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The one day that we were in town all week and it happened to be the day that a shipment of wood was arriving for us to finally get on and get a deck and some stairs done so we can remove the pallets lying around all over the place. So we just had to hope all day that the driver wasn’t too stupid, and put it all somewhere close to where it was going to be needed! Luckily he’d the sense to call Jeff who was able to give him some advice about the correct location. Whew! Although in looking for a quick way out the driver buggered up the only decent bit of lawn we’d managed to cultivate so far. Oh well. A decent roller will start to even it out again, but at the moment the push mower won’t cope very well with the tyre indents…

So that’s the timber sorted then. We managed to get the house builder back on site on Friday to start to build it all. But I thought I’d add my help too. I might regret that yet! First stage (after a long discussion about just how we were going to do it all and some measuring and marking, of course) is all the holes for the posts. Between us we got a fair few done (29 and 2 halves) with the aid of an auger and spades before he had to shoot off for the afternoon, leaving us to finish the rest (another 25) over the weekend. I think I might have mentioned before about how stony the round is here? But Ill mention it again anyway. The ground here is bloody stony! I think my wrists and elbows are suffering from all the jarring of hitting stones on every drop of the spade blade.

But it’s started. We’ll see how long it takes to complete!

This week I finally got around to home-brewing a few temperature sensors to monitor just what’s going on around the place and help us to make sure that we’ve got all the settings for the heating system right. Which I’m sure we haven’t yet, but then it’s hardly been cold yet. In fact it’s been bloody brilliant weather lately.

So here for your viewing pleasure behind the clicky icon below is a graph of the temperature in seven different places around the house.

I’m sure that was really interesting for you! I can post more if you like?! Just a pity I haven’t (currrently) got an outside temperature reading to compare to these internal ones. I feel a weather station purchase coming on sometime. Yes, you can indeed expect more graphs!

I’ve currently co-opted some of the network cabling for the sensors, and tried to find spots where no direct sun hits the sensors. I’ve already found they give strange readings when that happens! Nice to find a use for some of that cable!

I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that we’re running behind in blog plosts lately, so here’s something that caught our attention today…

I have a brown jersey (I can hear one particular person echoing something along the lines of “a POO BROWN jersey!”).

All the cats I’ve ever met while wearing it seem to like it. Really like it! Our two are seemingly no exception. They tracked it down and even though both of them were falling off, and even though there were hundreds of other more comfortable spots to sleep in, they chose my jersey.

The fact they go out of their way to sleep in uncomfortable positions might go some way to explaining why she in particular is quite happy to try to sleep right in front of our faces at night.

I guess you want all the other news too, huh? Well, there’s not much. We finally got our lounge suite delivered. We’ve had some very welcome visitors for various day or day/night visits. I’ve mowed the “lawn” again. I think we’re very slowly getting better at our long snooker shots. I don’t think we’re improving much at all at our shorter snooker shots… The fantail’s popped in now and then, but not as regularly now it’s a bit drier. There’s still at least one hare hopping around outside…

Basically there’s nothing that exciting going on!

We’ll try harder to find something. Honest!

We’ve always planned to have a kitty or two here at the ranch for many reasons. But today we installed a couple in the house. We didn’t really mean to, but we saw them at the pet shop and just couldn’t resist.

We got a boy and a girl, from different litters, but they act like they’re sister and younger brother. He follows her around, and she sometimes gets a bit snarly that he’s always in her space, but right now they’re curled up sleeping next to each other.

They’re just so cuuuute! Not the best photo of them, as I can’t bring myself to wake them up to get a better one. It makes them look about 4 times bigger than they are. He’s just tiny! You pat him gently and he falls over.

No names yet. We’ll see if they display any sort of need to have a special moniker over the next few days. But already she’s continuing to display the character that we saw in her of a very, very laid back cat, while he’s a bit more curious.

Late this afternoon we were getting in a bit of snooker practice when I noticed a bit of flitting around in the temporary nursery that has been set up in the courtyard until we decide what to do with both it and the plants. A focussed look revealed a fantail jumping all around the tree that’s there!

This grainy photo’s all we managed to get as it was pretty dark and horrid, but it is proof.

I’ve no idea where it came from or went to. We’re pretty much in an empty paddock except for the house. But I’m stoked that it came and said hi, even if it doesn’t come back for a while. But I hope it does! We might have to have more trees in the courtyard than I thought if that’s what they’ll bring in.

We keep trying to get a decent photo of all the swallows that seem to have made the house a regular venue for a snack, where they come and hover just under the eaves and pick off insects. But they’re just so fast that getting a decent picture is a bit difficult.

This is the best I’ve managed so far:

Reminds me a lot of Top Gun, for some reason! And they certainly fly pretty close and fast to both the house and us when we’re working.

Before:

And after:

How many differences can you spot? However, you won’t be able to spot the blisters that exist on my hands and feet after all that.

And that’s only one of the three piles of gravel and rocks that we’ve moved over the last few days. Only one more that’s possibly worth doing by hand. All the other piles are just way too big. The subbies certainly know how to leave a mess behind them. Grrrrr.

