Five more sleeps till Santa comes.....

So it’s less than a week to go until our first Kiwi Christmas. For a very pleasant change the weather does seem to be improving and apart from a short downpour whilst the girls swam at a friend’s house today, it has been a dry weekend.

Quick lawn-mowing update – Saturday’s attempt was over 19 minutes and as I did it quite late in the evening I had to finish off with the headlights on. Even though it can get around most of the garden it struggles up very close to fences so I have resorted to the standard kiwi response to anything that the machine can’t reach – I’ve sprayed it with Round-Up which (like domestos) will kill 99.9% of any living thing it touches. I even invested in a backpack sprayer so I can carry 20litres of the stuff around with me as I wander along the fencelines and also deal with the rapidly growing weeds that are cheekily taking root in between the pebbles on the ‘flowerbeds’. I'll give you an update next week to see if one dose has done the business.

Also in the garden is our old rain gauge and our Zimbabwean metal guinea fowl and warthog have finally been given a free run outside – I think that they are enjoying being back in the southern hemisphere.

Chris and Kirsty are spending most evenings out singing with Woven – a small youth choir (which allows oldies in for Christmas) – tonight is about their 8th concert I think. they're had a lot of fun and have even learned to sing Silent Night in Maori. It has given me a chance to clear away my toolbox and a few unpacked boxes from our lounge so at least we can have one room that is relatively ‘normal’. Few a few weeks I been thinking this house is a bit small (it's similar to The Pines), then I remembered that we have a whole huge lounge at the far end of the house that we haven’t used yet for two reasons. Firstly is that it still has 20 odd boxes of packed stuff in it and secondly because we don’t really have any furniture to put into it. Apparently the Boxing Day sales are the place to get all that type of stuff so I can see us slowly moving into the extra room in January.

The hectic round of office parties is upon us at work and as I have to be scrupulously impartial about accepting ‘hospitality’ from our suppliers I think that if I go to all their events I can’t be accused of being biased! I keep having to remember the rules that I am allowed to attend such events but I must not enjoy them! We’ve started a small quiz team that takes part in a regular pub quiz at The Cook – an old and surprisingly popular bar in Hamilton East. On our first foray we came a very creditable second and won $25 of free drinks. Last week we were midfield – probably because we drank the $25 of free drinks – Tomorrow is the Christmas quiz – I’ll keep you posted.

Chris touted her CV around several local schools and has been besieged (almost) with offers to do music related teaching. It looks like Chris will be part time in two primary schools from February – which is a great result and may well lead onto more work. **** UPDATE **** Make that three and a half job offers - just been asked to run singing workshops in Hamilton and Cambridge, and someone else suggested Chris start her own choir!

Christmas isn't Christmas without a tree so off we went to the Tamahere Christmas Tree Farm and sought out a suitable festive addition to our lounge…. It isn’t really a pine tree and the braches are a bit weedy to hold many decorations but it is mounted in a suitably stable tree holder which has been imported from the US – this thing will probably withstand a fully grown tree falling it without breaking so our 5’ tree shouldn’t fall over.

Kirsty’s foot is much better but the horse threw Lana (or Lana fell off) last week and so it was another trip to the medical centre to check that her lethargy was more due to the fact that she is 14 rather than any other injury.

A few weeks ago we were delighted to see a cute little rabbit in the garden. Kirsty even left out her apple core for it. Last week Lana was convinced that there were in face two rabbits and she was right, because yesterday there were definitely 4 babies playing by the shed. Oh dear, looks like they're multiplying! Tonight Chris and Kirsty spotted a hedgehog on the driveway - let's hope it hasn't got any friends and relations!

We’ve been following the blizzards that have hit the UK this weekend and I confess we are a bit jealous that the first chance we had of the girls seeing of a White Christmas will be limited to looking out of the window via a Web-cam at my brother’s house in Kent.

So that about it for another week – we’ll stick on some more about our mundane lives over the festive period.

I've also added a wonderful picture that my Uncle (Geoff) sent us - it is one of a series that I'll be adding in the weeks to come. In case you didn't know we had to leave behind Gerald out 8' wooden giraffe .....

Down to the beach..

