2009

[keith]

Well, its May already and things have been happening... We've had a brilliant two weeks of sunny warm days with 26deg inside and frosts at night. Orange has gone orange, and purple, and brown and all the colours of autumn that are so strong here.

Dijo was made redundant in January, so we are both blissfully unemployed. This meant a focus on the garden! It also made us decide to sell the Micawber Pl family home in Auckland and use the money to pay off some mortgages on the Aussie homes.

So while Ashara got organised for her last year at school-


..and enjoyed her Easter



I was off to Auckland to sort out the house and sell it.


The view from the road was as wonderful as ever...


but the gardens needed lots of work!


I sorted the driveway garden with Ryan and Denise

[keith]

I had a great time catching up with the guys who used to work with me, and Roi gave me a hand to clear the fernery


I interviewed three land agents in Howick and they all took a look, then I took a trip to Gisbourne to see Sox and Ken and Miriam...


and catch up with Mum in Rotorua, who does not own "that damm cat"!


By the time I got back to Auckland there was an offer on the house, "as is don't do any more work"... We agreed on a price and did a deal! The end of our lovely big house after 16years


So then I had some free time while the contract went through...

[keith]

I had dinner with Peter and gave him a hand to turn a table full of engineering pieces


into one home-made masterpiece of .50cal surprise!


Altezzaclub put on a run for me while I was visiting NZ, so it was lunch in Matamata over some great roads-


I was staying with brother Ian and his wife Ala, and with time on my hands I looked up and said "we should plaster and paint these ceilings Ian.." So we stripped and painted the ceilings, then the wallpaper looked old so we did that, then we painted the outside and found a rotting weatherboard...


behind that was a rotting section of joist and then wall frame!


and by the time I was heading back to Aussie we had just about finished it all and the amazingly good weather was turning into typical Auckland rain!

[keith]

The last job was a surprise for Dijo, so Ala got her hands into the hair dye!

Just look at that lovely ceiling and flash wallpaper job!


Back in Aussie, Ashara had changed as well!


but that was very temporary, she was back to normal by the time they came to Sydney with Alice to pick me up


and back home in Orange the first thing was to try out Ala's gift for the cats! A ball full of crunchies they have to roll around the floor to get a snack out of..


I bought everything for a cambelt change on the Altezza, as I knew they would be unobtainable in Aussie. I wondered about Customs hitting me for tax on it as I came through, but I was carrying a rifle and no-one even looked through my luggage as they were too excited about the Marlin .22


Then it was back into the projects!

[keith]

First up was a fence around the garden to keep the chookens out! We had a spare screen door I'd taken off the backdoor, so I fitted a frame onto the house- only took the photos after it was finished of course!


then a couple of posts set in concrete


and a row of them wired onto the steel posts supporting the rail sleeper fence. Cover the whole lot in netting and we're right mate!


Straight into project #2, a bigger apartment for the feathered girls!


I bought one sheet of plywood, so that set the maximum size it could be. But we needed more than one laying box as Mrs Brown tends to hog it.. I built a ventilation option into the egg door so we can leave it open slightly in summer and close it up when it snows.