January 2016

Our Christmas guests – Kaja and co, and Dave – arrived safely and happily and shared Christmas with us.  The weather was in holiday-mode too – lots of sunshine and heat.  Dave took us out to see the new Star Wars film (excellent) and travelled back to Christchurch with Lucas, to try his luck with finding work there.  Kaja, Jeremy, Michael and Melissa stayed awhile with us at home, plus a few nights at Picton Top Ten camp site.  Then they travelled to Kaikoura and Hanmer before flying home from Christchurch.  The twins were toddlers the last time we saw them, now they’re all grown up to 8 years old!  And talking of grown up, Lucas was 21 years old on January 13^th.  It’s hard not to dwell on being an old git.  I've recently had some surgery which has curtailed my garden activities to nearly nothing for now.  Hopefully that'll improve in the next few weeks while I watch everything grow and mature.  And hopefully that won't be too much of a frustrating prospect. 

Weeding remains a momentous task.  A break from the garden whilst we had visitors, followed by a week’s work on the West Coast has given the weeds free reign.  It seems they’ve thoroughly enjoyed themselves, rampaging through the beds, hedges and paths.  Despite the quantity, they haven’t got themselves too well established so are relatively easy to pull.  Grass and clover are always the most tricky to get rid of, though the clover redeems itself by fixing nitrogen into the soil.  Wild sorrel is also a pain in the arse as it happily leaves its roots behind.  The rest I’m mostly rather fond of, even the thistles. The photo is happily a 'before' shot'.

The paddocks are dry, dry, dry.  Peter’s resuscitated the grass cutter and plans to do some topping of the dry grass in the paddocks which weren’t used for hay.  Underneath the dry stalks, they’re actually not too bad – lots of clover (white and red) coming through.  We’re ever hopeful that we’ll get a good dousing of rain anytime soon, but that’s more optimistic than realistic.  The soft fruit has come of age and produced a fabulous crop.  Only the blueberries were totally stripped by the birds.  They shared the remaining fruits.  Raspberries, boysenberries, red, black and white currants, and amazing gooseberries are prolific and delicious.  

                                                                    There are 2 kinds of the latter – the usual pinky purple large desert gooseberries, and new this year, a much smaller grape-like dark purple variety which is very sweet with a tangy gooseberry after-taste.  Totally yum, but no idea about the variety - perhaps they are just an ordinary desert gooseberries that have responded to the drought.  It doesn't explain why there are also ordinary desert gooseberries which look like they're supposed to.   A serendipitous mystery indeed.

The vege garden is magnificent, and that’s not just the weeds.  Plenty of greens, beetroot and snow peas so far.  Corn, carrots, onions and beans are fattening up nicely.  More onions and leeks planted.  The low circular hedges are coming away too, even starting to look like hedges and in need of regular trimming.  The new trees in the horse arena are doing OK too.  One of the olives is dead, but the rest are thriving and so are the citrus.  The hedging Teuchrium and Corokia are also coming away and already flowering.  More flowers for the birds and the bees!

The orchard trees are mostly heaving with fruit.  It’s a glorious sight, and it’s particularly pleasant to be out there in the cool of the early evening.  Some branches have had to be tied onto their stakes to support the weight of the fruit.  I’ve done a bit of thinning, but have to admit that thinning fruit is a task I find difficult.  It just feels so counter-intuitive and a bit unkind.  The cherries have been scoffed by the birds – again.  Still didn’t get round to netting them, oops.  But there are loads of plums, peaches, apples and pears of many varieties.  There’s a good crop of Bramley apples for pies and crumbles, and more Foxwood Broxwelp cider apples than you can shake a stick at.  Must dig out a cider recipe.  The pear trees that arch to make the entrance to the veg garden have fruited well for the first time.  Can't wait to see what they taste like.  The red pears have been most prolific, and I particularly like the way that a couple of them dangle down from on high like a pair of testicles.  I'm too short to be bothered, but the extra height that the boys have has led to several complaints about being biffed on the head as they enter the veg arena!! 

Peter has made progress on the chicken housing, and one side of the big original run is complete.  It is currently housing Cornelius and 2 of his harem.  The other 2 hens have been sitting on eggs for a while.  So far only four gorgeous fluffy bundles have hatched, 2 of these have sadly disappeared and it’s not looking promising for any others to hatch.  We don't really need more chooks, but must try and work out what's gone wrong this year.  We weren't really ready for chicks, so the hen house conditions weren't ideal.  Plus we suspect that rats may be responsible for some of the losses - a tricky problem to resolve.

