Wine tour, friends, and no photos

No photos for this update, but hopefully you will bear with me through reams of text.

On Saturday, Skry drove me and Rok up to Waipara to visit some vineyards. This coincided very nicely with the arrival of my friends Mark and Gillian. They are on a world trip of sorts, and have hired a camper van to travel around New Zealand for a few weeks. They'll be visiting Christchurch later, but this weekend we just met them for one evening. The weather wasn't great, but we had a lovely lunch (Operation Entertainment Book: $30 saved) in the Mud House winery, and visited a couple of other vineyards as well.

I worked with Mark and Gillian when I was in Northern Ireland, and it was really great to see friends from home again. Hopefully we'll get to spend some more time with them when they come back to Christchurch. If nothing else, having visitors coming is an incentive to finish the wallpaper stripping in our house!

After our wine tour, our little convoy headed slightly further north, to Scargill, to visit our friends Fiona and Richard. They have just bought a house there, and it was our first visit. It's right out in the country, miles from anything substantial, and surrounded by farms. I grew up on a farm, and it was very reminiscent of home for me to spend the evening with no traffic, no street lights, no visible neighbours, and the sound of sheep and lambs bleating in the distance.  Fiona and Richard have a fantastic house and lots of land, and I think they'll carve out a very nice country lifestyle for themselves up there. Just hope Fi can survive the commute to her job in Christchurch!

Another jetboat crash in the news

There was another jet boat accident today, with a boat overturning in the river near Queenstown, and this time a woman is dead. It sounds pretty awful. Apparently the Chinese tourists on the boat weren't able to make themselves understood to the rescuers, when they asked that the boat be turned upright again to make sure nobody was under it. Somebody was under it, but she wasn't found for another hour and a half. What a tragic situation - and one that I can imagine all too well, after our own jetboat crash in January.

It would take a lot to get me to set foot in one of those things again, that's for sure. I don't care how safe they normally are - I just don't want anything to do with them.

Solar lighting

As many of you know, my wonderful husband is a vegetarian, hippy, save-the-world type. I have no problem with that, and find it very admirable that he will deny himself something he enjoys if he thinks that's the right thing to do. However, I have very poor night vision, and this leads to many battles between us. He can't understand why I would want the light on in the hallway, for instance, if we are not in the hallway at that very moment. And I can't understand why I should have to walk into a pitch-black room, fumbling for the light switch, if I have the option to just leave the light on whenever there's a good chance I will be needing it.

Anyway, we have found one solution which will help us avoid the "turn the porch light off/but I can't seeeee!" argument that has become way too familiar. Solar lights have come a long way in recent years, and with the advent of LED bulbs it is actually possible to have a solar light that does more than provide an ambient glow.

For $35 I purchased a solar light with 10 LED bulbs in it, which is powered by rechargeable batteries and a separate solar panel. With five feet of cable between the panel and the light, there is quite a bit of flexibility with how it can be positioned. Right now, we have the panel on the conservatory roof, and the light itself just above the front door.  It is actually brighter than the photograph shows, but my camera tripod is somewhere in the garage so I was unable to take a better quality picture.  It is certainly bright enough for me to be able to find the door, find the keyhole, and even read a book if I wanted to.  And best of all, it doesn't cost anything to run, and Skry cannot object to my leaving it switched on whenever I like.

I also purchased an attractive solar-powered lantern, which is more for decoration than for providing light. It has a lovely flicker like a real candle, and looks very pretty hanging from its hook in the flower bed, or perched on the garden table.

I'm going to be investigating more options for solar lighting around our house. The lamp in the doorway is bright, but it does not come on automatically at dusk - it is either on or off. So I would like to buy one in a similar style but with an "auto" option, or even a motion detector.  I know such things exist - I just need to find them here in Christchurch or available by post.

Spare bedroom - before and after

We stripped the wallpaper and painted the walls in the spare room a few weeks. Phil and Lou moved in as soon as the paint was dry, so I didn't get a chance to photograph it until after they left.

