A Little Update.

I have been getting around the gardens. The leaves are beginning to fall off the trees already. I am wondering if it is the drought causing it to happen so early. I am gathering them up and using them as a mulch around the lemon and guava trees. Hopefully a bit of humus will form and the soil will improve. I am not sure of the spelling of humus and Google kept telling me how to spell humorous. Dang technology, and ironically, humorous. Our daughter assures me I have spelt it right.

When Nita is here, she never puts the dogs in their kennels. They just sleep in the carport. The first night Nita was away, 2 of them were sleeping in our awning. There was a "great barking" 3 times in the night, so now they go into their kennels at tea time and the doors are shut. Except Minty. She is a bit sneaky and hides. Eddie has only been able to get her into the kennel 2 or 3 times. He leaves her dinner on the garage floor and it is usually gone in the morning. We wonder if she laughs at the other 2. Last night he brought her dinner down to her in the awning and she slept there all night on my chair. What a spoilt dog.

We went to the ocean beach this afternoon for a swim. Chaka and Minty followed us down. Luckily there are not many people about now and they can go to the beach with out anyone getting upset with them. Not everyone is a dog fan.  Minty stood in the shallows and watched us, while Chaka stood up to his tummy in the waves. He looked quite anxious, until we came out again. The water is warm and lovely to swim in at the moment.

Clock Museum

 

We have rain. It started on Sunday afternoon, just as we thought we might go for a walk. We were far too slow. It rained on Monday and showers on Tuesday, so we have had a good soaking. It is fine today, so I will go and do some more gardening this morning.

Nita is away for a couple of weeks and we are in charge of feeding the dogs. (Eddie really) Greg is doing any campers that might come in. There aren't any booked in during the week, but some bookings for the weekend.

I have booked myself a long weekend in Wellington. I am going down on the 26^th February and coming home on the 1^st March. I am even boldly hiring a car! The shuttle from the airport to the top ten camp where I am staying was $126 for both ways and the car was $101 plus fuel for 3 days. I don't expect I shall use a lot of fuel going from the top ten to Mum and Dad's.

Yesterday we went and looked at the Clapham clock museum. What an amazing place. Did you know that a grandfather clock is one that is 6 feet 6 inches tall or taller; a grandmother clock is 5 feet 6 inches to 6 feet 6 inches tall and a granddaughter clock is up to 5 feet 6 inches. I didn't know there was a granddaughter clock. There was one made out of mechano too.

Archibald Clapham was a great clock collector. He loved to restore them to their original state. He gave his collection to the city of Whangarei and the museum was born.

The cuckoo sound in cuckoo clocks is made by little bellows. Who knew!

This is a grand father clock.

This is a granddaughter clock

A grandmother clock

mechano clock

This is a huntsman clock

This clock has a deer head and 2 crossed guns on the top. On the left is a rabbit and on the right a pheasant. Below the clock face is a pouch that I assume was for the bullets. Very ornate. Around it are some of the cuckoo clocks in the collection.

There are grapevines here. We picked some grapes on Saturday and I made some grape juice on Sunday. Quite tasty too. Luckily I had a few bottles to use.

The grape juice bottled and ready to drink.

Last busy weekend

 

The sun is still shinning. We had a bit of rain last Monday, which was great, but not enough of course. There was a scrub fire late last week, but not near us.

Eddie has passengers on the rubbish run at the moment. Nita's niece and her family are staying here and her daughters go with Eddie as well as one of the office lady's children. What with Chaka the dog, Ricky and himself, there is quite a load hanging on to the quad and trailer.

It was milkshakes madness at one day last week at the shop. I served and the young girl working with me, made milkshakes. She must have made about 25 in an hour. We ran out of milkshake cups, so we were making them in coffee cups, until the milk was getting a bit low. Once the milkman came, we were back into them. There was lolly madness too of course, but that's par for the course. We ran out of lollies a week or so ago. You would have thought the kids had had their throats cut. We were like the pub with no beer ha ha.

The shop is only open 12 – 2 for the rest of this week. We are full for Waitangi weekend, so it will be busy then. Then the shop will be closed until Easter.

I am going to be tidying up the gardens after the next weekend. There shouldn't be too many weeds as there has been no rain. Eddie will still be doing his maintenance thing. We will be here until Easter is over and then we will work out when we are leaving to do a bit of traveling again.

This is the camping ground full on Waitangi weekend. The 3 skips are full of bottles from the whole of the summer break. 

The kids enjoy sliding down this hill, either on their boogey boards or bits of cardboard they take out of the recycling. 

Along side the hedge is the flying fox which gets a lot of use too. 

Getting Quieter

 

The sun is still shinning. We had a bit of rain last Monday, which was great, but not enough of course. There was a scrub fire late last week, but not near us.

Eddie has passengers on the rubbish run at the moment. Nita's niece and her family are staying here and her daughters go with Eddie as well as one of the office lady's children. What with Chaka the dog, Ricky and himself, there is quite a load hanging on to the quad and trailer.

It was milkshakes madness at one day last week at the shop. I served and the young girl working with me, made milkshakes. She must have made about 25 in an hour. We ran out of milkshake cups, so we were making them in coffee cups, until the milk was getting a bit low. Once the milkman came, we were back into them. There was lolly madness too of course, but that's par for the course. We ran out of lollies a week or so ago. You would have thought the kids had had their throats cut. We were like the pub with no beer ha ha.

The shop is only open 12 – 2 for the rest of this week. We are full for Waitangi weekend, so it will be busy then. Then the shop will be closed until Easter.

I am going to be tidying up the gardens after the next weekend. There shouldn't be too many weeds as there has been no rain. Eddie will still be doing his maintenance thing. We will be here until Easter is over and then we will work out when we are leaving to do a bit of traveling again.

The vege garden I got going again, is going well. I picked my first tomato a couple of weeks ago. We have been eating lettuce, sliver beet and beans. I have harvested one lot of beetroot too..

I have been learning to ride a boogey board when I go for a swim. I am not very good yet, but I did get 1 ride one day I took it. I was so surprised when I realized I was actually riding the wave, that I nearly put the nose into the sand. I have had a few shorter rides, until last Saturday when I got another ride all the way in. Very exciting. It is a work in progress.

We have bought some sea hammocks ( for want of a better word) They have a blown up pillow at one end for your head and a smaller one at the other end to hang your legs over. In between is a bit of strong netting that you sit on. It was very relaxing bobbing about on the sea after work.

Eddie had to have a tooth out yesterday. It had been broken for a long time, but it caught up with him at the weekend. He was very pleased to get it out. His appointment was at 2 30. If you run the words together you get tooth hurty which was a very appropriate time ha ha