RURAL DELIVERY

 I have mentioned previously that Doug's youngest daughter is a Rural Delivery Driver, this means that she is self employed and actually has two small runs next to each other delivering mail as well as courier items.  The combined runs are about 330 kilometres and she delivers 5 days a week.

On top of this she also takes the bulk mail to the township of Waipu 40 kilometres away early every morning.  She starts work at about 4 a.m.  takes the mail to Waipu, goes back to the depot for her Rural Delivery mail.  On a reasonable day she gets home about 4 p.m.

She has a van and covered trailer to take the mail to Waipu and has just bought a second new Ute with a canopy for her Rural Delivery runs.  Yesterday she came around so that Doug could make up "shelves" for the front seats of the utes to put the trays of letters on ready for delivery.

New Zealand Post has recently changed its vehicle colour from red to blue. The N.Z. Post Logo still has to go on.

Doug made two of these, one for each ute.  The pegs at the back are for the seatbelt to go around to stop it all shooting forward when she stops and the bit at the front is to stop the trays of mail from doing the same.

This is one on the seat with one of the trays on it.   

                             (Photos not the best as it was pouring with rain when I took them.

THE WEATHER

While the Northern Hemisphere has been sweltering with heatwaves and wildfires here in the south we have rain.  I cannot remember continuous rain like this.  We have been getting about 6 days of rain then one fine day followed by another 5 or 6 days of rain.  We currently have both rain and wind warnings and walking on our lawn is like walking on a wet sponge.  It is rain quite heavily and the wind is strong.

I see the above is looking slightly better although most days are forecast to have some rain.  Our walking group has been going over ten years now and in the early years we rarely had to cancel a walk but at the moment we seem more likely to cancel than actually walk.

I know it is winter and should mean the dams are full for summer but some more sunny days would be appreciated.  That said, we have been enjoying our time indoors cosy and snug with the fire going and are thankful to be retired.

In the South Island the weather has been more severe with bridges washed away and houses flooded.

GETTING THERE

Covid has really knocked the stuffing out of us and just living has taken up all our time and energy.  We have had quite a lot of rain but then it is winter.

Anyway, yesterday (Saturday) was fine so we decided to go to the Growers' Market.  I wanted to go to the Library next to the Market so we went later than usual and arrived at about 8.40 a.m. This meant that several of the stalls had already sold out and shut down but we bought the few items we needed and enjoyed the walk around the market.  After the Library we did a small supermarket shop before going home and spending time in the garden.  I had already done a couple of loads of washing which dried nicely as I always prefer washing dried outside rather than in a dryer.

We decided that it was time we went for a walk this morning so first thing we did our favourite walk alongside the river in town.  Today is fine but cloudy and it was good to get out for a walk as we still haven't got back to our regular walks.  

When we got back I made a g.f. loaf and we both prepared the vegies and meat for a crockpot casserole which is cooking away slowly.  It was well after 2 p.m. by the time we had lunch which, luckily, was leftovers as neither of us had much energy left. 

With all the rain we have had the ferns and tree ferns were all looking good.  Have just listened to the weather forecast and we have rain and wind warnings for tomorrow afternoon and Tuesday.  Hopefully, it will be fine in the morning for the Parkinson walk.

The vegie garden is doing o.k.