Lawn cut in 18:20 on Friday - record to date,,,,

Off to the beach in Saturday to Whangamata (Fangamatar) to stay the night at a friend's beach side house. Lots of narrow, windy and steep roads to get there – its on the east coast at the bottom of the Coromandel peninsula. The beach was superb and we boogie boarded in the Pacific surf. Apparently the population of the town goes up by x20 next week when the rest of the schools finish for Christmas – it was good to enjoy the sunshine and surf without competing against the remainder of New Zealand! Also good to put our Welsh wetsuits and boards to use again. Our visit coincidend with a big surf-rescue competition with 25+ inflatables racing to pick up 'drowning' swimmers....

December already...

It must be getting towards Christmas – the girls have broken up from school already and now have the best part of two months off.

For a few weeks Lana especially has been complaining that there shower here is really weak, so at the weekend I looked into the problem……. All of our water here is collected from our roof gutters and stored in a 25,000 litre tank that sits in the garden. It is then pumped through a very fine filter (1/1000 of 1 mm) and fed to the household taps. I found two problems, firstly the water filter desperately needed changing – instead of being off-white it was dark brown and really badly clogged – this explained the low water pressure and low flow. Fortunately the water filter man lives in Cambridge and dropped me off a couple of new filters on Sunday. Worse still were the gutters which were oozing with grime and dirt………. I spent a very satisfying Saturday afternoon up my new ladder with my pressure washer blasting these gutters clean. I’ve left them disconnected from the water tank for a couple of days to let the inevitable rain flush out all the bits the pressure washer loosened and tonight we’ve had an almighty downpour which is great news (for a change). I also installed out trusty Zimbabwean rain gauge so that probably means it won't rain again until April - fat chance.

Lana came home with another collection of rosettes – despite falling off Holly whilst practising on Saturday. Kirsty as finally been persuaded to forego her crutches and start using her four week old ‘horse-kicked’ foot. I admit this miraculous recovery may have been hastened by me offering to let her drive the tractor to ferry empty boxes to the storage container. From this we turned to clearing the vegetable patch and Kirsty ferried and the triffid sized celery, spinach, parsley, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli and most bizarrely looking brocoflower (luminous green cauliflower) plants to the compost heap.

Whilst I was distracted up the ladder Chris put in a record beating 19 mins 25 second lap time on the 'reasonable priced lawn tractor' and has snuck to the top of the leader board - having said that she has missed some bits.

Another blitz on boxes today with a further 10 emptied. It is now definite that we have 'lost' part of Kirsty's Ikea desk - it may well be that by now some Somali pirate is trying to assemble his newly acquired ikea desk and realises that whilst he has the brackets he is missing the legs and table........

More in a bit .....

Local customs

Kirsty has just come home from her end of year social (disco I think). She's just called out that tomorrow school is in mufti and she needs to take some togs and scroggin. I think we're assimilating into the local culture!

Lawn update - I cut the the set lap in 19m 45s - with the mulching plug in. This has shaved 1 minute 40 seconds off last week's record. On the subject of records I clocked up 32 minutes home last week (wind assisted) - some 9 minutes faster than my old bike and 2 minutes faster than average.

Our work team came 2nd in a pub quiz last night - quite respectable for our first outing.

Hope you are following all of this! I'll put a translation up tomorrow.

More later
Richard

Everything you ever wanted to know about ride on mowers…….

So with 150 of 283 boxes unpacked we are pretty pooped but the house is sort of coming together. Both girls' rooms are decorated but due to vital bits of desks and beds still being in transit neither is completely finished. I've been out early on Saturday mornings at Garage sales around Cambridge picking up garden tools, a BBQ, jerry cans and odd bits and pieces for the house. It is quite a competitive sport over here with people arriving before 7am to make sure they bag the bargains. One guy (a Kiwi with a Black County accent) was telling some of his fellow garage sale regulars how he brought 15 Catherine Cookson novels for only $1 each rather the £5.99 on the cover. Now I'm not much of a reader but $1 each would strike me as being about 95 cents more than I'd pay for them.

Chris did one better by touring around the better residential areas on the annual 'bulky items rubbish collection day' and coming home with a wooden wheeled frame that fits the BBQ I bought perfectly.

We've been desk shopping for Lana (in a real shop this time) who has seen a really smart L shaped black desk with built in shelves – the only problem is that the shelves are on the wrong bit of the L. I could free stand them on the other bit but apparently they do need to be screwed down just in case she's working there and we get an earthquake…….

Kirsty's still on crutches but seems loads better and Lana is off on her Year 10 camp – there are 40+ of them camping on the Coromandel Peninsula and doing loads of outdoorsy type stuff. No doubt we'll know more when she returns.

