recent happenings and other ponderings

Well its been some time since any of us here made any contributions to the blog so I thought I'd take the opportunity on this crappy Saturday - it's cold outside and wet, but toasty warm in the GH lounge.

Some sad news for us recently was that Nicola and Joelle moved out. Nicola is studying full time and the demands of this coupled with challenges around the care of Joelle have led to a decision to move. While we will all miss them a lot, luckily for us they are only 10 minutes walk away - and Nicola walks past the GH most days on her way to nursing school.

Here's Nicola "tidying" her room during the move:



This morning we had our neighbours over for a shared morning tea - there are eight two bedroom flats which share a drive with us, and some outside areas - and over the last few years we have shared morning teas, BBQ's welcomes and farewells, and occasionally children. It has been a great experience having neighbours that we know and we would thoroughly recommend it. Having said that, sharing spaces (like our lawns and driveway) does make it easier.

We are still plodding away with our t-shirts project (see below) but the busy start to the year certainly slowed things down there for a while. Maybe - like the garden-box, we'll be ready in spring. Speaking of that, although we got the garden-box finished by the end of summer, we never got any crops in - due to a lack of compost - i was planning to get a trailer load from living earth (which is a massive composting place at the tip) but I never managed to get a trailer organised at the right time (they're closed on the weekends - how stupid is that!). Anyway - there were a couple of self-seeded potatoes growing up but the main thing we've got in there is a whole lot of weeds. Another job for when the weather is finer - and I finally manage to make my rabbit proof fence rabbit-proof, which is another matter of time-consuming frustration! I built this enclosure for our rabbits - which currently run wild and eat anything we try to grow (including spring bulbs, strawberries, cape gooseberries; parsely, and even the lemon tree) - and the blighters keep managing to get out. It's surrounded by concrete (so they cant dig out) and over a metre high so the must be great jumpers.

Now I must go and do some tidying - my cousins are coming to visit!

Nic