Coffeehouse.co.nz

For the second time now the web server decides to sulk and turn itself off as soon as I’ve left on holiday!!! ARRRGGGHHHHH!!! Why? Absolutely no idea! At least this time all I had to do to fix it was turn it back on again, rather than a full rebuild like last time.

Sorry if you missed your usual exercise of checking to see if we’d put anything new up, only to find that we hadn’t. But now we’re back from the hols, we’ve got a few things to write about. We’ll probably backdate the entries to when things actually happened, so make sure you go back a bit to see the new stories if you’re checking the site in the next wee while!

But at least it shows that at least it must miss me being around. We’ll just have to see if it happens a third time next time we’re away. If it does, there’s going to be trouble, and it will get a good talking to!

Off the plane from returning from NZ one day and then straight on a plane to Marseilles, France the next. What a way to finish a holiday! But it was really good to finish up in the bright sun. We must confess that the NZ weather treated us really well while we were there, what with it being the end of winter (we may have even picked up some colour in sunny central). But the South of France had beautiful weather, well over 30 odd degrees… And for watching rugby in a full stadium that’s just really hot!! I pity the poor guys having to play in it.

But it was worth getting off one plane and pretty much straight back on another to watch the All Blacks play Italy. The game was pretty one sided, but at least the Italian’s got some points. Not like the English the other day! (Have to say that here, as I can’t say it at work!!) Heaps and heaps of Kiwi’s there and in the town before and after the game.

It was nice to see another bit of France that wasn’t Paris. We stayed in Aix en Provence rather than Marseilles. A nice town from what we saw of it, with some nice chatty French guys at the pub to keep us there for just one more pint… But Marseilles had gone all out for the rugby. Big wicker figures doing the Haka on the waterfront, and signs and things everywhere.

Go the All Blacks, let’s just make it to and then through the final!

As we were back in NZ at the perfect time for planting (supposedly cold, wet and when the ground’s soft, I guess) we thought we’d chuck a few things on our patch of dirt.

• 100 odd teeny weeny Pittosporums as a hedge/windbreak
• 1 Golden Elm – Ulmus Pro, Louis V Houtte
• 1 Malus Ballerina (basically a pink blossom crab apple tree)
• 1 Purple Norway Maple (Acer Platanoides Nigrum if you care for the technical details!)

We managed to get the pittosporums more or less in a row, but then who wants a perfectly straight line anyway!

Of course we didn’t do this all on our own. We had a good crew of helpers always ready to give some helpful advice…  Whilst standing around drinking a few well deserved beers for all their hard work!

Just kidding! The crew were fantastic. I had wondered at the start of the day just how long it would take us, and whether Bec and I would have to return the next day to finish off, but in the end we had it all done in about 5 hours, and that was with a fair bit of mucking around at the end, and in between to recover from the hole digging from time to time (Bec – I think I  recall looking up from planting to see in the distance a lot of standing around doing nothing – apparently discussing what shape to dig the next hole in?!) (Mike – Well, Jacob had some very strong ideas about that!  Some were to be round, and some square.  It was obviously important to get it right! And there was a bit of a hold up when Lexi decided that the hole we’d just dug was the most comfortable chair in the world.)

And then there was the big stop for a dose of good old Kiwi pies to refuel.  Ahhhh Kiwi pies!  One of the joys of returning to NZ.  I could write a whole post on them, but then I’d just make myself hungry.

Now all we have to do is wait and see how many of the trees actually survive.  But we guess that’s up to the magic watering pixies (Rob and Dawn, and Jeff and Cole)…….  fingers crossed the roster for watering and TLC works!  All in all if was a great day out on the plot and if it works then, hey, we have a bit of a head start when we finally get our butts in gear and build a house!