This week is going to be restful

Another eventful weekend has come and gone and life has resumed its normal path. Friday saw us return Beetle to the SPCA which was hard to do but necessary. He is now being fostered by another girl who works there and hopefully will find a nice home with people who love him. We also officially adopted Mono. He has settled in well but it may be a different story once Bella leaves and he is the only dog in the house.

On Saturday Trish and John arrived in the area and we met them at Arran Station, a big horse event venue in Takapau (where Mark Todd trained for the Olympics!), for the One Day Trial. We had perfect weather and saw some great competition. Trish's horse, Woody aka Kaitawa Eve, was competing being ridden by another girl, Laura. Unfortunately the Locker-Lampsons were late so missed seeing them in the dressage and show jumping that day. But Arran Station is a beautiful place. It's been really cold here recently so all the mountains are covered in snow and made a beautiful backdrop to the showjumping ring and cross country course. I'm glad to know where it is now so we can go to more events there.

Of course, Saturday night wasn't a relaxing night with the election on. Disappointing outcome but I'm glad Grant Robertson got Wellington Central over Steve Franks. That would have been a nightmare! I dread to think. Anyway, I don't want to go into the election except to say that I probably got to bed later than desired seeing as I had work on Sunday and didn't prepare for the super early wake up call thanks to Mono deciding that it was play time at 5am. He was in the laundry but Trish and John's room was directly above him and would have kept them up. So up I got and found the light on in his room which probably brought on the wailing. I took him back to bed with me where he proceded to scamper all over me and Marty and chew everything in sight. So that morning was not the most pleasant.

Marty made an extravagant dessert for that night though that nearly killed us all...

After work on Sunday (!?) I met up with Munm, Trish and John at Arran Station again for the cross country. Marty and Richard had already become tired of the event and had gone home to shoot rabbits. The remaining 3 had a great vantage point by the water jump and so we sat there and scoffed almonds and slowly cooked ourselves to a crisp in the bright sunshine. Because of work I missed Kaitawa Eve again but heard that there had been a problem at one of the jumps - and not the water jump where they expected it. But it was great to watch and made me desperate to get back into horse competitions (minor competitions, that is! No 6 ft jumps for me just yet!).

In the meantime though, Richard managed to shoot his first rabbit...

As I said, it's been really cold here recently and 2 days after I bravely decided to plant out the zucchini and cherry tomatoes, we got a severe frost that almost did the zucchini in. All their leaves have turned black and they are not looking very happy. The next night I managed to get the frost cloth over them and I'm hoping they'll revive themselves. The tomatoes are suffering a bit but nowhere near as bad. I'm surprised the sweet banana chilli has weathered the storm, so to speak.

But on a positive note, one of the cherry trees is laden with sweet red fruit. It's so nice to be able to go and scavenge in the aviary. I'm still waiting on the strawberries, raspberries, grapes, blueberries, black currants and logan berries though! Soon, my pretties....

And the purple wisteria is in full force at the front and back of the house. The white one is on it's way and should be out in a few days. So here are a few photos of the garden at present...

The wisteria at the front of the house



One of the many varieties of rhodo



The garden framed by a front



Pretty genko tree and others as the clouds pass


One of the dogwoods

We're heading to Welly this weekend for a bit of a fiesta so hopefully will see some of you then.

And I apologise if this post is a bit disorganised layout wise. The computer changes it every time I upload it for some reason