competition time!

competition time!

question: what's worse than flooding your washing machine in your new place?...

a little monkey monkey

a little monkey monkey

well after last week's snow things have got quite warm & sunny here again. life is pootling along. the dropzone has had record numbers for april this year which means fran's being doing lots of camera work, but working almost summer length days - swings & roundabouts. on tuesday night I broke the car - by managing to pull the key out of the ignition in the on (but not running) position. we tried, to no avail, to get the key barrel to turn again, so out came the locksmith the following morning who took all of 30 seconds or so to get the key in, turn in back to off and the whole thing was working again after a jump start. I've made/fixed up curtains for our bare windows here, and it's looking pretty homely. last week I forgot about bin day. the first one was the day after we moved in, so we missed that and I had a couple of big bags of rubbish sitting outside our door... thursday morning comes and I hear the sound of the bin lorry so I dashed outside, as fast as you can in slippers, grabbed the bags and then had to run about 100m down the road in my slippers with a huge bag of rubbish in each hand before I got close enough for them to notice me! kept me amused for a while that one, and made me remember the bins this week!

snow!

snow!

yep, it's been snowing down to lake level today, though not sticking. fran and I have enjoyed a nice day together and now the log burner's roaring and warming up our place. colours are changing with the seasons and the gorgeous purpley-blues of the mountains with contrasting golden-rusty tussock grasses are gracing our presence - I much prefer them to the summer colours.

I've been developing my DIY skills this week, firstly by taking apart one of our bed bases for under our giant mattress to salvage (without damaging) the gorgeous covering material (see below) and remove the springs before re-upholstering the base so our bed is now level! I also extended my art desk (below below) and have been putting up hooks etc round the house. now I can drill, screw, nail, saw and jigsaw, not to mention prizing out about a zillion staples from the aforementioned bed base!

they had the art of mattress covering sorted in the 70's

spacious & well light, and next to the log burner!

I'm loving the location of our place. to get in to town is a 30 minute walk through native bush, down (or up) next to a steep gorge/creek bed and then along the lake shore. I get to pick blackberries, have bolshy fantail birds display at me and take in the beauty of the forest & water. here's a photo of where we are in relation to the lake - queenstown and our old place would be to the left in this photo.

He knows what He's doing

He knows what He's doing

a week ago we moved into our house, and it's grrrreat! here are some photos...

it's on the back half of a section, so we have a long drive down the side of the front house. it's an L-shape, with our 2 bedrooms backing onto the drive and the living space sticking into the middle of the garden, which is really nicely paved with climbing plants around the house. the living space is really airy with a log burner and lots of floor to ceiling windows and 3 sets of double doors which open onto the front porch and back veranda, where the monster gas BBQ is!

the only downside is that we're now the opposite side of town to the dropzone so fran has a 20-25 min drive to work instead of 10-15, but it does mean 5 mins walk from our house are trails into gorgeous native beach forest in the hills you can see behind the house (top photo). we're also surrounded by birds, including the bellbird which has a beautiful tropical sounding song which is a very new zealand sound to me. oh yes, and we have masses of sun! you can sit on our veranda sofa and soak up the rays even in winter :) I have to say God really knew what He was doing with this one, so thanks for your prayers. and the icing on the cake, this afternoon we went to the salvation army shop and got a super-kingsize bed & base with delivery for the bargain price of $200... finally fran and I get to sleep on the same bed, and in peace! the mattress had been in the shop for about 2 1/2 hours and someone came in 15 mins after us wanting it - nice timing God!

whilst it was all change I decided to lop off my locks and get rid of all my damaged hair... I'm not as mardy as I look in this picture, I like it - honest! actually, my mum had this hair cut at the same age and we look really similar! and for those of you who've known me long enough you'll notice my natural hair colour's now lighter and at the age of 27 my eyebrows finally match my hair!

and just to finish off, a few pics from an evening trip fran and I did out to moke lake to cook dinner camp-stove stylee, have a walk and soak up the atmosphere.

the scenery is quintessential new zealand to me!