Lesley's photos

Today I have a selection of recent photos from Lesley - we hope you enjoy them. First some funny faces from Camilla, Louise and Hannah (from left to right) ...

... and then a series of their hat creations from a few weeks ago. They are in the same order: Camilla with the origami birds, sky and clouds, Louise as the psychedelic Mad Hatter, and Hannah as Nefertiti.

Playing on the relatively new miniputt course at the bottom of Oropi Road, next to John's Produce.

Louise, Hannah & Camilla on our front verandah, about to play some volleyball?

Hannah "posing"

Camilla celebrating a win at netball.

Seashells collection.

Louise in a pensive mood on the way to Pahoia. PS - I've just noticed this is Camilla, not Louise - I'll have to post a photo of Louise next time!

Hannah showing off Lesley's new coat.

Brett looking at the view from the site of a proposed park at Huharua, Plummers Point, north of Tauranga.

Camilla playing the fool.

Lesley wearing new jacket.

Hannah on our front lawn.

Flooding in Oropi - nothing like New Orleans, but a lot of rain nevertheless.

Later this evening I'll post some more of my own photos to accompany the email which you'll hopefully have received by the time you see this.

Lambing season ... and more spring photos

Of course, it's lambing season here in Gluepot Road, and the fields are full of them. The photo below was taken from our verandah early yesterday morning, at the start of what was forecast to be a rainy day, but turned out to be lovely sunny and warm.

Our neighbour's paddock at the front, i.e. at the end of our lawn, now has half a dozen ewes which produced triplets, although in a couple of cases one of the lambs did not survive. Included in the latter is "Rowdy", who the girls raised three or four years ago, after she was orphaned. We gave her back to Alan (the neighbour) after she was wened, but that didn't stop her returning to demolish our flower beds periodically, until Alan banished her to a distant paddock. Well, the girls are very pleased to see her back again, especially since she has two lambs of her own! Unfortunately I haven't been able to locate a photo of "Rowdy" then, and those that I took of her yesterday didn't turn out very well, so you'll have to wait for that.

On Saturday afternoon we attended what's called locally a roof-shout, at the Hodges. There is a tradition here when a building is completed, the builders are "shouted" fish and chips and a beer or two. As there were only three of us building - Peter, Jerry and myself - this meant that there weren't very many of us at the roof-shout, but the food was good, and Camilla and Louise helped Gill to make an appropriate cake, which was received very well.

Last week was fairly quiet at the school - term is coming to an end - which has given me an opportunity to enjoy the lovely spring weather, and take some photos in the garden, which I can now share with you. I'll try to leave out the ones that show the rampant growth of weeds, already threatening to overpower us because of the warm weather. This reminds me that I need to get out the knapsack sprayer and do some herciding of the blackberry again. This cyclamen is one that we've had on the kitchen window sill for about four years, although it spends each summer "resting" in the garden shed. It always produces an impressive winter display.

We've had a Meyer lemon tree in a pot on our verandah for about two years now, and while it usually has good crops of lemons several times a year, it hasn't grown much and I think we may have to move it to a larger pot soon.

We were given this camellia a couple of years ago by one of Gill's workmates, and had to transplant it from a pot in her garden into the ground in our garden. A pretty hard task as it wasn't small, and I think the Venter trailer fared better than I did! The camellia, however, hasn't done badly at all, and this spring has produced quite a good display of flowers.

We have three kowhai - the word also means "yellow" in Maori - trees in the garden, and they're all in flower now, which attracts the tuis. I haven't managed to get a decent photo of a tui yet, but it is black and looks rather like a starling, with a tuft of white feathers at it's throat. When they flower, the couple of dozen flax plants - three different varieties, I think - that we've planted on the bank on the Gluepot Road side of our house also attract the tuis, and an occasional bellbird.

The herb garden which Gill and I spent some time planting last spring on the south side of the house (outside the kitchen) has yet to revive after the ravages of winter, but elsewhere the self-seeded borage is flowering profusely.

More in due course ...

Brett

Working as a builder

I've been a little busier than usual, too, as I've been working part-time for the last four months building a studio/cottage for a friend, with him and another chap. It was very convenient, as I was able to work school hours, and if there was a school activity, a sick child or something else that I needed to attend to, it was no problem for me to take time off. I found the work enjoyable and interesting, and not too strenuous or difficult, although I did whinge a little when we were putting up the ceilings (my upper arm strength has deteriorated from minimal to almost non-existent). We were also pretty lucky with the weather - as you can see from the photo below - during the period before we had the roof on, with very little rain, and lots of beautiful sunny days.

