The weekend in Wellington with bike rides and renovation work

 Hi,

What a big weekend. Friday saw me catch up with some old Intergen crew. Heard about Ed's leg rehab and his work prospects (all good) and from James about his new gardening passion. Celia updated them both with what she has been doing (lots). And it was really good to see them all.

Friday brekkie catch up

Friday bike ride with Andrew

Dropped the car off at Porirua for an air con check with Thermo King. They said it would only take 30 mins so I just hung around. Sure enough, Riaan was done and took me through the settings on the car air con for optimal cooling. It was fine - just needed a bit of gas after sitting for a while unused.

Back home to get ready to drive out to see Andrew for a good bike ride. We went up Te Whiti Riser, them along the fire break back towards the mountain bike park. Did a wee easy bush track and loved it.  Only about 300m or so. Then down a trail in the bike park that was hard for me on the corners. Did a bottom easier trail. Then up to the top of the hill up the road and down the awesome single track to home.

Smudge modelling on the deck

Mike modelling on the deck

Saturday saw us up to enjoy the sunshine. Mike took the ceiling down in the laundry to paint with polyurethane.

Ceiling down to polyurethane it

Inspected by Moxley

Getting bigger

I made a wee greenhouse for my tomatoes

Sunday saw us head to Lower Hutt to watch the Grand Final. Windy! And Nga Manu didn't quite do it. That first quarter saw Swell get too many on the board.

Sunday Grand Final

Windy conditions - when isn't it windy here?

That first quarter did it

Meanwhile, Mike did so many running laps of the AFL ground
that he became the Strava Local Legend

Neighbour had a spare wilding pine so I picked that up from them on Saturday afternoon and decorated it Sunday.

Wilding pine sorted

Decorated

Moxley clings onto me

She loves a good sprawl

Detail

Yes, there's the tree again in case you missed it

Buried by cats

Mike and I went out to Float Sunday and enjoyed a really good relaxing session. Loved it. Back to relax at home.

Monday morning snoozefest

Windy weather Sunday night. Wow. Crazy.

Hope you enjoy your week as the Christmas crazy kicks in.

Love,
Angela

The weekend with the grand final

 Hi,

Happy birthday to Toby. He's 20 years old today. Wow. He's such a great young man and I can still remember cradling up in my arms after Mike passed him to me all those years ago. Love you, Toby!

Friday saw me chilling with Moxley on the couch for a bit of it. The rain came down - vertically! At 5.30pm I headed out to meet everyone at Bin44 for tea. Sally and Mike were already there. John and Bev up from Chc joined us and we enjoyed dinner together.

Moxley stretches out

One of the cats has been bad!

Saturday I made kiwi crisps - a blast from my past. Mum used to make these when we were wee. I must have nailed it as there are none left as I type on Monday.

Kiwi crisps

Our weekend was all about the AFL womens grand final. Huge day for me and it was on Saturday due to scheduling constraints.  3pm. 1.30pm we picked up Lauren from Karori and Caitlin from the train station and got out to Hutt park just after 2pm. 

A decent warm up and then the coach talked us through the team strategy and we were into the game at 3pm. Quentin, Courtney and Erin (and her daughter) joined Mike on the sidelines to support us. Andrew turned up late in the game to catch the end. And Eugen (from my old workplace) stepped up into the breach and handled a lot of the AFL grand final photography. I hope he enjoyed it - I know he has done a lot of landscape work in the past. A sports event is quite different. But here's hoping he enjoyed it and he learned a lot from doing it. Thank you, Eugen. And thank you to everyone that turned up to cheer us on.

Ready to go with Caitlin!

Bit of a rout but totally loved every minute of it

Caitlin is a winner!

Caitlin was transferred to Southern Swell and turned out to be a winner on her debut. Congrats to Swell - it was a great win and they deserved it. I loved every minute of the game. I had two kicks at goal. Missed a sitter right in front and got a behind. And fouled a banana kick on quarter time from a free kick (now I know that rule!).

We got a goal courtesy of Kate right on fulltime. The momentum was swinging back our way - but totally ran out of time. Next season is our season!

Dropped people off after a chat and some pizza after the game at the ground itself (ta Sam!) and then into cooking tea for Quentin and Courtney. They popped around to our place at 7.15pm and we enjoyed dinner with them.

Chicken schnitzels for tea with Quentin and Courtney

Hopefully the cats didn't give Quentin's allergies too much grief. I did get a lot of deep cleaning done on Saturday morning to try and give him a fighting chance. And we kept the cats downstairs during his visit.

