Tuesday 29th May

Anson came around at 6am to get Azzan but everyone was still sleeping so he headed up the hill to start crutching the sheep on his own.

We all started surfacing around 7am.

Tim, Ross & Azzan went up to help Anson.

He sorted and crutched around 700 sheep.

The generator and new handpiece system worked well up in the yards.

Certainly saved a lot of work not having to bring them all down the hill to the shed.

The girls got themselves packed and ready.

I had stuff to get finished and then finally managed to get through the shower before lunchtime.

I packed and was trying to have my lunch and be ready for when Anson arrived back.

Azzan came running in after 1pm and said that Anson was coming soon.

He arrived round and we loaded up and were gone around 3pm.

We had to stop up the hill for Halia to give Olly some treats.

It was a pretty harrowing trip

Talk about shades of his father!!

As we left he was checking the stock down the hill below.

Then as we got around further he was scanning the hills above for signs of pigs etc.

And as we drove through the various neighbours farms he was checking out the stock and pasture etc!!

Needless to say I was keeping a close eye on the road

We listened to a random selection of music from Anson’s iPod on the way.

I finally got to choose something I liked and I soon found out they all liked my choice.

Adele – ‘Set fire to the Rain‘

Anson turned it up and the children were singing along at the tops of their voices.

Anson kept turning it up further to drown them out!!

Mahalia had her fingers in her ears but still kept on singing.

 

We got to Rai Valley and the kids got some food and Anson stocked up on food and coffee before heading on over the hills to Nelson.

He dropped us off at Nathan’s to pick up the Terrano.

Then he shot off to his evening tuition session.

I left Shanni to get sorted and took M&A to find some dinner.

They love the treat of going to the supermarket and choosing a frozen meal each.

They also hired a couple of dvds.

I took them back to the house and Shanni babysat so I could go out for dinner with Andrea.

They had their dinners and then curled up in bed with the dvd player and watched their movies.

Andrea & I had a lovely evening at The Stables.

It was really lovely to have uninterrupted time to relax and chat over a really lovely meal.

I dropped her back home and then headed back to the children around 9pm.

They were all snugged into their beds.

I worked away on a project I am trying to get finished until Nathan arrived in from work.

He has just gotten a position as a casual wait staff at The Tides Restaurant & Bar.

It was the end of his 2nd night there and he is loving it.

I am so pleased for him.

It has taken a few months for him to finally get this job but I think it has been worth the wait.

 

 

 

Monday 28th May

Just an ordinary sorta day on the ranch.

I started my day with a warm wallow in the spa with my book.

Am reading a really interesting one at the moment.

‘Five Foot and Fearless‘ by Liz Williams.

Liz tells are very humorous and honest account of her training and life in the AOS.

Anson, Tim & Ross went mustering the sheep & cattle from Clay Point around to the Zed Block.

Shanni did her trap-line and then went mustering too.

 

Mahalia & Azzan did some sorting in the school room.

Mahalia has a massive job to do cleaning up and sorting the Sylvanians.

Azzan was sorting out a heap of old kids magazines etc.

I was working in the study a lot of the day.

Lenore surfaced at lunch time.

She is really tired so it was good to see her relaxing with her book and then sleeping on the sofa for some of the later afternoon.

Mahalia covered her with a blanket – sweetness

Mahalia did some piano and harp practice.

 

I made a chicken casserole for dinner.

Ross & Shanni processed all the capsicum that were left from the bin Graham had brought in as they were starting to go off.

Then Ross & Lenore cut them all up for the freezer for me.

Good job done.

 

 

 

Sunday 27th May

We woke to a storm this morning.

Marah left around 9am just as it began raining.

Then the wind built up in massive ferocity.

It was really really stormy.

Anson and the 3 kids went down to kill some sheep.

I had discovered last night, to my horror, that I had booked Anson and Marah back to Melbourne after the wedding on the wrong day.

I was fully prepared to have to pay a huge ‘fine’ to change and/or upgrade the tickets.

I had to call AirNZ as I couldn’t make the changes online.

I had a very long wait in the phone queue and then when I told the guy what I had done he said for me to rebook the tickets and then call back and they would refund the wrong ones.

I did that and then called back – waiting in a queue for ages again.

When another guy answered he told me I should’ve booked the whole Melb-Akld-Melb flights not just the Akld-Melb leg and that I needed to do that and then he could refund me all the incorrect bookings.

I was getting a little distressed by this time and mentioned that I had already had to wait in the queue for half the morning so he said he was happy to wait on the phone while I made the new bookings.

He was so lovely, told me to take my time and do it quietly so I would get it right and he was happy to just wait.

