Day Off

We had a day off today.

Family

After dinner last night I suggested to Janice that we play hooky today. She agreed. We did. Instead of doing any work we just went out and enjoyed ourselves. First we both went into Wanganui to my Rotary club (well, not all mine) for breakfast at 7am, listened to the speaker telling us about best practice in hospital management systems, had a chat to our mates and then just set off, away, gone!

Hey! Where'd Janice go?

It was a fine, sunny day (except for Stratford which is always cloudy even when its sunny) and we simply drove up the west coast stopping at a couple of beaches we hadn't visited before, looking at a few shops, some scenery and stopping for morning tea and lunch on the way.

Mt Taranaki, a dormant volcano of around 2000 metres high, is a great sight to see when snow capped and without cloud. Unfortunately lack of cloud cover is something the mountain does not suffer from so we hardly saw it at all and even when we did it was not snow capped as this is the end of summer. we settled for looking at a lake and the beaches instead and went for a short walk.

After all that strenuous exercise we drove slowly back to Wanganui where we just had to check out the progress on the refurbishment of a restaurant in town. This restaurant has already had three incarnations since we've been here (ten years) and is now almost ready for a new life as an Italian restaurant. The new owner was out painting the entrance and window sills as was delighted to know he would have some customers once it opened, which he thinks will be in about 2 weeks (depending on a liquor licence and final decorative effects) . It certainly helps that he is Italian himself. It may be good.

I checked on the nursery while Janice rustled up some delicious dinner and we've had a lazy evening too.

Work

Nothing to report

Other

Nothing to report

And now - The diary Format

This is the new diary format, the latest ruse to get me into the blog again.

Nursery

This week we’ve been concentrating on setting up some trials under lights to see how our varieties respond to night-break lighting over winter. We have a number of good cut flower varieties and also some promising pot plant varieties that we want to evaluate. Our background in growing chrysanthemums many years ago means we still have the equipment to do this and some experience to draw on. We’ll also be conducting a small trial under lights with a heating regime.

The week has also seen the start of some major planning for next season.

Garden

Nothing much has happened this week as we’ve been busy on the nursery front. Janice has however completed her “French Rooster” quilt and the cleaning up work I did in the garden last week still looks good. I’ve still not pruned the Wedding Day rose. The grapes and apples are ready but the tomatoes won’t last long as they have the start of blight and I don’t want to spray them.

Family

Janice is well and very beautiful. I am well and as handsome as ever. Sarah is back into running, Emma had a hard week but is on the up and John is somewhere in Auckland.

Other

It looks like the barbeque I was planning for Sunday will be an indoor job as it may be cool and rainy with a breeze blowing in our faces – not a good look.

Images

I'm having problems moving images so I'll work on that next time

Back to the Blog

I've been doing a little gardening lately. Don't worry northern hemisphere folk, you'll get out there soon!

At the weekend I tidied, weeded etc all the area visible from the dining room, then swept the courtyard, pruned Cecil Brunner and the rampant weeping elm tree that was preventing us using our entrance gate, and then had a rest. In the evenings this week I've pruned the Westland(?) rambler over the woodshed and weeded the gardens near there, removed the peeling blue gate and generally tidied the area, then had a rest. Tonight I removed a few wheelbarrows full of soggy clay from around the back of the house and cleaned up the mess that the builders had made over a year ago. Then had a rest. Tomorrow evening I'll tidy up the area around the ferns near our water tank. Friday evening I'll just rest.

The Wedding Day rose which is now threatening to strangle the new porch is in line for a prune next weekend.

Janice has a broken tooth and needs a crown on it. She is booked in for next Tuesday. She'll get lots of sympathy from me of course, but I'll probably be quite busy gardening.

Could be I'll add a photo or two tomorrow.

Cheers

Terry