Ann & Peter

in New Zealand

Kia Ora

When will a meat flavoured worm pill be invented? After three years of battle to disguise and feed these pills to Jaz and Maxie, Ann had had enough. So in March she watched closely as the vet gave the girls their worm pills. Easy peasy she thought. Last Saturday was her first chance to carry out the vet's instructions. To be on the safe side we decided to give the pills at the vets - just incase.

Well - Peter and the vet nurse had a wonderful bit of free entertainment watching Ann try to get the pill down Jaz's throat and then Jaz hoiking it straight back up - the third attempt found Jaz spitting it straight into Ann's handbag! Success on the fourth go - yay! Then it was Maxie's turn - except she'd been watching very carefully and as soon as Ann tried to open her mouth she clamped her jaws shut. After three tries the vet nurse took over and got it down in one.

Ann has every confidence that she will do better next time (fingers, toes and everything else crossed).

We've discovered the dogs both like apple - a lot. Ann brought a couple of large bags home from school where the older students had been apple picking and selling to raise money for the Special Olympics. As soon as she started to chop her first apple up she had close supervision and inspection. Her mistake was in offering a piece of apple to each of the girls. Big mistake! Now she can't even look at an apple without having help.

Peter and Jeff are still enjoying beer club. Sometimes one or two of the beers are disappointing but this month there were six exceptional beers. In fact Peter was quite tipsy by the time we walked the dogs - as proved by him tripping over a leaf whilst telling Ann to be careful on the path.

Jaz is still keeping us awake at night - not every night mind you. But when she is disturbed then it can be up to four times that she gets us up because she's barking so much. And yes - Peter is putting her to bed on the right side now.

We celebrated the Queens' birthday weekend with one day of gardening and then it poured down so we had to two days of working on our bonsai in the garage.

A couple of weeks ago the police were out in force breath testing everyone on their way home from work. Happily both of us passed with flying colours.

Ann has sold some of her trees from the growing on beds (for bonsai). She's made the grand total of $30 so far. Still as the trees sold were from cuttings (so free) or one year seedlings (costing $1.50 each) she did make a profit of about $25.

Ann has found a new route to school - to avoid some roadworks which are making her car very dirty. The new route goes past Vilagrad winery - and so far she's resisted the temptation to go in.

Ann was feeling a bit down this month. The All Blacks walked all over the Welsh rugby team in two test matches, the second one here in Hamilton.

We've seen several hedgehogs (or one very active one) whilst on our walks round the village just after dusk. They have been calmly strolling down the path as we walk past with the dogs. Fortunately Jaz is more interested in the rubbish bags awaiting collection and Maxie just ignores them after a quick sniff.

Question - do our memories deceive us as we get older? Jean, a Pom friend, has just returned from a holiday in the UK and brought Ann some sherbet fountains back. But they didn't taste the same as she remembered them. Mind you the plastic container certainly didn't have the same effect as sucking on soggy cardboard!

News from Home

Dave & Ann have been keeping an eye on some duck eggs in a nest in their garden. One morning they woke to find they had become proud 'parents' of 9 ducklings.

Mike's just returned from a two week holiday at the Lake district with Carol and David. Shan also joined them for a week and they did lots of walking, drinking, eating, drinking, with a little extra drinking thrown in.