"The more one gardens, the more one learns; and the more one learns, the more one realises how little one knows." Vita Sackville-West A Joy of Gardening
I have used one of my collection of doors at last. This used to be a very ugly door with horrible green glass. Now it is a beautiful kitchen door. Unfortunatly while installing it Peter dropped it and made a hole in the larder door. Horray, said I, I really want to get rid of the larder door. I have filled the hole for now, but I am keeping my eyes out for a nicer one without a large hole in it. I have another two doors, one for the lounge and one for the shower room, sanded and ready for installation. Then next doors to go in will be the french doors for the kitchen. It will look amazing once they are in place. I can't wait. So far I have sanded them down and filled all the holes. The glass is badly scratched, so we are going to replace it with laminated safety glass, which also will reduce the heat loss. I will post pictures as work goes on. I am also going to attempt to sell off all the other doors I have aquired over the years, or maybe do a swap at the re-cycling yard.
On the way to New Plymouth we drove through the town of Bulls. Some clever person has come up with an amusing idea. Lots of the local businesses have signs that advertise the town. I think you can get the idea from the sign above outside the used house and house removals yard, Moove-a-bull. I did not manage to catch all the signs, here are a few I would like to share. Restack-a-bull outside the local dairy (corner shop to non-kiwi's). Comfort-a-bull outside the local B&B.
Forgive-a-bull on the local church.
And my favourite Knowledge-a-bull on the local school. Whoever came up with this idea was inspired, I loved it.
I don't really like to complain..............but just when the storm clouds are gathering on our horizon and I am trying to buckle down a bit. The washing machine decides to turn up its toes for good. Leaving a ton of soggy half washed washing -
A huge pile of dirty washing. A sink full of handwashing to do -
And lots of dripping small boys clothes.
On the upside, living in Hawkes Bay, there is a lot of good sunny weather to dry it all. And another benefit of living in New Zealand, the washing machine is not in the kitchen like in British homes. It is out in the washhouse in the garage, where I can make as much soggy mess as I like.
How do you tell the difference between Pampas Grass and the native Toe Toe (pronounced Toi Toi, I hope)? We have this magnificent specimen of either one of the above, in completely the wrong place. If it is Pampas Grass it will have to be removed and dumped. If it is the native Toe Toe I will attempt to move it to a more suitable position. If you know please leave a comment.
I love living in New Zealand. I love the life style and the culture. This evening we went to see the amazing Wellington Ukulele Orchestra. It was 10 times better than I thought it would be, and I thought it would be really good. They did covers from ELO, Cream, the Smiths, the Beatles and Salt and Pepper to name a few. In a slight aside, I did not like the Smiths, too much angst for me, I just wanted to tell them to pull the socks up and get on with life, but I really enjoy their music if other artists perform it. A bit of a shame I missed out on so much excellent song writing, I should be more open minded. Back to the Ukulele Orchestra, if you ever get the chance to see them, go don't think about it just buy the tickets, you will have a brilliant time. In fact I want a Ukulele myself now. I forgot to mention the amazing performance of a local ukulele player. I am sorry I forgot his name. But he played George Harrison's "While my guitar gently weeps" on an electric ukulele, he was incredible.
Its my youngest's 10th Birthday today. I ordered 10 of his favourite cup cakes from Sweet As Cupcakes at the farmers market. I loved picking them up they looked so good in their beautiful boxes tied up with a spotty ribbon. Because his birthday party is next weekend we decided to take him out to the movies this afternoon as an extra treat. We went to see How to Train a Dragon. A brilliant, funny movie which we all really enjoyed. Peter and I decided to take some healthy snacks to the movies, instead of paying three times the actual price for some sweets we did not really want. I had some grapes and raspberries from the farmers market and Peter had some dried fruit. When I got out my snack box at the cinema my youngest sat there with his popcorn and his head in his hands, saying I can't believe you actually brought that with you. Isn't it good when you can embarrass your kids.
This is what I have been working on recently. Finishing painting the house before winter sets in. I have finished the front. Sanded, undercoated, washed and painted the south side of the house (I was going to say back side, but it did not seem quite right). Just in time. There is a bit of a storm hanging around our horizon at the moment. Therefore any spending on the kitchen has come to a halt. Peter has made a couple more cupboards, from left over bits. But it will be a while before we get the work benches. But as our friend Katherine from Calafornia is visiting we decided to just go for it and christen our kitchen with its first dinner party. We had a great night. At least I did. The layout changes worked so well.
Earlier this year I decided not to buy any more fabric until I had used some of the stuff I already have. I think I did quite well lasting till the end of March. Unfortunaly, I was distracted by some Amy Butler fabric and forgot I was not buying any more. I think I can be excused, I did get a good bargain.
