books books books

I have a pile of NINE books beside my bed and I want to read them all right now! There’s a mixture of fiction and non-fiction and over 1500 years between the writing of the oldest and the newest. Oh how I love to read! And I have the whole evening ahead of me – bring it on!! Seriously, this is one of my most favourite ways to spend my time!!

Just in case you were wondering here are my temperature observations from our house:

• Generally speaking the houses here are not well heated – no central heating just plug in heaters mostly or log burners (which we LOVE but don’t have), although we do have the benefit of having a heat pump in the living room.
• And most houses here (including ours) are single glazed and the heat escapes every which way.
• Also, it’s not unusual for there to be a lot of condensation on our windows in the morning and even on occasions ICE!!
• And seeing your breath in the air inside is the norm.

Quite obviously I’m not complaining – I do love the cold! But J has this cough that persists and so I decided we’d have the heater on in our room last night (it comes on when it goes below a certain temperature) so today our room was (relatively) toasty and warm. And so we spent most of the morning here – we had a picnic lunch on the floor and played zilch and J played his guitar and we did some reading and we lived as much as possible in one room! We did venture out for a walk though and J is at work and I spent a delightful afternoon with those sweet Geddes girls in Borders bookshop (you gotta love a bookshop where there are so many great books to look at and wee chairs and a table to read at – all three of us had such fun! And also I noticed that people talk to you a LOT more if you have kids. I think one mum wanted to become my best friend – having kids seems to break down a lot of the normal barriers between strangers – is that true?!)

Anyway, I’m back in the toasty room for my evening with the books. Love it!

PS Welcome back Paul and Meg – glad you had a good holiday!

PPS Louise, if you’re reading this don’t worry – I’m working on all sorts of cunning heat making activities so when you’re here it should be sweet!

mid-winter

It’s that time of year when the days are short, the air is cold and frosty and inevitably my mind finds itself wandering towards Christmas songs. Except that it’s not Christmas for another 155 days. However, there’s no rule that says you can’t enjoy mulled wine and roasted chestnuts in June. And so we have! Yum!! (And only one chestnut exploded in the oven which is about ten times better than the last time we tried!)

We also ended up at a Belgium beer bar yesterday and sampled the delights…

There’s something special about personal mail arriving in our mail box, especially when it contains a delicious recipe (Miriam’s muesli) and a handmade recycled envelope (I love it! What a great use of an old calendar!)

So I made the muesli this morning and it is d e l i c i o u s

Thank you Grahams!!

J’s being interviewed at church tonight and chose not to know the questions in advance – who knows what they’re going to ask! He’s still a little bit poorly with his chesty cough but hopefully he’ll manage to speak without having a coughing fit!

A-Z

We had one of our special A-Z days today. It’s a great way to structure the day!

A – aerobics (altogether a rather too active way to start the day but fun! We exercised to Coldplay’s Viva la Vida)

Carolyn shows us how it’s meant to be done!

B – breakfast (bacon, pancakes and fruit)

C – cards (cad rum – the good ol’ favourite)

D – dishes (I love a bit of tidying up!)

E – experiment (baking soda and vinegar – oh the fun you can have!)

F – find out something new about each of us

G – give a gift to someone

H – hike (we went to the river for a walk – lovely!)

we played the compulsory game of Pooh sticks (we can’t cross a bridge without playing it!)

I – investigate something new (so we drove home a new way!)

J – jokes (we shared a few classics)

K – kube (a garden game we like to play)

L – lunch (J’s famous toasties)

M – musical appreciation (we listened to Billy Connolly’s musical appreciation sketch)

N – notes (each of us made and wrote a note to someone)

O – own time

P – phone someone

Q – quiet time

R – Rove (granted we had to wait until later to watch his show)

S – sing song (J on the guitar, Carolyn and I on vocals)

T – tea (Carolyn made a delicious vegetable pie thing)

U – universe (we looked at the moon and the stars)

V – violin playing (our friend Jamie was playing with his friend Jen and so we went to hear them play – they were ace!! – and J even joined in for a song – he was ace too!)

W – wine (J and Carolyn had mulled wine when we were out – now we all feel very Christmassy)

X – kiss kiss

Y – yawn (it’s contagious!)

Z – zilch (my new favourite game!)

So that was our day! All good.

no antiblogitis here!

