01 November 2017

October 2017

I can't believe that it's nearly the end of they year. And that it was only earlier this month that we were in Australia, it seems like so long ago. I guess work and the house have both been keeping me busy. Since being back I have been to a conference in Christchurch, have had to face the reality of my team being split in two and now having two managers to deal with, have been through a 'restack' (that's when they shuffle all our desks around to fit the teams in better) and am now experiencing what a change of government is like when you work in the public sector. And as for at home - well since coming back from Aussie we've had pretty good weather so there is so much to do in the garden. Keeping the weeds down, and trying to grow vegetables. My broccoli plants have huge leaves but no vegetable yet, my carrots aren't growing very fast, but all my new fruit trees have lots of leaves which is good. Except the lemon tree, all the leaves fell off that one, not sure why. Can't be a good sign.

So everything here is pretty good. Work is fine, things around the house are coming along, the pets are all good and we are too. The chooks are all mostly laying an egg per day, and the cat and the dog are getting along quite well. We don't really have any plans for Christmas, we'll just be having a quiet one here at home, probably with the odd visitor but nothing really planned. Nathan has a new job managing a restaurant in Upper Hutt. I think that's the only real news. I will be coming down south for a conference in a couple of weeks so that's pretty handy, as I wasn't planning a pre-Christmas visit (bit broke since our holiday).

So today in photos I want to show you how we've been progressing with our bit of land. The photos on the left are how it was when we first bought it. The photos on the right are how it looks now. And our little bit of lawn doesn't look that great yet but we don't have a mower so it's patchy from the weed-whacker (and uneven distribution of seed I reckon). But my flower garden is coming along. It's getting there slowly.