Fun in the Sun

The last few days have felt like a Trumpet or Cadbury advert or something.  Classic Kiwi Summer Family Fun.  The weather has been glorious (as it has been around the country everywhere), we’ve had free time, and a burning desire to chill.
 

Christmas day, unpacking presents

Christmas Day was a laid back affair with a yummo roast lamb Christmas Lunch followed by a quad bike ride up the ‘road’ looking for some cell phone reception for Christmas txts.  We have found THE fencepost that affords us 3 bars courtesy of both Telecom and Vodafone.  We have carefully marked the fencepost with a rock because it’s the only spot for quite some radius around our campsite.  The alternative is a 16 km return trip by car to Tai Tapu.

Christmas Lunch

 

Off to find some cell phone reception...
 

 In the evening we popped off to the rellies to say hi and feed the horses a bag of apples for their Christmas treat.  Lady Gee Gee, being a race horse, has got no concept of treats apart from a bucket of hard feed, so she needs to be educated as to the ways of a family pet.  She’ll get there.  She at least pawed at the piece of apple on the ground and looked at Frankie and Millie’s apple frenzie with bemused confusion.

The next couple of days were punctuated with a dash to this fantastic Laundromat that I’ve found (does 18 kg of washing in one 30 minute hit, yippee!), and Huckleberry Finn type adventuring for the kids in their new surroundings.  Hilarious to see the planning that goes into it.  For example the stall, named in honour of our horses, selling pine cones for fifty cents a bag.  Ingeniously constructed from stripped down branches courtesy of the old Christmas tree and bits of ply lying around.  As they were arguing about the price per bag and dragging the stall out to the gate, miraculously a punter drove past.  Unfortunately that was it for the day. So they need to work on the foot traffic component of their marketing plan a bit.

We also went for a bit of drive around Lyttleton Harbour and reacquainted ourselves with the wonderfully old world charm of Governors Bay Hotel where we had jugs of lemonade lime and bitters, before driving round the other side to check out our new yachting club ‘to be’ at Charteris Bay.  We were all full of enthusiastic plans for chidrens’ yachting careers after that.  Next summer they’ll start with an after school Learn to Sail program.

Governor's Bay Pub

 

We are now in the Marlborough Sounds living in the (now) relative luxury of our boat, our dear beautiful Manaia.  Lovely to have the comfort of old friends among all the change we’ve had over the last year.  The Sounds are so familiar, it’s like being back in Wellington, it’s a welcome rest from the energy required pioneering our new surrounds in Christchurch.  It’s been kind of exhausting, both physically and emotionally.  I was uneasy about going on holiday this year because I have this bee in my bonnet about getting settled and I was sad about some very good friends of ours not being able to be there.  Plus I feel bad about leaving the horses for a week (even though they will be well looked after).  But I’ve got to admit we need the holiday and it’s jolly nice blobbing.  First thing we did this year being the good parents we are, is throw the kids off the boat without life jackets to see if they can swim to the shore.  That way we don’t have any life jacket arguments the whole holiday.  Anyway, they can, so guess we can relax about the life jackets a little this year!  There are definite benefits to children growing up.

A shaky intro to a blissful Christmas

 

Well, a 6.0 earthquake coming your way is something to behold!  Thankfully we were at home (missed the first one(s) because we were driving), but you weren’t going to miss this one.  I can understand how people could have been knocked off their feet (I lost my balance), and after the first jolt, the land shook and wobbled around like jelly which REALLY doesn’t look right, believe me!  Shelter belts shook unsteadily on their feet and the noise is by far the worst, it’s menacing.  It must be one of those things that is just programmed into your primal psyche, like nails scratching on the blackboard, a fear of heights, and an instinctual aversion to snakes.  Even Steve was highly impressed and animated with it, and he’s been here all year!  Technically, as an engineer, he was quite excited.  Like ‘finally, I’ve felt a biggie’.  Interestingly Kasper had already been feeling the ones leading up to it.  We’d been going ‘yeh, yeh, yeh’, but when I saw the paper and the timings, he was bang on.  So I won’t ever be doubting him again, I should learn to not doubt him full stop because he’s been right about a lot of other stuff despite not yet having turned seven.  Our resident seismological activity sensor / baby engineer and scientist.  The kids took it fine although they are scared at night if they wake up and I notice that Hanna in particular is really struggling to get to sleep at the moment.  She’s feeling it and needs TLC (no doubt all the changes don’t help).



