I am sitting in bed, the sun is pouring itself over me through our window. It's a slightly hazey dazey, we are not sure this is just the air or if there is some ash in it from Tongariro which decided to belch after over 100 years of dormancy, or maybe our window is dirty? Ou home is situated such that the sun moves across the sky on the family room/kitchen/dining room side. So from now until the summer solstace we have it rising and shining on the front of the house until about 9.00 am when it rises too high to come in the windows. After the solstace it will start moving back along the house and start rising behind the neighbours house which needs the top storey to be removed as it seems to take forever for the sun to get above it and into our windows. Mid winter it finally makes it past that house and rises shining on the back of the house and family room. At this time because of the trees and bush behind us our garden area is always in shade. Then it's back past the neighbours monolith again until spring once again pours it early into our front windows.
We have had a wicked winter. Isn't it funny how now all the negative words are extremely positive. We have managed to buy a bedroom suite, lounge suite and just this week a new fridge (our old secondhand one is losing the plot) all off TradeMe (Kiwi alternative to EBay). So our home is looking nice and less like we live here but can't afford to. Our old car is running great but we are casting about for a replacement, trusting on the universe to bring it to us. We continue to have couchsurfers (www.couchsurfing.org) stay with us during the week and mostly really enjoy their company. Our last surfer was Sebastian from Sweden who is biking NZ! We have had a visit from Mel (daughter of Fran & John who we stayed with on and off in England) and partner Martin who are traveling NZ at the moment.
Spring is planting time and we have got the vege garden in full swing. The hanging baskets on the deck have been refreshed and we now have planters full of flowers under the windows too. We have a small planter with herbs by the kitchen window and tomatoes growing in big pots, at the moment they are suffering some black spot thing I can't get rid of. I have a planter full of peas that are just becoming ready to feast on and we now have 4 dwarf fruit trees in large containers Kent made all on the deck too. Sounds full but it's a big deck.
The grandchildren are wonderful and well, both growing like weeds and changing by the day. Molly and Mugget are great, Muppet is really good with people now, with so many coming and going he is learning to trust and be more friendly. We have a new flatmate/boarder, Louey, from South Africa who is waiting for his family to come out next month. My bike is still off the road, will never take it to this repairer again, slow as a wet week... anyhow they say next week, here's hoping. Kents bike needs a few adjustments too but December should see us up up and away.
I am meditating each morning, only a short one. Found a free course online run by Deepak Chopra, a 21 day challenge and I am just into the 3rd week. It only takes 15 minutes each morning and half of that is meditation. I find it so hard to stop my mind from going off and sorting out things, sometimes I don't even realise it has happened. But the moments of absolute peace and grounding do happen and I am getting to that spot easier even if I can't yet stay there long. I can also get myself there during the day when I want to which is great for stressful moments.
Kent and I went a couple of nights to a quizz night at a local bar with friends, first week we did really terribly but the second week we were great, sadly that was the last night. It's going to get going again next year tho so look forward to that.
Saturday today and we have to get out in the garden, not the vege garden that's just a small part of it, no into the gardens around our lawns. We have quite a big section to the side of the house which is surrounded by landscaped native plantings, we love it but it takes a lot of work to keep the weeds down. Today is work day for that as we have let it go over the winter. Enough talk - more action...
