testy the test

I felt a bit guilty yesterday that I wasn’t more upset than I was, but really, I’ve known this was coming for a few months, so I’d already said my goodbyes to Saffy in my head, and yesterday was just the final step of the journey. She’d lost a lot of weight over the winter…

You know that saying “Red sky at night…”? Well, it’s not true. The night before we left for Wellington there was the most glorious sunset, yet the next morning dawned grey and drizzly. The Outlaws had returned the campervan when they got back from the West Coast, so we were taking the train and ferry…

Forget daffodils and blossom, the real sign of the change in the seasons is that the supply flights to Antarctica have started up again. I know this because we live quite near the airport, and the big Starlifter they fly down to the ice in has very loud engines, which need to be warmed up…

I definitely can’t compete with Kimi’s fantastic needlework, but here’s the latest progress report on the topiary garden: This final tree is proving as fiddly and annoying as predicted, with loads of colour changes (it only uses 5 shades of green for the leafy part I’m doing at the moment, but it still manages to…

Despite the late night the night before, none of us could really sleep, so we were all up pretty early Friday morning. After a leisurely breakfast of hot cross buns, and some juggling of the shower rota (we quickly discovered that our hot water cylinder only contains enough hot water for two and a half…

And while I was writing that diary entry, another email about a catch arrived in my in-box! This time it was for Let’s Face the Music and Die by Sandra Scoppettone, a book that I’d given to rarsberry when she was up here visiting ages ago. She released it in Dunedin, where it was caught…