Labouring at Labour Weekend

Well, I did dream I had a baby last night. I think it belonged to my sister, but I seemed to have taken quite a shine to it. The only babies I have are my students and my furry ones. You can see my delicious rabbit Merlin in the photo. He is a fine specimen of a rabbit, although is getting a bit old and shaggy now. I got him as an adult a very long time ago.
About the Labour weekend hard work. We started the massive tidy up in the back yard. Can you believe I have never used the lawn mower before? When John gave me a turn today it stalled after about two metres due to the rampant grass growth. We also went shopping (well, looking) for furniture for our new
 house. We tested out heaps of couches. We discovered only the most expensive couches
 meet the
expectations of our pampered backsides. Actually, long-suffering backsides. Hopefully I will have more to report about weekend activities tomorrow.

Promising Weekend

Two weeks into the fourth term and it is Labour Weekend, so we get Monday off. That makes me a very happy flower. We had tea at K and N's house (salad and lamb) and then popped out to have coffee, hot chocolate and the most delicious custard squares for pudding. I have asked Mr Black to sort out a memory stick for the small camera because my big one is not very subtle for whipping out at cafe tables and pretty shops etc. Tomorrow I am sleeping in! Mr Black tells me as it is a holiday weekend I wont have orchestra, and who am I to argue when I am in desperate need of a sleep-in. I am off to bed shortly. We are watching a bit of the Foo Fighters "Skin and Bones" DVD. I love Dave Grohl. I will sing along to anything, but especially like belting out a bit of Foos. Surely the Foos could use a bit of cello in some of their pieces. I would have to ban them from bringing cigarettes on stage as I have a passionate hatred of the despicable smelly things.
I am looking forward to having a fun weekend with Mr Black. We have decided that we need to have more fun. He started by headlocking me on the way into the supermarket while I giggled hysterically under his fuzzy polarfleece-clad arm. Then he decided our next cat is to be called Shemar. He and I have this thing about saying interesting names or words out loud, and we say them at the same time so often it is like having ESP. Shemar is the name of one of the actors in "Criminal Minds". Shemar will be ginger and will be joined by at least four other ginger gentlemen. Well, that's what I tell Mr Black. On that happy note I will leave you with some very pretty primulas and some veges waiting to be planted. Happy weekends everyone!

Welcome to Poppy's New Nest

Here we are, as promised, photos of the new piece of land. Doesn't look like much yet, but the plans are shaping up. Roses for Christmas 2008 please! In the photos you can see the lovely reserve just across from our place. Then there are the photos of our place. I am happily stomping around my new territory. I am sure I will get to know all of the residents over the back fence, including the enormous gum tree. I hope I will still be able to see the lovely view of the Port Hills once the other houses are built across the road. I am having a huge dilemma about the colours. We got given a sample book of all of the NZ Dulux colours and only liked one colour! Lucky we are using Taubmans.
Have a lovely week!  

Back to school

I had such a lovely holiday but as soon as I got back to school the stress attacked again. Luckily I have super supportive people to help me. I don't think I have said that I teach adolescents with severe intellectual disabilities. The teaching part is not the hard part, although many people would disagree judging by some of the behaviour I have to manage. It is dealing with other staff and managing the paperwork. Fortunately I have some pretty things to show you. At the weekend Miss Dog and I went for a lovely walk in Hagley Park. We found all sorts of treasures but my favourites were the 
lovely blue corydalis (am I right, 
Mum?). Then we found the peony rose. What a surprise! The first picture is of the divine tulip pots I planted with my (then) 2 year old neighbour. They are getting a bit past their best, but still so lovely. I have annual felicias and pansies growing underneath for later. I think I will have tulip pots every year. On the house building front, we have paid the deposit on the house and will start building possibly March next year. We went to visit our little piece of (future) paradise. It looked awesome even if it is just dirt. We had a wee look through the cemetery. I think the people residing there will be very friendly neighbours. The gum trees which are along the fence of the cemetery were not shading our place at all and the biggest one is so beautiful. I promise to take my camera out and try to show you the vast expanse of white trunk.
Bye for now. Have a lovely finish to the week.

Inspiration to change the world!

Well maybe. Gigibird was talking about being pleased that the flowers she got were grown in England. Here in New Zealand there is little labelling of food products to say where it is produced. I would like to know if my veges were grown in Canterbury, or another part of the country. I would also like more specific labelling than "packaged in Australia made from local and imported goods"
I am going to take a closer look next time I go to the supermarket to see if I am wrong. Another thing that I am really fussy about is buying free range eggs. What about when I order something with eggs in it from a cafe? And I am sure the biscuits, cakes, egg noodles and heaps of other products in the supermarket are not made using free range eggs. I hate the thought of chookies locked in cages for their whole lives. And while I am ranting on, what about chicken meat and how that is produced. The industry is very quiet about that. Although British people are justifiably concerned about NZ lamb invading their shores at least the lambs have an ourdoor life. Not so sure about all piggies.   

Going to do a lot more thinking about food and making my own stuff!

Cheesecake and more of Australia

Gosh what a busy week. Monday came home. Tuesday house meeting and tea at Ngaira's house. Wednesday paid deposit for land. Now poor again. Tea at Tony, Claire and Millie's house. Millie 12 weeks and just delightful. Thursday, lunch with Maddie and Nikki and tea saying goodbye to Jim. John is off to his grandad's funeral at 8pm tonight and is back on Saturday. He is all stressy so I am trying not to pick up his vibes. I am baking a low fat fruit salad cheesecake for tea from Ngaira's cookbook. Looks ok. I have never made one before.
Still haven't worked out why my pictures only go in at the top! You can see the big crocodile being fed in the show at Australia Zoo. Pretty impressive, although would have been quite interesting if he had eaten the man :)
Then I put in the cake called "Red Velvet" which looked more delicious than it tasted. The cake was so red I am probably going to grow an extra limb from all of the chemicals. The stuff on top was allegedly cream cheese icing.
I loved the tortoise. Last year the other Galapagos Tortoise that lived at the zoo died at the age of about 180. Amazing. It was collected by Charles Darwin. 
The final picture is me in the big tank at the aquarium. It made me feel sick because of the distorted glass. I look happy enough in this picture!

A week on the Sunshine Coast

We have returned home after our brilliant holiday. It is hard to choose pictures to show you as we took so many. We stayed at the Mantra in Mooloolaba. Gorgeous views. We even saw whales from the balcony. It was incredibly hot and sunny. I am more of a Spring temperature girl I think. There were thousands of bikini clad creatures decorating the beach. I spent a lot more time in the rockpools than I did sunning my palid body. I have decided that I want to be able to wear a bikini without shame. I am sure a bikini would be suitable for exploring rockpools, don't you? We visited the aquarium, Australia Zoo and took a day trip to Fraser Island, which is the biggest sand island in the world. It is absolutely smothered in wildlife and plants, which is incredible. We had a swim in Lake McKenzie. Such a stunning, clear lake. I will add some more stuff about the holiday in the next couple of days. We are off to spend a heap of money on the deposit on our section. We met the house architect yesterday. Mum and I are all excited about the possibilities of finding delicious fabrics on E-Bay for the curtains and cushions. Brilliant!
You can see the view from our hotel room, wombats having a love with their keeper, me with a seaslug telling me it is annoyed (they don't have a brain, so it can't be too traumatised by meeting me), looking out over the rockpools (our hotel is not far behind me) and the amazing Lake McKenzie.