settlers…again!

The word is going to get out that when you come to our house you must play Settlers. Well, technically we don’t force you but if you’re a polite guest there’s not much chance to get off with it! And so we had Andrew and Kim round tonight (our fellowship group leaders) and had dinner followed by Settlers and whisky (Andrew provided this). A very plesant evening!

And now J has two days off – woohoo!

feeding the ducks

How lovely to meet J in the park after work and take the time to feed the ducks and enjoy the sunset!

PS A BIG happy birthday to Rach for today! And a belated happy birthday to Ben for last Monday.

chores

I read this article today and was amused by these two paragraphs:

……………………..

Once, I attempted to challenge a former partner’s grandiose claims to do half the housework by suggesting we each wrote down a list of all the chores we routinely carried out. I managed to cover two sides of an A4 page: he wrote down three or four chores, and then faltered. When he caught my look of triumph, he put his head down again and scribbled away until he’d filled the page.

Later, after a lengthy tug-of- war, I managed to get hold of his sheet of paper. The chores he’d written down after the initial pause included such gems as, “clean teeth”, “be nice to cat”, “put CD in stereo” and “go to supermarket to stock up on beer”. At the foot of the page was a single word: “breathe”.

……………………..

I would like to note here that my husband is definitely sticking to his vows and is incredibly helpful around the house!!

spring?

I arrived home the other day to the hint of spring. My sweet husband had found some early wee daffodils in the garden and put them in a vase waiting for me. Lovely!

And then today I sat outside and listened to a sermon enjoying the sunshine. It’s just the right temperature for me now!

So, the sermon yesterday went very well (did I blog that I was preaching?) There was a real sense of God’s nearness and that’s an awesome thing! But I think also they were rather relieved that I was actually able to do it because no one there had heard me speak before!

And it’s J’s turn tomorrow – he’s doing a talk on ECG in syncope to the ED doctors.

One week today Lewis and Louise will be here!! WOOHOO!!

art

I realised today again just how cooshty my life is! Had a great day though but now I’m exhausted!!

Our church was running this ace day event for kids from around Christchurch where they come along and sign up to do one of various workshops – lighting, sound, media (videoing), art, fashion, music, drama, dance etc – and they spend the day learning and doing and then at the end of the afternoon there is a service where they get to show what they’ve made or actualy do what they’ve learned (in the case of sound and lights especially) for their parents and the other kids. It worked really well and was a lot of fun. I’d been asked to help out… in art!! Me being artistic and all?! Well, we had a great wee group of kids and they had fab ideas but I’d forgotten what it was like to be ‘on’ all the time and responsible! Anyway, reminded me again that I do so miss teaching!

And just because you can’t have too many picture of our god-daughter…

we were round yesterday to hang out and play. We’ll really miss them when we leave!

busy day – no seriously!

I don’t have many days like today! But it’s nice because even though I’m soooo ready for bed I feel like I’ve been really productive.

Basically, we had a flat inspection at 5;30pm today. Now, I know that they just want to check that you’re not trashing the place and J rightly said when we got up that I didn’t need to do a single thing and there would be no problem with the inspection (you all know how weirdly OCD I am about having a tidy house right?!) But no no, as soon as I looked outside this morning I realised the GARDEN needed tidying and once you start – well, where do you stop?! So I spent a good few hours pruning and tidying and there’s just something cool about working with your hands to do something productive.

While I was gardening J was out visiting a friend in a classic example of ‘look how small the world is’ (or at least the medical community!) He has been trying to track down a friend he went to Edinburgh Uni with whom he last saw around 1998/9 but had no success. Then randomly last week he was chatting to one of the ED doctors on another team who was saying that she was going to Aberdeen at the end of the year with her husband who is Scottish. And it turns out that her husband is Jonathan’s friend! And they’re living in Christchurch. What are the chances? And they’re (probably) moving back to Aberdeen in November! Seriously. So J had a lovely catch up with him and we’re going round for dinner next weekend.

Anyway, after our morning escapades J popped back for lunch and then headed to work while I started on cleaning the house (which didn’t need much but somehow I managed to fill two hours – you just never know whether the flat inspection might require a look under your bedside table and so you may as well move it and vacuum just in case – I honestly do have a mild OCD problem!)

So 5:30pm came and I had a lovely chat with the lady while she glanced round the place (not even looking under the bedside table or running her finger along any surface looking for dust!!!) Ah well, I do LOVE having a clean, tidy house!

And then this evening I was at the Geddes’ covering while Janet was at work and John was on-call.

I will sleep well tonight that’s for sure!!

D E L I G H T F U L ! ! !

We had one of our greatest NZ days today!! Seriously, at one point I said to J that I felt like I was in a fairytale!!

We had decided to take today to do a road trip and get out of the city and so headed north to Kaikoura (about a 2 hours drive – incidentally ‘kai’ means food in Maori and ‘koura’ means crayfish). I’d never been before but have been keen to go for a while and the forecast for today was good.

So, first the drive up was lovely!! The scenery was great, the sky was blue, the sun was shining (but not in our eyes!) and we were listening to some very funky tunes! We’ve just recently downloaded some new itunes and we are loving them!! (Thanks to the Geddes’ and the Hunters’ for the suggestions). We also listened to Tim which was fab – challenging and encouraging!! On the way, we stopped off in a wee village for a coffee at a cafe and art gallery which was very cool. While perusing the art we saw some wee necklaces too and J bought me one – a reminder of today!

We finished our drive and arrived mid morning. Well, I was absolutely blown away by how beautiful it was (and not a little annoyed that I hadn’t been before!!) I don’t know if it was the way the sun was shining on the snowy mountains or the way the ocean was splashing on the beach or the fact that it was around 16 oC (possibly my favourite temperature) but it was just heavenly!!

After a wee wander we moved to a different spot on the coast for a picnic lunch – with some seals!!

and then went for a walk on the peninsula which was gorgeous!

just at the spot above we stopped and lay on the grass and just enjoyed being outside in a beautiful place

then we headed back into Kaikoura itself and collected stones and driftwood from the beach (I’m doing an arty thing with some kids this weekend and thought they’d be great props)

then we sat on the beach and read our books in the cool of the afternoon.

before heading home as the sun was setting behind the mountains

An awesome day!! And then we arrived home to fresh fish and fruit and veg which had all been delivered while we were out. THIS is the life!!

a sunset – finally!

We saw so many in Australia but we’re just not living in a good location to catch many here. And J misses them so we decided today to go and find one – we went up a hill and sat in the wintery wind and watched the sun sink and it was lovely! (Not quite the same as being on a warm Australian beach though!)

voting question

I’m speaking at church next Sunday and one of the things they do is have a voting question to help the congregation think about what’s to come in the talk. My voting question is:

which of the following four gives you the most pleasure/biggest buzz

• being told you’re looking great
• being commended at work
• being complemented on your kids
• being told you’re good company

anyone want to share an answer?!?

busy busy

Well, we have had a busy week – out Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday evenings! But we’ve not been as busy as all you people giving birth. Big congratulations to Matt and Amanda who welcomed Cole Daniel into the world on Wednesday (incidentally I didn’t guess the correct name but we did guess he’d be late and he was!) We can’t wait to meet him too!

In the midst of the busyness we have made time for exercise

(this photo was entirely posed!)

and sailing

and playing hide and seek

(that’s John G hiding not either of us)

So, it’s all happening here. And the great news is that J had made himself available to do nights this weekend as a favour and so we were getting geared up for that but they phoned him yesterday and they’ve moved him to the evening shift – yee ha!!