Ooh, Christmas is tomorrow!

 Earthquakes are certainly a good way to meet all the neighbours!  We’ve scored there; they were over in a flash to see if we were OK.  Both sets.  I can see we’ve fallen on our feet with the locals, kind and straight up, solid people.  Even the local café is fab, Steve still took the kids down there on the quad bikes as planned.  Life goes on.  Certainly by now.

 

On the day of the earthquakes, we were dreading Steve being called back into work in the CBD Red Zone immediately.  But it appears it can now wait to Boxing Day since his buildings involve other buildings on either side having to be checked first.  At least we’ve found a spot with enough cell phone reception for phone calls a 5 minute quad bike ride away.  Always good for emergencies.  As per how people are feeling about the earthquakes, I don’t think in general people are worried about personal safety anymore, but I’d say the dominant feeling around is just despondence, at just having to sit out another six months until the insurance companies relax.  Another six months before people start feeling a bit confident about investing emotionally and construction wise again…  People have just needed to completely readjust their life paths, businesses and values to cope.  No point investing too much in ‘nesting’ home based activities: it’s either not going to happen for you or it’s going to get wrecked.  And that sucks, it’s just a bad hand that’s been dealt to you and it makes people grouchy.  I bet you there’s a lot of drinking and travelling going on.

 




Thanks for the new camera Auntie Nicola!

Earthquakes aside the last few days have been absolute bliss for us as a family and in terms of where we’re at.  The weather has been fantastic and Steve has outdone himself in getting the place set up.  We now have shower boxes, lots of storage shelves, solar powered lights and music / phone chargers, a sink with hot and cold running water, doors on the indoor bit and a new wall to shelter us from the easterly on the covered yard bit.  We have read, painted, relaxed, drank expensive champagne, primped and preened, pottered, and we are currently cooking roast lamb with veggies and hollandaise sauce on the BBQ.  Followed by the traditional Christmas pudding (pavlova, cream and fruit).

The kids and I have had a really enjoyable experience moving the horses between paddocks at various times over the last week or so and watching the hay being made.  Agriculture is such a large part of life around here and kids love watching all the stages and machinery etc (so do I for that matter, doing agricultural science was always my first choice as I was growing up).  Hanna has already decided she’s following in Mummy’s footsteps and going to Lincoln University.  Guess she’ll be around for a while yet then!  As for Kasper, no doubt it will we involve building stuff, like Dad.  He’s obsesses with Dad’s power tools, nails and wheels. 



And now for the trailer to go with the quad bike...



 So Merry Christmas everyone, we love you, you know who you are!  I know missing everyone in Wellington is going to start gnawing at us soon when we get back to ‘normal’ life.  Right now it feels like one big holiday.

 

Settling In

'Seasons table' incorporating our new doll house
 won at the Raphael House TFC fair

We’ve come a long way over the last couple of days: paydirt!  Finally.  Steve has munted both his thumbs and we’ve all got bags under our eyes (Kasper in particular!).  But it feels like we’ve broken the back of it.  From here on in it’s just refining our systems.  Like making a soakpit for the shower, hooking up the roofs to the water tank, levelling the shed which has sunk 50 mm on one side, putting up a mirror, shelves, extra storage, putting the battens on to water proof the ply, fashioning a sink with running water, creating a compost heap and making a shower box (we're being a bit TOO hippy and nudist at the moment)…  Poor neighbours.



You need to do it yourself around here,
parents are far and few between



Moving on in, bedtime!



Look at my new home!



It feels fantastic to have all our normal food and habits again, our normal music, our normal bedding, our normal tea, having a place to potter….  Funny the things that make it feel like home.  It’s all about not having to think or make decisions, lovely, those little habits. We’re in Christchurch, and we have a home!  Suddenly we are sleeping properly again.  And it really doesn’t feel like roughing it. The shower is as good as we had at home and nothing wrong with the toilet, have even put out the bathrooms scales to encourage us to eat better again, or really, drink less wine and beer and exercise (although Steve reckons he’s had plenty of the latter)! 

