It's nearly the end of February . . . already!

It seems as though not much time has gone by . . . until I see the date of my last post! Then I realise 4 months have sped by.

Christmas and New Year have come and gone. We've been away camping, come home and then Locket and I took Brains back up to Auckland. He was best man at his best friend's wedding at the beginning of February, and soon begins his second year at Unitec. We stayed with E & E at Waihi Beach for a couple of days as well and it was great to catch up with cuzzies too. Especially T & C who were over from Old Blighty (England!).

Late last year I was chatting with our lovely neighbour about plants and discovered she had some Chatham Island Forget-me-nots. C said she was dividing them and when I commented that I was wanting to grow some she offered to bring me some. They were quite wee and fragile, so I carefully potted them up and they took off pretty well.

I was checking on them early in January and noticed a fair bit of one leaf was gone . . . then the next day the entire leaf had been eaten!

Not so easy to tell from this angle . . .they're looking pretty healthy.

There it is, the telltale sign! The leaf eaten leaving just the stalk! A hunt was made and on the underside of another leaf I found the very hungry caterpillar!

A good size, and I found a new home for it on a nasturtium leaf. I do not know if it eats nasturtiums, but I figured it was a good place, and it would hopefully find the food it liked if it didn't eat nasturtiums!

Alas, alack, the patio has grown a good crop of weeds. They need to be dealt to. Most likely they will get a liberal sprinkling of salt.

Time marched on and the weeds and grass grew prolifically. I hadn't been up the back much since October and when I ventured up there on Tuesday of this week I found it more of a wilderness than ever. To the point that it was quite overwhelming!

Since there is a whole lot to do to get it under control I decided to try and commit an hour a day to the outdoor areas. Why an hour? I have seen 15 minutes suggested, or even 30 minutes. The problem with that is by the time I've got changed into older clothes, put my boots on and gone up the back I'd rather stay a reasonable time. Partly because to get up to the greenhouse area is 20 plus steps for a start. If I go right up the back it's another 30 plus steps.

Once I've got on top of the outdoor areas I might get away with 15 minutes of maintenance in an area but for now an hour gives a decent length of time to show some results.

On Tuesday I popped into the greenhouse and decided I'd just try and clear the right hand side bed. Which has never really been utilised much.

I started and this is when I've done a tiny bit . . . and then remembered to take some photos! It's a good record for me to keep as I can see what I've done, which encourages me.

This is what the rest of it looks like! Weeds, ferns, a bit of potting mix in a bag and lots of rubbish! The blue bin holds the chook pellets.

A different view to show how well the ferns grow . . . but unforutnately for them they're not where I want them to be. The black netting is used over the garden beds to keep the chooks off the gardens when I actually grow veges.

And here it is around an hour later! I potter, work sedately and steadily. This soil is pretty compacted though and needs a good dig over. It was raining while I was doing this and it was quite lovely to be pottering away in the greenhouse with the rain falling on the roof.

It had been raining the night before and the water tank outside the greenhouse was full to overflowing. So I decided to use some of the water and liberally watered this side of the garden. The tank filled up again fairly quickly.

The other side, which I hadn't had to do anything to. Looking from the left: under the basket is a bucket full of rain water. I covered it to keep bugs out and I'll most likely tip it on the garden soon. Next the chook bin and watering can. The sacks are old chook pellet ones and they're quite handy for putting stuff in. The one with the red top holds all the rubbish I found, the other one has all the weeds and vegetation I wanted to get rid of.

A view of the other end.

The other end on the other side.

Now to decide what to grow! Watch this space  😀

A few minutes in the garden

Today I spent a few minutes in the wilderness garden. It's a lovely sunny day here today. Spring, and the grass is growing wild!

I was hanging out some washing and noticed the lilies are back! I've been wanting to try and eradicate them for years. They just take over. I want to use something organic so went searching on google. I found this site which had a homemade weedkiller. Just what I wanted. I even had some white vinegar in the cupboard, only 4% but I figured it is better than nothing. So I put it in a bottle and grated some sunlight soap up then mixed it with water for the soap element. Then I found an old paintbrush and off I went.

These are what I am hoping to get rid of over time, the bright green lily leaves, which do produce flowers. It's not the usual Arum Lily though, I do know that much. These are near the washing line. I painted as many leaves as I could reach. 

