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The brass band is sounding good, although there's a few spots where things get a bit tricky, so we've spent the week working out how to cover them up. We're off first thing on Friday morning, and it'll be a five hour drive to Napier, which is on the south east coast of the north island. Two nights there, and then all the way home again. As I've said before, I'll be glad when it's all over. Our next major event is sorting out the band hall. It's due to collapse. In the interim, the percussionist needs to watch her weight, otherwise she'll fall through the hole.
Otherwise all is quiet. For now...
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( 3 / 2227 )A week or two ago, the church gave us some groceries since we were struggling financially. With Bronwyn now working things are getting easier. Bronwyn's friend Jackie was the next target; she's just moved out of a rather awkward situation and wants to start afresh. So the church got her some groceries too. However, Jackie didn't need half of it, so quietly gave it to me. Meanwhile, a friend Chrissy at church said she'd just got a fine for not doing her warrant on the car, and she didn't have a clue how to pay it. You can call me slow if you like; I had Jackie's stuff in the back seat and I didn't think. Anyway, I'm going to take some stuff to Chrissy later this afternoon, and I phoned up the pastor and suggested a likely candidate for the next batch of groceries. There's no way we'll get through three bags of potatoes, so it's come at a good moment.
Des, Bronwyn's old youth leader, came round with his wife and one child to look at our washing machine. He's an electrician, but not in washing machines, so we spent a while probing the mechanics and deciding what might be wrong. He went home with a motor thingy, which he was going to plug in the mains and test. One day we might have a working washing machine, or at least a useful space where it used to be.
Played trombone in church this morning. Went quite well; we had a number of comments. The leader was a jazz musician. and picked some songs that had good melody and harmony. I actually enjoyed all the songs, rather than taking five songs just to get in the swing of it.
Remind me never to join Waitakere Brass. We had a rehearsal last night in their band hall, which is deep in the heart of the city, well away from the motorway, and took 45 minutes to get to. During the break I studied their notice board. They are going to the same contest in two week's time, but they're rehearsing all day Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday, next Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and then off to the contest. Personally I'd prefer to lose but have time to walk outside! We seem to be playing well, but there are still a few spots which need looking at.
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( 3 / 2128 )Bronwyn has survived three days at work this week, and has been thoroughly enjoying it. It's quite long hours, which means I have to be at home for when Rachael comes home, I need to collect Sarah, and I need to do dinner. Not every day though. However this week it took until Wednesday to fix the car, and then Rachael spent the day at home sick. So I didn't get to go to work until Thursday.
So the car is fixed (although he didn't give the engine much longer), the hammock is mended (Rachael managed to wear out the rope by swinging on it. I've replaced it with 740kg marine grade polypropylene.) and I've returned the rose garden to some resemblance of tidyness (you can actually see the roses now). Bronwyn has new glasses to replace the ones that fell apart. The washing machine is still broken, but still washes clothes as long as you don't mind the noise.
A goose appeared in the paddock this week. Apparently Bronwyn's dad was out one evening trying to shoot one. He wants to use the meat to bait the cat trap, in order to catch our stray cat. Unfortunately it was dark, and he didn't see where it fell. I came out in the morning and saw it lying by our gate. So I stuck it in a plastic bag and put it in the freezer. Ross heard about it, and came to collect it. Meanwhile I've repaired the old possum cage trap, and I've put it under the woolshed with some cat food. It's not sprung yet; I'm just trying to tempt the thing to get used to having dinner there. Something has been eating the food, but I think it's actually Claire's cat, who lives just nearby. We'll see...
Rachael's friend Lissa has been to stay for 24 hours, and has just gone home. They didn't get a lot of sleep, and have been playing all day. Now Lissa has gone home. Rachael says she's bored. At least it's quiet...
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( 3 / 2448 )For the last three months we haven't had Bronwyn earning anything. We've also had major dental bills, the motel, new glasses for Bronwyn after the handle broke off and several other things. Bronwyn has been doing really well as far as spending goes. We've got a second account that we're using to budget with, and she's hardly spent anything. Which is just as well because the washing machine is making a loud noise and my car spilled half the coolant on the ground yesterday. Still haven't paid the mechanic for fixing the brakes.
