The wine yeast hasn't arrived yet. Perhaps that's a good thing; it's a bit cold for fermentation at the moment. Although my half empty jar of feijoa chutney started bubbling, so I made another lot, mixed it with the contents of the remaining jars, and made sure I boiled it well. Tastes great, though I think I used woo much spice powder! Still have five kilos of feijoa pulp in the freezer waiting for the right moment.

Bronwyn has settled into her new job as Chaplain At Large with the Methodist Mission Northern. She took me round the office a couple of weeks ago. The office stretches across a large chunk of the central city. She's been clocking the kilometres she walks around each day. She introduced me to some of the regulars; the people she works with and the places she visits. They run a cafe where you can get a decent $5 breakfast and where they get to meet most of the clients, and there are housing blocks to provide sheltered accommodation. Bronwyn has been told to just get out and meet people for the first few months, but she's already quite involved and has been making suggestions as well as bringing in spare eggs and home baking. Seems like she's found her dream job; she has the skills in communication (as well as first aid) and she spends half her time helping people out anyway. The only issue is getting in and out of the city, but she's learning all the best car parks and bus routes. So far, they think she's wonderful!

She's still doing her Ministry Diploma. Rach is persevering with Earth Sciences, and Sarah is contending with Year 12 and NCEA level 2. It's been a joint effort working through all the assignments.

My life went through a bit of a quiet patch when Bronwyn started full time. That's fortunate; I've been able to get a number of other jobs done, and I've been available to do school runs as well as jobs on the farm. I've toyed with the idea of getting some sort of accounting qualification, but I've now got some more work for a company I used to work for, as well as some other jobs, so I'm now suddenly busy again. It'll be lambing season soon. Hopefully I'll have time for that!

Sarah is now 17 and Rachael is 22. We didn't get much of a chance to celebrate last year due to all the lockdowns, so last week we had a 21+1 celebration for Rachael. Still getting through the leftovers...

Lockdowns are over. Well, until the next major variant at least. Omicron took over and chased out everything else. As far as I know, we haven't had it yet, although it has many symptoms and we all came down with a cold a while back. It's still taking a long time to work through everyone, and some have had it more than once. But it gradually seems to be dying down. Full overseas travel is opening up shortly...


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