Madame Cholet is looking after her charges admirably.  The tunnel house is full of salad plants (lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, peppers and aubergines) and some basil and a few colourful flowers to keep the beneficial insects happy.  The lettuce and cucumber are harvestable, and the others are fruiting up nicely.  It gets very hot in there (40°+) on some of sunniest days, so watering is at least a daily chore.

There’re also salad plantings in the newest keyhole bed.  A few more tomatoes and aubergines.  There were supposed to be more cucumbers there, but it seems my usually robust (haha) labelling system went awry.  There are 5 very healthy plants which may or may not be butternut or crown pumpkins, or gourds.  It’s quite a happy misunderstanding though, as pumpkin varieties need a lot of nourishment, and this bed was the former compost heap.  I do have pumpkins elsewhere in the vege garden, so there may be a pumpkin glut ahead.  There are worse things (eh Karyn??).

Leggy the lamb is looking more majestic than ever – definitely a promising contender for the flock ram.  Here’s hoping he’s not a ‘jaffa’ (that’s an English ‘jaffa’ meaning a seedless orange - a Del-boy classic - rather than a derogatory term for an Aucklander) and that he has many happy years ahead of him.  We also have new wildlife, this time amphibious in the form of a pair of native green bell frogs.  There's a huge wetland area at Peter's work, and he's been trying to catch some for a while.  This pair were inhabiting a drain before he caught them, and they seem to have settled in well.  We have seen them on many occasions, though only briefly before they're aware that we're around.  Their night time croaking is enough to keep us awake at times!

This year I’ve got a fantastic 24 litres of the best honey in the world.  I got several litres before Christmas, and then the remainder in early January.  It was extracted manually – scraping the frames and filtering and sieving the resulting honey/wax mix.  The honey consistency is perfect, and the flavour is amazing.  I wasn’t going to make more mead this year, but since last year's is so delish, and there is so much spare this year, I might just have to make more.  Catastrophic I know, but sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.  Billy hung up the bee suit and added a mask of Mr Bean inside the netting - it was uncannily spooky in the dusk light.

The bees put on a Christmas Day performance for our guests – a particularly spectacular swarm.  The large swarm took a while to gather and drape themselves on a high branch of the tulip tree.  Before I could decide what to do with them, they were gone.  Amazing that they arrived with the sound of a spitfire, and yet left almost silently.  Thankfully both hives had been varroa treated.  That was late in the season for a swarm, but not as late as the next swarm on January 9^th.  This was a smaller swarm and settled on a delicate branch of the fig tree. It was easy to knock into a cardboard box and has gone to a new home with a novice beekeeper.  The swarm was from the gentler of my hives, so hopefully a good prospect for a 'newbee'.  Since then there've been more swarms, but I'm not in any position to check out what's really happening in there.  Feral swarms don't have much chance of survival because of varroa.  Hopefully at least they wouldn't have be carrying too great a varroa load when they swarmed.

Hokitika is a delightful arty crafty place on the West Coast – a cool little town where work was available.  The beach is actually in the town – you just walk through the shops and there it is.  It’s a perfect place to while away some hours, steeped in beautiful coastal and rain forest scenery.  Luckily for me, the weather was completely charming – hot, sunny and barely a breeze.  The usual rains came on the day I left.  Unluckily for me I was on call.  Many of the most gorgeous places don’t receive a cell phone signal, so I couldn’t really linger.  It was enough to whet my appetite to explore this part of New Zealand without restrictions at a later date.  

One of my favourite Christmas presents (among an impressive range of poo and bee-themed gifts) was a voucher from Billy (aka CEO of Poo-well Ltd).  I’ve traded in my voucher and put the poo on one of the horse arena raised beds.  There are 4 beds which are being built up for planting next year.  Eventually they’ll be closed down and covered in hay, to compost away over winter.  Hopefully they’ll end up with beautiful soil and grow fabulous grains next year.  

Roll on the end of El Nino and for a break from the heat, and roll on a quick recovery so I can get back to the gardening.  Though it's a welcome break from paid work and a blessed relief from worsening health symptoms, I'm not sure how long simply 'smelling the roses' will sustain my soul.  Massive thanks to those who've supported my body and spirits these last few days - you know who you are and I hope you know you're awesome.  