On the cooking front, the BBQ side burner boils water as fast as a jug would, I'm a huge fan of one pot meals anyway, and the fact that we haven’t got electricity hasn’t even featured with a lovely array of solar lights creating ambience at night.  However, we've got to take into account the weather has been fabulous.  Mother Nature has been very kind to the extent of allowing us to create container explosions with stuff everywhere with not a fear of getting it damp or dirty.  But we’ve already had a good sense of the extremes of climate here.  The days are baking hot, you can’t walk barefoot on pavements and the black BBQ needs oven mitts to open the cover so you can start it up! Yet last night we froze our butts off and tonight I’ve put our winter bedding on in preparation. I’m pretty nervous of the temperatures we’ll experience post March.



Kasper's beautiful Balinese kite going up







Balinese flags: beautiful to watch and symbols
of hope, peace and love (apparently!)



We are really focussed on getting the place ready for cats, dogs and horses now. The kids and I can’t wait to all be back together again, we all have our favourite pet.   Kasper misses George, Hanna misses Koko, and I miss Frankie. On that note, Frankie has really bonded with Lady Gee Gee (our new young mare), and absolutely loses his rag whenever they are separated. That’s a new problem. I’ve never seen Frankie as angry as I saw him the other day when I took Gee Gee out of the paddock. Tomorrow the plan is to drive our quad bikes down to the recently reopened Blue Duck Café which is featuring life music. Can’t do that in Wellington! Kids are really really excited and I’m sure it will ‘be a moment’ as Steve likes to call it.  Looking forward to Christmas day now that we are feeling suitably relaxed.  The kids are very excited, I think we'd better find ourselves a Christmas Tree today courtesy of a shelter belt, and give Santa some clear instructions on how to get there.



Why go on holiday if this is your home I reckon

Roof Shout

 

Ablutions block to be, vent is for the toilet



Overwhelming slog intermingled with small wafts of success and satisfaction is how I can best describe the last few days. Steve has war wounds he proudly displays to everyone and has had to take a hard lesson in patience. I’m much the same, the big shed was a much larger project then we anticipated. It’s hardly something you just slap up. It seems that it is a proper building project as Ross the Boss’s gentle (and not so gentle) guidance is telling us! If it was up to us we would have come unstuck half way with a skewed, bent, curved pile of timber. Structurally it would have been fine though! Amazing what structural engineers have no idea about.

Composting throne

We've got the toilet up and running much to the kids delight who need to poop on it every second hour (although this wasn't necessary pre-toilet).  Amazing what entertains them.  Feels good to have a good throne though, we've got one of these toilets in Karamea too and they're absolutely fantastic and truly don't smell once installed properly.

 Finished the roof for the big shed today, what a job.  Sunburnt and sore.  I impressed the blokes by putting the new BBQ together with the kids.  Without having a beer as was indicated as being necessary by the salesman in Mitre10 Mega (in less time then indicated I might add).  It was because I read the instructions.



Last sheet of iron going on.

We got a big brother for Kasper's quad bike today as well.  Big Red, second hand, with a good life behind it already, was delivered today.  Kasper has used it as his perch for most of the afternoon.





We have decided to tai ho on the Christmas plans a bit just because we need some time to just let the pendulum stop swinging an relax on our own land a bit without rushing around, we're so over it.  Christmas in the stable!  The kids are really excited about it and personally so am I.  Tomorrow night is our first night sleeping on the property, come hail, rain or shine.  At this stage we still have a grass floor but hopefully that can be remedied tomorrow.  The boys are off to Goldpine, 7.30 a.m.

I've been busy with Lockwood going through the specs for our new house and all the other planning / project management.  Steve has left me to it which makes it a lot faster and easier on the premise that he likes my taste anyway so why double up.  Jay.  Sometimes too many cooks spoil the broth and I'm very excited to be finally building our own home although it feels like a bit of responsibility.  At least we are feeling like we're here to stay now: I've lost that feeling that we are just here on holiday.  Wouldn't call myself a Cantabrian yet, but maybe there's room for us to live here being just the way we are! 