Next day was lazier for us. I assembled the new eBike I got for Christmas. But the handlebar stem isn't quite right. Need to sort that out before I can try it out. It looks so good. I want some SPD pedals too.

Enjoying the sunshine

Bike is almost ready

Bruises coming up nicely

Chillies planted out

Got the chillies planted out. I need to keep them watered as they sit in the sun through the summer.

Busy week at work - and totally got my mind on Toby today as he celebrates turning 20.

Have a great week.

Love,

Angela

The weekend with so much on

 Hi,

What a huge weekend - got so much done. And it was Tyler's birthday yesterday. She turned 19.  Awwww. Abby was also trialling out for netball teams yesterday so I hope she played well and got selected.

Let's see - what did we get up to this weekend so I can tell you it all?  Friday saw me catch up with Andrew at Machete like old times. And then I did some shopping for Christmas and posted away presents to Karen's place for Ma and Da. Turns out I had missed the cut off date but I am hopeful. :-o

Friday iced latte at Machete

Like old times

Tui in the harakeke

I had sprayed mould killer on a bench on the deck last weekend, so I brushed it off, sanded it and stained it. It came out well.  So I got stuck into the other bench and the table too.

Start my project off

One done

Our strawberry plants finally produced their first fruit. It was delicious. Tiny in size, mighty in taste.

First strawberry of the season

Mike decided to check our traps after ages of neglect. And he found a long dead mouse in one of our traps and a fresh wee rat in another. I have lost track of the number now. I checked our other posts. This is 14 and 15. Yay!

They are all now reset, rebaited with peanut butter and ready for more guests. 

Moxley checks out the mouse in our trap #14

Rat in the other one #15

Mike had Moxley out on her leash out the front and he and I were looking out over the back garden when leash-less Moxley came trotting along. So Mike ducked down to get her, she happily played with him and let herself be picked up. He cuddled her for a bit on the downstairs deck. They looked so cute.

Moxley gets cuddles

Park run Saturday. Andrew came, as well as Janine. And James also made it. And other James. Hahahah. Celia came to watch the end with Bob. It was quite the social event. Celia also joined me, Mike and Andrew for brekkie after it.

Post Park Run brekkie

I got my haircut at 4pm at Buoy. Good job, ta Jolene.

My haircut

Saturday evening saw me at home while Mike went to a potluck tea for his Nepal buddies. And I found puked up Fancy Feast just as Mike left. So I was cleaning that up - opened the front door with pukey mess in my hands to chuck in the rubbish and Moxley raced out of the door, after a tui in the harakeke she sighted. 

The tui flew off but Moxley was not interested in coming back inside. She shot away from me whenever I approached her.  So I left her out there for a while. But every time I went out to get her - she ran off. Under the house. Off to the neighbour's garden. 

Cheeky monkey. Eventually I got Fancy Feast out. Lucky she had puked and was hungry.

Moxley hiding from me after racing outside

Kale chips, bro

Lazy Sunday morning

Up on Sunday to make brekkie, then off to AFL. Mike came too. Had a good game. Played for the first half. We were light on numbers but got 6 a side with 1 sub. Lots of running. Then I umpired the second half with Frank! It was great fun.

Pic of me playing AFL

Dropped Lauren back home, collected our saw and went Christmas tree hunting at Te Ahumairangi. Found the perfect tree.

Christmas tree hunting

Got The One!

Tree all sorted

Finished my furniture off Sunday afternoon. Looks way better now and ready for the summer. Might do one more coat this week on the tops.

And finished the project

All ready for summer

Slight miscalculation for family tea

Went out to family tea - and got the wrong memo. Went to 40WLW and discovered that everyone was at Tawa.  Hahah. Lucky we were early so it meant we were not too late with the change in venue.

Anthony was in town, midway through his Te Araroa walk. He's almost done the North Island. Whanganui River to go here (the river was too high before). Then he's off down south. He had two mates - Sam from Aus and Ludi from Sweden - with him. Great fun to talk to them all. Helen is well - she was busy with getting dinner sorted along with Andrew and Sally.

Then home and I was so tired I fell into bed.

Working week has started. And today is our wedding anniversary. And handily our anniversary for being together also. Given I can barely remember one date - I am glad it is the same date for both. 30 years today we have been together. Wow!

Yeah - I forgot. Karen texted me yesterday and said:  Ange - it is your anniversary tomorrow.

And I texted back:  OMG, is it?

And told Mike.  And he laughed. He had booked a restaurant for tonight already.

Woot!

Glad I married him.

Have a wonderful week.

Love,

Angela