As we head towards mid-winter Cafe Bell is well and truly due for an update! Following our return to the bottom of the North Island we found the garden had flourished in our absence - including a great abundance of potatoes in the compost heap. These beauties kept us in potatoes for a good couple of months.
Andrew managed to get a couple of ocean swims in to the end of the summer. His favourite event, the Eastbourne wharf to wharf was on a particularly chilly day. Boogie still wanted to get in the water, but she only lasted perhaps 5 min.
We also took a weekend back up in Auckland in March so Andrew could do the King of the Bays swim.
At about this time we went to an open home on a big old house further down the Hutt valley in Tirohanga and decided to put in an offer. After a bit of negotiation we'd bought a house and needed to sell ours! This meant we had to very quickly finish our renovations to get it on the market. Andrew and I had a week of late nights painting and decorating, cleaning and tidying and de-cluttering! We had a very good real estate agent and plenty of open home and sold in eight days.
In the midst of all this activity we had Boogie's sixth birthday which past with a fairly low-key princess ice cream party.
We also had a long weekend up in Rotorua, trout fishing with the grandparents. I was feeling a bit exhausted by this point in the year and spent the weekend pretty quietly.
I understand that Padfoot caught the fish but he was not that keen to have his photo taken. We also went for a fabulous short and easy walk along the Kaituna river...
...and took the kids to Agridome. We saw the famous sheep show and watch the dog round up sheep. We took the farm tour and fed the alpacas and ate lots of feijoas (are we really in NZ and not somewhere in South America?).
A couple of weeks after getting back from Rotorua we arrived at settlement/moving day. We had the grandparents down to help us with the packing and check out the new digs.
Moving started off a bit slow with lots of waiting around for the settlement on both properties to go through. Eventually we got moving proper about 3 pm and the movers were probably finished unloading the truck at Tirohanga by about 8.30 pm.
The new home is quite different from the house in Taita, perched on the side of the Tirohanga hill above the Hutt river with views down the valley towards Eastbourne. It's got some flat lawn out to the side which does fit the tramp without blocking the view but makes for some exciting bouncing for the kids. It's in zone for Boogies school and walking distance to the train station for Andrew. The house is in reasonable condition considering it's age (approx. 1910) but will need a bit of work to make it suit us - and it's twice the size of the Taita house.
Since moving we've been fairly quiet. Boogie and I went for a high tea at Sweetpea in Petone for her teacher only day. Very very nice!
Padfoot has started gym with the daycare at Hutt Gymnastics and Boogie has started chess lessons. They are both still doing well at swimming. Padfoot has a lot of energy at the moment and has a slightly worrying obsession with putting his pants on his head.
A couple of weekends ago we had a day trip up to Southwoods car museum. It's a fabulous museum and we got to see a couple of exhibits that had family significance for Andrew. This car (below) was the car that Andrew's grandad learnt to drive in and the boat was driven by Andrew's mums uncle.
We also went slightly further up the coast to visit Waikanae beach. All good fun - especially with Angelina ballerina mouseling ears.
