Ohmigod it's nearly Christmas

There are SO many things happening at this time of year, but would you believe - my happenings have very little to do with Christmas and the silly season! I have, as I mentioned in my last post, discovered the joy of gardening, and I am now the proud owner of a VERY substantial vegetable garden! In it I have :

beans, carrots, cabbages, capsicum, garlic, cucumber, leeks, spring onions, pukekohe onions, peas, corn, potatoes,tomatoes (3 varieties), lettuces (4 varieties),radishes, and baby beets! Boy am I PROUD of my garden

Photos coming!!!!

Hi there, my few readers - yes, I am feeling lots unloved today, cos it's been a miserable day in a classroom with 9 and 10year-olds who really let me down with the behaviour standard, and that was SO disappointing when they know me so well - so I NEED love and reassurance :(

However, onwards and upwards, the winter has hit, and that is always great as it means that summer is moving closer, and we are nearly at the shortest day!!!

Ma Boiy has gone flatting, and that does our relationship the world of good, and The Captain is home from Fiji, and enjoying being back in the family-fold, allbeit for a short time while she hunts down work!

A dear friend has started working on my garden - she claims to NOT be a gardener, but if you could see some of the things she has done around her new garden at their new home, well, it takes a bit of convincing! She has a knack of moving plants and they don't even know they have been moved, of pruning, and they don't look as if they have been touched, and of working for 3 hours and managing to do 8 hours worth of work - and what's more - she LOVES it!

The photos at the top are just to remind me (and you) what is in store when the weather improves - bring it on!

So, there we are. Another short report to let you know I AM still around - just not making the time to blog like my friends do - that is, frequently. Perhaps that is why I don't get many comments - there's not been much to read, aye?

Well, next time WILL be longer and more enjoyable reading.

Until then, my friends,

Good night

To welcome me back

poppiesanddaisies.blogspot.com - a very wonderful and amazing young women - my new hero...that woman, as you know from her blog, has moments of doubt and worry about herself - but she needs to know that she is really an amazing young woman who has the personality and grace and charm of a woman like Jane Fonda, or Grace Kelly - you GO Mrs PB! we all love you!
NOW, onto what I initially intended to write about before I slipped over there on her blog to visit!
I have decided that I am a manic person in some ways - I rediscovered gardening in January (refer last blog) and now I have rediscovered cooking - I am hellbent on cooking naturally for my family (all of whom are living beneath the parental units wings once more - more on that later). Sir Ladbrook and I trot off MOST Saturday mornings - well we've been three times to TWO - to the local farmers market - local being the brilliant Lyttleton one (www.smaps.co.nz) and we buy free range eggs, and garden fresh veges that haven't been sprayed, and then free range, hormone free meat - it's all so incredibly exciting. However, I have discovered that at the bottom of my hill, there is a free range, hormone free butcher, and next door an organic vegetable and food place where the veges are the same colours they were when I was growing up in the 50's and 60's - you know the colours I mean - like www.sotreadsoftly.typepad.com - where Mrs STS had her colour rage this week - REAL orange for a pumpkin, and REAL green for silverbeet and broccoli!!!
So, now that we have the fledglings both at home, there is more demand on my culinary skills, and they are both enjoying the spoils of my hard work! Yay!:)
Now, you are asking , what has caused the fledgling to return from Nadi? Well, The Captain decided to finish her time offshore, and return to NZ to further her career. Hence she has moved back home to do some serious study for a three day interview at the end of the month; she has one in the North Island of NZ with a small local airline, and when she joins them she will be flying twin engine Beech aircraft to smaller provincial airports - a very important next step in her flying career. Mind you, with today's temperatures struggling to reach 5degrees celsius, I suspect she may be regretting THAT move a la mo! It is lovely having her back, as she is a delightful young woman, who has a mind of her own, but in a very positive way.
Ma Boiy is still hunkering down in the downstairs bedroom, and is working happily at a small coffee roasting business where he is also furthering his skills in barista-ing, sales and now adding maintenance to his repertoire of skills within the coffee world. He is such a personable young man, that he is well suited to chatting to people and winning them over. It's actually a really lovely feeling being proud of both our off-spring!
Mr CT and I had a brief sojourn to Mooloolaba, Queensland, Australia where we went to the wedding of the son of a dear couple we know there. There is always great weather on the Sunshine Coast www.tourismsunshinecoast.com.au and we were not disappointed this time. We had ten days there and got growled at by colleagues/friends because I sent emails and texts from there and Mr PD also commented on it. but it was THAT sort of holiday where we were blobbing and boy did we blob!
Well, rather than put you ALL (all 3 of you that I KNOW about) into brain overload with information, suffice to say I am back and look forward to re-establishing our wonderful blogging relationship.
Until next time
Mrs CT
P.S. no photos as it is too cold to go to bedroom and get camera - it is now 4.8degrees outside and in the bedroom!!!

