15 january 2014: Klepto cat

Time flies when you're having fun. It's summertime, so lot's of BBQ's, birthday parties and dinners with friends and their family. Jane's party on Sunday was a memorable one in Italian style (with Spanish music?).
In between we're outside, trying to tick the boxes on the endless 'things to do list'. Somehow the lid of our mailbox got separated. Vandals? The wind? Postie (she had managed to drive her van into our mailbox once before). Or was it just a design fault (what? Me?). Anyway, got the generator out, the sand machine, a tube of 'liquid nails', some steel nails and a bucket of paint. In the fierce sun the paint dried in not time, hence this beautiful design in green again. Some of my friends mock be by saying that this is where I am lecturing the cows in the paddock on the opposite side of the street. I'm not of course, they way too stupid!

Also on the list was finishing my oamaru sculpture from last year before the new carving weekend would start. Since that weekend is approaching very quickly now I finally got myself to doing it. It was pretty good already but I had convinced myself it needed another hole although I knew it was going to be very tricky.

Thanks to the nice weather, a cold beer and Santana very loud over the speakers I succeeded and I'm pretty content with the result.
I was running out of luck today when extending the automatic water spray system for our fruit trees. I was wearing my cloaks as that makes digging quite a bit easier. Unfortunately it makes it less accurate as well. So I did not feel a bit of resistance when I dug one of the last trenches. Suddenly I was taking an involuntary shower (which wasn't too bad in the sun). I had cut right through a deeper water pipe. So a small trench and a small job became a big hole and quite some work. In the end everything worked, but there a still quite some boxes to tick.
On top of all the concerts, dinners and parties we're planning some extra activities. Since Annemiek (Nienkes fraternity friend) comes over in March we're planning some things we haven't done before. A 2 day walk in Waitomo and kayaking in Kawhia harbour. For Nienkes birthday we of to Stewart Island to do the famous Rakiura track, one of the great walks (which brings us to 3). We're really looking forward to both of them. Often there is hardly any interesting news in New Zealand. That's when they fill the papers with odd stories like these.

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We finish this week with the beautiful 'While my guitar gently weeps', performed by guitar master Santana with Yo-Yo-Ma on the cello and India Arie on vocals, what a combination.