But she has a new job starting next week. It's at Old MacDonald's Farm, and she'll be doing three full days a week. Hopefully we'll have my car back by Monday otherwise I'll be stuck at home. I got paid yesterday. Well, supposedly. It takes at least a day and a half to orbit the banking system before finally reaching my account.
In the meantime I've had a quiet Saturday. Largely because I couldn't do a lot, since I've got no car and no money. I went out earlier to visit my trees. It helped me unwind a bit.
Giles, my colleague from work, got trapped in Thailand last year from the protests at the airport. He took a bus to Singapore and flew from there. It took three days, plus another two in Singapore. Now he's eight or nine thousand in debt, and not doing very well at repaying it. At least things aren't quite so bad for us.
Had dinner with a friend last night. He gave me a tour of the house, and pointed out all the places where he'd had to make major repairs after they'd basically dumped the house there in sections and glued it together again.
Rachael was out at a friend's birthday yesterday. They all went out for a meal, and then spent the night there. Last year they all went off to a theme park and went on a lot of the rides. Not sure I could match that, but at least Rachael hasn't asked us for a similar party...
Our third cat (Smokey) is still allegedly at large, and terrorising our current cat and everybody else's. So we're discussing ways of catching it. Bronwyn's dad says he knows a friend of a friend who recommends putting a fresh wild duck in the trap. So Bronwyn has asked Neil to go bag a duck. Ducks are tricky. It may be easier to go for one of the Canada geese that have set up residence on the big paddock. Don't know if they'd fit in the trap, though.
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( 3.1 / 2203 )One of my old friends passed away this week. It all happened very quickly - she had been unwell for a while, then was unable to do anything one day, and went into hospital. She died a couple of days later of cancer. Everyone is in shock. She touched a lot of people through the sunday school, and kept in touch with numerous people even when the rest of the church had given up on them. She had an awful lot of faith in people.
We're away for a weekend; Bronwyn's old friend Natalie is getting married. Sarah is going to be a flower girl, and Rachael is a dog girl. Natalie is very keen on animals, and has become the South Island representative for Swedish Vallhunds. Not that there are an awful lot of Swedish Vallhunds in the south island, although one of her neigbours runs a husky sleigh team, and keeps the town awake all hours. Thankfully we're not leading a horse up the aisle.
The wedding is in the Ngatea Water Gardens. About 15 years ago, someone bought a paddock, and turned it into a garden. It's full of all sorts of odd things. The dovecote has "For rent" signs on it. There are fake crocodiles floating in the water, and a sign pointing straight down saying "Buried village - 10 metres". It's officially closed for the weekend, but they're opening it up for the wedding.
Bronwyn now has a new denture with four teeth on it, and several fillings. It cost us quite a bit, but hopefully she won't need any more work for a while. Meanwhile she went for a cholesterol test, and they said her blood sugar was too high, so she had to go in for more tests last Friday!
Bronwyn's been for another job interview. This is at a creche in a tourist attraction. It's called "Old MacDonald's Farm". It's about 25 minutes drive, but along the back roads so there shouldn't be a lot of traffic. No news on that, or the original agency job, but it takes weeks to get a police check here so anything could happen.
Monday. Three limp helium balloons are on the floor, and it's taken us a while to get up. My comment about the horse very nearly happenned. We were on the road to Ngatea. It's typical of many of the roads in the Huaraki Plains - dead straight, flat as a pancake, and 6.7km long. Suddenly Bronwyn slowed down. There was a horse on the road. With no rider. And another on the side. We pulled into the nearest house, but nobody was in. WE then tried a farm house. Nobody there either. But the cows were in the milking shed. So off Bronwyn goes, and tracks down a woman in the shed. She makes some comment about "#^@?! husband leaving the gate open" and phones her son. We then head out to the other farm on the far side of the road, and apprehended the horses. They obviously knew what they were doing, because one had made his way straight for a bale of hay.
Meanwhile. we set off for the wedding. Natalie was late. Over an hour. There is a one lane bridge that we all had to cross, and half of Auckland was heading home on it. From then on it all went smoothly. The dog was very well behaved, and Rachael and Sarah were the star attraction on the dance floor. It was past 10pm by the time we finally went home.
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