Daily Archives: 2017-06-23

SwimGym with Karola

Rained all night and all afternoon. Only a short walk for Bangle to get the mail – water lying everywhere in large puddles, mud abounds.

Karola and I went on a shopping expedition, leaving Bangle behind, which was just as well.

First stop, Gagan’s (Sikh roadside vegetable stall), then Farmlands for more batten staples. Henare is coming over in the afternoon and he has a few hundred battens to staple up, and we don’t want him running out of staples. Then Harvey Norman – Karola wanted a new fitted sheet for our Queen-sized bed. All inexpensive cotton sheets these days are sold as sets so we had to make do with a rather expensive one made of Egyptian cotton. Is there such a thing as “conflict cotton” like “conflict diamonds” I wonder.

Since December last year I’ve had a reminder that we want a new fridge/freezer for the cottage so I took this opportunity for us to look at fridges in Harvey Norman. It had to be small enough to fit in the cottage, have a separate fridge and freezer with the freezer at the bottom and for preference not be made by Fisher&Paykel. We found a couple and the Mitsubishi one seemed best. It has three compartments, a fridge with wide door shelves, on top of a vegetable drawer, on top of a freezer compartment. Also, although it and the Panasonic alternative were around $1500, the Mitsubishi was on sale for $1000. It has an ice maker as well, but this was not part of our requirements. We loaded it into the back of the car, lashed the tailgate partly down, and continued shopping. No room for Bangle so just as well she stayed at home.

New World for groceries, Cornucopia for my GF bread and some small leeks. Karola slipped into Hawkes Bay Today to see if she could buy a copy of one of the newspaper’s photos, and then raided YaBon, the French bread shop, for items just dripping with gluten, to learn that YaBon, including its kitchen, is to move soon to new premises.

Finally to Visique Shattky on Russell Optometrists, to pick up my new, insanely expensive glasses. What a morning.

Rain had set in and Henare was hard at work in the rain putting battens on the newly reconstructed fence. I returned to my part, digging in three more posts and putting up the seven wires before darkness fell. It was neither pleasant nor easy in the rain and mud. Henare had almost finished by the time it got dark so he banged up the final few battens by the headlamps of my tractor.

Meanwhile Karola had emptied the old fridge and made room for it in the cottage garage. Henare helped us move the old fridge into the cottage garage and the new fridge out of the car into the cottage kitchen. Karola & I then unpacked and installed it.

Henare Putting Up Battens In The Rain

The New Fridge/Freezer

Unpacked & Installed

Locked & Loaded

Oak Avenue Weather:12℃—14℃ 9.5mm rain [73.0]

Bangle – orchard – apple

Quite a cold and overcast morning but warmed up later and turned to drizzle then persistent rain late afternoon.

Got four of the seven running posts into the ground before it got too wet.

Karola tried out the King Kindling Cracker and then did a bit of tree guard maintenance in the Front paddock – banging in crocked standards – and then pulled out a whole lot of nettles. She stayed out in the rain doing stuff until after dark. Moved some Belladonnas from near the front gate out into the wilds of the Totara paddock I think.

Oak Avenue Weather:4℃—13℃ 30.3mm rain [72.7]