Kia Ora

For Peter's birthday Ann bought him some books and the girls gave him a beer voucher. Went out to a new restaurant on the Friday night, Ann was happy as they put us on the table nearest the fire.

The Acacia tree we planted 6 years ago has been dying for a while so Peter cut back all the dead branches - we have left the few live ones as Ann wants to collect some seed. We bought two flowering trees – a flowering cherry ‘Shirotae’ and a Paulownia or princess tree (also ornamental flowering). The girls helped Peter plant the new trees - well Maxie did but Jaz fell in the hole. Typical Spotty Dog!
The Paulownia has been planted next to the dying acacia and the cherry has been planted in a space near the dog garden. In a few years it’ll provide some lovely shade for the girls in our hot, humid summers.

Ann thoroughly enjoyed her Term 2 holidays – doing very little – pottering around the house and garden, pampering the pooches and reading.

Peter spent 3 days in Auckland on a boring course run by HP. He easily passed the exam afterwards.

We've had a few cold nights and one morning we woke to the most snow we have ever seen on the mountain - it was all gone by lunchtime though.

For the last weekend in July we had Dianne and Noel staying with us for a few nights. They were booked to run the weekend workshop for the bonsai club. We had a great time and managed to work on a couple of trees each.
	Ann's tree went into this special pot we were given by Noel some time back.
	Dianne and Noel brought Sam with them this time - so the girls had company too. One night he decided to go to bed early and Ann found him under the covers.
One of our neighbours has taken out their part of the berberis hedge - 15 metres - and erected a nice big fence. Peter needs to put some wood along the base to stop tunnelling dogs and then we need to plant some sort of climber to give us privacy. Hopefully the rest of the berberis hedge (35metres) will come out in the next year - if the other neighbour manages to sort things out with the local council.

News from Home

Ann’s dad had a great time in Wales with Carol, David and friends. He was also surprised by a visit from Shân and Tim.