Before:

After:

The paint colour is Resene Conch. This is a beautiful, serene, blue-green shade, and I am very happy with it. Lou already had the red curtains, and they work perfectly with the colour scheme. I was delighted to buy them from her when she and Phil left. The white shelf unit may look familiar to you from the "before" photo - we are unable to remove it from the wall! The screws on the top refuse to unscrew, and it's not worth a battle right now.

Farewell to Phil and Lou

After a fun almost-year here in New Zealand, Skry's brother Phil and his girlfriend Lou have moved to Sydney, to try their hands at life in Oz. We are really sorry to see them go, and Christchurch won't be the same without them, but they have better career and visa prospects in Australia so it makes sense to move.

On Saturday night we had one last night out with them before they left. I did take some pictures but those are still on my phone, so I've swiped some of theirs off Facebook instead :)

They flew off to Oz on Monday afternoon, and for the next few days Skry and I are home alone. Not for too long, though - our next house guest, Rok, arrives on Friday!

Digging the veggie patch

Up until today, our veggie patch was a mass of weeds, so thick that the soil wasn't even visible. But no more! Our friends Fiona and Richard volunteered their services, and today the four of us transformed that week patch into something that is actually fit to grow vegetables in.

Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to take a proper "before" photo, as I was in Countdown buying some food for breakfast when the other three got stuck in to the work. (And there is some weirdness going on with Blogger and I can't get it to link to the full size photos like I usually do. I'll edit this post if I find out what's wrong.) But you can see the density and height of the weeds, which covered every inch of the entire area, here:

With the weeds finally removed, the ground was dug over:

Fiona had an interesting technique for getting the spade into the ground - jump on it!

After several hours, the whole thing was looking great.

The team - Richard, Fiona, me, and Skry. We did a great day's work, and everybody felt very pleased with themselves by the end of it.

Now we just need some plants to put in it...

Houses on the move

This is nothing to do with us, but something I noticed while browsing online for houses for sale, a few weeks back. It is not unheard of for people here in New Zealand to buy a house and then actually move the house to a different place. I'm not talking about mobile homes, but actual houses. I suppose it's possible because many houses here are made of frames sitting on piles, rather than bricks sitting on concrete foundations. The house is actually picked up, loaded on a trailer, and trundled along the road to its new location. Puts a whole new spin on the idea of "moving house", doesn't it?!

For example, here is a listing that I just plucked from TradeMe, the NZ equivalent of eBay.


I suppose it is more practical than knocking a house down just because it's in the wrong place. As the owner of this house did, you can just split it in two and put the pieces in storage until the right place becomes available!

Just another example of "things we find noteworthy" in our new country, I suppose...

A quick update on bento lunches

In an unprecedented move, I have managed to make my lunch in advance three days in a row this week. That has never happened, unless I'm eating leftovers of the same thing for several days.

My Hello Kitty bento box is actually way too big if I stuff it with heavy, filling food. The only way I won't end up the size of a house is if I continue to fill it with fruit and salad. I can't believe that a few days ago I was fretting that I would still be hungry after my lunch. No chance! In fact, I have now purchased another, smaller lunchbox, for those days when I just don't have something like lettuce and tomato to hand, and have to go with something more compact but filling.

Tomorrow's office lunch, which I already have sitting in the fridge, is:
- large portion of couscous with red onion, cucumber, red pepper, and a splash of sesame oil
- cooked chicken pieces and a tiny plastic fish full of soy sauce
- cherry tomatoes
- peanuts
- grapes
- barbecue flavour rice crackers
- triangle of soft cheese

I guarantee I won't be hungry after eating that lot!

We're loving the house

No photos today, but I just wanted to update about how much we love living in this house! It's not perfect yet, far from it, but this is such a fantastic place to live.

Main benefits:

• lots of space and built-in storage - bedrooms here in New Zealand generally have built-in wardrobes, so we have lots of storage space without having to fill the rooms with lots of furniture. I do plan on buying a wardrobe organiser, because I have more need of shelf space than of hanging space, but at least the space is there.
• no strangers living on the other side of our walls! I haven't lived in a detached house in years. It is fantastic to be able to turn up the telly without worrying about annoying the neighbours, and of course we aren't being annoyed by thumping music coming from the other side of the living room wall either (a major annoyance in our last place).
• a quiet neighbourhood with easy access to local shops and the city centre. We can cycle to work in less than 15 minutes, at a leisurely pace on flat ground.
  