 

These ones are further up the steps and have nearly taken over this garden. It is what they do very well. They have bulbs and just seem to multiply so quickly. It is really hard to get out all the bulblets and they grow pretty deep. We've had them take over a number of garden patches.

Another view of the same place. When its not the lilies it is the nasturtiums, or the grass. I have ideas but attempting to keep on top of it can pretty difficult! So I did as much of this bit as I could reach too, until I ran out of vinegar solution. We shall see what happens.

I have tried to find out in the past what this lily is, even taking a leaf down to a garden centre. Today I believe I may have found out. It finally occurred to me to hunt on google!

Source

I believe it is this plant, Arum maculatum. From memory this is what the spathes look like. It is also called Lords and Ladies plus various other names.

I'll try to take a photo a day and see what happens. Plus get some more white vinegar so I can paint them again repeatedly. This will be an ongoing thing I am sure!

I know gardeners say little and often keeps the garden under control. I'm sure it does. It's the getting-it-under-contol bit that I need to work on. Though I guess the same thing applies. So much to do.

Last year - March 2016 - we created this paved area around the washing line. Something I'd been wanting to do for quite a few years. Otherwise the grass grows so long in spring the towels are brushing up against the longest spikes. We grow grass and weeds very well!

 What we got done the first day.

The pile of bricks down by the woodpile

Me, showing my amazing strength carrying 3 bricks up at once 😜

From by the woodpile . . . up the path . . .

Up the rest of the path  . . . then the steps . . . and someone snapped a pic later when I carried only two! Me, in all my gardening glory!

More progress the next weekend

Just a bit to go

Boar creating a wall at the back to finish it off. 

The large square paving slabs are what were set in the grass to get to the washing line before. The upside-down table is right way up and back in it's place by the washing line. Boar made it, possibly over 20 years ago, so I could put the wash basket it on it and not have to bend up and down all the time. It was also used by small children to help peg up washing. And, of course, it made a place for the children to stand on and swing around on the rotary line 😵

As well as sorting the lilies out I need to tidy up the paved area, by which I mean pull out the grass, small weeds etc that have grown over winter. Refer back to the first photo if you want to see what I mean!

Must be time for a wander around the garden. It usually gives me inspiration as the weather warms up and the sun comes out.

Keeping up the pace

It's been a fairly quiet week, and only a week since I wrote a post! Life has carried on as usual with the general daily happenings. I haven't done as much sewing this last week, though the last couple of days I've been busier as finishing up one project and several coming up.

I have gone for a walk each day except Sunday. I kept to my plan for pushing myself a bit and have gone for a 2km walk each day. The walk I took on Saturday is one of the tougher ones, well for me anyway. There is a steep street nearby and this route takes me up it. I chose all the routes to give me a variety of walks, some flatter and some hills as well.

On the way up the street I saw this car tucked away - and it doesn't look as though it has gone anywhere for a while!

As I was walking towards the steep part of the street I heard footsteps behind me and soon enough two women came jogging past, holding walking poles. I watched with interest as they headed towards the steep bit then slowed down, the younger one to walking pace, and started using their poles as they went up the steep bit. Off they went up around the corner, and a third woman appeared too, but I'm not sure if she was with them or not. 

Meanwhile I kept walking steadily, and started up the steep section. I made it to the first lamp post and stopped for a breather. Good excuse to take a photo! Then I made my way to the next lamp post - and the two women came jogging down! Up and around the corner I plodded, my hamstrings letting me know they weren't too keen on this particular bit. I was having another breather when the slightly older lady came past again, soon followed by the younger one, and I asked her, "Do the poles make it easier?"  "Yes, 30% easier!" she replied. Hmmm, I thought to myself, I must do some research on this! They got to the brow of the hill and down they went again. I have no idea if they went up a 3rd time as I continued on my loop. 

Crikey! was my main thought while I was watching them. Still I completed my walk which was my aim so that's good. 

I've now sorted my walks into alternate flattish and steeper/more hilly so my muscles get a bit of a change each day. I also work around the weather, figuring that if it's raining earlier in the morning I can always take a break during the day and go for a walk when the weather fines up.

 Today is my "away" walk so I went to Titahi Bay. I edited the map by adding the words "Titahi Bay" and an arrow to show where the bay is.

Source

This photo shows the bay from above, quite a good angle to see it from.

Source

There was quite a lot of what I guess is run-off water after the rain creating these little rivulets running down to the surf. Most of them I could just step over but a couple I had to leap - not particularly gracefully most likely but I kept my feet dry!

Mana Island, which looks as though it is sitting in the middle of the bay, but isn't.

I thought I'd walk around the coast a wee bit. First I had to cross this bit which has turned into a wee stream with run-off. It was easy enough to get across as the rocks formed stepping stones.

I went around as far as I could, only about 5 minutes around, scrambling a little bit over some of the rocks. Then I didn't go any further as I wasn't going to get across this gap. The only other way was up the cliff!

When I got back to the road entrance I took another photo as since it was such a clear day the top islands of the South Island are smudges on the horizon.

I really enjoyed this walk today, the slight breeze and the sound of the surf. Then it was home and on with other tasks!

A walk in the rain

One thing to contend with when wanting to increase my fitness is the weather. Especially at this time of year! A lot of folk choose to join a gym, but I prefer the open air. Running isn't my thing but I do like to walk. I've more or less decided that Wednesdays will be my "go somewhere" walk, by which I mean somewhere other than the streets around home.

On Wednesday it was raining quite a bit so I decided to go for a walk at Otari-Wilton's Bush because with the tree cover you don't get quite as wet as walking out in the open in the rain. Though you do still get wet! 

For now I usually go for walks by myself. There are a few reasons. One is that I can go at my own pace - which is steady but not that quick. I can stop and take a breather whenever I need to. I sometimes find when I walk with others, who are generally fitter and not anaemic, I'm conscious of holding them up. Or they go on ahead, stop to wait for me to catch up, then when I get there take off again - so I don't get much of a breather! The end result being I don't enjoy the walk as much. another reason is that I get some "thinking space" and time to reflect. Lastly, in general the time when I go for a walk everyone else is heading out to work. I find if I don't get a walk in early in the day it's less likely to happen.

Part of the map of Otari-Wilton's Bush

I walked in from the "You are here" along the purple path which is fairly flat.

This an outlet from a pipe that goes under the road at the beginning of the walk, lots of fast flowing water there!

A mini-rapid - well not really but the stream is full and flowing quickly.

I took a wee detour to see the waterfall which I thought would be further away, but it was not that far

from the main path. Over a bridge and up a short path.

I was really glad I'd worn my boots as there was quite a lot of water on the path and I didn't need to try and avoid it.

Once I got to the picnic area  I decided to do a small circuit of the yellow trail. I've done it before and it doesn't take long.

 

I haven't been here before when it's been raining, there is a lot of water flowing under the bridge  I needed to cross to get to the track.

And then there were steps! I made it to the top of these without stopping - and then had a wee breather. There were a few more sets of varying lengths. This is where walking by myself means I can stop however many times I need to - which I did after each set of steps!

Decision! Up . . . or down? It wasn't a tough one as I needed to go down a) because that was the route I was taking and b) there wasn't enough time to do the longer walk as Locket would need picking up from her course soon. I think the longer yellow trail was about an hour - but would probably take me up to an hour and a half!

River stream crossing! There are all these little side steams feeding into the main stream which of course fills it up more.

This is another view of the same outlet pipe at the beginning of the walk showing how the water is pouring out.

Once I got back to the carpark I decided to walk up the road a bit. I've always been intrigued by this waterfall on Churchill Drive, right beside the road! It comes from quite high up I think. It usually has a trickle but when it rains it pounds down and I've always wanted to get a photo but it's not a safe place to stop.

A little way up the road there is another waterfall which usually is dry - except when it is raining.

 Photos all done I headed back to the car. It wasn't far for which I was very thankful as I found out a few of my toes had rubbed on my boots and given me blisters on the tops of the toes! Note to self - get some gel toe protector caps or sleeves.  It's possible I need new boots but not at the moment.

I really enjoyed this walk. The rain brought out the earthy smell, which I find very grounding - no pun intended! It's peaceful and quiet, apart from nature sounds, and as I didn't see anyone else on my walk it was as though I had the whole area to myself.

I feel ready to push myself a bit more than I have been doing. 10 minute walks are great but to build stronger muscles and also stamina I need to walk farther. I want to build up to longer more challenging walks over time and this is the way to do it. I also took a small day pack to carry my water bottle etc which added around 5kg of weight. For some it would be hardly a walk at all, but I was happy with what I'd achieved. I found the small trail a little easier than last time I did it. Footstep by footstep I'll get stronger 😃

Living Life . . . though it seems to fly past!

It's August again already! Which is when I wrote the bulk of my last post. So what are the changes?

Boar continues to go to work everyday and keep in good health, and though it's about 4 1/2 years away he is looking forward to retirement. That will mean a bit of a change for the pair of us!

Sunshine and Halfpint have both turned 5 and started school.

In May we were blessed with a new grand-daughter, a third daughter for A-M Prof and Moneypenny. I'll call her Blossom, she is now 3 months old and a wee sweetheart  😃 

Frosty and Chip are living here at the moment, and will be for a few months more at least.

Pa had 3 admissions to hospital in a 4 week period back in late January-late February and has now moved into Johnsonvale Rest Home where Ma was. The good thing is that all the staff know him already from when he used to visit Ma. He has settled in well and I usually go and visit him once a week and have afternoon tea with him. I also take him down to the shops and other places he might want to go.

Brains is up in Auckland at Unitech studying and doing Contemporary dance. Locket is in the second year of her Arts degree majoring in photography.

Braveheart continues to work for Kato, when there is work for him to do. He has Halfpint and Battler most weekends.

Smurfette continues to work at the same place. There was a bit of a re-structure meaning she, and others, had to re-apply for their jobs and thankfully she was offered a position. So she is happy about that.

As for me - I just carry on as usual doing what needs to be done. I've been doing a bit more sewing work this year, fitting it around all the other things there are to do. Which are the necessary but not that wildly interesting things!

One thing I have been trying to do is work on my fitness. Back in 2013 I was searching for information on how to work out walking speed, and how far I would walk in an hour. Because everyone's walking speed is different. I used to walk quite quickly, however these days my pace is slower. During my search I found this Walking For Fitness pdf on a site called Metrication Matters. It had a walking plan as well which I found helpful since I was pretty unfit. This walking plan seemed achievable in that to begin with you just walk for 10 minutes a day.

For quite some years on and off I've had a struggle to maintain my iron levels - meaning my haemaglobin drops. Which in turns affects fitness. Walking along flat places is o.k., but as soon as I start to go up a slope, or steps, I get breathless pretty quickly and then my heart starts thumping. 10 minutes a day was a walk around the block, or as I found out last year Alex Moore Park close by has a paved track all the way round and takes me about 12 minutes at a steady pace. It's mostly flat too.

So on and off for the last couple of years I've tried to walk 10 minutes a day . . . a lot of the time I haven't though. Last year I found NZ Mapometer site and I was able to create a whole lot of different walks and know how long they are. This gives me a bit more variety. Plus I'd begun to feel the need to push myself a bit more. I made up different routes, some with only gentle rises, some with hills. The first lot are just over 2km each, 6 of them so I can walk Monday to Saturday and have a rest day on a Sunday.

This is a photo I took one of the mornings I was walking round Alex Moore Park. I loved the way the clouds are lit up by the sun.

Filling in some gaps . . .

Monday 29 August

I sometimes wonder why I called my blog what I did! For the last year life has been anything but quiet!

Dear readers, believe it or not but it is over a year since my PE . . . August 13, 2015. Since then there have been a few other major family events. I'm going to mention them briefly and leave it at that.

• Chuckles and Braveheart have separated.

• Jamila and Levi have separated

• Jester and Frosty are in the middle of separating/trying to sort things out

The other major thing that happened is that my lovely Mum passed away after 6 1/2 years living in a rest home. Throughout this whole time Mum hardly ever complained, suffered with dignity, keeping her sense of humour as long as she could. The main reason Mum had to go into care was Parkinson's which meant that as her health and mobility deteriorated Dad was unable to continue caring for her at home. A fractured hip and a couple of strokes didn't help either! Dad visited Mum faithfully nearly every day of those long six and a half years. I rarely saw Mum upset. Only once did I see her really upset and this was after Dad had his 2nd stroke. I'd asked Sheri to let Mum know Dad was in hospital after the stroke. Later in the day I visited Mum and she was sitting in a chair looking so sad. I asked her what was wrong and she couldn't answer, but a tear rolled down her cheek. I took a guess, not hard, and asked her if it was Dad. She nodded yes. "He's ok, Mum, he's ok. He had another stroke but he's ok. They need to do an operation . . . but he's doing ok."

