Tuesday 17th May

Finally back home after the weekend. I thought it was going to be a disaster, Friday morning when I left wasn’t looking all that good, the Aorere was rising, we’d had a week of heavy rain, high tide was due about 9am, so I was more concerned with getting past Collingwood before the river and the tide decided to join up and block the road.

Left home at 5.45am, didn’t have to be at Nelson till 9.30, but didn’t want to take chances with the roads.

First bit of good luck was at Nelson Airport. I’d arrived at some ungodly hour, way before I needed to, in the dark and rain. Parked the Pajero, got my suitcase out, backpack, and wandered over to the Terminal.

I was sitting there getting terminally bored, there isn’t a book shop in the airport, and I’d forgotten to bring one, when I heard my name being paged, to report to Security. Wondering wtf have I done this time, went over, and the 2 guys there asked if I’d come from Collingwood, said yes, and got told I’d left the lights on in the carpark. Thank you Nelson Airport Security, it would have been a miserable Sunday night arriving back to find the battery flat otherwise.

Friday Afternoon at Damians was a bit hectic. He was slightly stressed out, trying to organise everything, beer kegs to pick up, chiller unit to get, food etc, but we all coped with it.

The rain was a fair nuisance, showers, then clear, then more showers, but the forecast for Saturday was for sunshine and clear periods.

Saturday was brilliant sunshine, ok, still a bit cold, but warmer than here. Everything got done in time, other than the minister being an hour late. The Bouncy castle house thing for the kids arrived, and that kept the youngsters amused for most of the day.

Ceremony was in brilliant sunshine, then up to the top of Mt Roskill for some more photos, then back to the house for the food.

We had a few $’s worth of fireworks that Damian and I had saved from last year, so about 8pm I was out on the front lawn setting them off. Matt arrived shortly after we’d finished them, and his reaction to being told he’d missed them was, “oh hell no, we saw them from the motorway, F******* Awsome!”

Sunday I went back around about midday, Damian and Tarsha were basically dead on their feet, the party went on for a long while into the night, and there were still a few stragglers around Sunday.

I cooked up some rump steak, roasted the potatoes that were left over, made a tomato salad with the parsley and basil left over, then Damian drove me back to Auckland Airport to catch the flight back about 7pm.

Got into Nelson at 10.35, pissing with rain, cool breeze, but totally different to Auckland, crisp air, not the humidity I noticed over the weekend.

Driving over the hill from Motueka to Takaka was a bit grim, near the top, about Canaan Downs, the cloud layer was at ground level, with rain. I was lucky to see a few yards in front at times, not the best thing to happen when you’re coming down on this side. By halfway the cloud had cleared, then it was just heavy showers from there to Bainham.

Monday was spent fixing the door on one of the polytunnels, it looked like it had got caught in the wind and popped the sealing strip, so the poly had come loose, washing, and a fair bit of sleeping.

I thought we were starting at 8am this morning, so about 7am I’m still shuffling around with a coffee, when Tom comes knocking on the door, and asking when am I going to turn up at the shed, like right now please. Hayden had decided, well, made the arrangements to have another 12 head dried off and sent over to the runoff farm at Blenheim, and the truck was arriving at 10, so they’d started at 5am, and not told me.

All good though, they had 4 in the shed, it was just getting the drafted cows prepared and sorted before the truck that was the urgent bit.

Now it’s back to watching winter set in here, rain, cold southerlies, expecting snow sometime this week.