on this course Eric had been shot and we knew he would come into a significant amount of compensation. Our plan was to get married at Victoria Falls when that came through. The earlier than planned appearance of Harriette bought matters forward a little and when we finally got to Vic Falls Harriette was 10 months old and I was 7 months pregnant with Alice. Not quite the romantic trip we planned but fabulous anyway. “Eric was my whole life” That sounds like he isn’t now. Well I guess that is the case. I still love him dearly, and he is the best thing that ever happened to me, but when you have children the centre of your world encompasses more than one person. We are both lucky to not secretly have favourite children as I know some people do have. I go through phases of ‘liking’ one child more than the other but that is more to do with the time of the month and varies regularly! As our anniversary comes right at the end of the year it is inevitably a time of reflection. Every year I conclude with a summing up (‘Thank God that’s over and roll on 200..’, or as in 2007, ‘That was a great year, may next year be as good please’), that varies a lot but reflecting on another year of marriage I always count my lucky stars, God, or whoever is responsible. We always have good years, some are just better than others. To celebrate 15 years we decided to have a romantic get away on a Pacific Island but going over New Year was a) expensive, and b) meant someone would have their holiday time put upon with having H and A in their care. So we decided to go when the girls are back at school, the prices are more sensible and the holiday season peak has passed. We have booked 5 nights at a superior fare at Fafa Island Resort in Tonga. Google it and drool! We go in Feb and I can’t wait. For our actual anniversary we decided on a day at the beach rather than dinner out and went to Whiritoa on the bottom of the Coromandel’s east coast. It is just over an hours drive and as we pass through Paeroa we called in to Mom and Daddy for tea on the way home. It was the first time we had been to Whiritoa and we will certainly go back.
(Photo's as above. I can't get them to go in here!)
We have christened the tent we bought at the end of last summer. The girls groaned at the thought of going away in a tent to the beach. (Which makes me really cross). They seem to think that it would be so boring just having our company so we managed to persuade Sarah and Katherine to join us. We went to Opotaki about 50km east of Whakatane (pronounced Fukatane) and camped for 2 nights at a site right on the beach. The golden beaches go on forever along that stretch of coast and there is the right amount of surf for the girls to have fun in the sea. Harriette had got badly burnt at Whiritoa having spent nearly 5 hours in the sea without regular reapplications on SPF and in fact refused to leave the house for 2 days as she looked like a beacon! She was very diligent about applying SPF when we were away this time! We roasted marshmallows on a driftwood fire, drew pictures and played 0’s and X’s in the sand, went for long walks in the sunset and generally had a good time. Camping with teenagers is hard work though. They take stuff out the wash kit without returning it, leave litter all over the place and seem to finding washing up in the kitchen a complex affair needed specific and meticulous instruction. Alice also has difficulty following any instructions, which drives we insane! Before breakfast, “please bring the yoghurt and milk back with you when you have finished showering” (the showers being next to the kitchen). She forgets. We have breakfast and Alice and Katherine wash up. I then say, “could you bring back the 2 ice blocks that are in the freezer back with you” (I wanted them for the cool bag which contained our lunch for the day). They come back with ice blocks, AND the milk and yoghurt!!! Why would I want milk and yoghurt after we have finished breakfast???? And so it goes on. Their groaning and rolling of eyes every time I asked them to do anything made me really cross. Mind you I should be used to it, it’s been going on for about 4 years now!!
Our 4x4 is a 7 seater so I had no concerns about inviting S and K with us to camp. It was only afterwards that I realised that this would reduce our in-car storage area to just about nothing! Ah! So everyone was under instruction to take minimal luggage. We squeezed everything in to the small area behind the seats, the middle area of the middle seats and the roof box. Harriette put in a damp cossie, which I removed and hung on the pool railings, along with my damp cossie and some other bits. Needless to say I forgot them! When we got to the campsite luckily Sarah had packed a spare swinsuit so the girls mixed and matched various bits of bikini until they could all swim. Meanwhile, Eric had packed the camp gas light but not the mantle etc etc. The upshot was on our first morning we had to go to Whakatane to find a Warehouse (like Woolies in the UK) to buy various forgotten items. There we bumped into Sarah’s boyfriend Heath and his family who were staying in Edgecombe the other side of Whakatane from us! After shopping we went to Ohope, on the way back to Opotaki for lunch on the beach. Ohope used to be beautiful beach with old baches (kiwi beach houses) but now is going up market with fabulously expensive properties. Back to Opotiki where we left the girls reading in the tent while Eric and I went to get food for supper and call in at the DOC, sorry Dept of Conservation, office. We wanted to get some info on the DOC campsites in the Oreweras (mountains south of Whakatane/Opotaki). We found out that Boulders was only 20 minutes away so decided to drive down and have a look. We had considered camping at a DOC site on this trip but thought, as you can’t book and being peak season we might not get in. Well the drive was, tar sealed road then metal (gravel), single track road into the bush with the final 200m being serious, 4x4 necessary, steep drop down to a river bed. The site was deserted! It is a basic site, which means there is a long drop toilet, picnic table and nothing else. You draw water from the river and self register and pay by filling in an envelop, putting your money in and dropping it in a box). Cost? $7/night (as opposed to the $60/night we were paying at the Island View campsite we were staying). There were some fabulous water holes and we decided to bring the girls down the next day to swim and have lunch before we headed home. Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures on either occasion – sorry.
So, yesterday, our final day. We went down to Boulders with the girls, Sarah having kittens on the way, convinced we would fall down one of the washouts and disappear into the bush below never to be found, and spent the morning tanning and swimming. By the time we finished lunch it was cloudy and cool so we tootled back to the campsite, decamped and headed for home. We left at 4.30pm and got back about 7pm. Richard and Robyn arrived later with the requested fish and chips and we ate with them, and Mom and Daddy who had been house sitting. Poor Mom. Her hearing is so bad at the moment she can almost hear nothing. Being the summer break she has not been able to contact the specialist to get some help. Daddy is going to chase it up on Monday. She was meant to see an ENT bod in December but has not got an appointment through. What is so worrying is that my hearing is worse than Moms was at my age. Her sister Alice, who recently passed away, was also virtually totally deaf. Quite a scary thing to know you have coming your way.
Daddy is not a farmer! When we were unpacking the car Eric noticed that the silage in the trailer in the paddock was all unpacked. Silage (damp hay) come in bales weighing a tonne. It is kept sealed in plastic where it ferments. If it dries out it is no good, The cows love it damp and won’t touch it dry. Daddy, who had previously only handled hay when he has fed out here before, decided that it was going off as it was all damp and opened up the whole bale (10 days worth of feed!) so it could dry out!!!! Bless him! We really shouldn’t be feeding out now but we are very over stocked and our grass is not getting chance to grow. We also have not, until recently, put anything on the paddocks in the way of fertiliser so are suffering a serious lack of feed. Luckily Ian, next door has heaps of silage in and we are using his supply and paying him. He is a wonderful neighbour!
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