Now – lawn mowers – well Husquavana 22 HP 46 inch side dishcharge / mulching ride on lawn tractors actually! I've had a second 'go' today at cutting the plot and managed to get it down from 90 minutes to 80.

Most importantly I've set the first timed lap for the 'Top Gear' style 'star on a reasonably priced lawn tractor challenge'. There is a big chunk of lawn out the front with a few large-ish trees but apart from that you are pretty much mowing easy grass. A couple of clockwise trips around the perimeter to keep the grass cuttings on the grass (it throws them out on the right) and then up and back I went. To make sure it was an 'offcial' time I started and ended on the drive way in a Le Mans style start up…… The figures were 21 mins 24.7 seconds with a 'lap' distance of 2.19km at an average speed of 5.8kilometers per hour and thanks to my trusty GPS I even got a record of the route I took (sad I know!). So every guest we have will have their turn on the tractor and be placed onto the leader board…

The tractor also came with a trailer – well it actually came with a huge Meccano set and I spent an evening putting it together .... Kirsty enjoyed her ride in it...

Now just in case there is any confusion about who can use the tractor it came with very explicit instructions on the key fob…..

NO Children to be nearby and more importantly…..

All mummys and children are only allowed to watch from inside as daddy drives by and waves…… having said that….

...it didn't stop Lana having a go…….

Meanwhile in the NZ Herald this week was a classic photo taken in Cambridge of a lawn-tractor being used in a more unorthodox manner – to trim the top of a hedge……..

The BBC also carried a report on ride-on mowers - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8362373.stm What a week its been for grass cutting!

Almost as exciting as the ride-on mower was the fact that we FINALLY got a broadband line on Friday so we are really in the 21^st century now.

I promise that the'll be no more mention of lawn mowers for a few weeks.

It's not exactly summer here but warm enough to cycle and from work in a T-shirt now, the record is covering the 16.4km in 36 minutes - a lot faster now I've got my own bike. Having said that it's now had a new chain and most of the gears replaced!

I'll get Chris to write the next installment...

Richard

Our container arriving

Last Tuesday was C-Day – Container Day and we were delighted to be see the container that we had waved off from Kineton in August arrive on our driveway in Cambridge 11,000 miles away. The three guys spent several hours unloading the container and started unpacking the 280 boxes it contained. We had a master plan for the removal gang, every box had a number and the guys was given a room to take each box to – and we used the lounge as a ‘store’ to keep less urgent boxes so we didn’t overfill the other rooms – as Chris said to the impressed lorry driver ‘you don’t have to live with it!’

It was a relief to see that almost everything arrived intact and nothing missing. Over the next few days Chris opened, unpacked, sorted so many boxes, Kirsty unwrapped her china horses and I unpacked the bikes and garden stuff. It was a real pleasure cycling my trusty Trek bike into work – even if the chain did snap on the first 10 mile trip to the office.

Still no broadband :-(

Our first week in our new house....

The neighbours from heaven!

We moved out of our cosy furnished rented house last weekend and into our own house at last. But, of course, with only the suitcases we left England with. Dear Nola came by with a crate of camping stuff – sleeping bags, saucepans, cutlery, deckchairs… Enough to see us through until our container of belongings finally arrives. I understand it is still somewhere around Sydney, caught up in the Christmas rush!

Within about half an hour, our new neighbours, Peter and Delwyn, hopped over the fence to introduce themselves, and shortly after realising our predicament, started ferrying over beds, mattresses, armchairs, kitchen utensils, even a TV!

They’ve 4 children from 18 down to 5. The 18 year old is heavily into BMX-ing and has built himself a course of jumps in the garden. These are serious jumps, and to see him and his mates flying through the air is an awesome sight! Apparently there are often up to 30 of his mates here at the weekend. Great – just what we need with teenage girls!!

We are missing our chickens and Gimmick the cat, but seem to have a few rabbits living in the garden and also have had several visits this weekend from a flock of ducks – about 16 we think – they won’t stay still enough to count!

It’s definitely spring here – the radio adverts are full of the best insemination offers for your cows and sheep – lovely! And when they’re not advertising this it’s the latest in heated clothes airers for your wife’s Christmas present. If I get one there’ll be trouble!

