Happy Christmas

As I write, we are about half-way through Christmas Day. Skry, Rok, and my brother Stephen are in the kitchen making Christmas dinner, and I am at my laptop in front of the telly. This arrangement suits me just fine!

We were all up relatively early today and exchanged presents before going for a quick walk on New Brighton pier. This is the same place that Skry and I went to this time last year, with Phil and Lou. The weather was a bit different this year - very overcast with rain on the way - but it was still nice to get out.


After our walk it was time to come home and Skype the family in Ireland. It was still Christmas Eve for them but it was lovely to be able to see each other. Skype is just great for keeping in touch with people.

Anyway, happy Christmas everyone - I hope you all have a lovely time. Now I'd better go and at least pretend that I am helping in the kitchen!

A chicken update

On Christmas Eve the chickens got a holiday feast of bacon scraps left over from a meal earlier in the week. I'm not sure of the correct approach to feeding chickens meat - is it the done thing? I know they eat insects anyway and they are definitely not vegetarians by choice, but I don't want to recreate the whole Mad Cow problem by giving them something unnatural. (Not that chickens eating pork is ever going to be natural, really. How many chickens would have to band together to take down a pig?)



They have a new extended run which is almost complete apart from some minor work to the original henhouse layout, and seem fairly content in there. It has some bushes and a tree, and did have grass as well up to about a week ago. They made short work of that, so the ground is looking a bit bare, but if it rained more often I'm sure a few things would grow back.

I do feel a bit guilty about leaving them locked up all the time, but I know they've got more space than most of their kind and are very well treated generally. We are getting three eggs a day at the moment, including some with soft shells and some with double yolks. The eggs taste great and have really yellow yolks, so my egg mayo sandwiches for work have become very colourful recently. It's all good.

Perfume

I love perfume, and have done so for as long as I can remember. But I used to content myself with a couple of different bottles and the occasional scent strip from Boots. Not any more!

Over the last couple of days I have ordered several new bottles on the internet, and it occurred to me that I didn't know how many I owned already. My guess was about 30. Oops - it is over 50, and that's not counting samples and decants. They don't all get worn on a regular basis (in fact there are a couple there that I don't even like) but I keep everything because it will get its turn to shine sometime in the future even if I don't wear it right now. My taste has evolved over the years, and some perfumes just work better in warm weather or in cold weather.

Boudoir is the one that I would choose to keep if I could only have one. It is as close to a "signature scent" as I can imagine having. But it's nice to have a selection to choose from every day :-)

A day of ups and downs

What a day yesterday was. I can't remember the last time I had so many ups and downs in such a short period!

UP: Sold a lot of my handcrafted goodies to people at work -cute stocking stuffers for them and extra pocket money for me.

UP: got paid for a two-hour freelance technical writing job that I had done the previous night - job well done and super-fast payment

DOWN: discovered that the tyres on my bike were very soft, meaning it would be even more of a battle than usual to cycle home from work into the wind

UP: complete stranger outside the bike shed complimented my bike and then hauled a foot pump out of the boot of his car and pumped up my tyres for me, meaning I practically glided home

DOWN: came out of the shower to discover that the converter on the tumble dryer plug had melted and fused into the plastic of the extension cord, leaving all the electrics black and smoking. (It is obviously past time to replace the UK plugs on our appliances rather than relying on dodgy converter plugs.) That came scarily close to a house fire.

DOWN: belatedly realised that I had picked up a melted extension cord without switching it off at the power point first. What kind of moron am I?

UP: found our first ever eggs in the henhouse, one small egg and one large egg that is surely a double-yolker.

UP: Skry arrived home at a respectable hour from a work-related evening do. I always worry about him when he cycles home after dark, because drivers here are so selfish when it comes to cyclists, so it's always a relief when he eventually turns up.

DOWN: Although Skry had arrived home, he was in shock and had a broken arm. Not the safe arrival I had expected when I heard his key in the lock.

What a day!

Drunk driver 1, Skry 0

Skry and his bicycle were in a surprise battle with a car last night, most likely controlled by a drunk driver. Skry came off worse, and now has two breaks in his arm along the left shoulder. He's in a lot of pain but is otherwise okay with no other injuries - although I would not wish a broken arm on him, it's a huge relief that he didn't end up even more badly hurt.

We spent most of last night and again this morning at the hospital. I took a snap of the x-ray screen while the doctor was away from his desk. You don't need to know much about biology to know that something isn't right here!

Apparently there is no treatment for this kind of break. The hospital sent us away with a prescription for painkillers and a prescription for a shoulder restraint thingy (after we both kicked up a huge fuss about Skry being sent home with nothing but a sling, and his broken arm just hanging loose). Now that the shoulder restraint thingy - sorry, I don't know the proper term! - is in place and the painkillers are taking effect, he is a bit happier, but he has a long and unpleasant few weeks ahead of him still.

