Ann & Peter

in New Zealand

Kia Ora

Autumn is well and truly here – the days are still warm but as soon as the sun goes down behind Mt Pirongia the cold sets in and we’ve started lighting the fire in the evening. The trees have also started losing their leaves.

As it's getting near winter we can start repotting our bonsai and digging up trees from the garden. We took a drive over to Dalton's at Matamata to collect some compost in the ute and trailer. Normally a 40 litre bag of compost costs us about $5, buying it in bulk we purchased 2/3rds of a cubic metre for $50. We had to stop just outside Daltons for Peter to spend 15 minutes transferring compost from the trailer into the back of the ute to lighten the load in the trailer. Back home we've filled 10 dustbins and 25 bags with compost. This did not fully empty the trailer so we've used the rest as top dressing on three of the vege beds and the two half wine barrels we use as planters.

Back in January Ann made some plum chutney and this month she started using it on her cheese sandwiches - it’s delicious!

Ann finally had her sinus surgery mid May. Some of the anaesthetic gas escaped and went down her throat and paralysed it temporarily so when she woke up she couldn’t swallow or talk. She sounded like Donald Duck on a very bad day! Two nurses on the ward thought she was deaf and had a speech impairment – for goodness sake!!!  They had to give her pen and paper to communicate with for the first couple of hours, until the anaesthetic wore off. She was supposed to stay in hospital overnight but managed to persuade the doctor that she was ‘good to go’ at 6pm.

The pots everyone made at the bonsai club meeting last month turned out very well.

One of our friends from bonsai in Tauranga was on the TV a couple of weeks ago. Shirley Faull is an 85 year old rally driver and a prime time TV show did an interview with her. During the interview Shirley mentioned her dream to drive a Lamborghini. Lo and behold - 10 days later there was a follow up piece showing Shirley being given a Lamborghini to drive round the race track at Hampton Downs just a few miles north of Hamilton.

Both the takeaway place, Indian Aroma, in Hamilton and our village bakery know us so well that these days we don’t even have to say anything when we walk in. In fact the last takeaway that Peter ordered was written down incorrectly when Peter phoned it through, but as soon as the chef saw the order and Peter’s name he knew it was wrong and just changed it to what we normally have – awesome service! There is a glass window into the kitchen of the restaurant and Peter always gets a wave from two of the chefs when he goes to collect the curries.

Ann is back at school (and wishing she was still on holiday). Four weeks down with six to go until her next holiday.

The summer sun takes its toll on some of our maple bonsai so Peter is creating a new shaded area to cover some of the staging we use for the trees. The uprights are in place with some of the cross members. He still has to finish the top, put down the weed mat, build the staging and lay down a bark mulch before putting the shade mesh up.
	One of our neighbours, Kerry, has a very hungry cow. Whilst mowing the grass behind the shade house Peter noticed a hole in the green mesh fencing we have there. The cow had pushed its way through the berberis hedge, chewed through the green shade netting, flattened the wire mesh fencing we put up to stop the dogs trying to get through the fence and eaten a cordyline and a number of grasses!
The girls are both fine - no more vets trips so far! As the weather turns cold and wet there are some evenings when we can't go for our usual walk so to entertain the dogs (and stop them from going stir crazy at having to stay in the house) we feed them popcorn. As soon as the packet goes into the microwave they both become manic drooling idiots!
	We also put their coats on them when the weather is very cold. Cute eh!