Bonfire night in the spring takes some getting used to. It doesn’t help that it doesn’t get dark till well after 8pm, and it doesn’t feel at all right not to be huddled over a slightly soggy jacket potato, juggling a plastic cup of mulled wine, shivering gently! Kirsty has been asked at school and, more worryingly, Richard at work, whether we have bonfire night in England!! I guess this goes along with the oft-heard phrase, “world famous in New Zealand” !!

It’s been a busy and eventful weekend. We have finished decorating the girls’ bedrooms and ours, in Lana’s second choice of wallpaper – she loved it so much and couldn’t bear never to see it again so persuaded us to have it in our room! Lana rode her borrowed pony in a little gymkhana at school – everything from gate opening to clear round jumping to potato and spoon race. She aquitted herself very well and came away with a handful of second, third and fourth places. Richard has continued to look at ride on lawnmowers – to mulch or not to mulch; to collect or not to collect, these are the decisions he must make! He has arranged for a test mow later in the week.


I’m still on the search for a choir, meanwhile, I managed to get myself invited to support a small group in Hamilton. I went along to just a couple of rehearsals and the concert was on Saturday afternoon. Not one I’ll be staying with I think. But it is nice to be singing again.

They don’t do Remembrance Sunday here in a big way – the main remembrance event is ANZAC day in April. However Cambridge has a close link with a French town that the Kiwis liberated in early November 1918 and there is a regular exchange of mayors and students between the two places. Richard went to the civic service which was very well supported – six national anthems, ambassadors (no Ferrero Rocher), pipers, brass bands, wreath laying and soldiers firing salutes. Also there is a huge (for NZ) re-enactment culture with everything from Romans to two Vietnam camps (one US one Kiwi) and a rather worryingly large number of SS troopers driving around and letting off machine guns in mock-battles…… Highlight was a flying display by a Tiger Moth biplane – we missed the tank car crushing. It all happens here in Cambridge.

As I write, the tranquillity of my evening is being disturbed by the thunk, click of Kirsty going down the corridor on her crutches. She managed to get herself kicked by the horse, and although nothing is broken, her foot is very swollen, so it has been plastered to keep it still and she needs to keep her weight off it for a week or so. Oh the lengths some people will go to not to do PE!!

Our new address is
308a Hautapu Road
RD1
Cambridge
3493

We’re still waiting for a landline and, more importantly an internet connection. Richard is sometimes able to bring a laptop home from work, which somehow works here ( I don’t get all the techie stuff), but it’s frustrating to once again be out of comms with the outside world.

More in a few days.

Our new house!!!!!

Well there it is - I'd like to say we've moved in but as our container is still on the high seas we've moved in our suitcases and some camping beds for our new neighbours and friends.

I also need to take the PC to bits and move it down to the new home, but I'm not sure how long it wil take to get the broadband up and running. This may be the last blog for a couple of days - or couple of hours - we'll see.

Richard

Friday 30th October

We appear to have bought a house! Not only that, as within 6 hours of buying it we seem to have found a tenant to take over the last 4 months of the lease we had on our rented house. This means that from Sunday for about 10 days we'll be camping out (with friend's camping gear) in our 'own' house until our container arrived on 11/11. Exciting times - photos and more blog to follow.....

Bank Holiday Weekend

Our last free weekend before we take possession of the house on Friday. After that it will be painting and decorating, mowing lawns and all those 1001 little jobs that we’ve escaped since being here. This renting lark has a lot to be said for it! We’re all very excited about it though, can’t wait till our furniture finally arrives in November - apparently the container is in Sydney at the moment!

We decided not to take the opportunity to go away for a couple of nights, but planned some day trips out from here. After all, when you all come and visit we’ll need to know where to take you! The 'wobbly' bridge over the Waikato was not for the feight hearted... and the 'beware of the bogsleigh' sign was slightly confusing...

I managed to injure my back at the stables on Saturday morning, so our planned kayaking trip was possibly not the best option. What else….? Aaah, obviously, the hot spa pools at Te Arahoa. Bliss!

The hot water also forms the “world’s only soda geyser, rising some three metres form the ground.” So we waited, (Lana tasted the water) and waited and waited for this amazing sight. Was it worth it? You be the judge!!!

The waterfall and stream in the Kaimai Hills was pretty spectacular though.

Great news, Miranda has started laying again – in fact she’s getting very possessive over her eggs and has to be coaxed off them with some tasty titbits! One of the little white bantams kept going missing, or so we thought, but we’ve now discovered her secret nest under the hen house.

