Kia Ora

Ann’s school rebuild has started. The staff and students are already over it – but there’s still another 10 months to go!  Still it’ll be great once it’s finished.

Peter starts a new job with Ricoh at the beginning of September and he’s already met most of the staff – he was invited to join them all for a curry in Auckland on the 22nd.

Halfway through the month we started seeing signs of spring with daffodils and some early flowering cherries in bloom.

Maxie’s been chewing her little toe again and is on her second course of antibiotics. In order to get her to take the rather large capsules we’ve had to hide them in pieces of frankfurter. Needless to say Jaz has had to have some as well. To try and stop her from chewing on her toe we made her wear a sock for a few days - she was not impressed!
	Both the dogs like to snuggle up to Ann and her hot water bottle. Unfortunately there isn't always room on the sofa for all of them.
Peter has trimmed the pittosporum hedge and Maxie likes it as she can see what's going on next door much better now.

Our bird bath has proved very popular this month. The birds have been fighting with each other to get into it for a bath. Mind you once in the bath they are so energetic that by the time they’ve finished their ablutions the bath is half empty!

Even though it’s still winter we’ve already had our first bird stuck in the wood burner. Peter was working late so Ann was home alone (she doesn’t count the girls as they were useless in helping her that evening). It was cold so she decided to light the fire. Once alight she shut the fire door and went over to the kitchen to get a drink. Suddenly she heard a tap tap tapping on the glass door. There was a bird inside the burner trying desperately to avoid being burned alive. Ann managed to get the fire door open and the bird flew out with a few smoke trails following it. She then spent the next 15 minutes trying to catch the bird before it managed to fly out of an open window.

We celebrated our twenty third wedding anniversary on the last day of August. Smidge is the latest lop-eared rabbit to join the clan. Jaz wasn't very impressed and Maxie just wanted to bite his arms off!
We celebrated our anniversary with a meal at Good George which brews its' own beer. Peter enjoyed both the beer and his steak (nice little steak knife). Unfortunately Ann's mushroom risotto was awful and got sent back.
	23 years and still on a short leash!

We went to the Red Cross charity second hand book fair and came home with 38 books - 11 for Peter and 27 for Ann - our best haul yet.