And it arrived in bits. All sorts of bits. About the same as the most complicated flat-pack stuff we had to deal with in London, but a lot, lot heavier and with a lot, lot more character!

Good job it also arrived with a guy who knew exactly what he was doing to put it together again! Although for a moment I thought I might be trapped under a slab of slate. Memo to self: When you know you’re going to have to lift something heavy later in the day, don’t spend the day shovelling and carting loads of gravel and rocks first! Just don’t! And if you have a choice, don’t try to walk backwards up a huge step carrying a big slate slab!

But it was really interesting seeing it all going together, and watching the expert (Darryl) assemble it all, making sure it was all square, level and flat etc. It actually took quite a long time to put it all together. I’d say just a tad over 3 hours. I really wouldn’t want to have to do it all ourselves!

And it was a real relief to see that the room we’d designed to take the table actually fits it perfectly. You don’t have to watch the walls anywhere around the table to play a shot, although if you’re out here, we’d still like you to check first if you’re on the side with all the windows please!

But now it’s here. Now we just have to learn how it plays before everyone else does. Getting beaten on your own table is not cool! We did have one “game” when it was finally all assembled, but by then we were so tired and hungry a proper effort will have to wait. “Who sunk the first ball?”, I hear you ask. Let’s just say it wasn’t me, and leave it at that, shall we?

Now, if we could just get our lounge suite delivered sometime?…

Yesterday was such a stunningly warm and sunny day that we had to make the most of being outside, and what better way to enjoy a day outside than to start to get through the list of chores that had been building up!

First task ticked off was installing the mailbox so when all the house-warming gifts arrive they’ll have somewhere to be delivered to.
😉

That went pretty well, and pretty quickly, so then it was onto the more of the clean-up of all the builders mess along with all the stones that had been left lying everywhere. After a few barrows of grot, we were ready to give some of the greenery around the house a bit of a trim. Which we did. With a combination of post spade, weed-eater and donated push-mower. Yes, that’s right. A manual push mower! Hard, hard work, but probably the safest way to give an area its first trim, as then you can more easily see the nails, plaster, wire, stones, pebbles and rocks that come flying at you. And pretty satisfying too to clear all the area with personal effort and sweat. And boy did I sweat! I did mention that it was a fantasticly warm and sunny day, didn’t I?

So now we have the start of some “lawn”. Or at least some short green stuff!

And this morning before the rain came I’ve cleared a bit more. The problem’s going to be working out where to stop!

First morning in the new place and we couldn’t even sleep in. Not that the stretchers were all that comfortable anyway! But the reason we had to get up bright and early was that all our UK stuff was finally arriving, along with the first batch of furniture. Including proper beds for us to sleep on!

Just like the removal company said they would, they arrived here bright and early at 8am. Actually, they were here at 7.55am. I am not sure that ever happened to us in the UK, a delivery happening when they said it would be there!

It was a hive of activity and there were boxes of this and that every where, not to mention new furniture. And my role (only because I felt useless standing around doing nothing) in the whole unloading process was to fold the blankets they came wrapped/covered in to protect them in transit. And to try to empty at least some of the boxes so they could take some of the empties away to give us a bit more room…

It was pretty exciting seeing our 85 boxes again, all there, all accounted for and with minimal breakage. You’ll be pleased to know that all the wine made it intact, something we were obviously quite anxious about over the last year of waiting to be reunited. Only breakages were a couple of bowls and plates and some plastic wheels on a piece of furniture, and we can live with that.

And of course once you have 85 packed boxes, all that’s left to do is unpack them! That has been mostly fun, finding hidden treasures, reminiscing over nic nacs from around the world, looking at clothes I am not so sure will fit any more, having more than one jacket and handbag to choose from again, and then of course for Mike there are all the computers to play with again. It really was like Christmas – but way better cause you actually got stuff you wanted!

Somehow it’s become my job to add the detail about the first few days in the house. I’m still not sure how! Maybe it’s because I am so slack at writing most other blogs which means Mike pips me at the post. But anyway, here’s the first instalment for your reading pleasure.

The first night in the house, we resorted to stretchers. We arrived about lunch time after a frenetic time and then we had a brief handover with the project manager, who I think was quite happy to hand us the keys. After all my nagging and pointing out of minor and major things that we were not happy with, I think he was pleased to let us move in and give him a ‘big’ list later for them to fix. But all in all it was very exciting. It’s been a very long time coming for us (for those of you following the blog on a regular basis you will have some idea of just how long). But the time waiting, on reflection (even though I was very impatient through the process), has been worthwhile.

Now we just have to work on having a decent night sleep… Something of which I hate to add has been affected by the first week being a full moon (I never used to believe the moon affected people, but since being back in NZ I have noticed my lack of sleep appears to be around full moon time – I might add I normally don’t click till after the full moon has passed!)

And you will be pleased to know the stretcher sleeping only spanned one night. Which is just as well, as chances of getting a cuddle on side to side stretchers is just about nil. The next morning our new furniture and our long awaited belongings from London arrived. But of course that’s a whole other story!

We are really here, yes we are, and as weird as it is the waits i over and its all ours!