A healthy and happy 2016 to all!

December 2015

This year’s lambs are quietly growing away.  Most of them are shedding reasonably well, but one has perfectly beautifully surpassed himself.  He was promising from the day he was born, but we weren’t sure how he’d end up.  He’s now destined to be our flock ram.   We named him ‘Leggy’ and he was different (in a good way) from his twin brother ‘Fluffy’ and the other ram lambs- i.e. longer-legged and less woolly.  It’ll be a bit unfortunate for him if that name sticks, but at least he’s probably got a life-time of indefinite shagging ahead.

At long last, one of the chooks went broody and is sitting.  She’s currently on 6 eggs, and they’ll be due to hatch in early January.  Of course this means that the other hens have pretty much stopped laying in the interim, or maybe they’re just brilliant at hiding their eggs.  Not really sure why this happens, but it always does.  Hopefully I won’t have to resort to buying eggs for our Christmas Egg-Roulette.

Hay has happened!  Sooner than we thought, but we’re glad to get what we got.  Despite liming this year, we only got 50 bales compared to around 70 last year.  It’s been the same for everyone in the region though, because of the drought.  It’s been the driest November since records began, and December’s not looking too flash either.  We’ll try and buy a dozen more bales to make sure we have enough for winter. 

This winter though, we won’t have to account for Zeus’ appetite.  The home-kill man came, saw, gasped, and did the deed.  Zeus was so big that he had to use his truck pulling-power to turn him over.  His hoof weight must have been literally about a ton because the carcass weight was 512kg.  That’s 512kg of prime, organic, grass-fed beef.  The butchers were pretty impressed with his size too, and with the tenderness of the meat.  It took 4 of us over 3 hours to bag up portions and get them in the freezer.  We had to offload some into Karyn’s freezer, and we’re still waiting for sausages.  Mince has finally returned to the menu!  We were getting quite sick of steaks and joints all the time.  It’s a hard life etc.  Hera and Athena have been a bit jittery since Zeus’ departure, and have been entertaining themselves by chasing the lambs. 

The bees have been ridiculously busy.  I went into the hives to remove the varroa strips, and found them both completely choc-a-bloc of honey and brood.  One hive has definitely swarmed.  I was away in Christchurch and Peter called to say there was a noise like a small aircraft high up in the tulip tree.  He declined the job of clambering up the tree and knocking the swarm off into a box, so alas they were lost.  The hive must have made good its reduced numbers rapidly.  Ideally I should have added another honey box to each hive, but I don’t have any spare equipment.  Instead I took off a few frames (11) and extracted the honey.  11+ litres of the best honey in the world, now potted up and ready to gift.  The next day it rained (hurray) so the empty frames were returned 2 days later.  In that short time the bees from one hive created stalactites of wax comb hanging down from the lid.  The other hive created stalagmites up from the queen excluder.  The beautiful virgin wax was easily snapped off.  It’s immaculate and won’t need to be filtered and strained.  It’ll be ideal for face cream.

The vege garden is growing nicely – weeds and veges all in fine health.  The soft fruit is ripening – strawberries, desert gooseberries, red, black and white currants already in abundance, and raspberries, blueberries, boysenberries and blackberries nearly there.  Some greens are also ready to eat, but most of the rest is just quietly getting there.  There are several artichokes, which should please the bees – I haven’t yet developed a taste for them, but probably I need to persevere with that. 

The figs are coming away, as are most of the orchard tree fruits.  Each of the fruit trees has been blessed with a circle of burned hay around its trunk.  Some of them also had a couple of spades-ful of vermi-compost under the hay.  When I get round to it, they’ll also get a splash of diluted vermi-liquid.  It looks like there’ll be a significant crop this year.  The stone and pip fruit in particular are doing great - can’t wait to get picking.  Maybe in a couple of years we’ll need a ladder.

Flowers are also gloriously abundant.  They’re in the tunnel house, the vege garden and in the flower gardens around the house.  Even the water lily has thrown off its first fat bud.  It’s great to see such a showy riot of colour, even if it’s all a bit haphazard.  And a good feeling to be contributing to the bees’ nectar and pollen sources.  There are always bees – honey and bumble – buzzing around the property.  Shame they're always outnumbered by the sand-flies.

