Big Adventure vs Simple Pleasures

So, our skiing weekend ended in some kind of disaster. And very dramatic it was too!

We headed up the mountain on Saturday morning hoping for half a day's skiing (the weather was due to turn a bit nasty at lunch time, so that is all that we could wish for) and the road was open so we took Eric (our sexy red coupe) up the mountain with no chains. We collected our skis and boots and did a few nursery runs to find our skiing legs. And there they were! A bit rusty, but not too bad. Will popped off to do a blue or two and I met up with him for a well earned warmup and hot chocolate (the wind chill was about -20C at this point).

After our break we headed back up for another easy valley blue run before the weather closed in. Unfortunately, just as we had reached the point of no return, the weather came crashing in on us and we had big winds (around 100mph) that were creating total white-out conditions. We limped down the blue (for the last bit I abandoned my skis, threw them down in front of me and scooted down on my bum!) and we made a dash for home. Unfortunately, everyone else had the same idea, so the rental place was pandemonium and the weather was getting worse. Having retrieved our shoes, we headed back to the car. By now the wind was up at around 125mph and it was blizzard conditions. The road was designated chains and 4x4 only. But that doesn't count when you are on your way down! 2 and a half hours later and very thankful to be there, we were below the snow line and heading for our lodge and the fire. Where we spent the rest of the weekend.

Our friends (who we were supposed to be having a get-to-know-you weekend with) had to abandon their car and stay in one of the ski clubs at the bottom of the ski lifts. With about a thousand other stranded people!

And that was our first experience of a weather-bomb. It was supposed to go across Auckland and the Far North and then out to sea, but decided to turn south and cause havoc in almost all of NZ! Flooding, landslips, sea crashing into places it shouldn't be etc. And that was the first storm of three in a week.

And onto the simple pleasures - our new house.

We're in!! We're in a mess, but we're in!

Thanks to the help of some strong and hardworking friends, we managed to get almost all our moving done in one weekend (last weekend). We have two almost perfect rooms - our bedroom and the front sitting room (Gordon's room while he is in confinement). Our new house is lovely. It is a 1940s weatherboard and tile house which has been extended to give a big open plan kitchen/dining room/living room opening onto a huge deck (I foresee big summer parties/barbies). The original sitting room is north facing (that means sunny in this part of the world) and was sold to us as the master bedroom. We have decided to have it as a sitting room (it's far too nice for sleeping in and is by far the warmest room in the house). And it is currently being lived in by Gordon 'Houdini' Cat.

The house is insulated (gasp) but doesn't have central heating (you weren't expecting a miracle, were you?!). But we do have an HRV - that is a thing that takes the warmer air from the attic, dries it out for you and pumps it into the house. And it cools the house in summer. So we have a dry house. We are hoping to get the chimney certified as OK to use, so the HRV will then pump the heat from the chimney all round the house (that is a high priority - 9 degrees is pretty chilly when you need to get out of bed!)

As a house that was done up for the owners to live in, we have the benefits of a lovely finish, big range style cooker and an enormous bath!

What else. Well, as an older house, we have the benefit of a full section (about a quarter acre, maybe a bit less) and a lovely garden (looked after by the owner's mum). However, there are some bits of veggie patch that I can play with. Though I think that they might produce by themselves. We have self-seeded tomatoes, mint, hot hot rocket, passionfruit vine, coriander, blackberries, and probably more things that I'll identify later in the year.

There is also plenty of room for me to grow courgettes, peppers, chillies and maybe aubergines. And the pot garden on the deck as well! And if I fancy trying my hand at curing olives, we have a dozen olive trees along the front fence.

I can see us having a much nicer time in this house that we would have done with the paved, shady courtyard of the last one. That is assuming we had survived the damp and the mould and made it to the summer!!

For those of you who I will be seeing in a few weeks, I'm looking forward to it immensely.

Kirsten