Oops, I managed to get a speeding fine – but it was definitely Richard’s fault as I was going to pick him up from work when it was raining too hard for him to cycle back. If he wasn’t such a fair weather cyclist, I’d be $230 better off! I’d better keep a closer eye on the speed limit zones in future though– I could have sworn I was in a 70kph zone, not a 50. OK, so I was clocked at 77kph, but 10% over isn’t too bad. I’m not going to work out the real percentage!

We haven’t written much on the blog recently, but the day-to-day stuff of going to the supermarket, taking the kids to school is the same wherever you are. I still haven’t managed to get a photo of the girls in their summer uniforms, but if I wait a little longer, maybe they won’t be expecting it and I'll get one!

Never look a gift horse in the mouth.....

So, we woke up to…anyone like to guess…
More rain! Mum has a theory that it never stops! However soon it was nice and sunny (yay) and we all trotted off to the Tamahere market. We were astonished to find that a chicken coop and two chickens were worth $49…then we realised it was $490…slight hiccup there! Anyway we carried on through the endless stalls of glass plates, knitting, plants and dairy products until we miraculously found that we had ended up at the fudge stall! Always a good thing! After tasting as many tasters as possible, we bought some rocky road fudge, caramel and…BAILEYS! Yumm! (My favourite). After that we went to an antiques fair, as it would have never been forgotten if we did not go as Kirsten would continuously go on about china horses that she may have been able to get there. There were none! (Hah)

In the evening we had a lovely barbieQ with our friends Dean, Nola, Mark and Dani. Charades wasn’t the best game to play after a big barbeque!

Sooo that was Saturday.

The lovely morning sun (!) came through my window this morning! About time! However you can guess what that lovely sun turned into… rain. :-(

Kirsten and her friend had Alice In Wonderland rehearsals at school this morning and me and mum met up with a lady who needs a horse looked after for her! :-) (In the rain)
The pony is called Holly and I am now in charge of here at school for a while! This means going to make sure she’s okay everyday and also this involves some riding! :-) Yay

I had an interesting ride today; you can tell she’s a mare because she’s always changing her mind! One minute we’re going fine, next minute we’re trying to go the other way, next minute were going backwards, then she decides to have a little bit of a bucking fit! So… she’ll need some work but hopefully soon we’ll be able to get her going good!

Lana

Chicken update – and another busy weekend.

Miranda’s days might be numbered. What’s the point of a chicken that won’t lay any more eggs – however cute she might be? Meanwhile her two little white friends managed 3 eggs between them today so they obviously don’t want to lose her and hope we might not notice the difference between Miranda’s whoppers and their little offerings. No chance!

We drove up to Auckland on Saturday to see an old friend from Botswana, Gayle and her family. They’ve been a great source of help and advice since we got here, but this was the first time we’ve actually seen each other. Even more exciting, our best friend from Botswana, DarylAnne, was visiting from Australia. It didn’t matter that we hadn’t seen each other for nearly 10 years, the years rolled away in minutes, and we had such a lovely time together, shopping, eating, reminiscing – all in the rain of course!


Whilst Chris pottered around with the ladies Richard and the girls explored some of Auckland's beaches, collecting shells and generally chilling out.

While we were enjoying ourselves, so was Gimmick, the ginger cat. He’d clearly been out hunting in our absence and decided to welcome us home with the gift of a baby rabbit. Unfortunately it was both dead and in the shower – but I’m sure the thought was nice! Richard, never a cat lover at the best of times, now refers to him as the Bunny Murderer.

We had a lovely potter round Hamilton Gardens this afternoon, between the showers – a huge complex of beautifully laid out lakes and gardens. It will take many more weekends to visit them all and we haven’t sampled the tea rooms yet, so we’re definitely due another visit. Of particular interest was the 'Grasses of New Zealand' area where about 12 different types are laid out - just what I'll need to practice on with my sit-on lawn mower....

So, back to school for the girls tomorrow. It being the summer term, that means in regulation stripy shorts and red sandals. If the sun doesn’t come out they’re gonna freeeeeze! Oh well!! I think they’re looking forwards to spending time with people their own age and making more new friends – and I’m looking forwards to a quiet house. I’m hoping to sneak a photo of them, but think I’ve got even less chance than last term in their kilts!

