Away Again

Some of you will have seen it before but this is the view from my bed before 7am on a morning like today:

and a little later as the sun rises above the rim of the bowl in which The Cottage is situated.

Today I'm off to Tauranga to visit a friend who has invited me to her Aftermas gathering.  Hopefully I'll manage lots of photos of the journey.  In the meantime I'll leave you with a photo of the Highland Bull in the paddock in front of The Cottage with a Mynah Bird on its back.

Do you ever wonder why

you didn't do something years ago?  

I have spent every summer since I moved into The Cottage thinking about having fly screens put on the ranch sliders and windows.   In fact two or three years ago I did put a fly screen on the second bedroom so that guests sleeping there could have the door closed and the sliding window wide open at nigh: not all guests want to leave their bedroom door open to take the benefit of the airconditioning on hot nights.

This year has been hot and, very unusually for Hawkes Bay, we have had some relatively humid evenings and I've fallen prey to mozzies or other bitey beasties when the evening has turned to night.  Living right in the country we also tend to attract lots of flying insects at night lured in either by the light or the carbon dioxide that we humans exhale.  So come time to put the lights on the doors and windows all get closed.

Recently I wondered why I had never thought of making proper fly screens with frames which could be fitted into the ranch sliders and open windows.  Some years ago I did try a screen fitted with Velcro but it was very short lived.   Yesterday I made a proper fitted screen for the ranch slider in the bedroom and today I've made screens for the living room ranch sliders and some windows.

Tonight I am sitting typing this after 10pm with a very strong wind and a temperature of 22℃ outside - and considerably more inside - but a lovely breeze blowing right through The Cottage and no insects!  Why, oh why, didn't I do this 5 years ago?

Thankful Thursday

I cannot believe that I have spent five nights (albeit only four days) back here at The Cottage.  The time has flown by with hardly a second to spare.  Indeed I still haven't put all my clothes on their hangers in the wardrobe yet.  Usually I have emptied The Cupboard and put everything back where it belongs before I go to bed on the first night.  I arrived too late on Saturday this time and by the time I went to bed the bedroom was a chaotic mess.  Since then somehow life has overtaken me.  

The living room clock changed earlier in the year when the last one ceased to function but the reminders of friends and, in particular a friend in a far place, welcomed me back.

As did Comet:

 

Then there was wine and chocolates and a note from the lady who had rented The Cottage for the last few months and Wendy had put in flowers from the garden

So today I am thankful for the welcome back that I have received from everyone.  There are few things more comforting and reassuring in life than a sense of belonging.

All Because of The Gizzies

It started because of the Gizzies (properly known in NZ as Gisborne Cockroaches) and went on from there to become a major undertaking in which not a single thing in The Cottage remained unaffected. Everyone does the tops of the kitchen cupboards at some time in their life but I've even cleaned all the light units and behind all the pictures and moved every single item of furniture (except the bookcase which, because of the possibility of earthquakes, is anchored to the wall). I've rearranged things like tv and hifi wires which I should have sorted several years ago. For someone who doesn't mind ironing, and therefore starts from a position of being sad, I have taken sad to a whole new level!

So what is the connection with Gizzies? Well Gizzies live outside in wood and are not interested in the food that we humans eat so leave us alone.  Except that when it gets cold they start looking for nice warm places to nest and a nice new cottage with lots of insulation and natty little crevices under the roof of the deck and which is built on stilts with a massive natural cavity underneath is ideal.  It's been very cold of late by Hawkes Bay standards and the Gizzies are moving in.  The Cottage is treated so they die pretty quickly when they do enter the living space.  Nevertheless I've just re-treated the whole place to hasten their demise.

Of course one of the by-products of all this activity has been a clear-up of the study and the disposal of lots of old bank-statement and telephone accounts etc from pre-on-line days.  I also found lots of papers and lists and reminders-to-do-things that I didn't even realise were on my desk and the careful piles on the study floor.

Now as it happens whilst I was doing all this I discovered that I was not alone.  Katherine wrote a splendidly humorous post entitled Messy Pup which you really must visit and a friend commented on Facebook "Word of warning. All those piles of papers teatering on the edge of a kitchen surface, dining room dresser, office shelf, book case, bedside table, laundry room surface or porch window sill leave them where they are. Don't do what I had been meaning to do for nearly two years and tidy them away. Can't find what I'm looking for now. In some of those piles were papers that I needed and always knew where I could lay my hands on them at a moments notice. I may have cursed their very existence every time they may an unscheduled avalanche across the kitchen when friends visited or as I ran from the house on a school run fluttering liked autumn leaves in front of the puppy who thought it was so wonderful game. DON'T file them away especially when you haven't a tried a tested filing system. Raging like a bull. Need to find those papers."