Our sleeping space to be, pre-floor

Adventuring is Hard Work

The last few days have consisted of plain hard graft, a lot of it in dodgy weather, trying to get some roofs up so we have a place to live.  Exhaustion doesn't quite cover it.  Things aren't happening as fast as we'd like and we feel under a bit of pressure.  We've both been waking up in the middle of the night going 'arghhh', what are we going to do!  We've discovered that a kitset building doesn't necessarily mean an easy ride.  Nor does it mean that adjustments along the way aren't necessary: timbers warp, mistakes are made, random bits are found, expected bits are not, and inaccuracies creep in.  And Steve is tweaking to the fact that slow is better.  Do it once do it right Mr Hogg.  The big shed / stable has been towed into place requiring TWO 4WD's grunting it out in tandem and plenty of old mooring lines plus plenty of yelling (and covering my eyes) on my part.  And tomorrow we begin roofing.



  A new innovation has also been included in our methods and that is: 'follow the instructions'.  As a result, Hanna and myself have done a pretty good job of putting the little shed up which will function as our ablutions block.  Hanna has amazed me with a calm 'here, I'll do some Mum' before proceeding to hammer on the floor with 3 inch nails and an adult hammer (2 hands) for a full half hour or so.  She did an amazing job and profusely apologized for getting 2 nails in bent.


 As for little man, we haven't really seen him for the last couple of days.  We've heard him though.  He's received an early Christmas present and he's been on his bike ever since.  We are counting how good his day has been by way of the number of tanks of petrol he's been through.  On Wednesday, some of the family is coming round for dinner.  By then we are hoping to spend our first night in our shed.  A bit of work to do till then!  It seems like a ridiculous proposition at the moment, but it makes for a good goal.

Fledgeling Beginnings

Well we're starting to settle in, I'm not thinking like I'm going to go home to Horokiwi any minute now as I was the first few days. Impressions of Canterbury: signs of agricultural activity wherever you look, wide open roads with little traffic, people acting like they own the place (and they probably do), shorts and rugby shirts, grunty cars with drivers who make poor passing decisions, good cafes (jay), wineries and good food (more jay), lots of ladies who obviously shop at Ballantynes and kids having a ball because they have all the freedom in the world.

The last couple of days have been productive with having made a good start on our stable abode despite persistent on / off drizzly rain.  Steve is building the stable with my cousin's husband Ross: a great partnership between the yin and yan with plenty of humour thrown in.  The instruction to the kitset are somewhat lacking in detail so we're very much in the two brains being better than one category (supported by good coffees from the cafe at the end of the road: Blue Duck Cafe).  I've got a special VIP tray for in the car!  Steve's got his head around the engineering.  Just as well we saved all the mooring lines from Manaia.  It was rather involved.
 

Those good old mooring lines pulling everything into place...

Getting the boys to see the value in following instructions...

The kids have got a sense of purpose and confidence about them I hadn't anticipated.  They're really happy. We hardly see them all day, just so busy adventuring building castles, moats and / or getting involved with what we're doing.  I think they're just happy that we've reached an end point now.  And they're really excited about going to their new school.

I had an interesting experience today where the guy in Mitre 10 Mega made the effort to genuinely thank me for the effort our family has made to relocate down to Christchurch and help with the rebuild.  I've got to admit I bawled all the way out to Motukarara.  It's not that I want a medal.  It was just so nice to get some recognition for our effort given that it hasn't been easy.  Most people say WTF are you doing moving to Christchurch: so you feel like you're swimming uphill and alone all the time.  While we're here by choice, we've made sacrifices.  So thanks Mr Mitre 10 Mega.  You made my year. 

Speed demon.
 

The ship has landed

The last few days have been bliss.  Family  time, finally!  We truly cruised on the interislander after booking a cabin on the Kaitaki for some much needed peace and quiet (highly recommended for $40). 

