Slow progress

Our week has been much quieter than we had hoped for in terms of tradies working on the house. It mirrored the previous week quite closely in that Bert called in on Wednesday and tradies (actual builders this time) came on Friday. Bert finished installing the downpipes from the guttering which is a great relief to me as we have had quite a bit of rain this week. He also took the warming drawer apart so that we were able to extract the instruction manual and we are therefore now able to use it and the oven. This meant we could make toast for the first time, so we celebrated by having some for lunch.

On Friday Brodie and Devon arrived, and along with doing some detailing work round the windows on the outside of the house, they also fitted the doors (no handles yet). Not only does this mean that the privies are now private, but that the sewing room is no longer the “door storage facility”. Apart from the door handles and the hanging rail in the wardrobe, the room is now finished. It is as nice as we had hoped, and Nicky is very pleased with it now that we can see and use it in it’s full glory. 

An interesting consequence of having the doors fitted is that the rooms are now taking on their own smell, especially our bedroom which I think smells faintly (and pleasantly) of chocolate. The shower room is also warmer while in use, though we are also looking forward to the heated floor being commissioned.

So that’s the only progress that has been made this week, but we are still pleased how even the small steps are still taking us forward. The fridge/freezer is still sitting in the lounge, and we still don’t have a basin and vanity unit in the shower room. The disliked one in the down stairs loo is to be swapped for one of our choosing. There is storage still to be fitted, but we feel the house is now much more prepared to received our goods and chattels when they arrive.

Nicky continues to hand wash the laundry each morning and hang it out (weather permitting) to dry. I built an airing rack in the sewing room of which Heath Robinson would be proud:

She also gets out into the “garden” to uproot weeds and move stones from Jacqui’s section when ever she can.

I have done a couple of bits of work from my new office, The Yellow House Café down the road, as they have good broadband. I spent a couple of hours on Tuesday afternoon using the communal kitchen at the holiday park to produce some shepherd’s pies and steak and mushrooms that we have frozen and can easily re-heat in the microwave. Our chosen cook top (hob) is now destined not to arrive for some months, if ever, so Bert has suggested an alternative to which we have agreed.

We have had a couple of nice evening walks, one of which was round Virginia Lake:

Even though the weather has been very windy at times, and we have had some rain, we have also had sunshine and a couple of clear nights. The latter have enabled us to enjoy gazing at the Milky Way, as there is very little light pollution from our southern patio. We can also see some of it through one of the bedroom windows - a real joy. Thursday morning was chilly enough to put the heat pump on and see how it fared with heating the house. It was quite interesting what a difference changing settings made, and it did start to get warmth into the entrance hall and shower room after awhile.

An unexpected FaceTime chat with Jancis on Wednesday evening was a treat, and she was very much in our thoughts during the weekend as it has been Whangnui’s Vintage weekend. James and Wendy, friends of mine from the Auckland Deep & Meaningful group, came down for the weekend and to pay us a visit. They arrived mid-morning on Friday for a tour of our new home and cups of tea and coffee. We went into town for lunch at The Yellow House Café which was lovely, and it provided us with lobs for dinner (lamb salad and wedges with cheese and bacon). After lunch they went up to their accomodation at Bushy Park, and we met up again at the tram shed at the end of the afternoon for a tram ride. Even though this was short (there is only about 120m of track), the $2 tickets enabled us to go there and back again twice. It was most enjoyable.

We met up with James and Wendy again on Saturday morning and had morning tea at The Mud Duck café. On the way into town we passed the traction engines which were giving rides ($2 again!), and bought cheese and mulled Apple Juice at the market:

We said good bye to James and Wendy having really enjoyed their company, and headed up Victoria Avenue for the Whanganui Caboodle - music, food stalls, entertainments and numerous vintage cars on display. We finally got home for lunch and then walked up the road to a Pumice Party. Frances had invited us to this event at her Papaiti home couple of weeks ago, and we got to meet another range of locals from “this end” of town in her garden. It was a very enjoyable afternoon of conversations and nibbling of nosh. On our way back home we saw some of the vintage car parade that came up Somme Parade and turned around in the holiday park. Much waving and honking of horns to the great pleasure of waving locals.

Today after church we went to another shared lunch at another venue with a smaller and different (on the whole) group of people. It was another enjoyable occasion and good to meet new people in a different part of Whanganui. Now that we can properly get into the sewing room, we have finally had chance this afternoon to completely clean its windows and floor for the first time. The lounge floor had another sweep and mop too. Altogether the house is much cleaner, as most of the grit blown in has been cleaned away.

Take care, Rick