So why am I telling you all this? Well the answer is simple. If I don't, then no one in the world will realise what I have been up to the last few days except me....... and I'm not interested.

Connecting Spaces

At The Cottage the living room has double ranch sliders onto the deck.  My bedroom (the room nearest to you in the picture below) has a ranch slider onto the deck too.  The deck is covered and provides shelter from rain and sun.  I regard it as an integral part of my living space and is provides a place to eat and sit and have coffee in the open air.  During the summer days I rarely have the sliders closed and I often use the deck to get from one room to the other as well.  For me the deck is far more important than just all that though.  Somehow it provides a mental extension of the house far greater than the sum of it's physical uses.

The Cottage and The House

The Swimming Pool posts have led to some comments which make me think that some of my more recent readers and not aware of the circumstances of my life in New Zealand and also think that I live in The House.  I don't.  I live in The Cottage.  Over the years I have done many posts involving The Cottage but I think that if you follow this link you will get a better picture of the situation.  There are more pictures and stories to be had if you follow the label The Cottage.

The situation is that my New Zealand family, Wendy, Martin and the four children are my surrogate family.  They live in The House which is on a 5 acre (2.2 hectare) Lifestyle Plot.  You are limited to one house on a lifestyle plot but you can have a 'granny house' so in October 2007 a 'granny house' was put on site and that is now my New Zealand home.

At the moment The Family is making substantial alterations to The House including putting in the swimming pool.  Because I use this blog partly as a means of keeping in touch with friends and family, partly as a sort of diary/reminder of things I have done and the chronology of my life here and partly as a way of meeting people in Blogland I sometimes blog on things as a matter of record rather than general interest.  The swimming pool is an example of that.

So I hope I haven't given anyone the wrong impression.  Your comments are all pertinent of course in that I shall certainly be there swimming in it!

Thankful Thursday: Dark v Light

When I was a small child I was afraid of the dark.  I saw things in the dark that other people didn't see.  Now people would just say that I had an over-active imagination.  Those who know me would laugh at such a suggestion because I am one of the least imaginative people I know.  However Mum and Dad were very understanding and I always had a night-light on top of the wardrobe.  As I always needed very little sleep I would watch that light for hours.

Fear of the dark left me as I grew up and now I actually enjoy the dark although I still am not too keen on walking through trees, particularly conifers, at night for some reason.

Twilight, on the other hand, is something I truly love.  I find it incomprehensible when people switch lights on at the first sign of the evening unless, of course, they are actually doing something which requires light.  For me it is a time to savour the last of the day and welcome the coming night.  Mind you I realise that I'm fortunate enough to live in the country and I can see the sky and enjoy the change.

Living on Lewis meant long, very long, winter nights.  So when I arrived home from work (when I lived on my own) the first thing I used to do when I got in was create a pleasant warm and 'cosy' environment.  I used to put the kitchen lights on and then go through to the bedroom, draw the blinds, and put on the bedside light.  Those lights stayed on until I went to bed.  I no longer work but I've not altered and now as soon as the day has fully turned to night I create that light environment until bedtime.

I think one of the things I dislike most is to have to switch lights on and off every time I go from room to room.  Except, for some completely irrational reason, the bathroom.  Mind you I am very rarely stationary for more than 30 minutes.  Oh and, yes, my bulbs are modern energy saving ones.

What on earth possessed me to share this piece of arcane information?  The fact that when I switched the light on in the bedroom last night I thought to myself how lucky I was to have such a pleasant environment and how much I, in fact most of us who do have pleasant environments, take them for granted.  

Since the Christchurch earthquakes I have become even more aware that I must be one of an incredibly small percentage of the world population who has that luxury.

So today I am thankful for my ability to see the light and the dark and to experience the comfort that they enable me and to enjoy.

One For Helen

My niece Helen in a recent post on Rambles From Frogend mentioned her and Ian's excitement at seeing a hedgehog on one of their nighttime walks recently.  I see hedgehogs, if not daily, then very frequently and, on the whole, just ignore them although they are not really very welcome inhabitants on Lewis (where they were introduced in the last 25 or 30 years) because of the damage they do to the ground-nesting bird population.  The situation is similar in New Zealand although where I live there are few ground nesting birds left to be affected.  

