Our October Long weekend

At long, long last, we have made it to another holiday long weekend in NZ. It's been a long time coming folks. Last one was way back in May. But the wait has been worth it as Mother Nature has given us a break from the wind and the rain and the general misery, to show clearly that summer is on the way. Yes, it's 22 degrees, gorgeous blue skies and I am alone in my house, drinking wine. Truly this is the way Labour(less) day should be celebrated! Don has gone out fishing with Chris. I'd be thrilled if I never ate another piece of fish but I do try to support my hunter/gatherer. Connor has gone to a friend's for a sleep over - woke us up at 8:30 to ask if he could head over - we restrained him until 11. And Aidan is next door at Jack's, being electronically stimulated. I have all the doors and windows open, nary a mozzie to be seen!

It's been a glorious weekend. On Saturday I made my troops start preparing for the 'royal visit' of my mom and dad. They get here on November 19th and I have a list of things that have to be brought up to snuff before they get to cross the threshold. So Saturday was a chore day. But yesterday I bribed, begged, and pleaded and managed to get my guys, plus Jack, the next door neighbor, out of the house for a day trip to Raglan. Aidan gets so road sick that he started to cry when he heard what my plan was. But I did not let his tears and sad little face deter me! Nope, instead I gave him good Canadian drugs (Gravol, not available in NZ!), roped Jack into the action (fed him Gravol too) and promised them all ice cream on the other side. So at 12:30 we pulled out of the driveway, over here on the east coast of the island, to drive all the way over to the surfing capitol of NZ, on the west coast of the island. Whole trip, 2 hours, and most of that was going well under 100 km's. Nifty eh? And the Gravol did the trick, no complaints from the back seat from the 2 car sick prone kids, no need for the air spew bags! We spent the afternoon on the amazing black sand beach, had something to eat, then headed home.

Octber overall has been quiet. We are saving up our dollars for the coming 2 months as we depart for 4 days in Sydney on November 7th and my parents roll up on November 19th. The Sydney trip is meant to be very relaxing. We are using up part of the tickets that we booked when we originally flew out here last January. As I used points to purchase all 4 tickets, they had to be round trip tickets. So we have tickets back to Winnipeg that will expire in November. Rather than loose their value totally we will fly over to Sydney, and rather than change planes, we will just stay in the city. We have cheap cheap tickets to fly back to NZ 4 days later. Connor wants to see the Sydney opera house and we have a day planned at the zoo, which is supposed to be an amazing place. I personally want to cuddle a koala.

We did manage to celebrate Thanksgiving here. It was rather spur of the moment. I had committed to Don that I would make pumpkin pie (as I believe I mentioned in our last post) and I did. Don couldn't find me any evap milk, so I found a recipe using melted vanilla ice cream, and there are no such things as pre-made pie shells here so I had to go buy 2 pie plates while Don purchased pre-made bricks of pastry dough that we rolled out. I did bake and puree our own pumpkin and voila, with only a few hurdles to get over, I made 2 very credible pies. Don also felt moved enough by the occassion to buy one of those pre-stuffed rolled turkey breasts. On the Sunday we went for a walk on the beach, and as it was windy enough, we then went blowcarting out on a course for a belated Aidan birthday gift. Sadly, the camera had no batteries so you don't get pictures of that. Blowcarts, for the uninitiated, are like little sailboats on wheels - you use a sail to control your speed and direction. Very fun, you can get up onto 2 wheels even. I've imported a generic picture for your consideration.

Anyways, we got back a little later than planned, 4 pm, found Chris and Jacqui up to their knees in a spur of the moment back yard project, and decided to pitch in. So while Don worked himself up a major blister (such an IT guy!), I scurried around stretching our Thanksgiving meal from 4 to 9. Involved rustling up 3 veggies, lots of tatters for the mashed potatoes, and doing some chicken strips to alleviate the pressure on the turkey breast. It worked out marvelously as we introduced out kiwi friends/neighbors to the bounty of a thanksgiving meal and the adults sat on the front stoop, looking out over the estuary and discussing what we were grateful for. Pumpkin pie is not big over here (our neighbors had never had it) and they were very very taken with it. I believe I have a request to make it for the next birthday even!

Halloween is the next 'big thing' on the boys' radar and I'm afraid they may be very let down. Halloween is not at all a major deal here. There are a few costumes in the Walmart like store but I haven't seen any decorations for it, nor little bags of candy. I understand that if kids do come to the door, you may get 8 in total. So the pillow cases full of candy aren't going to be happening over here, which is just was well for me since I eat so many of the kids' treats. But the kids will be very sad. Oh well, grandma and grandpa are coming!

Ah, the washing is done, time to go hang it on the line. Oh the drudgery! Then I'll water the garden (just planted some silver beets, red peppers, lettuce, eggplant and tomatoes in my postage sized garden). Then I'll refill my wine glass :)

Wishing you all much happiness

V