House Sitting Tails Etcetera

Tuesday, 5 March 2013

Get rid of that lump!

I have been so busy lately that I just don’t get her enough. I will try and get back here every day now. We arrived in New Zealand yesterday and have ten days here. We are going to visit friends and then have a week with my mother.

We have got friends caring for our house sit while we come away. We flew on Virgin air yesterday. We have always had very good service with Virgin air. We have heaps of Qantas air points, but I am really loathe to fly overseas with them, they seem to have so many things go wrong with their safety. So we came by Virgin, then got a rental car from Ace Rentals.

It’s a bit of a donger, you know how it starts off at $1 a day rental then ends up at $50 a day with all the add ons...lol...but Peter says it drives ok, and we got as far as Masterton for the night. Stayed at a little motel called the Colonial Cottage Motel, one of the cheapest in town, clean and with a very comfy bed and a good continental breakfast for $8 each which is pretty good. The water pressure is so strong it just about rips your skin off! lol....

The units are at the back.

Our unit.

Before we left the Gold Coast I went with one of my daughters to a specialist. She is not so well and needs ongoing tests etc. And our youngest son and his wife came and saw us before we headed off. Our daughter in law is ready to have her baby, due in a weeks’ time, and the poor thing, all women in this situation know the ‘get rid of that lump’ feeling, looks and feels like a beached whale and is really and truly ready to get this baby into the world. I won't embarrass her by putting up a picture I took, but once the baby is here I'll post it up.

The ground is so brown and dry.

New Zealand is so dry, lots of areas in drought, some not seen any rain for 5 months or more. They are getting the normal Aussie weather and we have had the normal NZ weather. A couple of days before we left we had six inches of rain in 24 hours. Everything is awash.

I'll finish off with a pic I had to take in the Wellington airport. They have put down new carpet, I thought it was lovely. Pebbles.

The carpet in Wellington airport.

Time to go and head for Napier. Will be back.

Friday, 1 March 2013

Orchid etc.

I put up a picture the other day of an orchid plant that is flowering. Well, it has more flowers on it and we have brought it inside for a week or two while it is as its peak. It is just beautiful.

The rain is back, not torrential, but some heavy showers going across, and the grass is growing really fast. Peter is out on his trusty ride on mower every week or ten days to keep it trim. Everything is beautifully green though which is nice, because sometimes in the summers here it can get very dry.

March is going to be a very busy month. Next week we go to New Zealand to visit my mother and also spend a couple of days catching up with old friends. With the home owners approval we have some friends filling in for us at this house sit. (They have done this before if we have had to go away). Then there are babies due, and one of my children has been having tests for cancer. We get the results on Monday. I'll keep you posted.

Curtains.

When I was in China I decided to buy some curtaining. Of course any one I have told has looked at me a bit peculiar, after all I don’t have a house at the moment as we are house sitting, and am not sure when we will settle down. Even so, I have often looked at the curtaining in China with covetous eyes, and this time I succumbed. I bought 35 meters hoping it will be enough for at least a lounge if there are is a ranch slider and a window…it’s all guess work really, but the material is so lovely I couldn’t resist it.

Here are some pictures from some of the curtain shops in the shops close to Alex’s place in China. I spent a few days looking around before I decided what to get. The pics of what I have bought may not be so clear, its bundled up. The parcel arrived a couple of days ago and I have just laid the material out on the spare bed.