The home-made wine has been re-racked, and some of it is pretty darned good this time, though I say so myself.  The mead is already totally delish, and the pear wine is shaping up beautifully (and possibly approaching ‘Thunderbird’ calibre - you have to be pretty old and quirky to remember this particular ambrosia).  All of the others are promising – even the rhubarb.  Most still have plenty of lees, so not likely to be bottled in the near future.  No hurry though – still plenty of last year’s wines left.

Peter has converted an old wine barrel into a bar-leaner/sun umbrella stand.  It’s a bit rustic and to my eyes, a triumph of craftsmanship.  It will provide some much-needed sun shade and somewhere on which to rest our elbows when they’re laden with wine or gin. 

Lucas came home for a weekend and got stuck into the Christmas cake marzipan decorations.  He’ll be back over Christmas, staying in the plush accommodation which is the new tent.  It was erected today, and will have to be dismantled and taken to Picton where we are camping later in the month. 

Sam has been busy with Christmas band stuff.  The photo was taken at the Mistletoe Market, just one of the events that the band attends over the festive season.  He’s also worked a few shifts at the winery with Peter, and more recently he’s working for a flower company in Wairau Valley.  His boss there is the partner of his other new boss at Giesen’s – a wine company who have offered him work over summer before he starts his course, and during key times like vintages.  He seems to have fallen on his feet there.  Hopefully he’ll get enough exam credits to be accepted onto the Viticulture/Wine-making course that he’s applied for.

Billy received a Chief Scout Award at his final scout meeting.  It was presented to him by local MP Stuart Smith.  It marks the end of scouts, although he could go on into Rangers if he wants.  He’s recently finished school for the year and has been helping out big time cleaning up at home in anticipation of our Christmas visitors. 

Any minute now the house will fill.  The Christmas tree is vibrant, decorations are up and food is sorted.  Entertainment plans are made.  Soon it’ll be 2016 but first there’s holiday time to enjoy.  Merry Christmas and happy blessings for the New Year.

November 2015

A couple of very late frosts (November 5^th the most recent) brought the choppers out to protect the vines.  We can hear the roar of the engines as they fly low, though the nearest vines are more than 10kms away from us.  The frosts nearly took us by surprise too.  A haphazard assortment of items were hurriedly chucked over the newly planted citrus.  Not pretty, but it worked.  Since the photo, an orange and a lime have completed the grove.  They’ve even all been mulched and staked.  Some plants that we didn't protect - our own vines, the fig tree and cocktail kiwifruit - all got significant frost-burn, but seem to recovering now.

Madame Cholet is nearly fully-planted out.  The tomatoes have had their first pinching out of side-shoots and we’re eating lettuce.  I planted out most of the remaining seedlings into the vege garden today.  The ground is really dry, in-keeping with the vineyard moisture levels in Marlborough which are at late December levels.  An el-nino weather pattern is predicted for summer, and we’ll cop the dry and windy conditions.  It doesn’t bode well to be so dry already.  Our water comes from an underground spring so we just have to keep everything crossed that it doesn’t run out. 

The horse arena is (drum roll please) finished.  Ironically, it now looks more like a horse arena than it did before, but that's because the weeds aren't hiding the gravel ground anymore. The pea metal arrived safely and without munting the paddocks en route.  It’s been spread and has really smartened the place up.  Numerous strawberry plants have joined the feijoa bed and are beginning to flower, and some vagrant comfrey has been re-homed among the citrus.  There are now a dozen olive trees, 4 each of Frantoio, J2 and Mission.  Incredibly they are also all mulched and staked.  The young trees are attached to their stakes by an ingenious combination of cut-up old tea towels and baling twine.  They have a certain eclectic charm.  The unoccupied beds are only letting the side down if you don’t find mounds of weeds attractive in any way.

Fruit is developing in the orchard and in the other gardens.  Gooseberries and blueberries are abundant and are fattening up beautifully.  The first blushing-red redcurrant is visible, and clusters of pip and stone fruit are swelling.  The raspberries, blackberries and boysenberries are in full bloom and competing for the sunlight.  They’re such a pleasure, an oasis of sweet promise. 

Cornelius and his harem have temporarily been confined to barracks.  They had been becoming more adventurous, tackling the herb and fruit gardens, and the beds around the house – scratching around and leaving the less secure plants in their wake.  Yesterday the flower garden was fully planted with a range of annuals grown from seed and a few new perennials to fill in the gaps.  Then it was mulched with barley straw and the chooks were lured back to their run.  It feels a bit mean locking them up, but it’ll only be until the plants get a chance to dig their roots in.