 

 

Cruisin' was followed by a a lovely drive down with chilled out kids with a parent each to themselves.  Everybody was happy.  The girls car had a no talking rule unless Mum said so.  The boys car was a non-stop geography lesson in anticipation of Kaikoura Tunnels, exploding volcanoes, salt works and more chocolate.  I must say  that I felt so proud to call the South Island home again.  The light, the emptiness, the vinyards,  the wide open roads, mountains everywhere, braided rivers, cute churches, and expansive rolling hills.  A real trip down memory lane in terms of all the outdoor adventure had at spots along the way.  Keen to share these experiences with the kids one day. Even stopped at Kaikoura for crayfish, fish and chips accompanied by a good bake in the sun (as never experienced in Wellington)! 

 

 

 

That evening we marked out our site in terms of where all the bits and piece had to go over the next few days which was a bit surreal.  And THEN we had an awesome dinner at Lincoln's pub: the Famous Grouse Hotel, newly rebuilt post earthquake with staff just abuzz with the newness of it all.  So nice to see these fresh shoots coming up again in the city after all the negativity and heartbreak.  I can see Lincoln being quite a hub for us given that it has a supermarket, it is my old stomping ground, and it has cranberry, brie and chicken pies courtesy of Hillyers.  Steve still had to work the first couple of days after we moved down so the kids and I were in charge of getting the site organised for the build of 'Clip Clop Stables'. The height of the grass is ridiculous!  Canterbury is full on in hay making mode.  Shame they missed our place.

 

The Famous Grouse

 

Of course nothing has turned up when it was supposed to and there have been mad drives out to the section and / or panicked phone calls with random instructions of where to dump kitset sheds and containers and broken down factories that can now not deliver our water tank until Saturday.  The kids have had a great time exploring up the road on our bikes while we were waiting.  Our 'road' is just a mud track.  Perfect for perfecting the mountain biking skills. 

 

 

 

We visited our new school with the Steiner-esque playground, I was pleasantly impressed with the head of the lower school and her instructions to let the kids just have a jolly good holiday. Nice.  Surveying the other kids at school we made the call to buy the school uniform after all.  While not compulsory, generally the kids are wearing it and it is comfortable and practical.  It keeps things simple, so off to Postie Plus we went.

While waiting for the containers filled with our worldy possessions, the kids sifted through the edge of the newly formed hardfill driveway and founds bit of old Christchurch CBD.  Marble, polished granite, bricks, timber....  Not stuff you'd find in a house but more in the foyers of large buildings of a different era and it gave me a bit of a start when I realised what I was looking at.  So we're going to gather them up and make a mosaic shrine to all that was.  Kind of fitting.  The whole reason for us being here is the Christchurch earthquake and here it is, its rubble is making our new driveway and creating the foundations of our new house.

And  the grand finale: the arrival of our beloved overheated  horses (26 degrees today).  I called out to Frankie and got a 'Mum get me out of here NOW' sort of response while the door was still up.   He was so pleased to see me.  Gave him a good hose down which he just lapped up and Steve did the same for Millie.  A hello to their new family member Lady Gee Gee rounded up the experience.  No dramas in terms of the introductions.  Millie is just keen to keep Gee Gee away from her man and finds a way to be between Frankie and Gee Gee ALL THE TIME.

 

Tomorrow we begin building our new home.  We are full of excitement and anticipation despite the weather forecast.  Steve is on holiday now so what could possibly go wrong?

Uprooting the tree

Well, I've found that inevitably bits of the roots get left behind when you move out of a perfectly good life (and even when it's not so good I guess), and that it hurts, quite a bit actually, particularly as you get older!  It's right up there with a long term relationship breakup.  Beautiful friends left behind, uncompleted projects, unrealised dreams, and that beautiful Horokiwi view... Also, the old adage of  'if it ain't broke, don't fix it" keeps on playing on my mind.
 

Then I remember all the reasons of why we're going.  Steve is so much happier in his work, fantastic outdoorsy family adventures, less time in the car, myriads of opportunities for the kids, better weather, a garden that's got a fighting chance against the wind, flat land ...  Oh, and Parelli Heaven.