It was also very satisfying to have been involved with the project more or less from the start. I didn't actually dig the holes for the foundations, but we concreted in the posts for the piles on my first day, and I did a bit of everything right up to the final touches of paint work a few weeks ago. Peter & Moana - the owners of the building, and parents of C+L's friend Anya, shown in the photo in a pevious posting - told me this weekend that the carpet is due in this week, and a roof-wetting party is planned for next weekend. A few weeks ago we attended the baptism of their third daughter Freya at a very pretty old RC church in Te Puna, the other side of Tauranga. I was interested to discover that the outdoor "font" used was an old Maori grinding stone ("huyu", or is it "guyu") brought from the original church which was built, I think, some time in the 1880s.


Anyway, back to the building work ... the trickiest part of the job was erecting the roof trusses, which had to manhandled into place by the three of us (with the aid of some ladders and a tractor with a bucket on the front). I wasn't too happy on working up at that height at first - even though it's now 18 yrs since my accident, I'm still not to keen on heights - but the time the photo below (Jerry, Peter & myself, securing roof trusses) was taken by Moana, I was familiar enough not to be holding on for dear life with one hand while hammering with the other.

I wouldn't mind doing some more work in that field, but unless I find more part-time or piece work in the area, it's not likely to happen, as I'm always restricted to school hours during the school term, and am completely unavailable during the holidays. Besides, part of the attraction was the continually changing nature of the work - one day it was cutting and hammering timber together, the next it was doing plastering, nailing on roofing sheets, or painting the insides of cupboards. In real life, I believe that houses here are generally built by a series of contractorrs, each of whom is very skilled in a fairly narrow field, and I think it might get repetitive and tiresome before too long. A friend who lives down the road used to have a small business as a plasterer, but had to give it up not long ago because of RSI (repetitive strain injury) in his wrists. Anyway, it was an interesting change for me, and I think I got a vague inkling of what it was like for ggfather Charles Vincent and Uncle Hallam to work on the construction of the dome of the Horticultural Building at the Worlds Fair in Chicago a hundred and twelve years ago in 1892 - see image below!

Oh, and I forgot to mention the rather nonplussed look I got from my co-workers when I asked for "sando ne spikiri".

Spring arrives, and the netball season comes to an end

Spring arrived a little early in Oropi this year, as it did in the rest of New Zealand, and the first of our daffodils at the end of the lawn opened yesterday, right on cue.

Usually ours come out a little later than many elsewhere in the district as we're just that little bit higher and cooler. The tulips, however, have not fared well, probably because it just didn't get cold enough this winter. In many ways it's been a similar autumn/winter season to our first that we experienced in 1999 shortly after settling here, in that it's been dryish and not too cold. Also the autumn colours were almost non-existent, which was a little disappointing but that's one of the trade-offs, I guess. The last couple of weeks have been particularly nice weather, and it's been good to spend time outdoors. The last Friday of August was Daffodil Day, and in New Zealand this is used as a fundraiser by the Cancer Society - the school (Oropi School, that is) held a "hat day". We spent a good deal of effort and time looking for designs, planning, and than constructing the hats, but in the end it was a very successful project. Hannah in her Egyptian head dress (see below) won the prize for "most original" in her class, but I think the other two were pretty good too. The picture below shows them with three of their classmates - Anya, Louise, Rhiannon, Camilla and Louisa. Camilla's hat consists of origami birds flying around a blue sky with cotton wool clouds!


Camilla and Louise are dressed in their "sports uniforms" - actually just a T-shirt - because they had a day of fun netball with nine other schools in Tauranga - boys in the class played soccer and rugby. I provided transport, logistical and sideline support - in other words I was chief taxi driver, bag minder, clothes hanger, orange boy etc. The twins played netball for the first time this year, and have not only enjoyed it but excelled. Camilla has become chief goal scorer for the Year 6 team, while Louise (shown in the action shot below) has been active in the defense and midfield.

More to follow ...

A fresh start at regular news from the Gluepot Gang ...

Well, as Diana pointed out in her latest email, spring is here, so I think it's time to dust away some cobwebs from the letter-writing corner of the desk and give you an update on how we're doing in New Zealand. I'm going to make this blog site the main vehicle for our news, because it will be easier to illustrate with photos, which you can read and view at your leisure. The latest, as well as all previous, letters/news bulletins will always be available online at htpp://gluepotgazette.blogspot.com - easy to remember, I hope. I guess there's a lot of catching up to do, news-wise - however, I'll try not to load you with too much in one go, but hope to make regular postings to the blogsite. I'm not going to promise that I will keep it up as well as Diana has done, but I'll do my best, and would appreciate some feedback. If you'd like to respond on the blog site, you are welcome to do so in the form of a comment - just follow the links. If you're unable to view the blog site, but would like the news (+/- pictures) in the form of an email, please let me know, and I'll send them to you.

To start with, here's a photo of Gill and the girls (from left to right: Camilla, Hannah, Louise and Lesley) eating hot dogs at our then newly assembled picnic bench on the lawn in February.


With love from us all, Brett, Gill, Lesley, Louise and Camilla