In my last week at the Council this was the view early in the morning when leaving for work. Moon and sun mixing above the island - so pretty. 2 July was my last working day after 10 years at the Council. I've worked hard and achieved a lot and the moment for goodbye to chase our travelling dreams seems right. I received a glowing letter of recommendation to support me finding work in the future or come back to Council and some very nice farewell speeches. It's a weird thing waking up on Monday and realising I don't have to go back to work. I'm not quite certain yet how I feel about it. All of a sudden I can write the blog on a Monday afternoon - I guess I feel like 'no one needs me anymore' as I was so used to walking into the office and people wanting to talk to me or wanting me to do 'stuff or help them. Probably in a month's time I won't know any better. Anyway, I started this blog in English to get our readers prepared for blogs in English while we travel South America so that our Kiwi friends can also understand our stories! You can always use google translate to translate it back to Dutch but hopefully everyone in Holland is fine with the English.
We had a few cold days with some early morning frosts and even some ice in the bird bath! Lovely sunny days with cold mornings but in the last few days it's turned to custard as it has been nothing but heavy rain, flooding and very strong winds. Hans had to fly out to Christchurch yesterday and will have had a bumpy ride in the air while the wind was shaking my car driving home and I had to pass through a flooded road to get home. I am now driving the old 4x4 as we have sold my car to friends in preparation of our trip. No use having multiple cars rust away while we are gone. So yet another change, made lots of good memories with that car and it's nice friends are driving 'Gemma' now.
Our travel adventure is getting more 'real' now with the countdown begun towards the 2nd of September when we fly of to Santiago. The air benb for the first three weeks has been booked but we'll leave it at that. We made some visits to the bank and the AA for advice and licence renewals and have a to do list of chores to be done at home, calls to be made, money and insurance stuff to organise. Exciting!
Last weekend we went to the Kiwi Legends concert in the local theatre which was a fundraising concert for a new arts centre here at the Coast, which will be a great venue and hopefully bring more good shows to Kapiti.
We had food at the local Thai before going to the concert and Hans got this steamed fish packaged in a foil bird - reminded us of the folded towels on our beds in Bali, usually birds or elephants.
As we sort of feared with the term 'legends'......most of the artists were a bit out of date for our taste and the venue was mostly filled with 70+ who could sing along to all the Sinatra and other crooning songs. It was a very long night and we managed not to be rude and get up and leave halfway through..
The best act of the night was Paul Urbana Jones who we saw first at WOMAD probably about 7 years ago and then locally a few times as well. He is a great guitarist who just blends with his instrument and sings with his eyes closed. We are fans for sure and I'm lucky enough to go see him again with friends on 19 July here in Kapiti.
This was the hard work done in the last 10 days - preparing for the placement of a second 30,000 litre water tank next to the existing one. With long dry summers we can be short of water and fire risk increases as well so a second tank makes sense. We had to take out some shrubs and trees and scoop lots and lots of wheelbarrows of sand.
Big job, good exercise but glad it's done. Now it's up to the 'water tank guy' to balance a tank on his tractor, drive through our paddocks lifting the tank over all the farm gates underway and dropping it more or less at the end of the 'path' we created. For us to roll it in place with the help of a few friends... I think it's not going to be that easy but according to water tank guy 'she'll be all right' - Kiwi style.
This pic I took from the deck this morning, just before another big rainstorm with thunder hit. It was dry for about an hour and it's pouring now again with strong winds. Flooding throughout the district - roads flooding and bit's of hill will have come down. I've just put the fire on a now it's freezing inside my hands are very cold. Will take a few boxes of firewood to get is cosy and I'll close the curtains to keep the cold out. Welcome to NZ winter without central heating :-)
Flooding pictures from Facebook - it is getting serious!
Te Horo Beach Road - with hard winds and a tidal stream right next to the road we need to start swimming.
I am not leaving the house today that's for sure!
I have been practising Spanish every day now for the last two months and it's going well - so I'll say hasta luego par ahora xx Nienke
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