The Weekends

Last weekend:

Decided to be clever & leave travelling until (Good) Friday lunchtime. heard on the radio that the north bound traffic on Thursday night was awful. Felt really clever...

Rounded up the animals on Friday, loaded up the car... and our planned one hour trip took us 3 hours. Man, it sucked. We were bumper to bumper just past Plimmerton & stayed that way till Waikanae.

The animals were very patient though.

For the life of me I can't remember what we did on Saturday. But it either involved building something, or demolishing something else (it's rare that I both build & demolish the same thing in a weekend, but not unknown).

Oh yeah! I remember. The girls organised on Friday to go horseriding on Saturday. A 2 hour trek according to T. But a 3 hour trek according to M. I escaped because they made their booking at the same time as Wilma & I were supposed to be inspecting some boarding kennels. But T was quite sure they'd be back in time to greet her mum who was visiting after lunchtime.

So I dropped them off at a place near the Otaki racecourse, and we all learned to T's surprise especially, that it was indeed a 3 hour trek, but that didn't include the hour or so beforehand catching the horses &... what do you call the set up bit... saddling them? Nor did it include the hour or so afterwards... doing post-horsey wind-down things (look, I've no idea OK?).

They were gone 6 hours in all. T's mum & I surmised there'd be one very sore girl later on...

And we weren't wrong.

Anyway, the kennels were really nice, and the kennel owners. I have to say, I have never seen so many golden retrievers in one place ever. It was surreal. There were also a german shepherd & two labradors there.

I think Wilma will really like it. They sure gushed over her.

And then I built a fence.

The next day I built another bay on my 3 bay compost area. One more bay to go.

Goodness knows what else I did. Then visitors came & we drank & ate lots.

I have lots of photos actually, that I must download & post... including a whole set of "beach art" shots I took of sandcastles & driftwood constructions Wilma & I encountered along the beach...

On monday we weren't in a hurry to get away home, but took the first opportunity to catch both the cats (they have kept us waiting hours in the past). We left around lunchtime. And our timing was perfect, a clear run into town & as we were arriving we heard that traffic was at snails pace pretty much from just south of Levin.

Got home in time for T to paint windowsills in the lounge & for me (joy!) to mow the lawns. I have considered just bringing a sheep home now & then.

This weekend:

We're supposed to be leaving Thursday for Whitianga to attend a wedding. That's the plan anyway, drop Wilma off at the kennels & head north till Monday.

Except that there is a problem with our car, it's leaking coolant & may not be fixed in time... I'm hoping the VW people will loan us another, maybe an Audi Roadster (except I suppose we won't all fit in it). Or a Porsche Cayenne (perfect, since there'll be a lot of Aucklanders at the wedding, be nice to tool up in a porsche - "Yeah Nigel, picked it up especially for this trip!".)

Anyway, we'll see...

Update: We're getting loaned some sort of station wagon... since they didn't tell her what make & model, T assumes it'll be a lada....