Veggie garden - Finally...

After planning to have a veggie garden at our last 2 houses, we have actually acted on our plans this time and are committing to making it a reality this time. There are a number of factors which have prompted this including:

• Availability of water - water in NZ is not an issue (well not at the moment), the water restrictions/lack of natural rainfall to water the garden was on of the drawbacks to us starting a veggie garden in Brisbane (having to bucket water when pregnant or the busyness of babies is not encouraging). The Waikato gets reasonable rainfall and is known for it's fertile soil.
• Budget -The price of veggies in NZ supermarkets is a bit more expensive than Australia and there is no Rocklea Markets equivalent to get cheap fruit and veg from, so any saving we make by growing some of our vegies ourselves is an insentive
• The availability of produce - because of NZ's small size and southerly location, the availability and cost of various fruit and vegies is very dependant on seasonal availability. So I will have to plan my meals around vegies that are in season, so a might as well grow some of them myself.
• Reducing our Carbon footprint - now don't be scared that I'm turning into at fanatical Greenie or anything. Just with what I've been reading lately about simple ways to reduce our impact of the environment, I have been thinking that I may as well do what I can where I can (taking care of the world God has given us, like he comanded us to do). So as far as growing the vegies contribute to this, I'm reducing the food miles of our vegies - not transport invovled except for carrying them from the garden bed into the kitchen; by only growing vegies on a small scale I will be able to use more environmentally friendly ways to water and feed the plants than what the majority of commercial growers use. I'm sure there is others, but I can't think of any right now (although I plan to post sometime later what other things I'm consiously doing to reduce our Carbon footprint).

Anyway back to the actual construction and planting of the vegie patch. With the help of some photos I'll show you the progress so far...

This is the original state of the garden bed (patch of weeds would be a better description) - bottom right corner of photo:
It's under the kitchen window and that is our front door to the left and we are also planning to get an outdoor table for the concrete there to eat outside during the long, sunny, summer evenings.


Then with a combined effort from Peter, Ben and I we dug out all the weeds and removed all the small garden ornaments we found in the process (which were found buried under the surface):





After a trip to the local Bunnings (well actually there is only 1 Bunnings in Hamilton), we started on adding a wooden border to the garden. This is so we can build up the bed a bit with a bag of compost and so the kids don't accidently drive their bikes into it and squash all the plants. We didn't buy enough stakes to support it so it will have to be finished after yet another trip to Bunnings (we had to make an extra trip this morning to buy nails to secure the planks to the stakes).


You might be asking yourself what we are going to plant in it. Well I am venturing out into the area of 'seed raising'. Whenever I've bought herbs to plant at home I've always bought the little ones in the punnets, half because I'm impatient and half because I feel there is more room for failure trying to grow from seed. Whenever we planted seeds to grow at school for various things, mine used to frequently fail to sprout, so I don't have much confidence in my seed raising ability. But it is a lot cheaper to buy a packet of seeds than to buy seedling, especially for vegies where you need to replant as you use it eg. Shallots. So I've started small with Zucchini, Shallots and Spinach planted in the egg carton sitting on our kitchen window sill waiting for them to sprout (that takes 7-10 days so I have a little wait)I'll keep you updated on progress.

Kindy

After me worrying that getting Ben into a kindy for next year might not happen, it looks like it might actually be possible. It is like many things that we thought would be almost the same as Australia, but are finding out that although they might be described as 'similar' there is a lot of difference to them. The waiting lists for NZ kindy are in age order so it doesn't matter when you put your child's name on the waiting list, it get slotted in where they fit according to their birthday. So depending on the popularity of the particular kindy (ie. the length of their waiting list) determines when you get a spot. One of the kindies I rang said that there probably wouldn't be a place for him until he was 3yrs 6mnths, another said he would probably be offered a place when he turns 3yrs 3mnths. An underlying reason why it works this way (compared to Queensland anyway) is that in NZ children can start attending school as soon as they turn 5. It doesn't matter what time of year it is, the day after they turn 5 they can turn up at Primary school and start. So as you will have guessed this is the reason why Kindies have a number of free places occuring throughout the year and so places are offered to the next child on the waiting list all through out the year.
The other difference that I didn't expect was kindy here is mainly sessional. ie. the children attend either a morning or an afternoon session. There are a few kindies that offer full day programs, but I have been told that this is changing (becoming more common as the needs/demands of families change). I much prefer a full day program as I feel like when you take out the time for drop-off and pick-up there isn't much time left for me to get stuff done if it is only a 1/2 day session. I have only found one kindy which offers a full day program and they have closed their waiting list for now (because they are so popular), so it looks like I will have to get used to the sessional way of life.
So next step for me is to take the time to go and look at the kindies and put Ben's name on some waiting lists.

My impression of NZ gyms...

Before I chose a gym to join, I did a tour of a selection of them and I just wanted to share my over all impression. NZ gyms seem to be stuck in a time-warp where gyms were all about men, sweat, hard work and pain. Two out of the 3 gyms I visited were located in shells of factory buildings, with no effort to improve the aesthetics of the interior. The equipment also looked like it was purchased in the 80s with those grotesque vinyl colours (for the weights machines).

As you will have worked out from my previous post about joining a gym, I've chosen the only 1 that wasn't like that. TLC is like what I'm used to - carpets, modern machines, and nice changing facilities (they are actually individual rooms with shower and toilet and you can even borrow a hair-straightener from reception!).

Fleas be gone...

