Getting serious about the new house

Carol:
We've slipped a bit in the last few weeks with the ole blog entries, but here we are again. My mother got herself a brand new metal hip two weeks ago and she is motoring along fine on the crutches. Dad is a daft and doddery bloke these days, so I had to move in and look after him for about 10 days while mum was in hospital. And that took ALL my time.
Then I stuck around in the baby spare room for an extra few days (on the camp stretcher we lugged all the way to WA and slept on twice). We've organised mum and dad's wee house so that important things are at waist level. No bending for 6 weeks with a new hip.
Luckily, we are 15 minutes walk away and that has worked brilliantly well. As I write this, Mish is knocking up a bread and butter pudding using hot cross buns. That done, we're heading around there and I'm doing steak and onions with a kumera  (sweeeeeet potato) mash. Keep 'em fed, they like that.

In other, non parental news, we've spent very little time at the new house. Shifting over a box or two has been about it. But yesterday we were there most of the day tackling rampant flax along  the driveway and gorse and weeds out the front. Gorse is a NZ curse, a prickly bush that devours farmland. Must have blown in to our yard from a paddock. I found $5, a spare key buried in an old garlic jar, a mysterious wood/metal spike and a china handle. Mish found a family of tree wetas in the base of a flax plant. Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings director) has named his Wellington studio Weta.
Yesterday was Wellington picture postcard perfect. Blue sky, no wind, and warmly fresh air. We pottered around the yard, stacking up the green waste and admiring the view. A harbour of yachts. Hills like mountains circling the city. The city. A high peak on the South Island just visible through Wellington's hills.
So we had a good day up there and then jumped in the car to get a couple of lemon Ruskis (kiddy vodkas). Came back instead with bottles of cider and wine and chips and had a very pleasant half hour sitting in the back yard talking about the house as the sun got lower. Came home and watched Grease.
We still have the rental house for another 7 weeks so the slow move goes on. Still haven't looked for work. Still thinking about our espalier tree nursery business idea. Still doing the Lola chemo thing (all good). Still happy with new car, (unhappy with petrol price, rising every week and now $2.20 a litre). Still enjoying being here.