Anyway as I stepped onto the deck yesterday I saw a hedgehog snuffling for grubs and insects just in front of The Cottage.  So I thought I post a few images for Helen.  The little fellow - or lass - allowed the camera within about 4 inches of his nose and seemed totally unconcerned.  Although it was bright sun I don't suppose that a hedgehog's eyesight is particularly keen so it may have been a combination of myopia and lack of fear that caused the disinterest.

Tui

No this is not about New Zealand's iconic beverage, Tui Beer, which is probably seen more frequently and exists in greater numbers than the native passerine from which it takes its name.  In fact I have no idea why anyone would want to name a cheap beer after a common but quite exotic and beautiful bird.  

I think I have probably said before in the four summers that I have lived in The Cottage I have hear the Tuis and the Bellbirds almost daily but have never seen a Tui at in the vicinity and only identified a Bellbird on one occasion high in some nearby trees.  

I have managed to photograph a Tui once before at The Beyond The Bridge Café at the Manawatu Gorge.

Well all that changed yesterday.  I was gardening in front of The Cottage.  Well not actually gardening more like clearing away the from between the shrubs grass which was actually taller than I am.  Suddenly I saw a Tui fly from the orchards to one of the huge trees in the paddock.  Now these trees are perhaps 50 metres away and some of the highest trees in the area and the Tui was on a branch not too far from the top.  But it was visible!  So I grabbed my camera and before he flew into the tress and out of sight I managed a few shots.  How pleased was I?

Although the pictures at the Manawatu Gorge were more detailed and closer they do not show the iridescent coat off as well as the following photos do.

I was more than a little chuffed with the day.

The Cottage

Lisa (aka Shabby Girl) wondered in a comment on my post Settling In at the beginning of the month after I arrived back in New Zealand what The Cottage looked like.  I hadn't shown you this year so I'm now rectifying that and doing a bit of comparison.  

The Cottage arrived on site in October 2007.  Is it really that recent?  I seem to have lived here for years.  

The the landscaping started in November:  The Landscaping Begins.

By 2008 the transformation was amazing and I posted The Homestead.

Last year I posted  I've Arrived: What Now?

This year the lavender in front of The Cottage has grown and been cut back but some bushes have been lost and even though I replaced them last year they have refused to grow in that spot.  I'll have to think about that one.

Settling In

It's Monday morning and I've just about turned The Cottage back into My Cottage.  Everything is out of The Cupboard and back where it belongs whilst I am in residence.  Perhaps I should get a little flag made to signify when I am in residence: the Geeb Standard.  After all if HRH can do it....

I am re-united with my clock (which has a tick loud enough to be heard anywhere in The Cottage!) and my reminders of friends - my NZ 'Family' and A Friend in Vermont.

My first night here was rather strange.  I was in bed at 2030 and fast asleep as my head hit the pillow.  Apart from a terrible attack of cramp in both legs (reminder to buy some Crampeze today) I slept until 0235.  Oh no.  Then I realised I'd had my statutory 6 hours!  I was so wide awake that I was writing emails and blog postings in my head so I got an A4 pad and went back to bead and filled three pages.  Then I fell back into a solid sleep and woke just before 0800.  Yippee.  There I was bright as a button (and a pretty bright one at that) ready for the day.   The fact that it was still raining seemed irrelevant.

We all went out to The Gin Trap in Ahuriri for brunch to celebrate David's 14th birthday.  I can't believe it!  Fourteen!!

Catriona and David had Bacon Buns 

The rest of the day was spent sorting The Cottage until Wendy and then Martin wandered down after dinner for a wee glass of the red stuff.

Life in New Zealand - nothing changes.

What A Difference A Day Makes

Yesterday the sun was shining and the view from the living room of The Cottage was wonderfully cheerful:

Today it is entirely another story:

I've Arrived: What Now?

I arrived home (yes, it is home - I can have more than one home can't I?) yesterday morning.  (Gosh.  Where has that 23 hours gone).  Coffee and catch-up up at The House was first.  Then I tackled The Cupboard and re-inhabited The Cottage with it's contents. That took a few hours and, of course, is not yet finished.  But at least everything is roughly where it should be and I have found everything I need.  Well almost everything.  What I did with the electric toothbrush is a mystery.  I'd say that it was bound to turn up but, given that I've emptied all the boxes, it may remain one of life's mysteries.

