It's Summer! Finally. It's been a long time coming and yesterday the first day of Summer was pretty shit. But today has been a real nice day, I've been out mowing lawns and cleaning and tidying and that sort of stuff. In fact during the week I checked my lawnmower blades and realised just how fucked they were again, it seems like only three months ago I replaced them but no, it must have been a year or so I guess? Anyway I had noticed the last few times I'd been mowing they were mostly flattening the grass instead of cutting it. When I checked them I realised they were totally knackered, the swept-back bit on them that throws the grass up high was gone on all blades (no wonder the mower kept jamming) and they were just looking shagged. So this morning I drove to the Greenmeadows Stihl shop and bought some replacements - this is the third time I've replaced the blades myself and this time I got it down to about a 15 minute replacement job. The first time it took me about two hours I was so worried I was going to stuff it up. And when I finally did replace them that first time I started the mower and ran because I was worried the blades might dislodge and hurt someone... They didn't of course and now I feel confident to replace them myself. And I'm glad I did, the lawns when I mowed them today were SO much nicer looking at the end of it, they looked properly cut instead of half smashed, and the mower was much easier to push around. Given how many lawns I do and how often, I should really remember to replace them much more often, it's only $30 or so for a new set.
I've been out in the garden heaps, I'm quite impressed with myself for not giving up. Most day I got out into the veggie patch and weed the garden beds etc. Last weekend I went and bought a bunch more things to grow: Potatoes, Strawberries, Spinich, Carrots (two different varities), Pumpkins, Peas (I hate them but Theo loves them), a rock melon, corridaner, red and brown onions, silverbeet and some chives. Mostly all in seed format. This week I've been out there watering them like a machine most mornings, and also tending to the greenhouse items: The cucumbers and the capsicum. I'm really happy I managed to salvage 3 cucumber plants from the ones I overwatered - one of them was really healthy and is doing great, the second was a bit munted but is doing really well and the third almost died but managed to pull through and is about half the size of the other two but now seems to be growing at the same sort of rate, so I assume it'll be healthy as. I hope to get lots of cucumbers anyway given how much Theo loves them. I haven't planted the peas yet and the pumpkins, corridander, spinich, onions etc are all still waiting to sprout. But it was only last weekend I bought them all, so I hope they'll burst through the soil soon. Anyway as you can probably tell diary I am right into my garden at the moment, it's doing really well. Well the Rockmelon isn't but it hasn't died yet, so we'll see how that goes. Theo's rockmelon seed he bought home from Garden Group at school never managed to germinate despite being watered every day for about 3 weeks. He wasn't too bothered though, telling me quite happily that he doesn't really like Rock Melons anyway... I'm only trying to grow one in the garden because I remember them so well as a kid, we called them catoloupes, and I really quite liked them. I'll be stoaked if I can grow my own.
When I got home on Friday Beth told me there was a letter waiting for me, so she rushed to collect it. It'd already been opened, it was two letters from the school from the girls who I helped do Hobo Stoves. One of the letters has this great line at the end of it "<thing>"
Thursday (23rd) was Beth and Theo's performances at school, a celebration of all the arts the students have done over the year. This includes the guitar Theo's been doing every Wednesday morning and the art/dance performance Beth's been working on with some of her classmates. They called out Theo's guitar group and all the students got up to get their guitars from the wall where they were resting up. Theo went to get his and... it wasn't there. He got really paniced, started making these anxious "Where the beeps is my guitar" hand waving gestures and eventally went over to Ms Williams (who was waiting to start by this stage) and talked to her. Next thing he's SPRINTING into the classroom, and then 30 seconds later SPRINTING back out with his guitar. So he got to do is performance, but he looked pissed off and mad the whole time he was doing it which was a shame, he'd really been looking forward to showing us his stuff. We talked to him later and he said he's not sure what happened, he put his guitar in the same pile with all the others, someone else was in charge of bringing them out but when he rushed in to find it, it was in a totally different part of the room. Anyway he got to do the performance thankfully, two songs "We will Rock You" and then "Perfect" by Ed Sheeran. I managed to film him doing both but his group was sitting down and were quite a way away, so the footage is pertty terrible. Beth's dance performance was really good, we could see it nice and clearly.
Oh, it's Sunday now for this text, I wrote that all yesterday but didn't post it yet.
Today is supposed to be the Christmas Parade which of course means it's fucking raining doesn't it. Christ for a Summer that's supposed to be "Hot and Dry" all it's done the last 3 weeks is mostly piss with rain. Yesterday was nice, but today is shite. They're going to make a call in 15 minutes if the parade is going to be on or not, I think they'd be stupid to keep it on given it's supposed to just be rain rain rain. Beth's cheerleading is doing a float/performance, so we need to go to that and then there's a after party near the pools. But it's going to be miserable if it all goes ahead, hopefully they just call it and have it at the Gym which is the backup plan.
We bougth a new bed for the upstairs off a couple of weeks ago, just a Big Save jobbie. But at least Dad will have somewhere comfortable to sleep that isn't one of the kids little fold out beds they have under their main bed. When we got the mattress it was just rolled up in a box. You had to peel off the layers of plastic until the oxygen could get in and then it started to hisssss as it rapidly began to expand. It's quite amazing a Queen sized matress came in the box as small as it did, it was very heavy though. The magic of springs I suppose.
Went around to Peter and Mary's last weekend for dinner - Holly and Adrian were away so they were looking after JoJo and Isla. Tom and Paulette were also down from Tauranga. We had a lovely roast meal, it was very delicious. The kids decided to do a music performance for us after dinner which was fun. And during the week just gone I went out with my workmates from Mercury for drinks and dinner, was good to have a fun catchup with them. And then Friday night was the NOW Christmas party at the local Tennis Club. The theme was Summer Beach Party but of course it was wet, dark and raining. Thanks Sumnmer. So it was mostly inside, and it was odd being at the Tennis Club because it's also for members and they were also there as well, so it was mingling with workmates and just randos in their club. The food was provided by a food truck called Gina's which was lovely, at first every time they'd bring a tray out people would murder it, by the time Jordan and I left at 9pm there was so much food on the table and everyone was stuffed! I left early though, I wasn't really feeling it - plus Jordan was leaving then too so I got a lift back with him (he'd also kindly given me a lift there which was nice)
Finally - yesterday we put up the Christmas Tree and the lights and all the stuff. It's happening, Christmas 2023! May the stress begin...
Tim
Add new comment