Lamb update - not only have the neighbours sheep been shorn but we think that the lambs have been separated from the ewes today as there is an inordinate amount of 'baa-ing' coming from the garden next door........

She'll be coming round the mountain.....

With a week of the school holidays complete it was time to head off to explore more of New Zealand. The plan was to head off at first light Saturday and drive down to the snowfields on the slopes of the Mount Ruapehu. Unfortunately the rain hadn’t stopped all night and had woken us up several times, by 5am we were peering over the weather and skiing forecast web sites to see if we should just go back to bed and give up on the idea. By 5.30am we decided that even if it was going to continue to rain we might as well set off, so we got the girls up and by the time it got light at 6:15am we were driving down Highway 3 towards Te Awamutu. Miraculously the rain had stopped and as we headed south passed some dramatic and lush hills we could even see the occasional patch of blue sky.

Two and a half hours in we passed the turn-off to a spiral loop on the main railway which allows the trains to climb up onto NZ’s central plateau. As we arrived at National Park (which is a place name) as well as the entry point to the Tongariro National Park we could see the sun shining on the snow on Mount Ruapehu. The Photo shows what the resort was called - 'Wh' in Maori is pronounced 'F'....

He white fuel guzzling Nissan (which is now averaging 20 mpg and rattles at 90kph!) slowly got us up to the ski area and we donned the warm clothes that our good (and only) friends Nola and Dean had lent us. Not being skiers we signed up for a beginners class and togged up with skis, boots, sticks (except Lana), sun glasses and hats we descended the chair lift into the Happy Valley nursery slope. The slope is in a gully on the side of the mountain, there were sobering warnings posted just above the urinals informing the any gung-ho skiers that these gullys were channels for the mud and lava flows should the mountain decide to erupt whist we were skiing- Mount Ruapehu being an active volcano which seems to do something every 10-20 years. The advice was to get out of the gully if you heard the Eruption Detection sirens – there was also a disclaimer saying the Eruption Detection system was not 100% reliable – enough to distract you from the purpose of your visit (see above to remind yourself of where the poster was displayed).

Anyway, we lined up with our instructor Georgia who in two hours soon had us sliding, snowploughing, falling over, bunny hopping and taking part in a slow-motion slalom. Lana was the star pupil having skied for an hour at the Milton Keynes Snowdome – anyway we were let loose on the gentle Happy Valley slope and for the next three hours we made our way down the hill (I fell over on every descent) and more scarily (especially for Kirsten) we zipped back to the top on the chair lift. It was rather like running round to have another go of the slide at the children’s playground in Warwick! Not only did I fall down on the way down but I also fell over every time I tried to ski off the top of the chair lift – much to Lana’s amusement.

Despite the horrendous weather forecast we had bright sunshine until we packed away at 3pm – no broken bones, but sunburnt noses and a warm glow that we had all managed to ski for a bit without making complete fools of ourselves.

As we drove away we got the first proper sight of nearby Mount Ngauruhoe which I’d seen from the air a couple of week before. It is a truly awe inspiring view and apparently has one of NZ’s best one day walks across it, there is also a 42km mountain bike trail nearby – one for me to go back to I think.

Driving back we stopped at the Huku Falls at the outlet of Lake Taupo. The long channel made for the world’s fastest game of Pooh Sticks (less than 1 second) with the whole Waikato river leaving the raging ravine and dropping into a broad river to head north past Hamilton and off to the Tasman Sea. The Lake was formed when 750km3 of volcano (culdera actually) blew its top 26,500 years ago – If my A Level maths serve me right that is enough ash to put a 5mm layer over the whole planet – I think it is one of the largest eruptions ever recorded.

We had thought of staying over a night and skiing again on Sunday but I think we made a good choice returning on Saturday as there was a dump of 50cm of snow on the Sunday and many of the roads were closed and over 100 cars were abandoned on one of the roads out of Taupo.

Sunday rained (surprise surprise) so whilst Lana and Chris went to the Waikato Home & Garden Show Kirsty and I ventured back to Mitre10 DIY Heaven to check out the sit on mowers. Apparently the 22HP 42” Whyte model comes with a free trailer and a mulching plug as well as a hose attachment to automatically wash the three sets of blades…….. Sounds just the job. Added to this its cutting deck is linked to the cast iron front axle so it lifts over uneven ground. It was a good job Kirsty was taking all this info in as I was flummoxed……

So there we have another weekend down under........ house buying still progressing scarily well.

Richard