Where am I?

Where have I been? I don't know - gardening ( I have rediscovered the joys of gardening ), visiting ( I am busy catching up on people I haven't seen for aeons ), scrap-booking ( I am ACTUALLY starting to tidy my office, so I can get in there and BEGIN scrap-booking ), reading, cooking beautiful meals from scratch instead of using things out of packets. My latest favourite is COLOUR - red, green and yellow peppers, cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, broccoli anything that can be cooked as a vege and has COLOUR!! We have had some terrific meals of late - amazing what one can do when one puts one mind to something!
No photos this time as it is late, and I am on my way to bed, but noticed that both Poppy Black and SoTreadSoftly had updated their blogs so had to touch bases too - not that I am aware of ANYONE at all reading my blog, but it gives me a sense of satisfaction to write. I guess I don't have many comments because I am not arty crafty and clever with my hands like my wonderfully talented niece-in-law, and the very crafty Poppy Black - I am more sneaky crafty - you want a surprise party organised, then I'm your (wo)man!! You want to buy someone an appropriate gift, then send me hunting, but DO NOT ask me to put together anything that remotely reeks of creativity - no SIr,it aint moi!
So this is just to let my phantom fans know that I have not forgotten them, all two of you, (thanks Poppy Black and Mrs STS!) and I shall get some photos onto this page asap and fill in more details of the past month.
Ciao bambinos.

Christmas came early!!!

Things have been quite busy for me lately, so today is the first time I've had a chance to update my blog. Many things have happened in our lives - most of them small and insignificant to others, but the biggest "happening" is that The Captain was asked by her millionaire boss in Fiji, to take over the position of Chief Flying officer in December when the present one returns to Aus to continue his career there. She was a bit taken aback as she had a special friend who was coming to NZ to do an upgrade to NZ levels of the Air Traffic Controllers qualification which he already holds - but she decided that the opportunity was too good to turn down, so she accepted it. She is to be in Fiji now for a further 12months, but is getting trained in a twin engine Seneca plane which will get her further ahead overseas when she finally travels to Canada (or where-ever she goes) after Fiji. She is now quite excited about it since she has made the decision, and she will be back here after Xmas for a friends wedding, and will catch up with her friend then...so it looks like Sir Ladbrooks and I will be doing another trip to Fiji in winter!!! Yay!!!

We also have Mah Boiy back from Melbourne, and he is staying at home for a few months. He is running a cafe that does only takeaway coffees and he does a few bits of food like paninis and muffins. He is learning how to run a business and do the GST and ordering etc, so he can go back to Aus and look at eventually buying his own cafe and making his mother LOTS of money!!!!! yeah right!