We got our first eggs!

When I went to let the chickens out after work today, I found these in their coop. Our first eggs! I don't know which of the three are responsible for these two eggs, but hopefully they will all be laying regularly soon.


They're getting a new, extended run tomorrow as well. We are being driven mad by chicken poo all over the path and front step, and it's impossible to keep them away from that area without a fence. After much extended and vigorous debate between myself and Skry, we have hired a man with a van to come and enhance our borders. The chickens will no longer be free-range, which saddens me, but they'll have lots of space to run about in and our doorstep will stay clean. Hopefully the trade-off will be worth it.

A global epidemic

For the last week or so, half my friends on Facebook have been complaining about having colds, having sore throats, coughing, being bunged up, etc. Now Skry and I are both sick with it as well. Is it possible for the cold to be transmitted like a global epidemic across the internet?

Although not the end of the world, I have not slept properly for two nights now as I cannot breathe through my nose, and I missed most of a friend's party yesterday because I slept through the afternoon. This had better pass quickly or I will be most annoyed!

A full year in New Zealand

Yes folks, we have now been here for a full calendar year. It has been an amazing year - saying goodbye to friends and family, travelling, new jobs, new house, making friends on this side of the world - and we have loved nearly every minute of it. (The jetboat crash we could have done without!)

It would be impossible to describe all the memorable things that happened to us over the last 12 months, but I would like to share just one photo that helps summarise it in my head.

This was taken in Bluff, at the very far south of the South Island. Look how far away from everywhere we are! But look how happy I am!
Actually I am squinting a bit as the sun was in my eyes - but trust me, I was happy. Moving here has been one of the best decisions I ever made. Our quality of life has gone up, our surroundings and lifestyle are generally better, and this country has some of the most beautiful landscapes I have ever seen or imagined. No country is perfect, and New Zealand has its problems just like everywhere else, but Skry and I absolutely love it here.

Here's to a great year, and to many more great years in the future!

The most offensive bouncy slide I've ever seen

At the school fair last Sunday (my craft stall did fine, thanks for asking!), Skry snapped a photo of this offensive article:

That's right, it is a bouncy kids' slide in the shape of a sinking Titanic. I can't believe anybody thought this was appropriate to create, let alone hire out. I can't decide if it is offensive or just extremely tasteless - maybe both.

These days I have mostly been making...

... jewellery. I'm doing a stall at a school fair on Sunday, and although I hadn't planned to sell any jewellery at it I've now changed my mine. After finding a whole shoebox full of unsold jewellery from when we lived in Ireland, it would seem rude to ignore it now that I have the chance of shifting some! And rooting through the box inspired me to grab my beads and pliers and create some new things to go with the older ones.

Here are some I made earlier:












Hope I get some sales on Sunday!

4 x 4 x 4

My friend Suzy was doing this on her blog, so I thought I would copy her.

The rules-

1. Go to your pictures file.
2. Go to the 4th file.
3. Go to the 4th picture.
4. Post it and tell the story.

I have multiple picture files, but I am going to the one that is most freqently used. Here is the 4th file from the 4th folder.

This is a photo of part of my bedroom in my old house in Belfast. It was taken when I was getting the house ready to sell (although it has since been taken off the market and rented out, due to the housing market collapse in the UK).

I loved that house, but this is the first time I have looked at photos of it since we moved to New Zealand, and I am shocked at how small the rooms are. In the photo above, the camera lens was not able to capture most of the room, but I still remember how little space there was on each side of the double bed, and how much of the room was taken up by a triple wardrobe and a chest of drawers. Now that we are in a country with more space and bigger houses - and built-in wardrobes! - I wonder how we managed to live in such cramped conditions. Our bedroom here isn't especially large, but there is space to walk all around the bed and that is a king size one.

Beached Whale

My boss at work sent this to me a couple of months ago, and it still makes me laugh. A lot of the humour is because of the exaggerated Kiwi accents used, so my loyal readers in the northern hemisphere may not really appreciate it, but here ya go anyway.

A few of the clothes shops around here have started selling t-shirts with the beached whale on them, so I think the joke is going mainstream now and likely to become less funny. I'll enjoy it while I can!

A chicken photo for Chris

My friend Chris demanded more chicken-focussed blogging. His wish is my command! But it is nearly dark and the chickens are in bed, so I will have to use the only photo currently on my memory card, which was taken for an entirely different purpose.