So this time I got them all rebooked and then he refunded all the other bookings.

What a sweetie he was.

I could not believe that I actually got two lovely guys who sorted out the problem so easily and never charged me anything extra.

Go Air New Zealand!!

 

Graham came around.

Ross & Lenore arrived up for fellowship.

The kids were all still killing so we all just chatted around the fire.

The children finally came up carrying buckets and bins of offal.

The cleaned up and then joined us.

We had a nice time discussing a few verses from Matthew 5 etc.

Finally had lunch around 3.

Anson came back with some cake and dessert to share with us.

The skies were clearing & the sun was breaking through.

The wind was blowing the clouds away.

The way had a very windswept but clean look to it.

We then discovered that the wind had created a bit of havoc outside.

The trampoline had been picked up and blown into the creek

on the way it took down the mains power cable to the workshop!

So, after lunch Graham got to work and fixed the cable so we could get power back on.

There are 2 freezers up there plus the electric fence unit so it is rather necessary.

Anson brought his washing around and was acting the idiot on his way out!

The red rubber ball was going in all directions

Shanni cleaned the outside bathroom in the morning and then proceeded to repaint the floor and walls in the afternoon.

I quite like the new blue colour she found.

She was doing a spot of multi-tasking and talking on the phone as she painted!

 

Mahalia went up the hill with Anson to check on Olly.

He was doing fine, munching away on grass up the Bush Road.

So she went on up the hill hunting with Anson.

They didn’t get anything.

We had lunch so late that dinner is a non event.

Azzan & Tim watched a movie and I caught up on some blogging.

 

Saturday 26th May

It was a beautiful morning.

Tim & Anson went out to do some mussel work.

I stayed in bed until rather late and finished reading my book.

Didn’t see why I needed to hurry on a lovely leisurely Saturday.

Marah came around to use the phone & organise getting to town.

A young friend had been killed in a car accident so she wanted to get back home for his funeral.

Shanni was in a cleaning frenzy.

She had the living room swept and vacuumed right through and then proceeded to give the inside bathroom a total clean out.

Azzan vacuumed the Terrano for me.

 

Ross & Lenore didn’t surface until later in the day.

They needed a sleep in after their long day’s travelling.

 

 

Tim took Ross out fishing so they caught dinner

Just as I was about to get the veges underway Jesika Skyped me so I had to do some delegating in the kitchen.

Lenore made a stir fry and Shanni did some potatoes and steamed some broccoli for me to put a sauce over.

 

While we were eating Azzan asked me,

“If mammals have breeding seasons, why don’t humans?’

That just about brought the house down as Tim prompted me to answer with a big grin on his face

After dinner the men were scraping over who was going to wash the dishes.

Tim won!

But he had to put up with Ross & Graham’s antics

As dinner was ate we didn’t muck about too long before we all headed towards our beds.

I was just finishing up in the study when Jesika Skyped again.

Starting to pull all the wedding travel plans together nicely

Friday 25th May

It was really good to be welcomed home by the three darlings.

They had had a busy day while we were away.

Azzan had spent the time at Waterfall Bay with Theo and walked back in the afternoon.

Shanni fixed her bike.

Mahalia did some baking.

Anson took Mahalia fishing to catch dinner.

Then he took them all possum hunting.

 

Friday for me was spent finishing off the gst and then getting tickets booked for us to go north in Sept for Sunni & Mat’s wedding.

It has been a bit difficult to know what to do – drive up and take a couple of weeks holiday, or just fly up for a few days.
With Anson & Graham away we really couldn’t take the 2 weeks we would like to have done unless we had someone reliable here.

And of course the major consideration is Tinga – he is not an easy pet to look after.

So with some help from Graham the ultimate decision was made once I had gotten the farm-sitter sussed, to fly.

As well as that I was booking for Anson & Marah to get over from OZ, Nathan to fly up from Nelson with Seb & Phoebe and communicating with Jesika so she & Evan can co-ordinate their flight plans too.

There will be a family convergence – watch out Auckland!!

Next on the list is accommodation and transport.

 

We were expecting Ross & Lenore to arrive on Thursday, but they got held up and didn’t get to us until around 11pm Friday night.

So we went off to bed and let them sort themselves out when they finally got here.

 

 

 

Thursday 24th May

I didn’t actually get to sleep until quite late the previous night.

Nathan arrived in from work at 11:30pm and I chatted with him for a wee while and then read my book.

I slept in a different bed to normal and I was so cosy and it was so quiet that I never wok until 8am.

I literally never sleep that late so it was a total blessing to have been able to.

There really was not a lot to do except dress and chuck all my stuff back in the Terrano so Nathan & I were heading to town at 9am without any stress.

