Wonderful weeks

Most important news! Meet my new grandkitten - Storm!

Isn't she beautiful and so well camouflaged in the sofa blanket - careful when sitting down!!

Mark and Emma got her in the New Year. She is absolutely the most gorgeous kitten ever! Sadly I can't go over and kittensit during the day!

Mark has just been round to finish the deck of my house. In my next blog I will put a photo of it with my new furniture. It will look very smart. Can't wait for Mark to come over for dinner and to have our first meal there. Provided that the weather continues to be so warm. Today it was 30 degrees and horribly windy. Off to see Lion now in the air conditioned cinema. Heaven! 

Wow, what a fabulous movie. Recommend it to everyone. Not a lion in sight I should add!

I have had a brilliant first month of the year. Busy with house and garden, but super to see the amazing improvements. Still a few to go but certainly getting there.

Not only that I met up with loads of longstanding dear friends. The first get together was a 70th birthday party for a wonderful musician friend and children's entertainer Kerry. 

 

He and his wife Mary have been friends of mine since my kids were tiny and we would spend hours singing with Natural Magic and watching the puppet shows, as in the photo above. Then we had marvelous evenings at Kerry and Mary's home by the beach with many of my international students from Polytechnic.   Musicians would just turn up and start playing in a fabulously relaxed environment. At the party I felt as if I had gone back 30 years with so many familiar faces and singing all my favourite songs. People were dressed as pirates as Kerry and Mary  are also known as the pirate band. It was great and everyone so happy - most of us without any alcohol ! Kerry enjoyed his birthday bottle of rum.

 

There is a ukelele group which I definitely plan to join either now or later in the year. 

It looked such fun and Kerry assures me it is easy. Was lovely to have my friend Kerstin there too.

 

The food was pot luck and really delicious as always. Atmosphere electric and although the wind blew nobody really noticed it much in the cosy little garden.

Next day I enjoyed heading to the airport for my 40 minute flight to Nelson, to my great friends Alison and Bruce. Super flight with wonderul views of the coast and mountains . Nelson airport requires the plane to take a short trip out to sea and then bank steeply to land very close to the sea. It is spectacular.  So too was the house Alison and Bruce have .  Below is a photo of  the kitchen and living area

 And here below the view from my bedroom 

 Pretty incredible and so fabulous to go to sleep looking at the stars and to wake to such a view. What a paradise! So quiet except for the bird song and the sound of their sheep. They all have very strong characters so I would certainly find it hard sitting down to dinner and eating 'hedgehog' (with the black tuft on her back) or 'intrepid' ( who tends to wander away).

 

We did have a great meal of Roger the ram but fortunately I had never met him!

I hadn't been to Nelson since the boys were tiny, so I had forgotten how beautiful it is around there with all the long sandy beaches with hilly forested   backdrop. It is truly idyllic.

 

It is also an excellent wine region, so of course we had to sample some 😀

 Not only the wine is superb, the houses and scenery are also magnificent

 

We also enjoyed a bit of culture, visiting  the WOW , world of wearable arts, exhibition. It was out of this world with a definite wow factor. This is my favourite costume

 There were also some brilliant cars on display. What a cutey

 

We did lots of nice food and drink things in quirky places. This was the table at a cafe run by a commune. Delicious food (no snails on the menu) and fabulous environment. 

 

Just down the road this amazing old barn

 

And in Motueka an incredible church conversion

 

Not really my type of clothes, but nonetheless a place worth visiting.

We enjoyed a drink on our final evening at a spot near Rabbit island. Very pretty area and loads of great bars and cafes and of course fabulous views.

 

Sunset from Alison's balcony was spectacular as we together enjoyed the top class tennis matches at the Aussie Open. I was sad Stan didn't quite make it. 

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What a brilliant week!

The day after I got home I started my new career, as a tour guide! What fun, though I was extremely nervous and could not sleep the night before. 

I have no idea how many tours I will do but I have another this week and one in French next month. What a perfect day out travelling from Akaroa to Christchurch and back, practising my German and meeting nice people. 

 

Akaroa is always beautiful. Luckily I have good friends just outside Akaroa, so I combined the tour with an overnight visit to Liz and Brian. I realised just how lucky we are here to have such unbelievably special homes with breathtaking views. 

 

That was the view I woke to. Actually it is a pity to close your eyes ! 

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I hope to be a regular visitor over the next months when I do my tour guiding. It went so well and I got great feedback so I returned home feeling very fulfilled.

 

Of course, I had to stop on the way back at this lovely lake, Lake Forsyth, which is quite like the Scottish lochs with hills descending to its shores. 

Then a visit to a beach I have not been to for years but which I love, Birdlings Flat

 

No golden sands here but millions of coloured pebbles, worn flat by the pounding waves. This is a dangerous beach - no swimming - but fantastic to enjoy, especially with that weather and virtually alone. 

This is my saying for the week. So true for me! I try not to procrastinate. After all, who knows how long we will be blessed with all the senses and all these incredible places to see and people to visit. 

 

Post Christmas working bees and concerts in the park

 

Just after New Year David had one free day and we snatched the opportunity to transform the above rather sad looking guest room, with its badly stained carpet, into this beautiful guest room with freshly painted walls.

 

It was very exciting to see the transformation particularly as neither David nor I had ever painted before. David did the majority of the work, but I enjoyed doing my bit too. Today the new carpet went in, and now it is a room to really feel proud of.

David headed south to his new flat and job in Queenstown, and to cheer myself up and get out of the empty house , I headed to Lazy Sundays in the Park. What a wonderful invention, and thankfully the weather played its part too.

I have never seen so many people looking for car parks and heading to the concert, picnic bags and deckchairs under their arms. I had to park on the other side of the golf course but really enjoyed my walk through the park.

 

 The Archery Lawn at the gardens was packed and the Celtic music we listened to was fantastic. Sitting eating left over mince pies and drinking ginger beer in the shade of a huge fir tree  was simply blissful.

 

The colours everywhere were so intense it was breathtakingly beautiful.

 

This new edition to the Botanical Gardens is very special and a well used perching area for the local bird life.

 

The River Avon - such a restful spot near the heart of the city. I was thrilled to see a massive eel and huge trout. Sorry, no photos!

 

After a restful weekend and lots of fun with a group of German and Spanish guests , along with Tine a teacher from Zuoz, it was time to work. I am very grateful to Mark for giving up an entire week of his holiday, plus a weekend, to redo my deck at the back of the house. It was getting a bit scrappy and had a couple of holes, and it was clear as Mark ripped it up that it was definitely due for a change..

 

Even pulling up the old boards was a massive job and the sudden hot weather certainly did not help, with temperatures in very late twenties. Here the end of a long and for Mark, very hard day. Back breaking stuff. 

 

While he slaved in the garden, I had rooms to clean and curtains to save. I had taken my curtains down to wash before my guests arrived and the linings completely disintegrated on one set. I was faced with a big bill or some repair work. I am pleased to say I have been able to save them.

 

After four days of work Mark has produced what will be a beautiful place to sit. Considering he has never done this before, he has done an amazing job. I am so lucky to have such handy sons. I even became his assistant today,  and have definitely decided that I will not make it a new career! Such hard work and so tiring in the full sun. Still, it is great to be able to help a little and not just bake muffins, and watch him work!

 

Not finished yet. Tomorrow will be another big day. Forty square metres of timber needs a lot of screws! Once it is finished, I will stain it, but we need to wait for the temperatures to drop a bit.