I know! I know! I'm useless...so spank me...

Maybe I should edit the title and change the word 'spank', some Googlers might be mightily disappointed with their search if they end up here. That'll teach 'em; and if you are here after searching for something else you're just dirty pervs! Now go spank yourselves.....
Anyway, enough of that debauchery, how have you been? It's been crazy busy here, one lot of visitors leave and then we prepare for the next.
I hate weeds, I mean like, really hate them. It's a good job there are such people as HelpXers because I don't think I would be able to keep on top of our gardens on my own, not  without their help anyway. Not only do they do a grand job in the garden and the house, they are all such lovely young people. It's such fun having them stay and I'm always sorry to see them go, partly because I can't find things in my kitchen! They help clean up after meals and on the whole most things go back where they are supposed to. Some things don't though and I can spend a lot of time looking for things that have moved. Mind you I should be used to that really, we've been here 9 1/2 years and Joe still can't put things back where he found them. It's a man thing I reckon.
So what have we been up to? Well I'll tell you....
Before our friends from the UK arrived last December, we had two HelpXers help work the garden, tidy the barn and stuff, they did a grand job and everywhere looked great. Here they are..

Alexis and Lena

from France and Germany

 Our friends came and went and the weeds grew, after they left it rained, a lot, and two weeks ago everywhere looked like this....

Somewhere in that lot are trees!

 We had four helpers this time, Joe and Alex a couple from the UK, Courtney from Canada and Lisa from Bavaria, it was quite the United Nations here. Courtney and Lisa were with us for 4 days, Joe & Alex stayed for 10 days. Joe will herein after be called Little Joe. Obviously my Joe is big Joe or Joe the elder.
The gardens now look like this.....

 This border needs more plants.

 There are other areas they worked on to but I haven't taken photos of them, the above were taken from the deck. I shall return to that magnificent erection in a moment. So now everywhere is presentable again and ready for our next lot of visitors, also from the UK. They arrive a week today. One of my bestest friends, Monica, we've know each other since high school, her hubby and their four kids, so we're looking forward to seeing them again, it's been a while.

 Our helpers, gotta keep them fuelled up. 

Michael & Tash came and joined us for Sunday dinner.

 L-R below

 Big Joe, Alex, Courtney, Lisa & me, in the front, Little Joe

I have also been Queen kitchen bitch, harvesting and preserving.

Some seriously hot chillies

 Capsicums/peppers

 Tomatoes, which are all but finished now

My pantry still isn't finished, we've been too busy, 

but when it is I've a few jars to put on the shelves.

Can't wait to put them in the pantry.........one day....sigh!

Are you ready for this? Are you ready for one mighty erection, Joe's biggus deckus?

Oh heck, just thought of the Googlers! PERVS!

So the long awaited deck handrail went up last Saturday. Would you believe they got it up in one day! They worked like hard working, working things. Michael was putting the last battens up in the dark with a miners lamp on his head in the dark. Last batten went up around 9pm Saturday night. We are beyond happy with it and relieved it is finally safe to walk on.

I'll let the photos do the talking.

Isn't it the most beautiful thing you ever saw? 

I think that will do today, I'll try to make sure that these posts aren't just monthly events.

Have a good weekend ya'all

I may very well be the worlds worst blogger right now!

No one told me that when you're older, days, weeks, months even, fly by at the speed of sound. It's been one of those months that has flown by since my last post! I haven't even got a good excuse for not blogging either, but there could well have been a lot of "Can't be Botheredness" involved. 

Of course the problem with not blogging for a whole month means you have to try and remember what you did in that barely remembered month. 

The only thing for it is to go look and my photos and go from there. Oh and thank you for all the lovely comments left here and on Facebook, regarding my short story(previous post). Wouldn't it have been nice for me to come her and say, "Sorry, I've not been blogging because my short story was so popular that I've been making deals with publishers...and shit." But I can't say that so I shan't, sigh....

Okay first photo of something done this past month that's already been forgotten

We had visitors at the beginning of March. Back in 2011, during the Rugby World cup which was hosted here in NZ, we had three lovely lads from France, they stayed with us for about five weeks I think. See HERE 

We always hope that any visitor will one come back and see us some day. And that's exactly what happened, Clement and his gorgeous girlfriend Axel were travelling Australia and NZ and came and spent a night with us. It was so lovely to see Clement again. Apparently he and the other lads are coming back in four years time to help build a swimming pool!

I wasn't aware we needed one! They can, of course, come back any time, there's a very special place in my heart for them all, I call them my French sons, Clement called me his NZ mum. ♥

There is a definite autumnal feel everywhere now, the light is much softer and we've had some lovely sunsets. I love the changing of colours at this time of year, I think it has to be my favourite season.

 

Changes of the season remind us too that winter is on it's way and so we need to be prepared. Normally we are better organised where firewood is concerned, this year we are a little late cutting down some trees and splitting them to be stored in the woodshed. We do have quite a bit of firewood left from last year luckily, so hopefully by the time we get to use the newly cut stuff it should have dried sufficiently enough to burn well. It's mainly gum and some tea tree, both very good wood to burn.

At the end of our road and just before heading slightly left (in front of the Landrover, 2nd picture down) where the entrance to our driveway is, there is a triangular piece of land (not very big) which is planted in gum trees. This is our supply of firewood, there are other trees on the block available also but this year we're using the gum.

Two weekends ago was a long weekend, Easter, and Joe dropped about 3 or 4 gums and a Manuka (tea tree). Luckily our road doesn't get much traffic as we're a no exit road.

The only bit of traffic we saw that weekend was our neighbour, Colin. He saw what Joe was up to, turned his car around and came back with his new toy.....

 It certainly made putting the logs into the trailer a lot easier, thanks Colin.

 

 

In the original (to be emptied) woodshed is the older wood to be used first.

This is the new woodshed, right next to the other one. The roof leaks less, if at all, in this space and up until Saturday it had been full of crap really useful stuff *sob* In the far right corner is where we will store the hay required to feed the stock during the winter months, when the grass slows down.

Look how nice and tidy it all looks...it won't last you know. And where did all the crap useful stuff go? I hear you say, we-ell some of it was burned on a bonfire, some has gone on the trailer for the next dump run and the rest has gone into one of the small bays on the back of the barn. Most of which was probably originally stored in there when we first came here! Has anyone ever done a successful de-clutter do you know?

Michael's rugby has started up again, the first game (that wasn't a warm up game) was on Good Friday and we've been to two other games since. So far they've had two good wins, but they lost this weekend by two points, they were all a little gutted to be so close.

Try!

 

 The Lesser Spotted Webber Snr

I might just leave this post right there, I have other things to share but will leave those for another day. I put off a walk around the arboretum with Sue and our cameras this morning because I'm meant to be doing housework *gag*! So I had better sign off and make it look as if I've been doing something today! 

See you soon