Halfway through Term Four

Things are certainly starting to wind down at school now my three senior classes have left for the year. In saying that though, I've had girls coming in for help with their exam revision pretty much every day since they went on study leave! It's good that they are so motivated and want to do well... I'm also busy with lots of end of year admin stuff. Even though I'm not HOD Maths next year (I'm dropping back to my usual assistant HOD role instead) a lot of the planning and preparation for next year is done now. We've also got report deadlines looming so that will also keep me busy as I have to proof-read all of the reports in the department (25 classes worth!).

Will and I have been doing heaps in the garden in the weekends, and also after work now that the evenings are longer. It is starting to look really good. We've tidied up the area around the (newly concreted in) greenhouse.

I managed to limit myself to 30 tomato plants inside the greenhouse, although have also planted another dozen or so outside. It should be enough to keep us in tomatoes throughout the summer, and hopefully also have enough to freeze for use during the following winter... The greenhouse also houses the kaffir lime, 12 capsicum plants of various varieties, 2 Lebanese cucumbers and 2 eggplants. I tried eggplant last year and managed to produce flowers, but no fruit, so fingers crossed for this year. I'll also put some chilli plants in there, but they are still in their seed-raising trays, I haven't got around to potting them on yet. I'll probably just grow them in small black PU bags, it seemed to work well the last couple of years.

 

Below is a picture of our sage which is quite spectacular with its flowers this year, I don't recall it being as impressive before. It's doing a great job of attracting loads of bees to the garden.

This season we've put up our 'Climbing Jack' bean frame which I bought off one of the voucher websites last year. I'm really impressed by it, the poles go down about 80cm or so and you screw them into the ground. It feels really sturdy so hopefully will be able to cope with Wellington's notorious wind... At least that bottom terrace is pretty sheltered with the hedging around it.

In the last of the garden pics, I came home from work the other day to see a huge big wood pigeon on the native broom next to the driveway, feasting on the flowers. It wasn't too bothered when I got out of the car, and it let me get pretty close before flying away. They really are the most ungainly birds when they fly, they aren't the most aerodynamic and it's a wonder they can actually get airborne...

We've also been chipping away at the 2 rimu doors we are restoring when we get a chance and they aren't too far off being ready to polyurethane. I'm really pleased with how they have come up, it's beautiful wood. This weekend I also finished painting the bathroom and toilet ceilings white (from a horrible dark beigey colour) and it is amazing the difference it makes in brightening and freshening the rooms up.

Will keeps a humane mouse trap permanently set up in the laundry as that is where we keep our chicken pellets and wheat, as well as peanuts to feed the birds, so a pretty enticing place for rodents! I heard a noise in there a few days ago, and lo and behold, we had caught a mouse! Will took him (her?) for a drive to a park a couple of km away and let it go.

Last weekend Geoff had his house-warming party which was a good afternoon/evening. It was very nice just having to walk a few minutes down the hill to home afterwards. My badminton friends Stephen and Fleur also stayed the night as they have recently moved out to Eastbourne. That night was also the Wellington Badminton Association awards evening which I didn't attend. Stephen and Fleur left Geoff's party for a bit to attend, and came back with the news that I had won the 'senior outstanding performances of the year' award. It was very unexpected, I knew that I had been nominated, but never actually thought I'd win it, especially as one of the other nominees had won a title at the Masters Nationals and also did well at the World Masters Games in Turin earlier in the year...

That's about all my news. Now that summer is on its way I've started walking into work a bit which is really nice. It's about 35 minutes if I go quite hard. The first 12 minutes or so is quite tough uphill, but then the rest is downhill with lovely harbour views most of the way. I'm a fair weather walker though, I only do it on days when it isn't forecast to rain! I managed 3 mornings last week, so will try to keep that up.  If I'm really keen I'll walk home again, although it is much more uphill so usually I get the bus!