Entries Tagged 'What I’ve been doing' ↓

So, there’s been a bit of talk about how as New Zealander’s we exhibit our patriotism on Waitangi Day (6 February – the day in 1840 when a treaty was signed between Maori and the English settlers to co-exist peacefully in the same country (v. abridged obviously)). So, what did we do today? Well, we did what I suppose a lot of Kiwi’s do when they have a day off work – got busy with stuff that needed to be done around the house … or are Kiwis generally pretty OK with laying about reading a book or enjoying pavlova and ice-cream and it’s just *my* family that has conditioned me to make the most of a day at home …? I’m not sure the stuff we did was particularly NZ’y but we certainly got a few things done around the house:

• Housework, including Exit Moulding the grouting in the shower
• Baked raspberry and chocolate muffins
• Caught up on all the accounts and paid bills (needed a fair bit of a day off to do this given that I’ve swapped to a Mac program to do this and knowing as we do how much I like change, I’m still trying to get through what used to be a simple exercise without shouting about something)
• Did the filing that follows doing the accounts
• Had a picnic lunch on the sunny square of carpet in our apartment
• Affixed the outside sensor for the weather station to the balcony railing
• Did a load of washing
• Did a few small work jobs
• Transferred all the data off my old PC laptop onto my Mac
• Wore our Obama and Clinton shirts all day and watched the Super Tuesday results in any spare moment.

Yikes – last night, only 2 nights after the awful motorbike accident, another crash happened in that same intersection. Two cars, one of them ended up facing the wrong way with a huge dent in its back door and side window and hub caps knocked off. 4 police and a tow truck and lots of arm waving and pointing and shouting between the drivers involved.

God I hope it rains today. Hard.

Last night we heard the squeal and pop of a car crash. Right outside our building. I ran out onto the balcony to see a crumpled motorbike and a guy lying on the ground. I screamed to the Mister “It’s a motorbike. There’s a dead guy. Dial 911!” (God I wonder if that works in NZ as we’re so brainwashed by American TV that in an emergency all we know is 911. Luckily he actually dialled 111).

Three hours later in the wee hours of the morning, feeling sick and freezing cold from standing stone still in my PJS transfixed and panicking, after fire, police, ambulance, tow trucks, investigators and crowds left I came to the conclusion that the guy died. The ambulance drove off slowly without it’s lights flashing. There were numerous photos taken and diagrams drawn. A couple were taken away in a police car. When the tow truck arrived it collected a car with a smashed windscreen that had been previously hidden from view and had had us wondering for the previous 2.5 hours what the motorbike had crashed into. I think the people that were taken away were from the smashed car. I think they were turning and the motorbike was going straight ahead.

This morning on the road there is pink investigation paint around the motorbike skid marks and a huge blood stain. I feel sick. It needs to rain. Hard.

I’m dreading seeing any news of it as I think my worse fears will be confirmed.

Wow – just heard the orange sister is getting married 🙂

Have been wandering around the place whistling ‘Winter Wonderland’ for all the bits of the carol that don’t go “walking in a winter wonder land” i.e. most of it … then low and behold yesterday I saw the new Kirkcaldie’s Christmas window display featuring a winter wonderland scene and the words to the song printed on the window! (Can’t remember them though so am back to whistling …)

P.S. perhaps I need a new category on my blog … ‘Xmas’. Am a bit of a nut for it – but not too wild and crazy that I have a flashing reindeer jersy or Christmas earrings or anything.

The Mister and I have been intrigued recently wondering how the wind could swirl into the deck plants and dislodge the stones now scatterd everywhere. However this morning we got to see something else in action – a naughty pigeon.

At first he didn’t see us but at one point he was right in the pot standing on top of the plant having a good old peck when he looked up and saw me trying to photograph him – I swear his neck shrunk into his shoulders a bit and he looked so guilty! Kinda cute and he hasn’t been back since!

In honour of our American friend from work I baked some all-American chocolate chip cookies (at his request) (even though the recipe came form the all-NZ Edmonds Cookbook) and played craft evening making an American flag label for the cookie container.

He recited the pledge of allegiance for us this morning just like he did every day at school – a world away from the speeches we got at my primary school in the Eastern Bay of Plenty.

