Kia Ora,

It's been a quiet month really - work, walkies, eat and sleep. We celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary with a meal at a new restaurant in Te Awamutu called Churchills. Does it seem like 20 years to all of you who came to our wedding?? No - it doesn't seem that long to us either!

We've both had bad colds / chest infections. Peter was away in Wellington on a course and didn't feel up to going out for a meal in the evenings so he survived on cereals each night. Ann has just finished her third lot of antibiotics – let’s hope these work.

Whilst Peter was away Maxie managed to escape (but not for long) out of the garage as Ann was leaving for school.  Sneaky girl! She also managed to pull Ann off her feet again as they walked around the village. Then, to further embarrass her, a little old lady walking her two large dogs commented that 'it's hard to do two dogs when you're not used to it'!

When Peter got back from Wellington Maxie ignored him until the following day – how dare he desert her!

We've finally emptied the trailer of the compost we bought last month - we've refilled all the tubs on the deck and used some to mulch a vege bed. Now we can go get a load of bark to cover the weed mat around corokia hedge and the grass bed in front of the berberis hedge.

The dogs like to stay close when we're gardening but Jaz needs to be comfortable too so she always needs her blankie. If we don't put something out for her she'll just use our fleeces and sweatshirts if we put them on the ground.
	Maxie's much less fussy and will lie down anywhere.

Peter dug in the winter green crop of mustard in four of the vege beds. We've replanted the last three strawberry beds as well as digging up more trees from the growing on beds. The spuds and onions are planted and Ann has sown seeds for carrots, radishes, spring onions and peas.

The grass has started growing again after its winter break so now it's back to mowing every week.

As we walked around the village in the last few days all the cherry trees are in full flower. In our orchard we've had flowers on the cherry and nectarine. The apple, pear, pomegranate, grape and kiwifruit all come later.

The clocks have changed to summertime - we had almost 20 to alter around the house.

The Wai-Taiko Drummers had a performance at one of the theatres in Hamilton and they asked the club if they could borrow the Tori Gate which we use at our exhibitions. Peter took the gate over, helped them put it up, watched the performance then brought the gate home one Sunday afternoon whilst Ann got on with some paperwork.