The sheep are looking very raggy and are in danger of being coerced into a haircut.  We’ve decided to splash out on another (and better quality) set of hand-shears this year.  It still won’t be a pleasant task, though it usually provides some entertainment value.  They’re shedding bits of wool all over the paddock.  After foraging for elder-flowers from the various trees around the property, Karyn and I collected the wool up.  It will be used to make duvets for the worms, beginning as one king-sized duvet until the strands are claimed.  Batch one of elder-flower cordial is promising, but the recipe will be tweaked for subsequent batches.  It just needs to be elder flowerier.  Now that I’ve introduced Karyn to the joys of foraging, who knows where it might end?  I’ll wager she’ll be making something into wine by the end of the season.

It’ll be D-day for Zeus very soon, so we’ve been clearing out the freezer.  We’ve sought out recipes for less-familiar cuts like lamb neck, lamb shank, pork hocks and oxtail, which had been lurking in the bottom of the freezer.   Mostly they've been slow-cooked and delicious, and it's been quite satisfying to stretch our culinary horizons.  I also discovered a couple of bags of cooked borlotti beans which made a delicious alternative to baked beans when mixed with some of our own tomato sauce. 

The vege garden continues to take up massive amounts of time.  Amazingly, and despite my worst predictions, the bulk of the weeding is complete, and some of what’s remaining will be left to its own devices unless I’m overcome by an overwhelming urge to clear it.  Not likely.  It’s great to see the low hedges around the keyhole beds taking shape and actually finally even looking like they’re supposed to be hedges.  Some of the keyhole centres have been planted with herbs and flowers, rather than anything which will grow too big.  That’s a lesson learned from the rhubarb and globe artichokes which are bursting out of their circles in other zones.  The pomegranate, which was a bin-end plant, had been coming away before winter.  Now it’s dead except for some tiny new shoots popping up from the base.  If it manages to resuscitate itself, then I’ll erect frost protection. 

Potato shoots are popping up through their mulch – always a proud moment and one which elicits a premature desire to bandicoot.  Crowds of Jerusalem artichoke shoots are popping up and the asparagus are ferny and wispy, but hopefully edible next year.  The herb garden is gorgeous, and has a few new additions – Clary Sage, curry plant, Echinacea and bergamot.  It’s already a popular hanging out place for bees, and they should be kept happy for many months ahead. 

The academic year is drawing to a close, and I’m optimistic that the recent paid work overload will wind down soon.  It’s time to start planning for Christmas (only 35 sleeps to go) and enjoying the spoils of summer.  In the meantime, spring in the garden is the bees knees.

October 2015

The mercury has hit the late 20’s, but only with a nor’wester wind.  When the wind comes from the south it’s usually much cooler, and the risk of frost lurks until around the end of the month.  We’re getting used to these weather patterns now that we’ve been here 4 years (gasp).  The gorgeously happy lime green spring growth is endlessly delightful, and the longer days really just mean more time to spend outside working the land.  With the exception of the cherries, the stone fruit have mostly finished their blossoming frenzy, and now the pip fruit have taken on the mantle.  Apples, pears and quince are in full bloom.  It’s very satisfying to see tiny fruit developing on the damson and blackthorn trees – bodes well for next year’s gin!  For the first time, the step-over espaliered apples have blossom. Maybe my hatchet pruning hasn’t been totally devastating for them after all.  Flowering weeds are adding to the show, and there is a sense that they’re running away with themselves and mocking me. 

We had the pleasure of Grannie-Annie’s company for a very happy couple of weeks.  We took the ferry to Wellington for the World of Wearable Arts show.  It was our first time and hopefully not our last - truly spectacular theatre.  We also visited Peter Jackson’s ‘Gallipoli’ exhibition at Te Papa – another jaw-droppingly awesome kiwi creation.  Back home we went to share some flowers and have a chat with Dad at Karaka Point. A few day trips and several thousand games of cards (including the addictive ‘Kings and Arse-holes’) filled in the rest of Ann’s time.  She was considerate enough to give our stock of Chardonnay a decent hammering.