Weekend number four of the kitchen makeover and it is floor sanding time. At last we can get rid of the orangey coloured varnish and the red stripes, we thought. Emptying the kitchen made it look so very, very large. Maybe I should make the family eat standing up at the island and not bring back the table. Just a thought. After a few hours of sanding with the big sander, the edge sander (which did not actually do right up to the edge) and the little detail sander, the horrid orangey varnish was gone. Unfortunately the red stripes weren't. We could not get them to move at all. All weekend we discussed why did they put the stripes there, what was the reason. Then it clicked with me. While sanding I found out why. The red stripes followed the nail lines and disguised them. Personally I would rather see the nails, but I guess, short of laying a new floor, we are going to have to keep the red stripes. Since we hired the sander and it was a dry weekend we thought it would be a good idea to do the hall and and the lounge. Then all the floors would be the same colour. So we heaved all the furniture out on to the veranda and just went for it. I quite like the minimal look of picnicking in the lounge. It was brilliant doing my morning yoga in such a big space instead of the usual squish up between furniture. Peter arranged the furniture out on the veranda so between layers of varnishing we could sit out and enjoy the view in comfort.
For a long time while I lived in the UK, I thought that the sea was usually grey with big rolling waves. I did not realise that in some places it is usually flat and a beautiful greeney blue.
Today's diasies found on top of a very large chocolatey cake, which we bought from a cake stall at my youngest's school. He begged me to buy him the largest chocolate cake. Unfortunatly when we got home and cut it up it was a banana cake. Not his favourite. I will have to make him a big squishy cake when the kitchen is in a better condition.
Things have slowed down a little in the kitchen makover. Still progressing just slowly, all the fiddly little bits that don't look like they are there, but are very noticeable if not done, are getting done. We now have a rangehood in place, maybe a bit high. The chap from Mitre 10 said that the minimum height for a rangehood is 750mm from the top of the stove. Hmm I think perhaps he was exagerating. But there it is and there it will stay. At least this one sucks not blows, which are old one used to do. Lots of the painting is finished, eventually. Earlier in the week I got another tin of paint made up, which turned out to be not the right colour. I had to wait for new stock to come in before I could get the right colour. Two days of painting lost. The edging strip still needs to be painted it will not be left wood colour. More odd bits of old benchtop have been added. Getting the proper benchtop looks a lot further off this week, but I will really appreciate it when it arrives.
Next weekend is the big floor sanding weekend. We are going to hire a sander and just go for it, sanding the kitchen, hall and a quick rub down in the lounge. Hope it will be a sunny weekend, cause all our furniture will be outside.
Last night I had the privilege of getting to see one of my favourite musicians, Boz Scaggs. This is one of the great things about living in New Zealand. I would never ever have had this opportunity in the UK. The evening started with the Mick Fleetwood Blues Band. Who were brilliant. Then Malcolm MacDonald. Who was very professional and had a great bunch of musicians with him. Notice another guy with white hair. The audience and the stage was full of them. Then finally the brilliant Boz Scaggs. I had a great time, I sang all the way through and enjoyed every minute. I never thought I would get to see him play live and it was worth the 32 year wait (I feel so old). For the last few numbers I just could not stay in my seat any longer and had to join the dancers down at the front. I was about six feet away from Mic Fleetwood. Amazing. Apologies for the over enthusiasm, but we had such a great night. The one major problem I had was with the people behind us, who seemed to think they were at a drinking party and that it would be a good idea to just talk/shout all the way through. While listening to Mic Fleetwood and his blues band they constantly kept saying, "When is he going to play Albatross". When they eventually did play Albatross, they then talked very loudly over it. Why do that? If they wanted to talk they could have gone to the lobby. I think the people behind them told them to shut up, because they disappeared before Boz Scaggs came on, thank goodness.
Staggering into the kitchen one morning I happened to glance up. How could resist getting the camera out for such a sunrise. Autumn is on the way, the mornings are getting darker. But who could complain when there are such beautiful sunrises to see.
I have used one of my collection of doors at last. This used to be a very ugly door with horrible green glass. Now it is a beautiful kitchen door. Unfortunatly while installing it Peter dropped it and made a hole in the larder door. Horray, said I, I really want to get rid of the larder door. I have filled the hole for now, but I am keeping my eyes out for a nicer one without a large hole in it.
I have another two doors, one for the lounge and one for the shower room, sanded and ready for installation. Then next doors to go in will be the french doors for the kitchen. It will look amazing once they are in place. I can't wait. So far I have sanded them down and filled all the holes. The glass is badly scratched, so we are going to replace it with laminated safety glass, which also will reduce the heat loss. I will post pictures as work goes on. 
I am also going to attempt to sell off all the other doors I have aquired over the years, or maybe do a swap at the re-cycling yard.
