September

September seemed to pass me by, so I'll try to give bit of an overview of the last 6 weeks or so...

A few weeks back I had a very nice catch-up over morning tea with Lucy and Em and their gorgeous wee girls. And yes, I even had cuddles...

The first weekend in September was Founders Weekend at my school, meaning that we got the Monday off, then had a teacher's only day on the Tuesday. Will used up some leave on the Monday and we had a lovely weekend at the mountain. The weather was brilliant, Will had a magic time skiing, and even though I don't ski I went up the mountain with him and sat in the cafe and knocked off some marking in the beautiful surroundings.

Mid-September Geoff and I went up to North Harbour to play the Masters Badminton Nationals. We flew up on the Thursday and stayed with Geoff's friend Kelhi who lives up that way and was also playing. We had a great few days away, flying back on the Sunday evening. The badminton was awesome, plus there were social events organised for each night as well. Mum and dad came up and watched the mixed doubles on the Saturday. They had decided to stay the night in Takapuna and their hotel room just happened to have a very nice spa bath in it... After the badminton had finished I went back to the hotel with them and had a nice long soak... It meant I wasn't anywhere as sore as I probably should have been the next day! Badminton has pretty much finished for the season now, I think there are just a couple of club nights left. Last weekend was the club champs where I did OK, winning the woman's doubles with Marie. I have really enjoyed my first season playing masters.

The warmer spring weather means the garden has been looking good with the fruit trees in blossom.

The Stellar magnolia has also been really pretty, although it is starting to dominate the patio and might need bit of a trim one of these days!

The Cleopatra magnolia has also been impressive, although since these photos were taken nearly all of the blooms have been blown off! It is only 2 years old, so (hopefully) it's just going to get better and better.

It has also been the best season ever for our tamarillo tree. It has been laden! We haven't picked any of the fruit, preferring instead to let them drop when they were ripe. They taste amazing, really nice and sweet 

Will has been busy attaching some trellis to one of the concrete retaining walls on the terrace by the greenhouse. He has done a great job, and it will be useful for some of the climbing peas and beans and like. Slowly we are getting the garden in shape for another growing season. Today I planted a whole heap of assorted tomato, capsicum, chilli and egg-plant seeds, so fingers crossed the majority will germinate.

Right, that's pretty much everything up-to-date. I currently have two weeks of blissful holiday which I plan on making the most of. My mum and nana are flying down to stay for a few nights next week which I'm looking forward to.