Hawea Honey's.

Daughter and Dad had a great day. A little of Queenstown was bought up and a great many shops visited.

I had a pleasant day at the builders clean. It was funny when one of the men came in and asked Hayley how she had enjoyed Saturday night. She reckoned she had never seen him in her life and I thought it was good living to have something to blush about, even though she was pretty sure she had nothing to blush about. I really enjoy her and Mary's company and it makes cleaning a good job. Hayley can't make it tomorrow, but another friend of Mary's might. This view looks back to the township of Hawea - the place where all the best cleaners come from.

The Otago Daily News features a travel article by a man in Wanaka about his love for Scotland. He and his wife have been going to Scotland for 18 years. This trip was all around Scotland and it's gardens and golf courses. It probably wouldn't have been how I would have sold Scotland. In fact, I have been planning to sell it. A request came for anyone with a holiday home willing to auction it for a week for school funds. So I thought we could auction some Highland Hospitality and an entry in a No Fuss event - if anyone or their offspring might be passing by. The head of the Board of Trustees is coming round to see us this week. He loved the website and wants to discuss organising an event here to raise funds for the school. Would be nice to leave something other than just Spook behind. And Spook will have a wee bit of time on his hands.

grateful for:

Spook's bread and butter pudding for dessert.

Munged up Nose.

4 of us cleaned 5 houses in 5 hours and didn't even feel as if we had worked. That'll be the many hands...light work proverb. Certainly works. Mary's friend Hayley is helping now as it was Sarsha's last day and we will need some help without her great work ethic and enthusiasm. Hayley is a cool farmer. She is 43, tall and strawberry blonde, 4 kids and turned up in a flat bed truck covered in mud. She has land up at Haast where they put the cows in to the wilds and then muster them out with their calves in March. They have to take the horses over in boats and it takes 3 days, a lot of dogs (they usually lose one or two to rivers and injuries) and they stay in huts. Coooollll! Her daughter Jess is in Finn's class.

Spook dismantled our bikes and fitted them into the box he has been keeping at work specially. WE need to work out what else we want to get in there - what we can do without now, and what we can do without for a couple of months at home. We will need to beg and borrow bikes for a while.

Then Spook went out on his road bike to the Treble Cone road end. This photo is a view out to The Mount Aspiring National Park. We are hoping Spook and Finn will get their father/son bonding day up TC next week. Meg and Spook are having their father/daughter bonding day in Queenstown tomorrow.

grateful for:

Finn for difusing the situation when I was telling Meg off for bossing me about. He was lying on the ground drawing. He glanced up and said ryely "Welcome to my world" and carried on drawing.

Meg managed to difuse her own situation when I told her she needed to get some mung beans into her for her good health. She stuck up them up her nose with the sprouting bits hanging out for ease of extraction.

Spook's Day.

Despite skiing again today, I have no fresh pictures because you've probably seen enough sunshine and snow. It was a good bit colder today and became colder as the day went on. Finn and Spook had a good lesson and it was a much more relaxed boy gliding down the slopes. We met Rob and Stacey from Gore there and I sat in the cafe and caught up with Stacey for the rest of the afternoon. Hugh MacPhee from Speanbridge/Queenstown came over with a bottle of whisky and his partner, Donna, to say good bye to me. We had been invited to dinner at the lovely shed/house up the road with the vineyard where Meg's friend Ali and her family live, so I said goodbye to Hugh after lot's of reminiscing, but Spook felt the need to say more goodbyes than me and I had to go without him. Finn refused to leave home, having over-boarded this weekend, and Hugh and Donna dropped Spook off at dinner a bit later. Meg had a great day out with Ali. They took the cart down to the outlet camp (a good distance away) and had a picnic by the lake. Meg is looking forward to coming home, but going through her own regrets at the things she will miss. Ali has just moved to her side of town, and they talked about all the wonderful things they COULD be doing this summer if things had been different. Celia and Patrick (who is Swedish) were very gracious hosts and we had a pleasant evening. It was a fathers day dinner, as it is the Kiwi equivalent today. Spook got a book on Trout Country, so that he knows all the good places to go and catch his dinner. He is on a limited budget, so I thought this was a good investment. He was already able to laugh at some memories of the fishing he did with Martin and Frazer on that first trip out here, invoked by photo's in the book. I don't think any of the stories actually involved the capture of any fish.

grateful for:

a very sociable weekend.

narrowly escaping a hangover from last nights escapades.

The Polis are not bad looking out here..............

We didn't quite manage to climb Mt Roy, because it was too tempting to go up to Cardrona. It was fantastic conditions, very quiet, warm and no wind. Lovely snow too. We did think of the Ben Runners as promised, who wont have been up the Ben quite yet. Finn had a tough day on the board as he was sacrificing speed for turns and found it hard work. We have booked him and his father in for a lesson tomorrow morning to see if that nails it. I had skis and they were magnificent.

Then Spook came with me on my work night out and witnessed the police catching up with me. I'm not really sure what they were doing in the bar, but at least it didn't cost me 80 bucks. Drinking with 25yr olds is not easy and it was a relief to have Mary and her friend Hayley (who has cleaned with us a couple of times) there to at least try and get Sarsha home. But there is no competition between 25 and 45 and Sarsha won. We had to leave her behind with other young people, despite our better judgement. Spook had gone ahead to Shannons to get Finn home, where Meg had already gone to bed after her youth group night out (she phoned Shannon and booked herself in).

NOw I have managed to focus on this blog, I need to go to sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeppppppppppppp.......................

grateful for..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

That Friday Feeling.