He had mislaid his phone the night before so was wanting to get to tec to try and locate it.

I had an appointment at 9:30am so it worked well to travel together.

Because I had the morning free I had another spoiling myself girlie half hour at Nelson Beauty.

Had my make up and nails done so by 10am I was sailing out the door ready to take on the world

I zipped down the street and saw Dave for 10mins – he is a very special old friend who is also conveniently a JP.

He signed my home schooling declaration forms for me and then I headed off to do a wee spot of shopping.

Had time to zip up to see Margaret before meeting Tim at the hospital.

He had an appointment at 11:25am to see the Otolaryngology specialist.

We had waited 5 months for this appointment!
We were there in time and we soon ushered through for Tim to have some hearing tests.

We were a bit bewildered by this as he has them every time and this appointment was not for his hearing.

The tests took about half an hour so his scheduled appointment time was long past.

We were told to go wait until he was called.

We sat and waited, and waited and waited.

I watched all the reception staff head off for lunch.

Finally it was an hour after our appointment time and there was no sign of anyone and the waiting room was empty.

I was pacing by this time!!

I went to another reception desk and asked if they could please find out what was going on.

A few minutes later someone came out and apologised saying they were running abysmally late.

Well, thanks a lot for letting us know sooner

This was on the wall which did lighten my mood somewhat during the waiting period!

We got to see the Dr about 15mins later and it was a very enlightening meeting.

He had not been sent the Tim’s cat scans from the 23rd Dec so he wasn’t up to play at all.

What a muck up!!

He got the scans up on the computer and then went over them with us.

Here was me thinking that the reason Tim couldn’t breath was that his nasal cavity was blocked by polyps.

But in actual fact his entire paranasal sinus cavities are about 75-85% filled with polyps.

No wonder the poor guy can’t breath

The Dr went through all the options for Tim, surgery is the main one but once Tim heard the risks involved he totally put all his brakes on!

He chose not to hear the risks are only like 1 in a 1000, and the specialist had never had any himself and said there had been none in New Zealand.

So, he came away with some relief medication and is on the waiting list while he decides.

 

It was a relief to finally leave the hospital at 1pm.

We drove straight to Tahunanui and spent a lovely lunch time with Tim’s cousin Phillip at Smugglers Pub & Cafe.

We don’t get to see Phil too often so it was great for the two guys to have a chance to relax and catch up together over a good meal.

We finally had to hit the road again to finish our chores for the day.

I headed off to Richmond and worked my way through a list as I drove back to Nelson.

Tim went off to do have business discussions with a mussel cohort.

We finally met up again at Seb & Phoebe’s about 5:30pm.

Crashed there and chatted for an hour or so.

Then we headed homeward, playing cat & mouse in our two vehicles!!

 

 

Wednesday 23rd May

I slept fitfully through the night.

Should’ve set the alarm and then I might have relaxed enough to actually sleep!

Finally got up about 5:30am and got Shanni up too.

We were all ready to go well before 7am.

It was a beautiful clear crisp morning.

I had to stop and record the views as we drove!

 

Looking north from our boundary.

Looking north again from St Lawrence half an hour later.

Mount Tapuaenuku was showing clearly through the hills to the south.

Looking west from Okuri

Looking east from above Savill Bay

 

We got to town around 9:30am.

I dropped Shanni off to have a look at thermals in Postie while I took the Terrano over to Muratai Motors.

I got a cute wee curtesy car to zip about in while they fixed it.

I went to find Shanni – she still was dithering as to what to get so I left her and went to do a few quick jobs.

I was on a mission as we both had appointments.

When I got back she had pretty much chosen what she wanted.

I gave her lunch to her so she could go eat it in the car while I paid.

Typical though – when you are in a hurry the computers go down

We had to fly once I finally got them paid for.

Got Shanni to her 11am appointment right on the dot and then I had time to do one quick thing before my 11:30am appointment.

Picked her up just before 1pm and then did some shopping before meeting Anson, Marah & Phoebe at ‘623’ for lunch.

Anson had mussels to deliver so he took my wee car back over to Muratai and picked up the Terrano and I took his truck for half an hour.

We met up again just before 3pm and then he took Shanni and went to get groceries before they all went home.

I spent the next 90mins having a wonderful massage and facial.

I didn’t realise how much I needed it

Then I met up with Nathan and Tori & her girls at Starbucks for a chat.

Nathan had to head off to the Rata Room to work for the night.

I was heading down Trafalgar St to get some food for dinner when I saw the cinema and thought maybe I might go to the movies.

I am never in town on my own with nothing to do so thought why not.

Then I had the massive choice as to what to see

‘Dark Shadows’ or ‘Marigold Hotel’

What a dilemma!!

