Slow down time, you're moving too fast.

 Image from Google images

And here we are again with another week, nay a week and a half gone, more memories made. If only I could remember them!  A few things I do remember that happened over last week and a half are;
Monday 11th April: Sue came over and we probably put the world to rights as we often do, she brought lunch too, so an added bonus!
Thursday 14th: The Rotary club held their annual Book Fair at Te Rapa racecourse and because craft had been moved to Friday, I had to go. HAD TO. You know how it is? Then afterwards I called in at Sue's for a coffee, she's only across the road, so it would have been rude not to wouldn't it? I actually went to see the three kittens she's been fostering from the SPCA but don't tell her that! They go back at the end of this week so I thought I should go have a few more cuddles before they find forever homes.

Okay, so now brace yerselves.......Books purchased at the Book Fair. There are also some included which I bought on the Saturday. Joe wanted to go so I went with him, moral support you know.

I managed to find quite a few on my list of books to find. One of those lists being the BBC list of 100 books to read in your lifetime. At this rate I shall have to live for at least 200 years!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And Joe found these. 

What's nice is that Joe is reading more than he used to, I'm a prolific reader and I'm quite fast too, Joe isn't really. I have to say that I am enjoying the odd quiet evening, the two of us sitting on the comfy sofas in the lounge, our noses in a book. Joe's nose however, tends to make a beeline for his chest and within ten minutes he's sound asleep. 

Friday 15th: At the beginning of 2015, three of us in our wee craft group started a project. It's been a year in the making and is still ongoing. We called it the Calendar Quilt. Each month we made a block to represent that month in New Zealand, a seasonal montage if you like. Bear in mind that we are in the southern hemisphere and our seasons are opposite to the northern hemisphere. September sees the start of spring and Christmas is in the first month of summer. I know, you're all confused now eh? Never mind, I'll just show you the blocks. I won't, though, explain each block and how we've interpreted the months in this post (other than the Spring). I'll save that for another day, when each season is complete. I will be working on the other months over the coming weeks.

Last Friday I put together the three spring months. (Click on the photos to enlarge) 

September:October:November

Spring blossom:Bulbs are abundant:The garden is beginning to bloom

December:January:February
(I need to reduce the size of the December block, it doesn't sit right with the others yet)

March:April:May

June:July:August

 A Year in NZ

Once assembled I intend to embellish, embellish, embellish.

For me it's also going to be a memory quilt, memories of the past and I'll add memories to come.

Saturday 16th: After such a good week, it was all about to go tits up! The morning was rather mundane, it involved grocery shopping. And as I would rather not starve to death, it had to be done. We had other errands to run too, one of those involved popping into Bunnings DIY store to pick up some rat bait blocks. This time of year little critters get into the framing of the house and you can hear them scuffling about in the roof space and walls. We (read Joe) drops the sunken light fittings in the ceilings out and puts a block in and replaces the light fitting. Job done. Those rat bait blocks were to prove to be very expensive before the day was out! We had a party to go to that evening, our friend Pete was having a 60th party. There was a theme, "Dress up as somebody you wanted to be". I wanted to be an actress and Joe before choosing his current career path, wanted to be in the forces. He hired a Royal Air Force uniform. I had things I needed to get, so after getting what I needed,  we met friends for a quick coffee before heading home. With lunch out of way, we headed out again and browsed through the aforementioned book fair, before going to watch Michael play rugby.

He tackled......

 He scored a try......(blurred, excited mother)

 He got injured, pulled a hamstring, nothing serious. 

They won.

We didn't hang around after the game, we had a party to get ready for. But get ready, we didn't. We arrived home to find a certain small dog had managed to get at the rat bait, still in it's box and eat some!!!! F*CK! At that stage we thought he had eaten a whole block and some of a second. So the emergency vet was rung and we made a hasty trip to get Max some help. Rat bait if ingested and caught too late can be fatal. Luckily we caught it in time, he must have only just eaten it. He was given some dog food  which he promptly threw up again after being given something to make him sick. He was sick. A. Lot. Once that was over, he was given an anti nausea injection followed by a very large syringe of activated charcoal. Finally he was injected with some Vitamin K and I have to give him Vitamin K orally twice a day for the next 2 weeks. That will be $380 please, thank you! He will then have to go back to our vets in two weeks for a blood test to see if his blood is clotting okay.  

Max feeling very sorry for himself

Once home we discovered that he hadn't eaten a whole block of bait after all! Joe found it under a table. He'd had just a small amount off each block. Phew, he still has to continue with his treatment however.

So as you can imagine it was a pretty stressful day, it didn't help that we were both awake just after 4am that morning. We were feeling knackered, but relieved Max hadn't eaten as much as we thought and he was treated in time. 

Then Joe said, 'C'mon, get dressed up, we're going to Pete's party!"

"WTF!" It was gone 10pm by this time.

Joe took Max up to Michael & Natashas for the evening and out we went! Long story short, I'd only had a sausage roll all day, drank copious amounts of wine, got pissed as a fart and was carried to the car at about 4.30am! 50+ years olds can still party through the night! Not sure I could do it too often though. Oh and I have no idea if there are any photos of us dressed up! Nightmare!

And here's the li'l rat(bait)bag

If you've got this far, then well done you ;-D

see ya next time