Apologies for the lack of blogging yesterday. It wasn’t because I didn’t have time, I just got distracted! J was at work and Carolyn at her grandparents and I just sat and listened to sermons for a lot of the day! (I know most of you are thinking ‘what a ridiculous way to spend an afternoon/evening!’) In the morning, though, Carolyn and I went for a walk at Halswell Quarry  and then went out for lunch which was lovely. J did go to work despite sounding awful! It’s not flu he’s got (man, swine or any other kind!) it’s some kind of bronchitis which results in a horrible horrible cough and partial loss of voice. He ended up staying late at work so the people there are obviously not too worried about him. I’d just like to point out that despite his best efforts to infect me my amazing immune system has done it’s work admirably!

quiet days

I have a sick husband. Not H1N1 sick (we don’t think!) but just a general viral infection which means he has a croaky voice, a terrible cough and generally doesn’t feel in tip top condition. He’s been lurking around unwellness for the past few days but yesterday during the course of his evening shift he made it all the way to unwell. So, today has been a pj day of book reading and some game playing and lots of hot liquid drinking and vitamin C taking.

He found a sunny spot this afternoon! See the scarf he’s wearing – I FINALLY finished it!!

Yesterday morning though before he got more poorly we went with Carolyn to the park for a walk and then to Annie’s for coffee (our favourite place) and then popped into the Museum to see the Paua house

Not something we will be seeking to emulate when we get a house!!

And I must give a shout out to Carolyn who is guest extraordinaire – not only is she content to play Settlers, zilch or whatever game with us but she also cooks for us!! She made a delicious lunch and has just baked some bread and is currently making biscotti! Yum!!

taylor’s mistake…again!

You know how in Australia we always took pictures of the ocean/sunset? Well, here in Christchurch it’s pictures of Taylor’s Mistake. I’m sorry but we have more photos from there today. We do love it as a walk and we were keen to get out of the house and do something active today with Carolyn. So, here you go…

The water was an amazing glacial colour and if you look at the hill you can maybe see the path we walk along? We walked right round the head and came to…

these baches which are so cute and literally not near anywhere – you have to walk 45 mins or so to get there (and there’s no road – contrary to the picture below!)

(I was trying Miss Mabbs trick of looking down until just before the photo is taken, unfortunately when I looked up I looked up too much!)

And now J and Carolyn have just made Moroccan lamb for dinner which was very tasty and we’re possibly going to play our second game of Settlers for the day!

visitors

So, we have some sweet Mormon boys men (J says I can’t call them boys!) who have visited us twice now. They’re young and keen and we’ve had some interesting chats. At the end of their time they always ask if they can come back so we’re having them round for dinner in a couple of weeks. I think they’re probably just happy to see a smiling face as apparently 2 people out of a hundred don’t shut the door on them!

I had a special day with the Geddes girls yesterday – they are very cute and we have such fun and sing sing sing (one song R sang about 6 times before she paused and said ‘I know this song!’)

J’s had a pretty quiet week at work – all the H1N1 people are obviously going elsewhere! But it looks like he’s going to have to start doing some night shifts again (boo!!)

And Carolyn arrives in a couple of hours and stays for a week (for contextualisation – she’s the one who played the drums at our wedding). We’re looking forward to catching up!

Hope you’ve all had a great week!

he’s at it again!

About 15 minutes into this programme and my wee bro is talking about employment. It even comes across as if he knows a thing or two! And he’s always looking on the positive side – I like that!! (He starts about 15 minutes 30 seconds into the programme)

I’m quite loving a few design blogs at the moment – who knew there were so many good ideas out there? I’ve started a wee design folder on our computer where I put the ideas just in case we do ever manage to get a house!

Another beautiful winters day here in New Zealand – blue skies, sun shine, around about 5 oC (41F) and I seriously have all the windows open!!! Get a nice good airing into the house. J is getting pretty chilly though and so last night (with much ceremony!) we got out the Musselburgh quilt. We are so thankful for it and do love looking at it! Thing is, I’m not cold at night so when we woke up this morning the quilt was all on J’s side and I just had some duvet, at least he’s warmer though! Thank you MBC people for all your hard work!!

date afternoon/evening

movie: Last Chance Harvey

dinner: candlelit and cooked by J

wine: provided by our friends Jamie and Mel – thank you very much!

entertainment: a section of our wedding DVD (the speeches) – Keith, Caroline et al we are SO thankful!

Seriously, what more could a girl want?!

weather update: no snow here yet but it’s certainly a nippy air and Dunedin has a wee bit. Bring it on!

PS I am totally addicted to zilch and play it at EVERY opportunity (read: whenever J indulges me – you can’t play by yourself!)

busy vs quiet

Well, we’ve had a fairly quiet weekend. Actually, when I say ‘we’ve’ I mean ‘I’ve’. Poor J had a mental shift yesterday – lots and lots of sick people and so he didn’t get home until sometime after 1am. You can’t in any way grudge your husband coming home late from work when he’s making sick people better! Hopefully it’s not as busy today!

Today was a lovely day though so we took a wee trip to Riccarton bush before J went to work.

There are some very cool trees there and we discovered (from a sign, not from personal experience) that the tui birds used to be kept as pets and the clever ones could recite proverbs and stories!! Can that be true?!