I decided to go with Johnny Depp.

It certainly was an interesting movie with really great visual effects.

But I found the ending too weird and strange – and yes, I know the whole movie is weird but the ending wasn’t what I thought it should be!!

I certainly will not be adding it to our home dvd collection.

It was finished by 8pm so I got some food from Countdown and came back to eat and relax.

Nathan is working late so I have had a quiet night on my own.

 

 

Tuesday 22nd May

Another cold still day.

I spent most of the day buried in the accounts.

Got them pretty much finished – just a few questions awaiting answers from accountants and then I can file once home from town.

Azzan & Mahalia did chores.

Azzan folded the washing and put it away then tidied his room.

Mahalia did dishes and hung up wet washing and cleaned the rabbit’s cage.

Azzan looked after the rabbit.

Shanni swept the floors then went around her traps.

Tim put ’88 South’ back into the water.

Shanni helped him and then Anson went out to do some mussel work with Tim.

She also did some baking – made these cute wee cupcakes which apparently were very delicious.

 

Anson & Marah left for town later in the afternoon.

They dropped Mahalia & Shanni at the top of the hill so they could go see Olly.

They took their bikes up so they could bike back home.

Not too long later Tim was on the phone and I got a text from Shanni to say Mahalia had been kicked in the leg and couldn’t walk.

Oh dear!

What next?

So I managed to get Tim to curtail his conversation and he went up to get the girls.

Poor Halia.

They had been running Olly down the airstrip, one on each side and he kicked out to the side and got her on the upper thigh.

She is going to have quite a bruise.

Tim took some frozen fish up to ice pack it with and then she ice packed it for the rest of the day until bedtime.

I gave her a good check over and ascertained that nothing was broken.

By bedtime she was starting to weight bare and was beginning to walk herself about the furniture.

 

 

Monday 21st may

Tim said he would take the children away for a while so I could concentrate on doing the accounts and gst.

Anson went out mustering early and had arranged for everyone to meet him up the hill to do firewood when he had finished.

Kristina, Paul & Theo came up from Waterfall Bay to help too.

The men had the chainsaws and the woodsplitter going.

Tim had some last minute stuff to do on the boat before he went up the hill.

He took Shanni & Azzan up with him mid morning.

Shanni was armed up with a large packet of chips and some gluten free flapjack slice.

Little did she realise that would be all they would have to eat for the day!
The mornings work took the whole day!!

Mahalia & Marah took Olly up.

He is beginning to slim down now with so much exercise.

He is also calming down a lot now he is on his own.

These next six photos are from Mahalia’s camera.

I love this photo

He still gets quite sweaty walking up the hill so more weight to lose yet.

The decision to leave him up on the airstrip was made.

He wasn’t to happy to begin with but had settled down by the time they all came home.

Marah has adopted Jack.

Quite funny really cuz her dog Ria will only go to Anson now!!

 

 

Shanni took the rest of these photos.

The guys had the logsplitter set up in the middle of the road.

Just as well there wasn’t much traffic.

Only one neighbour came by – twice!

They took 2 truck loads of wood down to Waterfall Bay and then one to home at the end of the day.

Azzan went home with Theo on the first load and then walked back around the track.

He didn’t get home till after dark.

Nice for him to have Theo next door for a while.

 

I spent the whole day in the study and made quite a hole in the proceedings.

Packed it in when they arrived home around 5pm and decided to make some dinner.

We had heaps of leftover veges so I mixed them up with flour, cheese & eggs and made fritters.

They went down exceptionally well.

 

So generally it was a very productive day all round

 

 

Saturday 20th – Sunday 21st May part 2

Tim, Anson & Shanni disappeared over the hill somewhere so I went for a wander.

Love the colours and shapes of the hills in the late afternoon light.

They returned.

Even though it was Sunday they still had farm stuff to talk about.

Bit of a classic father/son photo

The children were playing silhouettes in the setting sun.

The shadows were lengthening and the day getting colder so we packed up

Marah & the kids were rarking about down the hill

Then Anson towed Zani up the hill as he left

It was only 5pm but the sun was setting over D’Urville Island already

Anson waiting to shut the gate behind us – looking slightly unamused

We followed them down the hill and waited while they filled the truck with firewood.

The stopped to talk while they unloaded at The Croft.

They guys were talking serious stuff in the front

seemingly unaware of the crazy carryings on in the backseat!!

Marah was in a very ‘stir up the kids’ sorta mood

Finally the men had talked all they needed to talk and we drove the rest of the way home.

Thankfully none of them were terribly hungry so we just made quick food and then off to bed.

It was a lovely afternoon.