A week of momentous events, sort of

We have been camping in our house for over a week now, and have got it looking as tidy as we can. In the coming week that should all change as we hope to have tradies in to continue with plumbing, electrics, kitchen appliances, wardrobe fittings and doors. Outside there is draining, cladding and painting to be attended to.

The week began with a public holiday, and a lovely dawn. This was the view from our bedroom window at 6.24am:



To prepare ourselves to the day ahead we had left over croissants for breakfast with scrambled eggs (life is hard at times). This was followed with the Ceremony of The Letter Box. Our Corten steel sign was screwed to pegs which Nicky had retrieved from the builders’ rubble, then the pegs were hammered into the ground. The beautiful red wine box which was now reincarnated as our letter box had it’s gold numbers attached, and then was screwed to one of the pegs. It is, many would say, an impressive construction, that may or may not fall over in the next couple of weeks. I had already completed a request for NZ Post to verify our address by sending us a letter, which arrived on Saturday. We exist!


Around 10.30, as promised, a very nice man from Mitre 10 arrived in his van with our wheel barrow and rotary clothes drier. The digging of the hole and erection of the drier was a bit of a challenge, but needed to be done as Nicky already had a large pile of hand washing waiting to go out. Laundry was pegged, the sun shone, the wind blew, rotation was achieved and the laundry dried. Another one of life’s major milestones completed!



It was all downhill then - more laundry and a touch of supermarket shopping. Judy and Terry from Blockhouse Bay had invited us round for dinner (they had rented a house on Patterson Ave) and to meet Judy’s cousin Cynthia and her partner Justine, who live in Whanganui. It was lovely to meet them and it was a great way to end the day.


Tuesday was hot, and a crew of painters started arriving at 7.30am to complete the first coat of white on the outside of the house. This they did and left early afternoon while we were having a snooze (public holidays are exhausting, as is going into town to do lots of errands and collect fabric samples). Elaine, our new next-door-but-one neighbour, came over to have a tour of our home, and then we went over to her’s and Marks. They have bought a Bunnings kit-set house which was constructed by a local builder and then brought to site on a trailer. It was very interesting to see as it is something which we had considered.


Our skip was emptied on Wednesday, and when returned positioned in front of our house so that it is no longer partially on Jacqui’s section. Nicky did some drive access management by re-arranging the gravel, and I ordered our Bee Cards for use on the buses. We enjoyed seeing the paddle steamers going up and down the river, and wave madly to them. We hear and smell them before we see them.


After deciding on fabric for the downstairs loo and returning the samples to the shop, the afternoon was filled with visitors. Paul and Jason had come down from Blockhouse Bay and while they were sitting and chatting, Jacqui and partner and brother and sister-in-law came round for a tour. We went into town with Paul and Jason afterwards for a late dinner at a roast takeaway which we thoroughly enjoyed al-fresco.


Nicky had her first Whanganui haircut on Thursday morning, at an establishment recommended by Cynthia (see above). She was very pleased with the result. I had a wander round to find The Burrow, a lovely deli where we have a gift voucher to spend, and to find a pub to have a drink with Paul and Jason. I discovered The Rutland Arms (very good name with our Leicestershire connection) which had a great range of craft beers on tap, and served breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast in a pub - I was almost besotted. 


Paul and Jason had a trip on the Waimarie paddle steamer so we waved at them as they went passed. Nicky started using wood off-cuts to try and layout the locations of the paths in the garden. We had another visitor of the “I live locally and have been watching your build for the last few months” type, a lovely lady by the name of Frances who runs a garden nursery just up the road. She was great fun to chat to and wanted to know who was going to keep our clerestory windows clean. The next monumental event was the arrival of our wheelie bins, which we celebrated by emptying the kitchen bins into them.


I realised that while Nicky was over at Elaine’s having a shower, we are actually spending a fairly significant portion of our time giving people tours. This may have to stop while we have tradies on the premises. The evening was quite wet but we were safe and dry in The Rutland Arms with Paul and Jason having some lovely sharable food for dinner (like tapas), and some very nice beer. I think we will definitely be going back.


When we got home, we discovered that we had post!!!! A welcome card from Anna and Richard, a Christmas card from Jancis, and last week’s issue of The Listener.


We pottered and shopped on Friday morning, which was still a little damp from the night before, and put a picnic together before meeting up with Paul and Jason at Virginia Lake. We hadn’t explored the park and lake at all so this was a good opportunity and it was an enjoyable introduction to what it has to offer. We saw something we had never seen before - a pukeko in an apple tree picking the apples and dropping them to the ground. We didn’t see it eating any of them, is just seemed to be intent on picking them! 


Paul and Jason came back home for afternoon tea. On the way home we gave them an en-route tour of three of the other sections which had considered before buying this one.


We had one of our best night’s sleep and Saturday started with promising weather which developed into another lovely sunny day. Many people have mentioned the Saturday market to us, so we headed there after a breakfast of scrambled eggs on bread. It is a nice wee market, down by the river. I bought Nicky some green and black elephant patterned trousers, and she bought us sushi and spiced buns for lunch. We had a walk along the river boardwalk and thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience. Here are a couple of photos:




We spent the afternoon cleaning and tidying the house, again, and received some more post - the verification letter from NZ Post and the latest edition of The Listener. We had a quiet evening enjoying the house. Nicky has encapsulated much of why we like it with the phrase “it’s not mean”. Which it is isn’t. Even though it is only small and compact, everything feels generously proportioned. We will see how this changes when we get all our stuff!


Nicky went off to Christ Church this morning while I made a contribution for the church shared lunch that we planned to go to. Nicky came back from church with Kelvin who had requested a lift and collected me. Lunch was an enjoyable affair and a good way to start getting to know people.


Nicky has been working hard in the garden this afternoon moving some of our spilt rocks (from the gabions) off Jacqui’s section, while I have been moving our things out of the way in preparation for the arrival of the tradies. We don’t know if we will see any tomorrow or not.


Take care, Rick

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