March….

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The fire pit area has been getting lots of use of late. Fall is here and the days for the most part have been lovely.

Yesterday we went hiking, a long one, 5 hours. The forecast was for rain but it did not come and was a spectacular day. We have a friends daughter staying with us on and off at the moment. She has just started University at Otago and spends her weekends with us while she settles into life here . It is a big step moving away for university, going flatting for the first time and being a long long way from home. I met her Mum when I was 18, (the same age her daughter is now), and we have been friends ever since. I looked at the kids yesterday and marveled at the next generation we have created. They get on so well, Luca calls her his “cool big sister” and would like her to move in permanently 🙂 This age for them both, is a time of great change. This appropriately came up on my feed recently…. 🙂

Dunedin city in the background
Luca’s climbing always makes me a little nervous!
If you look closely that is Luca and Aria at the top waving 🙂
Pica negotiating the pillars, tricky!

We got home late in the day and enjoyed Rich’s ciabatta sandwiches and beer, delicious!

At the end of last week I had to go to Invercargill (New Zealand’s most southern city) for a work conference, I got back Saturday morning and it cloudy but warm, Rich, Luca, Aria and Ted (who was with us too that weekend) were keen to head to the beach and I wanted some fresh sea air after a couple of days stuck inside so off we went…

Climbing the hill at Aramoana to then slide or run down, a steep climb but so worth it!!
Wipe out, Luca bailing out 🙂
Racing down the hill
The 3 specs in the water are the boys swimming, Aria and I stayed on the hill enjoying the view

On the way home we got Sushi Johnny (the boys favorite) and enjoyed the last warmth of the day outside

Rich is busy during the week helping out at the school with day excursions (this week was a Wild Life Tour) and also boating is starting up again. In between times the work on the tree house continues…

In between the activity there is down times…

Playing Banagrams
Luca teaching Aria how to play on the Xbox
“Researching bunnies”, Luca trying to convince us he needs bunny, Aria is on board. They changed the wallpaper on my phone to a bunny to try subliminal messaging on me, wonder if it will work 🙂
Aria likes Banagrams too. The game we have, was sent to Luca when he was about 7 by her Mum and has traveled the world with us :). I highly recommend it, so good for kids to learn to spell . A group can play it or just 2 players, and easy to travel with as packs small.

Pica is always tired after our days and Vida has been doing a ton of hunting lately, bringing home rats and mice. We do not have a vermin issues and know it is thanks to her. When they need a break though they really chill out…

This little bed can hold surprisingly a lot of bodies on lazy weekend mornings when I kick everyone out of the big bed to make it and no one wants to get up 🙂

These lovely historic photos have been going around Port recently, of the old passenger trains platforms. This was at the bottom of our property where the path Rich made for me to walk to the bus and Luca to walk to school. The level area still there but the building gone, such a shame would have been so nice to be able to catch the train into Dunedin!

The trail leading up to our place is just to the left of the bottom left hand corner of this photo

As a country we had some more community transmissions of COVID and had to go up in levels for a week while they sorted it. Auckland where it happened had to go to level 3 and us to level 2. Luckily they have got on top of it and today the levels have dropped again so life resumes again with relatively few restrictions. For us the rise in level did not affect us much I had to wear a mask on the bus and at work but really that was it. I am aware though it affects others differently. I had a patient this week whose sister died alone in London of COVID, no one was able to get to her. Incredibly devastating, it broke my heart seeing the grief my patient was going through, the affects of this time will go on for many years.