We did it!!!!

Finally after more than 4 years we have sign off on the build! Wahoo! So happy!!!! Next post will be the before and after photos of the inside, it feels very decadent living with so much space, but somehow we are managing

It has been another busy, busy month! Rich and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary on the 7th of October, what a journey we have had so far. We met in Peru, had a long distance relationship at the beginning, as I was living in Guernsey UK,and he was in Manitoba Canada. We married and settled in Portage la Prairie, where Luca was born a couple of years later. The day Luca turned 4 we moved to Mahone Bay Nova Scotia, then when he was 8 we moved to New Foundland, then at 9 we moved to Costa Rica, and he turned 10 soon after we moved to NZ. Luca turns 15 this December! Phew it has been an amazing ride so far, looking forward to our next adventures and seeing where our path leads, I feel so incredibly blessed to have Rich by my side…

I recently put together a collage of our life so far, so very difficult to choose photos from the thousands taken, but I managed.

This sits above my desk and I love looking at it and remembering….

Luca’s holidays as always, went by in a flash, he had a lot of fun with his friends. They start exams next week so a bit of pressure on currently, this is all in preparation for the next 2 years. In NZ the next 2 years are the really important ones for getting the grades you need for University ,so the expectations will rise quite dramatically starting in February 2024.

During the holidays a friend of mine came over with her kids who are 2 and 5, Luca and Rich took charge of them so we could have a catch up. We had a really fun day, just love the enthusiasm of that age, up for any adventure on offer, Pica enjoyed their company too, very happy to tag along for our exploring.

Speaking of kids, I have been mending my nieces favorite clothes for her.

Luca is like this, loves some of his clothes so much that I darn and darn them until he can no longer fit them, even then, some he cannot bear to part with, and I have a little pile of them in a draw. I don’t remember being like this, but it clearly runs in the family 🙂

NZ elections happened on the 14th of October, a big change in government has occurred, we are bracing ourselves as we wait for the inevitable change in direction for the country. That same weekend our tank water started to give off an unpleasant odor! We ended up having to drain the tank, clean it, then refill it. It was a tedious, expensive job, but our water now tastes and smells like it should. In hindsight, although a nuisance, we had no idea if it had ever been cleaned, and as we catch the water in it from the roof, we knew there had to be some debris in there. Knowing it has had a good clean gives us piece of mind, we drink a lot of water in this house! 🙂

Aria turned 21 last week and Elaine her Mum, was down to surprise her, we went out to celebrate. I was there when the twins were born and to know they are now 21, 2 years older than I was when I first met their Mum, is really hard to get my head around!!!!!! We move Aria into her new flat next month, her university years are flying by!

Rich has been working hard on clearing the paddock for fencing and irritated my bees. They let him know they were not happy. Poor Rich ,this took quite few days to settle down 🙁 It was pretty sore, I gave him some meds to help, apparently he had a great sleep but could not walk a straight line the next morning! Needless to say he is a bit wary of going near the hive these days!

Labour weekend has just happened, a long and as it turns out, glorious one. It was spent in the garden, which had been sorely neglected as the focus has been so much on the house. I harvested a good lot of the produce as wanted to replenish and replant.

I was able to use the castings and worm “tea” from my worm farm to help build the soil up again, very satisfying for the system to be working so well…

My lemon and lime trees are doing great this year and we will finally get some decent sized fruit off them..

and the other fruit trees have blossoms in abundance…

An unexpected find was this little fellow, a hedgehog…

He had got stuck in one of my buckets, I feel terrible, they had been blown over and he had obviously slid down into it, could not get back out and there was water in the bottom, he was covered in maggots that needed washing off, in this photo we had a hot water bottle under him trying to warm him up. We tried to save him and engaged a hedgehog specialist to help, but he died today, I think from pneumonia. I will be much more vigilant in the future to check nothing blows over, I am so sad that we lost him.

My brother gave us some whitebait ,(a New Zealand delicacy), for Rich and Luca to try. They are very much a seasonal special treat in this country, only so much is allowed to be caught.

Whitebait fritters were made….and a meal prepared with new potatoes, chives and asparagus from the garden harvest – decadent and delicious!!!!

We have had such incredibly warm weather the last few days which, according to the forecast, is about to come crashing to a halt, and they are predicting snow by next weekend! Time will tell, in the mean time this has been the view that greets me in the mornings…

This is Bumblebee my early riser chook, (the rest of them take another hour or so to get off their roost), she is waiting for me to get up and give her something to eat before she heads off to forage for the day. Such a funny little girl, I am hoping she will go broody soon so I can put some eggs under her, be really good to have some more chickens.

Until next post, take care everyone xx