Our living room, although much smaller than we have become accustomed to, has a very 'cosy' look about it and as you can see, is well set up for us to enjoy listening to and making music.The best of all is that things have a familiarity about them which makes home feel much more like home after a pretty long time!
We have had a couple of weeks now of 'getting on with it' - plenty of mundane things to see to and a social visit from our landlord and his wife this past Sunday. Naturally, we wanted things to look as 'together' as possible and so have spent quite a bit of time sorting things out like the weeds in the garden and the odd boxes still lurking in unsuspecting corners of the establishment! The visit went off without a hitch and we had some freshly baked bran muffins on hand and a bottle of homemade lemon marmelade to impress them with! Since the lemons came from 'their' tree, we thought it fitting to let them have a little bottle of marmelade!
Admittedly, we were also softening them up for the things that we need them to do, like adding to the power capacity in the garage so that Jo can use his welding machine in there without tripping out the whole of Wanganui! and sorting something out with the dishwasher which continues to produce ugly marked and slightly dodgy looking dishes in spite of my and my friend Kathy's best efforts at attacking the problem with 'everything dishwasher' known to man.
We are now 'registered' with an ex-South African doctor whose books had been officially closed, but whose wife suggested we write a letter of request - the receptionist was somewhat taken aback I think, when I called to find out if there had been a response to our letter - her words were something to the effect of ' Dr Hazelhurst's books were closed sometime ago, but someone seems to have added two new names here - I don't know who did THAT but I suppose you must be in then'!
We have visited the River Market, which is really just a little fleamarket beside the river which happens on a Saturday morning here in Wanganui and has lots of things to buy in the way of plants for the garden and honey and jams - home made tableclothes and placemats and traditional Maori jewellary - plenty of bone carving type things on leather thongs and big chunky bracelets. The usual 'garden notices' like 'fairy corner' - handpainted onto scraps of wood and home knitted bootees and matinee jackets and things. Of course, there is always a trestle table of real junk - plastic, glitter and bright colours, costing next to nothing and threatening to last about four seconds flat. There are also tables of 'stuff' - broken bits of garage equipment like lawnmower blades and boxes with rusty spanners and tap heads tossed in them - there are even boxes and boxes of old LP's - the covers all dog-eared and torn, but I guess someone must buy this stuff, otherwise they wouldn't keep on putting it up for sale!
The South African girls that I have begun to get to know here, have recently completed a 'health and safety food course' - they are now legally able to make and sell boerewors rolls and the like at the market and are thinking along the lines of having other home baked South African delights on sale each Saturday - you know the drill - koeksusters, melktert, hertzoggies, pannekoek, beskuit ens - along with other goods that are not always so easy to find in New Zealand. There is talk of a 'crafts' section to this stall - perhaps I would like to make a contribution there from time to time as the mood takes me. Since we hear that there are approximately 80 South African families living in Wanganui now, this little stall could actually do quite well - even without local interest.
We thoroughly enjoyed the rugby against Australia on Saturday - since the Bokkies weren't playing, we hadn't had too much flack about South African rugby being a kicking game that is spoiling the spectator aspect of the matches, but in any event, we decided that if we were asked, we had supported the referees - (if you didn't watch the game - all the refs were South Africans!)
Things have been stressed with the house issue in SA and so we have been preparing for Jo's trip to SA - he is leaving on Friday and returning on the following Saturday with the court case in between. There is nothing to say here except that it is so sad that there are still people in the world who will attempt to destroy other folks who they don't even know, in an evil and underhand manner, all in the name of money - apart from being angry, we are sad that it has touched us in this way. However, we can only do our very best and are preparing to make the most of the fact that Jo is going to be in SA for a few days and will get to see some of our special people while he is there - of course there are always a few 'loose ends' to tie up, so he can see to as many of those as time allows while he is there.
It will certainly be strange for me to be here in New Zealand while Jo is in South Africa for a week! But, no complaints - there is always so much that I want to do, that I know the time will fly.
There are quite a few lovely photographs which haven't yet appeared on the blog, so hopefully, while Jo is away, I will have time on my hands and can put a whole host of them up for you to enjoy!
Till then, dis al!