The lavender's doing really well already and is covered in bees.

The honeysuckle has recovered well and this may be it's year for a big spurt.

I seem to have a new visitor

Fraser's not altered

and Catriona's still Catriona

In the afternoon I took a ride into town.  It was wonderful not having the roof on the car.  It was a bit chilly but the sun was glorious.  I went to see a friend for coffee and say 'hello' and came home to dinner with the family.  An excellent lasagne - too many helpings (it couldn't have been to many glasses of wine.  Er well...) that made me tired.  Very tired.  I was in bed and fast asleep by 9pm.  And up with the dawn chorus before 0600 this morning.  I feel absolutely great.  It's almost as if I've never been away.

So this morning I had some decisions to take.  What to do first was the first one.  So I downloaded my emails and decided to deal with them first.  Which is why I'm writing this and the emails haven't yet been done.  I seem to be finding keeping to decisions hard these days!  And, of course, I've done a thousand and one other things along the road.  But, hey, it's only 9am and the day is young.  Well, sort of.

It's good to be home.  Wherever home is.  It's good to have friends.  It's good that the sun is shining.  It's good to be alive.  For all that, and more, I give thanks. 

Live Well

Just before I came away Wendy and Martin had a sign made for me to put over the doors of The Cottage.  I do.  I do.  I do.  

Multi-tasking: My Environment

When I'm working on my blog or emails or doing anything in the study then, if it's the evening, I will watch the news or, if it's later, perhaps a programme on TV. I have the desk set up in the study so that I can watch the TV across the other side of the living room from my chair at the same time as I work on the computer.

Misty Morning

It's been a superbly warm day with the temperature reaching 35 on the deck of The Cottage. This morning the mist hung over the orchards in front of The Cottage but quickly dispersed as the heat of the sun took control.

Warm Rain

Last night it rained. Heavily. It was warm rain.

In the field in front of The Cottage (the 5 acres in which The Cottage stands is all behind it) there are four Highland Cattle (one cow and three bulls so the bulls are only just outnumbered). In addition to the ordinary fence in front of The Cottage (which the cattle can and, in the past have, easily demolish) there is an electric fence. Last night the electric fence shorted out and one of the bulls decided on an attempt to breach the barrier between him and the luscious pickings to be had on my side of it. Even cattle, it seems, believe that the grass is greener on the other side.

A quick call to their owners brought forth an immediate response and an attempt to find the cause of the non-working electric deterrent. It turned out to be plants outwith their property had grown over the fence and shorted the electric wire. Rectifying the problem took a little while and when Jan passed the front of the Cottage on the way back she could not have been wetter if she had jumped into the sea. I commiserated with her. Her response was that it was not a problem. In fact the rain was warm and it was rather pleasant.

I was reminded of the fact that I had written on on my notice board in the kitchen in Eagleton "Love is a wheelchair. Happiness is dancing naked in the warm rain". No one understood the first sentence. Not everyone agreed with the second but at least they understood it. Last night as I talked and got soaked (in minutes) I realised that starting out naked in the warm rain was definitely preferable to having to peel off wet clothes.

I Woke Up

I always feel good when I wake up first thing in the morning. I always think that it's a lot better than the alternative. Not that I'm particularly afraid of the alternative it's just that I can't be sure that there are croquet lawns there and I'd find it a real bummer if I were to be separated from all my friends and family just now. As I opened my eyes this morning this was the scene that greeted me. In fact this is the scene that usually greets me. From this you can tell a number of things. Firstly that I sleep with the curtains open (they've not been drawn since the first week I ever lived in HeeBeeGeeBeE's (The Cottage's proper name - Hawkes Bay GBE's, see?); that I have a lovely peaceful view over orchards, that it's a beautiful sunny morning; that a camera was at hand; and that I woke on my right side. You really wanted to know that didn't you.

The Homestead

Those of you who followed my Blog last year will, of course, have seen similar pictures to these but this is a reminder of where my body rests at the moment.

The Cottage.  The lavender is  growing and everything is settling in.

The Cottage to the right and the main house is up the drive to the left.  The little 'garden shed' is the pumping station for the water supply which comes from underground springs.

Looking down the drive from the main house with the lavender and jacoranda trees.  The agapanthus are just coming into bud.