Day two of the school holidays and so far no cry of “I’m booooooored” from Miss 10.10 which I’m very surprised about. We’ll have to wait till next week for our ritual trip to Auckland (movies! shopping! pizza!) but so far she’s managed to keep herself amused reading, riding her bike, walking Pippa (or being dragged by Pippa), cooking (chocolate and maple syrup-flavoured Rice Bubble Cakes – an acquired taste…) and drawing with hardly any TV time booked at all.

The Other Harf landed in Brisbane all safe and sound, and was off to the bar when he rang from his hotel for a much-needed cold beer. There’s a big road trip ahead for him and his boss this week, driving up the Sunshine Coast to visit various branches. And Australia being Australia and flippin’ HUGE there’s some big miles to cover to get to places – not something we’re used to here in tiny little New Zealand!

As for me, I’ve finally managed to mow the lawns after three weeks – this time without leaving three inch deep tyre tracks behind. I’ve also done all the weedeating and the place looks lovely and tidy – for now. As well as the outdoor toil I was roped in to design my roller derby league’s next bout poster (not my usual job – I usually only do the website design and maintenance) which then it had to be vetted by all the committee – pretty nerve-wracking but they were really pleased with it!

Oh how I wish I could get paid to do stuff like this…

Thursday evening, dinner is in the oven (Portuguese Chicken) and I am just about to go and get ready for derby practice. Which colour tights? Which pair of stripey socks? Decisions, decisions.

Meanwhile Miss 10.10 is cleaning her absolute tip of a room. I commented this morning as I walked past that I had never seen it in such a state: every single drawer in her dressing table open spewing clothing, books, paper, shoes, junk scattered across the every spare inch of floor, piles of clean laundry concertina-ing across the spare bed. She’s grown about an inch this month so I’m guessing her brain cells are concentrating on doing other things.

The Other Harf is due home any minute – and bless him, he’s not a happy camper at the moment as he’s off to Australia again on Monday for work. Lots of visiting branches and shaking of hands and eating bad fish dinners at hotel restaurants (apparently barimundi isn’t a patch on snapper or terakihi).

Perhaps now isn’t the time to remind him about duty-free perfume and chocolate-coated macadamia nuts…

Greetings to you on a stunning mid-winter’s day. There’s hardly a cloud in the sky and the little temperature gauge on the verandah tells me it’s 22C! I’ve got three loads of washing strung up on clotheshorses out there and I swear I can see it steaming

So, yes…I’ve been extremely slack with this here blog of late, all due to the fact that I’ve been designing and creating a new website for the roller derby league not to mention keeping up with my Fi’s List of Stuff to Do. Yesterday it was chopping wood and restacking the log pile as well as cutting back the bracken that is threatening to smother the agapanthus lining our lower driveway. All very exhausting!

Consquently today I am a leetle bit quiet sore so some light housework is all I’m fit for – oh, and entertaining long-lost relations – my cousin, who I haven’t seen in over 20 years (he moved to Australia in his early twenties) visited with his two teenaged sons today. It was lovely to catch up, even though it was only for an hour, and I baked my extra-spesh cheese scones which went down a treat with my second cousins!

Humph! Just when I’ve been wanting to blog like I’ve never blogged before (or, at least for quite some time) our PC packed a sad last Saturday (again) and had to be carted away to the PC Factory for some urgent repairs on Monday (Ram module failure? Or some-such?)

Anyway, it’s four days later and $187.50 thank-you-very-much.

To add to the frustration the laptop, called in to substitute while the PC was being repaired decided that it really couldn’t be bothered with recognising a keyboard and would only respond to pressing letters as shortcuts (i.e. if you pressed F a “FIND” box would pop up. Not helpful).

And it’s very hard to search in the Help forums when your keyboard doesn’t work to type in KEYBOARD DOES NOT RECOGNISE KEYS ONLY SHORTCUTS.

Oh how I missed my internet-edness like mad! Facebook was ok, as my wee phone is capable of basic internet, but it’s no substitute for my blog, my photos and just generally surfing everybody else’s blogs, as well as keeping up with my new roller derby fix.

Anyway. It’s all fixed now, so Normal Service Resumed, with all new tales of my new farmhand  ex-beancounter life, with dashes of derby, photography and general rambling thrown in!

So happy

What a gorgeous autumn day: clear, cool, clear golden sunshine all day, not a breath of wind. Days like this make me happy to be here and thankful, so very, very thankful, to have what I have.

Greetings to you all and welcome to a slightly revamped Kiwifruit, in honour my revampedness. Last week I resigned from my job (reasons of which I will not go into at the moment, but it was with full support from my lovely husband and my understanding family) and am so excited to have a fresh slate in life to start with come June.

As well as the monumentous decision of giving up my job, I also managed to achieve something quite small in the scheme of things but mentally huge, as in I’ll never be able to do that, it’s too tough/too hard/I’m too old/I’m going to really hurt myself at roller derby training on Thursday night. I won’t bore you with details, but let’s just say the wise, sensible 41-year old voice in my head was completely overwhelmed by a 16 year old one, screaming “Yeah! Just do it!

I did it and it felt AWESOME.

So, I am looking forward to some hard slog in my garden, some DIY, spending time with Miss 10.8, making do on our new and very tight budget and having time to enjoy my blog (nd others too), my photography and my new found contentment…until the next job comes along!