However, this last week in Wellington has been an emotional and physical marathon.  Mental note to self, I'm NEVER going to do this again.

But I've moved on, I think.  Not in the least assisted by the belated and begrudging acceptance of the fact that I can't go back anyway, who am I kidding!  This morning I loaded the horses onto Majestic Horse Transport for their 5 day epic journey to Christchurch and with that, the Horokiwi chapter of my life is firmly closed.

Boohoo morphs into Wahoo

Our last two weeks in windy Welly have finally produced a feeling like it's all coming together and we're on the home straight: it's been a long time coming!  A big weight off our mind was the Motukarara driveway being completed so that our two containers of ex-Wellington gear have somewhere to go, and the kitset shed, stable and water tank can be delivered.  It's not a flash driveway but I'm ecstatic with the rustic gravel look bathed in a summery blue sky at this stage!  I'm sure our horses will be delighted with the waist high grass too.

Land as bought: pre driveway, pre everything!
 

 

Wellington has thrown some heinous weather at us this last week which is making it a lot easier to leave.  Particularly with Steve boasting of balmy BBQ weathering in Christchurch while I'm in my winter woollies with the heat pumps cranked up: again...  And finally I can genuinely say to Kasper that it won't be long now before daddy won't go away all the time.  It's been getting harder and harder to console him on Monday mornings and really, I've run out of things to say to him.  I'm over cajoling him, it feels like I'm belittling his misery.  We couldn't have justified going on like this much longer, poor little man.

So the next hurdle is getting our horses, cats and containers down there safely with the minimum of fuss.  And then there is the small matter of delivering a 43ft boat from Wellington to Waikawa in the next fine weather break.  But hopefully, in the next two weeks all that will be achieved.

In the mean time we've acquired a beauty of a potbelly on Trademe to add ambience to our future stable accommodation, and Kasper has devised an ingenious trailer system to assist in the loading of containers and transporting Queen Hanna around the property.  He manages to crank it all behind his bike in first gear.

 



Moving on out

Well, it's not long now before we move out of our beloved Horokiwi home and launch into our new life in Christchurch, the form of which is more uncertain than I am comfortable with.  It's been a lonely and isolating year, with Steve and I geographically and emotionally having to lead quite different lives out of necessity, and me effectively being imprisoned on the hill due to a 18 week saga with a broken arm and not being able to drive for a lot of that time, nor do the things I enjoy.  Steve has been commuting to Christchurch for the week days since April so it will be interesting working together as a family unit again.

 

We made the decision to uproot our life and move down south in response to the huge need for Steve's skills in Christchurch post earthquake.  As a structural engineer, you don't get more meaningful and exciting opportunities than those that follow a few monty earthquakes in a developed country with big insurance dollars coming in.  And this in a city that educated the both of us, in which I did a lot of growing up and for which I still hold a great love, despite most of my old haunts being munted.  It is still the gateway to many outdoor adventures which I hope to be sharing with my children and Christchurch will rise again, stronger, quirkier, greener...

 

But I feel a lot of grief for some wonderful friendships I'm leaving behind and the Steiner schooling and community my children will now not experience.  I have been living with this feeling that the rug has been pulled from under my feet.  One of the biggest weepy moments was packing Kasper's Class 1 crayon and library bags that now will never be used in that context.  And then there's all those traditions, festivals and class camps I was looking forward to that now are vaporising into niggling regrets for what could have been (despite there being other opportunities at the new school, I know).  It's been a year tussling with huge questions around community, friendships, conflicting loyalties, life purposes, responsibilities, being a 'grown up' and what constitutes a home town.  I don't know that I will ever have the answers!  And then there's what is best for us individually, and as a family, and then the wider family... 

Finally there is the question of how self indulgent / egotistical or how meaningful it is to keep a blog!  However, the minute I started toying with the concept I found it to be strangely therapeutic in terms of processing and engaging my Will for the tasks ahead and replacing intrepidation with a sense of adventure.  So for now, I will continue, as this is purpose enough in itself.  I will leave you with a picture of Hanna and Kasper testing the camping shower Steve has put together for our new digs.