Update: little patriotic gift was v. well received! Great hoopla that the flag was handmade and correct in it’s number of stars and stripes. And after only 10 minutes at work he wolfed down 4 cookies. Am feeling very virtuous 🙂

Oh. My. God. I have adrenaline instead of blood pumping through my veins. Well, mostly the veins in my legs! I am not proud of this (well, maybe little … ) but for the first time in my life I went a bit sideways while driving. I must say I’m a bit guilty of believing that because it was a decent car that it would sort itself out but I could in that sliver of time hear my father’s voice saying “Turn into the skid” so I am taking credit for handling myself well in a very scary situation without my passenger wetting themselves!

Breathe …. 😀

As apartment dwellers, DIY home maintenance is a very rare thing for us, and usually, the types of DIY required are those that can wait until one or other of the Fathers can do it properly. Even if we did know what to do and were really keen to spend our weekends fixing things up, we don’t have a great range of tools in our shoe box.

However, with our first grown-up art purchase of 10 days ago, we got supplies from Mitre 10 and a drill from the Brother and were determined to hang it ourselves.

So, using every absolutely sensible thing my Father ever told me about fixing stuff, plus all the absolutely sensible things I’ve observed him do all my life, we charged the drill, we made ourselves a cuppa and read the instructions for the stud-finder, we tested it out, we found the studs (and checked at least 10 times to make sure the beeeeeeeep wasn’t just a dead rat or a builder’s left behind hammer in the wall), we measured, we measured again, we put our foot on the bit of wood on the bathroom floor (on top of another bit of wood so as to not drill into the tiles), we used the big drill bit to make a little recess for the screw head to sit in to be flush, we screwed a hole for the screw, we made sure the Mister knew how to get straight on behind the drill and lean into it when the screw-once scre-right time came so as to not go on an angle or into the wrong spot on our enormous, perfectly painted wall, we checked the level before screwing in the second screw, we tightened up the screws by hand, we tested the bracket strength, we washed our hands and we hung our beautiful photo.

And we smiled the smiles of hanging to level and centred perfection with the marriage still firmly intact 🙂

I was dragged out of bed in the dark this morning at 6am in response to ‘spider face’ … this being the Mister gone grey, eyes popping in sheer panic because the spider that he suspected was camping a way up in the skylight above the kitchen bench (because of a growing web) had finally come out to sit on the web in plain view. He really does get petrified – how could I not help? (Well, mostly because it meant he couldn’t go into the kitchen and make my lunch and breakfast actually).

Anyway – groggy in my PJs I got up onto the kitchen bench swaying with half-awakeness and looked up into the skylight to see where the spider was. This was a feat in itself because it was still dark outside so black spider, black sky through the glass meant I couldn’t see much plus it’s very difficult to look around a blinding halogen spot light only to be blinded a second time by it’s reflection in the black glass. However, with the panicked Mister trying to hand me the vacuum cleaner and NoMoreSpiders trigger pack at arm’s length without coming into the kitchen  I didn’t have much choice but to persevere. Got the vacuum cleaner precariously balanced on the bench counter and went in for the kill – SUCK – bye bye spider, and bye bye cob web and bye bye anything else that was in the other corners or on any surface of the skylight as frantically instructed by the Mister (“over there over there! Did you get that corner? What about that bit down the side? Is all the web gone?“). Sprayed a dose of NoMoreSpiders into the vacuum hose for good measure.

However, the sneaky bugger of a spider had hidden in a crack and after a minute or so came out again. Oh dear the Mister’s spider face was worse than the first time. So again – SUCK – got it that time! I felt awake enough by this stage to attempt NoMoreSpiders around the skylight however, knowing that spraying up would result in being showered I covered myself with a towel and went for it. It was just awful standing there being rained upon by NoMoreSpiders. I nearly cried. However, anything to save the Mister.

And I mean anything – next up was to prove to him that I had indeed rid our house of the spider. I pulled vacuum cleaner apart and put the dust catcher bit in the sink and sifted through it until I found the dead spider – this is the bit of my job as wife and spider catcher that I don’t like – showing the dead – especially as it’s usually only barely recognisable. So, despite my avid following of forensic shows and books where decomposed bodies are examined and picked through, I gagged and all the while pretended that it was one of those shows as I poked in the dust to show him the mangled body. Another measure of NoMoreSpiders into the dust ball just for good measure and we were finally right.

Late to work by about half an hour but breakfasted, and with lunch in my bag so a worthwhile early-morning job after all. Oh, and I can tell you that for days the Mister will be like a dog friend of ours (once saw a cat on a walk by the river 8 years ago and still goes back there every time to see if it’s still there) and stand at the skylight looking up just to make sure the spider is gone.

P.S. The spider was one of those common tiny little brown ones.