Winter hits

I was thinking that we had got off lightly this year as it had been very dry and the days were lightening up and there was that lovely spring warmth in the air.
I thought too soon. The rains arrived about 2 weeks ago and it has been very wet.
We do need a lot of rain to restore the water levels in the soil after the long drought so I am not complaining.
We still get the odd day when it is really nice and warm. Last Sunday was great and I had a good 3 hours of scrub bashing by the pond. Even managed to put some more trees in and have a few little fires before the rains came back. We even had heavy hail storms on Wednesday.

last weekend Chantelle and I had a real treat. It felt like a new chapter of life had opened. We left Eric in charge of the house with Stuart to keep him on the straight and narrow and went off to Taipa for a couple of nights. We were hostedby Eric and Rita and the Te Aupouri trust for a Whare Taonga weekend. It was a type of Marriage Encounter without the writing. We listened to a number of talks on relationships and parenting. Kinda like lectures, but there were some nuggets in there. A lot of stuff that we have worked out over our time together, but some other stuff as well that was a bit more pertinent. The couples were mostly all younger than us - when did wegrow this old?

What was really nice was being put up and having plenty of time just to chill out. They gave us 3 hours for lunch enough time to eat, to go for a walk along the beach and to have a siesta. Saturday night we were treated to a 3 course candlelit dinner in our own appartment.

Loads of food, so mauch that we took a couple of bags home and our poor starved kids thought that it was an early christmas.

So tahnks te Aupouri and Eric and Rita and keep up the good work.

We are all wellish, paddy was off with a stomach bug today. We are all pretty kanackered. it has beena hellish week - way too busy. But things are happening and life is unfolding in interesting ways.

No pics at the mo as I write this from a skinny notebook that has none on it. If I get near the desktop this weekend I might load some up. Mud, rain and washed out pastures. Just so you don't get the impression that it is always sunny here.

Congratulations to my Mum and Dad who recently celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary.