fire!

fire!

last week we had a scrub fire on the remarkables. my first view of it was a large cloud of smoke rising from behind deer park heights - the hill opposite our balcony and directly between our unit and the dropzone... but I figured drop zone fires would be thick black smoke so fran was probably ok! I was on my way to the airport to drop some friends off for their hols and had a good view of the fire, including when the helicopters started taking off to do water drops. that evening we went to our first small group (or PCG - pastoral care group) meeting, which was up in fernhill and gave us great views of the fire at night. it had been a small controlled burn off when the winds picked up and whisked it up the mountainside. the view was amazing at night with the lights of queenstown nestled down by the lake and the fiery mountainside towering up above it. here's my pretty naff version...

we've been along to church again - fran was able to come due to poor weather, and are hopefully having blair and christine round for tea this week. it was blair and christine's I went to for the BBQ and blair who ran the explosive boy's night out last week which fran went along to and enjoyed. they've been extremely friendly and welcoming and we've felt very blessed by them.

lulu - latest edition to our fleet of aged motor vehicles!

other big news is that we were in court this morning! nothing too major - it was a hearing to settle our dispute over compensation for the 8 weeks we couldn't use our bedroom. we've been awarded about a quarter of our rent back which is great. the tenancy service here is amazing - everything is free, funded by the interest from bonds which are held by the same agency, and all landlords have to use the tenancy agreements provided by the national body so you can't get screwed over by someone dodgy. we were a little miffed with our landlord's sidestepping & creative presentation of facts, but at least it's sorted and out of the way now.