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Another lovely day in Paradise. But I spent a great deal of the night lying awake remembering that the lack of good weather in Scotland does not make for a lack of adventure. You just have to work a wee bit harder for you fun. Sometimes the adventure is in laughing at what you have to overcome. I think that might be what bonds those who live in tougher climates. Here, I just have to sit outside drinking my coffee to think I'm having fun. So that's not really fun, is it?

Chris came round with Victoria and Jack for dinner. Jack is in Finn's year and the 4 children all got on great and left us in peace and quiet. Chris isn't looking for any rent for the bed in his shed, but Spook will pay rent and enjoy having a space to leave things and not have to cart his life around in the back of the Ute. Chris did The Coast to Coast event in March and hasn't done much training since, so is keen to hook up for a couple of events with Spook. He's just got back into swimming, so hopefully Spook will get a couple of lessons and see if he can do better than when he had to run through the water just to complete the swimming section of the wee tri he did last year.

Chris does big cycle loops over the Crown Range and back up the low road through the Kawarau Gorge and past Cromwell - about 130k, so Spook will be in good hands. No point in staying behind if he's not going to apply himself.

I have got 3 weeks left to look like I have been doing a years training. Hmm.

Good luck to all those Ben Racers. I'm sorry not to be doing it, but I would have a hard time racing my ass up a hill just now. We may go skiing tomorrow instead of up Mt Roy if the weather and snow stays as good as it has. Meg is the only one who has to work tomorrow. We have made poor Sarsha go into work on her own, so she is going to make her boyfriend come in and make beds and polish and LUX, so that she can recover in time for our night out.

I wonder how long Meg and Victoria will be content with a friday night in front of the computer. The writing is on the wall there, I think!

grateful for:

the nice wee church youth club who's party the girls are going to tomorrow night so that they don't have to stay in front of the computer. Hope it isn't a cult.

It's really not such a bad place........

It was an easy shift to get the girls up and ready this morning - almost. I came through at 6am to find the girls in a flurry of activity. Meg took one look at my crunched up face and sent me back to bed. She said she would call me when they needed a lift. So much easier than Spooks shift with Finn. When I went back through, Spook told me to remind Meg to take her season pass. As I came in the kitchen she asked me to get her snowboard, which I got and put it in the car. Off they went and I was settling down with a cup of tea and lot's of time to get ready for work when she phoned from the bus to say she didn't have her pass. It was a very fast drive to catch the bus at the bottom of the hill 25km up the road, and I decided that if the police wanted to give me a ticket, they would have to catch me as I didn't have time to stop. Pass duly handed over at the bottom of the hill because the gates weren't open yet so the bus stopped. Then back to get Finn up and get to work.

It was a stunning day. You have to forgive me for getting sentimental about being here, but having overcome all the angst, there is a great ease in living in a sunny climate. The Kiwi's talk in magazines and radio shows about people suffering from SAD after such a harsh winter,but we know that the rain only comes for a few days, and a beautiful one is never far away. So I am having my own SAD for a wee while, which doesn't mean I wont be happy to be back at home. Suddenly, I can only see all the positives. The easy going nature of your regular Kiwi, the way they always ask you how your day has been in shops and garages, the manager who carried my groceries to the car, that offer at the airport to give anyone a lift down to the rugby when the plane was cancelled. Just seems a tiny bit of a shame to say goodbye to it all now that I have got used to it. But I will find all that in Fort William, so it's ok. (and whilst I can sometimes turn a blind eye to the sexism and racism, I did raise an eyebrow at the Builder advertising on the radio show who said they were called the Naked Builders and had a Climax Team......you call, we come....)

grateful for:

fresh green grass and tweety birds and a happy snowboarding daughter.

Spook had a long day at work but got taken out to lunch at the airport, so quite happy.

A Good Place to Be.

The photo with the pegs is from 7.30am when I drew back Finn's curtains and he complained that it was too bright. After 3 days of rain, it seems to have jumped forward with the morning light. The snowy mountains were taken from the back door at the same time. NOt looking good for going up Mt Roy on Saturday, with that snow. The road picture is from my drive home from work to meet Maggie for our last coffee together. She insisted on buying me beautiful, sheepskin slippers for my Scottish winter. I wont even need to turn the central heating on with these babies! I will call them my 'maggies'.

Victoria is staying the night as it is the girls turn for the 6am start for their ski day tomorrow. The slopes were shut today as the road was closed after heavy snow, so fingers crossed for tomorrow.

Vicky's dad and brother are coming for their tea on Friday night. Chris is offering Spook a room in his sleepout, which Spook is thinking of taking. A fixed abode might not be such a bad thing. Chris competes in multi sport events in the South Island and would be a good training partner. He is also a really sound guy.

Time is cracking on a pace and the children will not be able to walk away from school and friends without a backward glance. Meg came home from school with a novel that her literacy teacher, Mrs Hart had bought for her as she has completed her Toe by Toe book. It is The Denniston Rose by Jenny Pattrick and is a Kiwi best seller set in the 1880's. Mrs Hart puts 120% into her class - no wonder they love her.

I heard today that white wine drinkers tend to be of the more compassionate and sensitive type. Red wine drinkers are more likely to be intolerant and selfish. This puts Central Otago in a bad place as their most treasured product is Pinot Noir. It is much cherished by those who can afford to drink it. I will probably feel selfishly intolerant if Spook is in NZ drinking Pinot Noir with Steve and Shannon and I am in Banavie drinking Budget Red Cola.

grateful for:

the feeling that we have put stronger roots down here than I realised and that they will reap great rewards.