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We thought there’d be no action out at the house today, but we had to go out anyway for other things. Once again nice to be surprised though! The first half of the shower door hanging process was underway.

Just the actual doors to be hung and the smell of glue to dissipate and they’ll be done.

The granite on the island had been replaced with another piece that has the hole for the sink the right size this time. Doh! Well, we assume it’s the right size. The round sink wasn’t actually installed. I’m really, really hoping there’s not a third slab needed!

Toilets were all lined up ready to go too, but they’re still in their boxes, so not really worthy of a photo to bore you with. Count yourself lucky!

Well I did. In spite of all the other things we had to do I managed to grow a token few chillies. These are chillies number 2 and 3 from the sad little plant in the corner of the courtyard. And there are 2 others which are starting to ripen too.

Actually, that last sentence gives a misleading impression. Let’s try again. There are 2 other chillies on the plant. And they’re both starting to ripen. There. That should clear up any confusion!

It really didn’t have the best chance. It didn’t even make it to the proper size pot. But there have been another couple of flowers appear suddenly, so there’s the possibility of adding to the count yet.

One quite important and fully installed:

And one not quite so important, and not quite as fully installed:

The sparkies were also hard at work today wiring up all the thermostats and control systems for the heat pump. We’re trying to work out how they’ll test it, as it’s been pretty warm lately. I’m sure it’ll be getting a bit colder soon, and we’ll give it the full workout.

We might be only 10 days out. Gulp!

One more thing ticked off the list!

And no. This isn’t the final look! We just thought we’d leave the poor guy installing it in peace to finish the install.

Today we took Rach and Ru for a tour of the place, and it was pleasing to see that there’s been no let-up in progress over the last day or two. The carpet was basically all complete, as was 75-80% of the tiling and grouting.

The big excitement of the day was the arrival and installation of the septic tank! Diggers and trucks and everything. What more excitement can you get! Charlie certainly seemed to be enjoying it. I think he’ll want to be a digger driver when he grows up!

And dotted around here and there were boxes containing all of the large appliances. Some of them look pretty hefty. I’m glad we’re not having to install them ourselves! Hopefully next trip they’ll be installed so we can see something other than cardboard.

We headed out this morning to pick up some more clean water for everyone from the land (and, of course, to check if there had been any more progress) and when we walked in we were just about speechless for a minute. The granite bench-tops had arrived!

And not only that, a whole heap of carpet had arrived, and been either half or fully installed!

And a heap more tiles too (which are a bit lighter in reality than in this photo)…

Only problem is that we’d expected a few more tiles here, with them going up to the roof around all sides of the shower. ARRGGHHHH!! We suspect it’s now too late for that and something got lost in translation (mental note to selves, make sure things are documented more next time). Not sure how we feel about that yet. We’ll see what we think once the bath and vanity get installed.

But we’re starting to suddenly feel like we’re getting close to the finish line. Really not far to go now!

Our container has been offloaded at Lyttleton! Apparently. At 15:29 this afternoon.

Yippee!

Still a few weeks to go until we get our grubby mitts on stuff though. But at least it’s now nearby!

What better way to while away a couple of hours before having to get dolled up to go to a wedding than to have a quick round of mini-putt with M&M and their kids!

Gold Diggers Mini Golf in Alexandra was the lucky venue. But we were really lucky to manage a round, as we just managed to catch the lovely owners before they rushed off to have a sore hand seen to… We hope it turned out ok for them!

So we had the place to ourselves, which made it a lovely relaxing round, with the added benefit that Dylan could race ahead as fast as he liked, while Ben could take as long as he liked!

Ended up being hard to drag ourselves away from the quiet and sun to get ready for the wedding!

I guess we should keep up the ratings bit too:
Course Difficulty: Average. Nothing too tricky, but a few holes requiring a bit of concentration.
Course State: Average to good. A bit of the felt was starting to look a bit shabby, but it played well enough. Clear of debris too.
Price: Good Value
Playing company: High class, with added entertainment value.

We’re just back from 10 days travel on our usual loop down south, some of which probably deserve a post of their own like more mini-golf and a wedding (again, no, not ours!). In our absence quite a few things had changed on the house. Which is good!

First up, the kitchen units were all installed, where they’d been strewn all around the “lounge” when we took off. Just the bench-top, appliances and tap-ware to go.

Even the pantry had been pretty much finished, with the electricians making good use of it to store a few boxes of their bits and pieces. All of the tiles had been laid too, with just the grouting to go.

A highlight for someone seemed to be the laundry. I’ll give you a hint: It wasn’t me!

Moving around a bit, the painters had pretty much finished too, so our coloured feature walls had suddenly changed colour too. And luckily they looked fine. Whew!

And lots of other bits and pieces had been added, like door handles, power sockets, waterproof shower paint, a heap of tiles etc, but I’ll save you the photos showing all the gory details!

So we’re getting closer! Not long to go now!

You’ll be please to know that our goods appear to be on NZ soil once again. Arrived in Auckland last night.

Now I guess we just wait for the last trip down this way somehow, and the inevitable delays though MAF and Customs. Which is actually in our favour at the moment, as long as they don’t take too long!