When I first got back from Oz to our new house I got a few bites and just thought it must have been midges or mosquitoes as the windows don't have screens. But I kept getting more and they were always where clothing was covering and the bites were in little clusters. A day or so later I saw a little black thing in Joanna's hair (easy to see when she has such white blonde hair), not having ever had pets I didn't know exactly what a flea looked like, so just mentioned my suspicion to Peter. A day or so later I found another one while Peter was home and he confirmed that yes it was a flea. So we rang the property manager and the pest guy came out today and sprayed the carpets. So hopefully that is the last we see (or feel) of the fleas. (The weird thing about it all was I was the only one that was getting bitten, I haven't found a single bite on either of the kids and Peter only got bitten once!)

I have a gym membership!

After going and checking out all the gyms on Friday, I went and signed up with one this morning. It's called TLC and it is in the suburb of Flagstaff which is a 5min drive (and is quicker to get to than Workout from Kenmore as there is no silly Moggill Rd style peak hour traffic to deal with). It is a fairly small gym, but I think that also makes it feel like they actually care about you more as they get to know you a bit. It has a creche that runs 2 morning sessions 9-10.30am and 10.45am-12.15pm. I have to book the kids in to the days I want them in creche as there is a limit on the number of kids they can have in a session, but I can make them permanent bookings, so I don't have to ring up each week. They get funding for it through the government which means that there is 1 fully qualified Early Childhood Teacher there and they actually run a program during the session (my impression is it is run more like a kindy style thing than just free-play the whole time). I think Ben is going to really enjoy it and I am looking forward to him having the experience. I am also looking forward to being able to have a break from the kids (without it being Peter that has to look after them) and also to get back into some exercise. My energy and stress levels have been suffering from my lack of exercise. I'm going to go for my first workout tomorrow morning.

And finally... some video.

As you may remember, we bought a video camera before we left Australia. And if you've been following the blog, you might have been wondering whether we were going to post any videos. Well, I would have liked to, except the software which came with it is so appallingly bad that there has been no way to convert the video into anything useful to be able to upload. I've finally managed to get something to work (not very nicely, but it will have to do!)
The reason for this effort is that I managed to record a performance by a budding young rock star named Benjamin. He has a song-book (one of his colouring-in books) and selected some songs out of it. This one was all about golf. See if you can work out the lyrics. I might post them one day :)
Enjoy!

Bread...

Either its doughy, dry, or non-filling. I'm still in the process of finding a loaf of bread that we like, that is at a reasonable price. We started out with the cheapest loaf and I've been slowly been working my way up the price range. I haven't totally given up, but have had thoughts about getting a second hand bread maker and trying to make it myself (although I don't want a huge initial outlay to then discover I don't have the time or something). The latest loaves I have bought are the 'Signature Range' from Foodtown - I'm hoping they use the same recipe as Woolworths 'Select' bread as this is what we used to buy (Foodtown sells the same 'Homebrand' goods as Woolworths - same packaging).

The wheels on the bike go round and round...

One of the advantages of living in a small town (sorry, city) is that it's quite easy to live close enough to the city to be able to cycle to work. Even the outskirts of Hamilton are less than 10km from the city centre, and being a fairly flat city, it's not that hard to cycle in from anywhere. From our house in Chartwell, it's about 6km to work in the CBD, which makes it about 15 minutes of cycling. Which really isn't a bad commuting time is it?
The obvious question is what to do when it's raining... as it has a habit of doing in this country. Well, I don't really do anything different. Other than that I'll pull a towel and some spare clothes out of my bag when I get there. I really don't mind exercise in the cold (I did wear a jumper that one day that was 1C, but 3C was fine without!) so it's certainly better than cycling in Brisbane where I'd be dripping with sweat by the time I got to uni!
We'll see what summer is like... and then mid-winter next year...
(I think I must have a thing for red bikes as well!)

yay for the weekend!

Living somewhere where I have yet to make adult friends makes me appreciate the time I do get to talk to Peter in the evenings and on the weekend. It is also nice to do things together on the weekend such as going bushwalking like we did today.
We went to Bridal Veil Falls, which is a nice 5min walk to the top of the falls then another 5min down a few flights of steps to the bottom of the falls. With the above average rainfall over the last few months there was plenty of water falling over. Ben got a bit freaked out at the top as it was a big drop down, and also was making comments about it being really noisy and the water going up into the air (ie. the spray). Joanna seemed to enjoy it (her 1st family bush walk) and it was a nice short walk to ease Peter (and especially me) back into carrying heavy packs with us (we have bought a 2nd Macpac Child carrier backpack [a 'Possum' for those interested], so we can carry a kid each). I'm a bit out of fitness too as I haven't been to a gym for over a month now (although I did go and check some out yesterday).

The weather forecast was for morning cloud and then sunny, but the reality turned out to be showery and windy (we are quickly learning that the weather forecast can change numerous times in a 24hr period - they really can't predict what is going to happen with any degree of certainty as the weather is so volatile). Our next planned outing is going to Hawke's Bay for the Labour Day long weekend (in a fortnights time).

So how's the weather?

We knew when we left Brisbane, that Hamilton would be a bit cooler... so what has the weather been like? Well, I've been here a month now, so I can give you a summary. For the month of September, Hamilton had:
- a minimum temperature of 1C (I rode in to work at that temperature. It was cold. Really cold.)
- a maximum temperature of 19C.
- Average minimum of 7C.
- Average maximum of 16C (or was it 17C?)
- 82mm of rain.
Coming from Brisbane and looking at that, you'd think it was really cold and miserable. But it hasn't been really. When the sun is out, it really feels quite warm - even if it is only 15C. The weather is also pretty variable - completely clear days have been rare, as have completely cloudy and rainy days. Which I don't mind!
One of my colleagues commented today about how he's been enjoying it being warm recently. I wouldn't go quite that far, but I haven't been finding it particularly cold!