I have not seen the whole debate but feel it is more important than the debate tonight between Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins prior to our election. I would be very interested to hear the view of people in America and other parts of the world.
These are scary times.
It is a cool, windy day, today, with the occasional shower. I feel sorry for people and animals in the South Island where there are lots of road closures due to the snow and ice. to say it is not very good for new lambs would be an understatement.
Doug and I have not done an awful lot as we are both tired and put it down to the clocks changing for Daylight Savings at the weekend. I always seem to struggle for a week after the change.
I am in the Podiatrist waiting room and have been chatting to a lady who recommended Stephen Leacock books. I see there are several available through the local library in various forms of e-book.
Back home and I have just collected Golriz Ghahraman's book, Know your Place, from the local library. I put it on hold a few weeks ago. Golriz, a refugee from Iran is the first refugee to be sworn in as a Member of the New Zealand Parliament. It should be interesting reading. It is now time for a much needed cup of tea.
The forecast was for a weather bomb to hit the whole of the country today. I heard the rain start a little before 6 a.m. although it may have been raining during the night as well, it was also quite windy . By about 10 a.m. the rain had stopped and the sun was shining. The rain barrel that was less than half full is now fully topped up and I think the new water tank is nearly full as well. I wonder about the new lambs in the South Island though as I heard on the radio that they could be getting barely above zero today.
I have just been for my walk around the block and it is still quite breezy but the sun was shining and it was quite pleasant with no need for a jacket.
We put the clocks forward an hour last night (well it should have been 2 a.m. this morning but we always do it the previous night). This involved 5 clocks plus our watches plus the landline phones at least the computer and cellphones update automatically.
I seem to have been busy all day but not quite sure what I have accomplished but then I have days like that sometimes.
With last night's forecast I picked another three Waratahs, this time from a different bush - these ones have rounded heads whereas the previous ones I picked had more pointed flower heads and were a slightly darker colour.
A lovely morning so we went to the Growers Market for the first time since Lockdown. Not quite as early as we used to but we got there a bit before 8.00 a.m. We decided to go today as daylight savings ends tonight so it will get light later next week.
Anyway, we were surprised by the fact that a lot of stalls were not there and those that were had much less produce.
We have pulled out most of our greens getting the garden ready for summer planting. The stall that we often buy from only had half cabbages and the broccoli was pretty small and I didn't buy anything from them. I did get a bunch of spinach from another stall (I still have some growing but not a lot). I also bought a bunch of watercress and at another stall a whole cabbage and at another stall a camembert.
Our other purchases were fruit. A bag of granny smith apples, one of gala apples, one of naval oranges and one of tangelos. We also bought a punnet of baby beetroot seedlings, one of lobelia and one of a painted daisy chrysanthemum, although the weather is fine the forecast is for heavy rain and strong winds tomorrow so we will not plant them just yet. I hope the front moves over before Monday and our Parkinson walk.
When we had put everything away and had breakfast I made a cake. I have a gluten free cooking book from the Library (to try before I decide whether to buy it) It uses a special mix of flours so is a bit fiddly mixing the flours but I recently made some little sultana cakes that were a big hit. I decided to make the same recipe as a cake today so used a ring tin and it seems to have come out well.
We can also remember when they were planting along the creek (ditch) below.
The orange netting fences off the new pathway that is being constructed. This will form part of the shared pathways leading in to the city centre.
After doing the walk we went back home and collected the trailer and went to buy a trailer load of kiln dried pine firewood. We have used a huge amount of firewood this winter as we have been home all the time. This should last us out as it is now getting warmer.
On our trip on Sunday we left Ngunguru and carried on around the coast turning off just before Tutukaka