They're getting bigger, and bolder. We are having to cope with constant invasions of the living room and attempts at sharing our food, and the front steps and path are a minefield of droppings, but they're a great source of amusement to us as well. And we're training them to keep out of forbidden territory by using water pistols. They learn fast, too; even picking up a water pistol sends them frantically flapping to the far side of the garden. Pity we can't set up something automatic to keep them in line while we're at work...

Here comes the summer

Summer has hit us with full force this week - blue skies and blazing sunshine for the last few days. It's hard to believe, since two weeks ago we had to put frost cloths over our veggies for several nights to keep the frost and snow off them, but the weather changes fast in this little country.

Here is today's weather summary - note the time that the temperature reading was recorded at:


I have just been to the Warehouse for some essential supplies.

You just can't be too careful in the sun here in New Zealand. It's much less forgiving than Irish sunshine even in the same temperatures (not that Ireland reaches these temperatures very often), and I consider SPF30 to be the minimum that I should be wearing if I'm outside for more than a couple of minutes. I got burnt twice last summer, and I don't plan on doing that again.

However, as you can see from the array of products in the photo, I'm not quite sure which of the various creams and lotions are best! We found Nivea body cream to be quite greasy and hard to apply, so I'm looking for something less messy. One of the girls we work with had an aerosol spray that went on beautifully, so I'm hoping the Cancer Society spray on the right in the photo will be similar.

The chickens don't seem at all put out by this heat. Their coop is well shaded under what we are told are crab apple and oak trees, and they seem very happy scratching around and dustbathing in the sun. It's just me and Skry who are struggling to adjust!

NZ Elections

The general election was today, and I didn't vote. Does that make me a bad person? Women fought and died in order to give me the right to vote, and I'm not using it.

In my defence, the reason that I didn't vote was that I don't feel like I have enough understanding of the issues in New Zealand yet. We have been here for less than a year, and I haven't been paying much attention to things that don't involve my job/holidays/house/husband/chickens (in no particular order).  Who am I to make a decision on behalf of the rest of the country about whether Helen or John or somebody else should be in charge? How can I make a decision to support the Maori Party or the Green Party or New Zealand First or any of the others? I'm not even sure of their names, let alone what they stand for.

The election results are mostly in, and it looks like National (John Key's party) have won. But I have no idea what that means... I'm still glad I didn't vote, because I do not have the ability to make an informed decision, but I hope to be in a different position next time a general election comes around.

I'm still here

Just in case you're wondering, no I haven't fallen off the face of the planet. I'm just very busy preparing some bits and pieces to sell at a craft stall at the end of November. I'll update you all on that in due course...

Here is what I haven't blogged about over the past week or so:

- Skry and I were one of only a handful of people in our office who came in to work in Hallowe'en costumes on Friday. Skry won a prize for his Black Knight outfit (a voucher for a local cafe).

- we went to a table quiz in our office bar and came third. I take full credit for that as I accidentally picked correct answers out of thin air for two really obscure questions.

- we went to my cousin-in-law's father-in-law's 70th birthday party, had a great time, and I had to be practically hauled away from the karaoke machine.

- the chickens continue to thrive.

- my bedding plants continue to die (and there is a strong corelation between this and the previous point).

- my brother Stephen and his girlfriend (hi Laura!) popped by for a couple of days in Christchurch before they continued on their travels around the South Island.

- I still don't know if I'm going to vote in Saturday's general election, let alone who I might vote for if I do.

Now I'm off to watch an episode of House. The fun never stops around here!

An enjoyable long weekend

No photos for this one as I don't have anything in particular to show. I might go and take some tomorrow for a garden update.

This Monday was Labour Day, which means little to me except that we got a long weekend out of it. I do enjoy not having to get up for work on a Monday morning!  We fit a lot into it, too.

Friday night - Operation Entertainment Book dinner out with Skry in the Flying Burrito Brothers. I haven't done these calculations for a while and there's a backlog, so bear with me:

+ 41.10
+ 30.00 (Mud House Winery lunch a few weeks ago)
=======

$ 71.10 total saved

+ 71.10
+ 30.00 (dinner with Skry in Simo's restaurant for my birthday)
=======

$ 101.10 total saved

+ 101.10
+ 24.00 (FBB dinner)
=======
$ 125.10 total saved

Alright, so that's the Operation Entertainment Book update out of the way!

Labour Day is traditionally when NZ gardeners plant out their tomatoes and peppers and other frost-hating plants. We did not realise that apparently we should have waited for the actual day, and planted ours out on Saturday, on a lovely hot sunny afternoon. Eight hours later, we had rain, wind, and hailstones! Our poor tomatoes :(

Oh well, the rest of the weekend was lovely, and today was an absolute scorcher. I planted some rose bushes and a swan plant (to attract monarch butterflies) and sat on the deck watching the chickens while Skry was off watching some wrestling match at a friend's house. It's all good.