• friendly neighbours. The couple who lives in the house beside ours (we share a driveway) is very friendly, as is the couple who live beside the entrance to the driveway. They are both a good bit older than us - that seems to be the norm around here - but I'd much rather have that than deal with other people's children running about.
• great outdoor space. We have space for two cars to park out front, a conservatory and large deck, and a vast amount of garden space. I've never had a garden with enough space for even one tree, and now we have five or six of 'em. I know that means a lot of work for us too, but we are both looking forward to having something productive to do with our spare time that will enhance our surroundings and provide us with food and enjoyment too.

As of now, we have yet to discover any real negatives about our new home at all - which is just the way it should be. We had expected to get a "for now" home, and maybe sell and upgrade a few years down the line, but I can't see why we would want to upgrade from a place like this. Hopefully we will have many happy years of living here together.

Bento lunches

A discussion on an internet forum that I regularly read led me to spend some time over the last couple of days reading about bento lunches. In case you don't know what those are, here is some information from Wikipedia:

Bentō (弁当 or べんとう, Bentō) is a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. A traditional bento consists of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables as a side dish. Containers range from disposable mass produced to hand crafted lacquerware. Although bento are easily available in many places throughout Japan, including convenience stores, bento shops (弁当屋, bentō-ya), train stations, and department stores, it is still common for Japanese homemakers to spend considerable time and energy producing an appealing boxed lunch.

Bento can be very elaborately arranged. Contests are often held where homemakers can compete for the most aesthetically pleasing arrangements. The food is often decorated to look like people, animals, or characters and items such as flowers and plants. This style of elaborate bento is called kyaraben.

That is a bit dry to read, so I will illustrate with a couple of examples taken from the internet:


There are some fantastic and delicious-looking lunches on sites like LiveJournal, Just Bento, Lunch-in-a-Box, and others.

It has become very apparent over recent months that my lunchtime eating habits are atrocious. I am disorganised, don't buy anything in advance, and end up eating expensive and unhealthy sandwiches and junk food purchased from the dairy round the corner. So I have gone out and bought my own bento box (Hello Kitty! It's pink! And sparkly!) and intend putting it to good use.

How cute is this for a lunchbox?


Here's my first attempt at putting lunch into it. Our kitchen is a mess at the moment and I'm not doing any cooking in it today, but I think I did pretty well (although not at all Japanese style) with what was in the fridge and cupboards.

Top layer - six cheese and poppy seed crackers, soft cheese triangles, and cherry tomatoes.
Left layer - mandarin orange halves, cherry tomatoes, ham, grapes, and blueberries.
Right layer - mixed salad leaves, red pepper, sliced radishes, some sort of green sprouting things, and salad dressing which came in the same pack as the salad leaves and green sprouting things.

I haven't a clue if I will find this lot filling or not. The box holds a lot of food, but I've put mostly fruit and salad into it, so I could end up ravenous or happily sated. I'll find out tomorrow lunchtime!

Main bedroom, before and after

This is my first post from our new house. We moved our things in over the weekend, and got internet access sorted out this morning. It is a lovely house to live in - so bright and spacious, and so quiet! All we can hear in the mornings is birdsong, which makes a huge change from the roar of traffic in our rental.

The decoration is still in progress, but we are slowly getting through it, and some of the rooms are pretty much finished. Here are some pics of the main bedroom, which still needs some minor work but is now fit to live in. I painted one wall and the bedroom door in Resene Lifesaver paint, and the other walls and wardrobe doors in Resene Alaska. (And in case you're wondering, I am putting the exact names of the paint here so I have it for future reference, in case we need to buy more in future for any touch-ups that become necessary. This blog is like a big Filofax!)

Before:



After:


Once again it looks like our curtains are expecting a flood, but it's not my fault this time! These ones were transferred with our things from Ireland, and are only temporary until we can get something that actually fits the windows. But at least they're in a decent colour, and they keep the room warmer at night. The first two nights, we just had the net curtains - brrrr!