"I thought he'd died and no-one had told me," she said quietly, a few more tears rolling down her cheeks. That is love, strong love, pure and simple, though they never said much about their feelings for each other.

I stayed with her a while till she was happier and before I left I had a word with the staff. They said in the morning when Mum had woken up she had said the same, and they had assured her it wasn't so, as I'd thought, but since Mum's memory was no longer great she hadn't been able to hold on to the information.

By the end Mum wasn't able to talk much even. It was hard to know if she still recognised most of us, but I'm sure she still knew who Dad was till the end.

Since Mum had been so unwell for so long, slowly deteriorating, it was for her a blessed relief to finally pass away. She had never wanted to be "a vegetable" as she termed it, however all her cares needed to be done for her for a long time. For us . . .it was sad, but for me personally it was a relief that she was no longer suffering.

The tough part was that Mum passed away on Locket's 16th birthday  :(  but Locket was very unselfish about the whole thing. Sad that her Nan had passed away, not that it was on her birthday. We did our best to have a wee time of focusing on her at dinner time but it was unfortunately overshadowed a bit by Mum's passing.

We had a lovely funeral service with lots of family and friends attending. Rest in Peace, Mum, gone to be with your Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Since then there have been a few ups and downs, a lot of things to help sort out such as probate. This has needed trips to the lawyer, banks and paperwork to be done.

It is mostly sorted now. Pa has been doing ok, sad understandably as Ma's passing has left a huge hole in his life.

I think I'll leave it there for now.

Wednesday 28 December

Well . . . that was written some months ago! And that is the kind of year it has been. One thing after another, the days just fly by and there seems to be hardly any time for anything. Not enough time for blogging anyway!

So now Christmas has been once again. We had a lovely day, first time in quite a few years that all six of our blessings were all there on Christmas Day. There were fifteen of us altogether, with the five grandblesssings there. We managed to get some long overdue family photos 😀

The last few days I've just been relaxing. Christmas Day is always busy, a meal here for all of us, then for me a trip over the hill to Featherston to take Braveheart, Halfpint and Battler home along with Peppa, the dog. Peppa came over with Braveheart as she cut her paw on something just a few days before Christmas and needed stitches. She is a lovely dog although by the end of the day I think she was glad to get back to her own place with less people!

Locket came for the ride with me and once we had done the drop off to Featherston we headed back to Wellington and over to Miramar to Charles and Lynne's home for the usual Xmas day get together there. We got there about 7:30pm and had a good time catching up with those who were there. By 9:30pm I was beginning to blink and yawn, tiredness catching up with me after a 5:45am start to the day. I got up when I woke up as then I got a wee bit of P&Q before the busyness of the day 😉

At the moment I'm using Brains' tablet as my laptop had to go for a visit to a friend. It couldn't find itself  it's operating system 😕 That sort of thing is way beyond me so I am waiting to see if it can be fixed, and, if I'm really fortunate, the photos I hadn't backed up in the last little while somehow saved! They are mainly sewing ones for my other blog, so there may be some posts I won't be able to do on there. C'est la vie!

O.K. it is more than time I posted this. There aren't many days left of 2016! Three to be exact. I will try to post again before then. No promises though!

Rollcall update

I've decided it is time to update the roll call again. Time has marched on and everyone is older. A lot of it you will know if you've read it before. So here goes.

Boar is the head of the household, my caring DH. Then there is me . . I'm Mama Bear . . . my lovelies call me that so I thought it would do.  :)

Our oldest son is Absent-Minded Professor, A-M Prof for short. His lovely wife is Moneypenny and they have two gorgeous girls, Sunshine, who is now 4 years old, and Poppet, who is 2 years old.

Our oldest daughter chose the name Smurfette for herself.

Our second son is Braveheart. His ex-partner is, Chuckles, and she is the mother of their two awesome boys, Halfpint, who is 4 years old and Battler, who is 2 years old.

Next is our second daughter, Frosty, whose partner is Jester. They have an awesome son, Chip, who is 3 years old now.

Following on is our third son, Brains, yup, after the dude on Thunderbirds.

Last in the line-up is our third daughter, Locket, it's what I've called her for years.

There's also Pa, who may sometimes be called Mr P, depending what I remember to put. Ma, or Mrs P, will be mentioned as well, though sadly she has now passed on. They are my parents. Boar's parents passed on quite a while ago now, before either of our two youngest were born.

There is a whole extended family, but they are in another post or this one would be way too long!