More chicken stuff

We have been getting used to having chickens in the front garden. They get attacked by cats (bad), and they eat my flowers (bad). They have decimated the sweet peas, and made inroads on the sweet william. 

This is the very bold Sean Henn and Beulah, in the middle of my flower garden. They know that they're naughty!

 

But they are lovely to have around, pecking inquisitively at our shoes, wedding rings, and zips, and making contented clucking noises as they sleep on the doormat. 

Cluck Norris sleeps like the dead, literally. She looks like a dead chicken when she's dozing in the sunshine.

Isn't it the picture of urban bliss?

This little piggy stayed at home

One of the main banks here, BNZ, has really cute pigs in its advertisements. Really, they're possibly the cutest thing I've ever seen. Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8Y9j9yM6Dc

Skry went down to our local branch and got a piggy bank for me as part of my birthday present! I am delighted. His name is Hamish and he will eat all my spare change, then vomit it out when he's full.

Introducing: Cluck, Sean, and Beulah

Our chickens have arrived! They are currently foraging for juicy insects in the undergrowth around the trees in our garden.


I now proudly introduce Cluck Norris, Sean Henn, and Beulah. I will say up front that I named one of them, and Skry named the other two. You will just have to guess which ones!

The chicken coop is still a work in progress. Things haven't gone smoothly, and I know it's not the most professional looking building, but it'll do for our three girls until we have the will and desire to provide them with something that'll last for years. This should certainly last through a few seasons anyway before it falls apart, and since it's our first building I think we did quite well, considering.

Skry is still out there building the run. I caught him imitating one of the chickens - or maybe it was she who was imitating him. It's hard to tell!



They don't seem at all fazed by the noise of drilling and hammering, and are quite happy pottering about scratching for tasty morsels.


They're still only babies really, and won't start laying until around December. But you can be sure I will keep you posted as soon as our first egg arrives!

A night out

Our friends Mark and Gillian stayed with us for a few days this week, at the end of their holiday around New Zealand. They've been travelling around in a camper van for the last few weeks. Last night was their last night here before flying to Oz, so we took them out on the town.

Our first stop was Yellow Cross. This is a really nice bar with lots of outdoor seating, a stone's throw away from my and Skry's office. I don't drink beer, but apparently they sell some nice ones, and it's always a popular venue. Although it's not necessarily popular with everybody - our barmaid informed us that she was only working there for one more week, and after she left she was going to burn the place down. Hmmm, some workplace issues there I think.



After a couple of drinks, we went to Two Fat Indians for food. I took Skry by surprise when I ordered a vegetarian starter and a vegetarian main course! It's something I might do more often, though, because Indian restaurants here tend to use a lot of brown chicken meat and I really don't like the way it tastes. And lamb tends to be very fatty. I'd rather eat lentils and chick peas than chew on another lump of gristle!


By the time we finished our large portions of food, everybody was feeling a bit full and sleepy (well, everyone apart from Skry, who has more energy than the rest of us put together). We went to the Twisted Hop for one more drink and then headed home. It was a really enjoyable night and the chat never stopped until bedtime. I would like more of this kind of thing!

Blog layout

Please bear with me while I faff about with the layout and colours here. The orange template I was using somehow got broken, so I need something else, but am not quite sure what. You might get a new look every day for a while!

Living Room - Before and After

We have finally almost finished painting the living room - just need to put an extra coat on the corner behind the telly, which accidentally got missed. We painted most of the walls with Resene Quarter Spanish White, and one wall in Resene Cioccolato. In the tin, it looks like melted milk chocolate - mmm.

Before:

After (please ignore the curtains and lampshades, which WILL be replaced at some point):

More mystery plants

Yes folks, it's another update about our house/garden. You must be sick of these by now! But we aren't doing a whole lot else at the moment, other than chipping away at the work here.

The daffodils have died down, and I've done some weeding, which revealed some more mystery plants coming up. I don't have a clue what they are, but we have them in both the front and back gardens. It looks like they're going to start blooming soon.



The garden is full of bloom. Camellias, magnolias, tulips, the last remaining daffodils, and lots of other things that I can't put any names to. The old apple tree is going to be in bloom soon, and so is Skry's little lime tree. I have no idea what lime flowers look like, but it'll be fun to find out!

UPDATE: My friend Linda identified the mystery plant. It is called Solomon's Seal. I looked it up on the internet, and was surprised to find that it is edible.  Here is an excerpt from the Wild Vegetarian Cookbook, which mentions it.