HOUSE WASH AND CHRISTMAS CARD

Today we have had the house washed.  It is the first time it has been done by a professional company and I was surprised that Doug agreed when I suggested it as he has always done it himself.  

It has been raining most of the day but, luckily, not as heavily as forecast.  They washed the house (cream bricks), windows and concrete of the drive and we are really happy with the result.  (No pics as it is still raining).  

We received several Christmas cards today but one in particular caught our eye.  It is three dimensional and was quite hard to photograph.

CARVINGS

 Doug has been working on a couple of items for Christmas presents and we were talking about items he could make when he mentioned a Sopworth Camel plane he had made some time ago.

The next thing I knew he had got a box down from a shelf in his workshop that had been there since he moved here over ten years ago and some of his carvings including these 2  were in it.  They have now been moved indoors.

I have been busy in the garden.  Unfortunately,  about a week ago we had a heavy shower which broke a branch on the lovely Oak Leaf Hydrangea so I picked the flower heads and am pleased to say that they have lasted very well.

TEDDIES AND FLYERS

The caravan went away, presumably in preparation for the summer holidays, but is now back and the teddies are, once again, in residence.

Today we have been across town to sort and bundle the flyers (otherwise known as "junk mail") for Doug's youngest daughter so that she can deliver them on her Rural Delivery Mail run tomorrow.  She took 50 of the papers this morning so there were not quite as many for us.  We started with this.

and ended up with this after both of us working for 2 hours. 

Two rabbits from next door kept us amused - they were enjoying feeding on fuchsia flowers and rosemary.

 Just as well we put the decorations up the weekend before last as I had another bout of vertigo this weekend and was good for nothing.  Luckily, I had improved on Monday as it was the Walking Group Morning tea. 14 had said they were coming but we ended up with 18 and I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

Instead of having Christmas crackers that make a lot of rubbish I printed off just the riddles and they went down well.  

Today I have finally been to the hygienist as my previous appointments were all cancelled because of covid restrictions.  We then went over to Doug's youngest daughter's place and got her van and dog and took him to the Groomers.  She will pick him up when she finishes work.  Yesterday, she worked a 14 hour day so I hope it is a bit shorter today.

First thing this morning I downloaded our Vaccination Certificates although mine showed blank on my phone so I printed it out in the meantime.  We will have to use them from Friday when we go into a new "Traffic Light" system and Northland will start on Red mainly because of the low vaccination rates here.

The oak leaf hydrangea is looking really good this year.

The decorations in the back porch ready for yesterday's morning tea

The vegetables are doing well (and the weeds are as well and show up more in a photo!)

One lettuce picked for tea.

SOMETHING A LITTLE DIFFERENT.

 We have been very busy here but had a break today when something a little different happened.  I went into the garden and there was a huge crane in the garden behind us.  

Most of the neighbours were outside watching.  A "cabin" had been trucked to the garden a couple of houses down from us and was being lifted over the fence to the house behind.  The crane was huge there were five more extensions that could have been extended (they were going to use a smaller one but it was out of action).

The cabin and a smaller one containing a bathroom is for the couple's daughter and her husband as they had to leave their rental accommodation and properties either to rent or buy are hard to come by. 

It was actually a lovely day today but looking at the photos some clouds must have come in just as the cabin was being lifted.

I have not been blogging or viewing blogs as we have been busy in the garden as well as getting things ready for Christmas.  We put our decorations up last weekend as we have the Parkinson Walking group coming here for their Christmas morning tea on Monday.  

Covid has been slowly spreading up here and people from Auckland are to be allowed to travel out of the city prior to Christmas so it is bound to get worse. For this reason we are trying to get as much shopping as possible done beforehand.

THE TEDDIES

We haven't done our usual morning walk for a week or so and decided today was the day to start again.  We found the teddies had a new conversation.

Today was the first time we have met the "man behind the conversations" . We had a long, interesting, chat and it turns out the feathers that he had for sale a few weeks ago were peacock feathers as he does culling on a couple of nearby farms.  He asked us if we would like some and gave us these.  The colours are wonderful but don't show up well in the photo.

We also discovered that any peacocks culled are put to good use as food for the lions in the nearby Lion Park.

FOXGLOVES AND WIND

A dull overcast, windy day here today.  No rain but that is forecast for tomorrow.  We will see.  Foxgloves have self seeded all over the garden but they do not like wind so I have just picked a few that had blown over.

Meanwhile the ones left in the garden are getting a hammering along with the roses.