Billy’s done some clearing up around the acer and grass seed has been sown.  There are 2 tall tree stumps behind the acer, the heads of which were lopped off to avoid shading the solar panels.   While we were in Wellington, Peter began work on a new and previously secret project.  By the power of his craftsmanship and the humble chainsaw, one tree stump is now transformed into a seahorse (my favourite creature).  He wants to work on more of the finer detail and also to carve another seahorse in the second stump. 

The horse arena is definitely finally getting there.  Billy has worked on the currently unoccupied beds, levelling them and turning the clumps of weeds upside-down to kill off the roots.  Those that remain unoccupied are the ones ear-marked for grains next year.  There are 3 feijoas in one bed, under-planted with strawberries, and so far 4 citrus – just another 2 more needed to complete the grove.  The weed-mat is down between the beds, awaiting the delivery of a load of ‘pea-metal’ (cheap gravel) next week.  There’s a new teuchrium hedge marking the divide between the vege garden and the horse arena, and a young korokia hedge along the pig-run-to-be.  A blackboy peach (a 50^th birthday gift from my students) marks the end of the korokia hedge and hopefully will feed future pigs as well as us.  Only a few of the vine prunings have rooted, so we've added 3 new varieties of table grapes.  We'll probably get a few more prunings next year and try to look after them a bit better.

Madame Cholet has been accommodating a range of beautiful seedlings.  A trailer-load of compost has been mixed into the remains of last year’s broken-down straw bales, so it’s now ready to receive the transplanted seedlings.  Here’s hoping I manage not to overdo it with the cucumber seedlings this time.  Some seedlings are ready to be planted outside too.  They're hardening off outside, so that small matter of some serious weeding is definitely in order.  I was deluding myself that the weeds are just shallow-rooted annuals and it’ll be a breeze to deal with them.  Then I calculated that, based on recent progress, it'll take around 36 hours (a conservative estimate) to completely clear them.  Hmmm.

The lambs seem to visibly get bigger and they’re all enjoying the surge in pasture growth.  The chooks are enjoying each other’s company.  Though they’re straying onto the driveway, the vege garden is as yet undiscovered by these fowl critters, so they  can all continue to free-range.  It’s a pleasure seeing and hearing them as they go about their scratching and cock-a-doodle-doo-ing.  Hopefully one of the hens will go broody very soon.

It seems that Hera is probably just fat and not actually pregnant.  She should be due any day, but though she is well-rounded, she’s not pendulous or obviously imminent.  There’s been no udder development either, so we’re bracing ourselves for no calf.  Very disappointing indeed.  Fingers crossed that the same fate is not awaiting Athena.

The bees are busily buzzing and both hives are jam-packed with bees, brood, pollen and honey.  None have attempted to make queen cells, at least not yet.  Varroa strips are in, but some re-organisation of boxes and frames has to happen.  In one hive I’ve repeated the same ingenious mistake of trapping the queen above the queen excluder.  In the other hive I’d already previously trapped the queen above the excluder and had removed the excluder.  That queen has since decided to lay her brood in all 3 of the boxes, creating a slight management issue.  It’s a very good job that the bees know what they’re doing.

Edible crops are sparse, but the newly sewn seeds should begin to feed us within a few weeks.  We’re down to  carrots (still plenty of them left), some beetroot, jerusalem artichokes and a bit of kale.  Our precious stocks of firewood and hay have just lasted long enough.  Peter’s been working on the firewood supplies.  He’s sourced some gum from trees which have been felled at his workplace.  We have plenty of pine and willow on the property, but gum burns for a lot longer than them, so it’ll be good to have this variety.  We’ve allocated a couple of paddocks for hay.  Once the truck has delivered the pea-metal (it’ll have to cross both paddocks to get to the horse arena), we’ll shut them down from grazing so that they can be cut for hay before Christmas.  And talking of Christmas, we’re expecting visitors – Kaja, Jeremy, Michael and Melissa – to join us for the festivities.  We’re also very much looking forward to a repeat visit from David, Peter’s cousin Janet’s son, sometime over the summer holidays.  He came for a few days a couple of years ago and has now returned to NZ for work.  Hopefully it’ll be possible to squeeze everyone in somehow.  

In the meantime it’s head down, bum up and getting on with work – paid and home.  No surprises there.  Sarah, one of my Polytechnic colleagues, says this quotes makes her think of me.  Love it!

“Behind every good woman is a flock of chickens”