Sir Ladbrook and I are moving our photolab from Church Corner in Christchurch to opposite the pharmacy in Lincoln Rd - that will make running the two businesses easier by having them closer together. The move takes place on 27th December.
Now, one of THE most wonderful things that has happened lately, is getting a parcel from my niece in Greytown in the North Island, and this parcel was a few of her goodies that I ordered. Take a tip friends, if you want beautifully handmade gifts as presents for special people, I cannot recommend Al's stuff highly enough. The detail and finish is absolutely fantastic, and the goods are delightful. I shall try to remember a photo on this page before I finish blogging. Seriously, the packaging alone showed that this was a quality parcel - you know those presents you get where you don't want to ruin the parcel by actually opening it??!! Well, it was one of THOSE experiences.
And when I DID open it, I saw the great things as pictured. I have put the BIC biro alongside to give you an idea of the sizes. The little nests are going to adorn the Christmas tree - and one HAS to have a REAL tree to do them justice, so thanks to Al for bringing the real Xmas tree back into the home instead of one with Made in China stamped on the base!

The first pic is a great little bag and the vintage book came with it - boy, have I had a rush on to read that book!!! 2nd pic is a terrific scarf which has a loop on it - made in superb material shades. Pic 3 shows the two cloth badges made using vintage buttons - very popular with the staff at school - and the others are two of the fantastic little wool and raffia nests (am I right,Al?) They will defintely be on the tree, and the last photo is of 2 coasters which Al sent - they are so much nicer than horrible photo ones made by large firms, or advertising ones which generally have a place in our home! Thanks to Al, very much!:)and pics 4 and 5 are the doorstops - they have a handle on top so moving them is easy, and they are so pretty to have instead of some unglamorous-looking old heavy thing!

So we don't actually NEED the 25th for Christmas - we have had it now!

Take care my friends and remember Al if you want extra special handmade presents to give that someone special. Will write again before the silly season takes hold.

Let's try something new

I have decided that I am going to try for the ad-sense scene - so there's not a lot to add to my last post, but I just wanted to see what people think of this

We have now passed Halloween and Guy Fawke's nights and I am left wondering why HZ has to take these ridiculous occasions and make them into something so horrible - at school we are not allowed to teach children about witches and goblins, nor about terrorists (like GF), but the parents, who are the first to complain about certain myths and legends, are allowed to celebrate and encourage their children to celebrate occasions such as these 2 - I really am getting to be an old grouch, but something reeks of double standards here!
Enough! spring has sprung and so has a change in the weather - yay! I am getting such beautiful vistas from my lounge window of my glorious roses, and "flags" (don't know the horticultural name, but Poppiesanddaisies will, so contact her for it.)
A busy couple of weeks on the work front for me, and that is great - I am saving to have both bathrooms in the home re-done - they are both 16years old and beginning to show signs of wear and tear. Doesn't help having Ma Boiy home fulltime, as the downstairs bathroom where he inhabits, is the worst of the showers.
Speaking of Ma Boiy he is happily ensconced in a coffee outlet which is a machine and cups place only, and it is in the front of a printing shop. He has no tables for sitting at, but he has a great local clientele who are returning there in droves for Ma Boiy's coffee - he IS a great barista! - after the tyoung lasss who WAS running it, and who professed that she was NO barista! It has given him a chance run a business and learn that side of things so he can return to Melbourne and hopefully buy his own place in the not-too-distant future.
The Captain is staying on in Nadi for another six months, and has made that decision quite happily. She is going to be trained on a Seneca, which is a twin engine, and will stand her in good stead for returning here or going on to Canada to fly the ATR which is a small provincial sized aeroplane.
Sir Ladbrooks has decided to move the digital photo lab that we have from Upper Riccarton to across the road from our pharmacy in Addington. Things have changed in UR since we sold our large pharmacy there, and the mall we were in is now full of Asian restaurants, and butchers and florists, and the whole area is different from 4 years ago!
We are very excited about this new move and it has inspired Keith and I to re-look at what we are doing with that business, so I shall keep you posted.
Well, good people, I shall sign off now - have a great weekend. :)