Weather puts dampener on move

Rain, glorious rain – I don’t think so. I just can’t believe how much rain we have had to tolerate this summer. It wasn’t that long ago we had to ask our old neighbour if we could fill our tanks from his bore. Sadly, this year, in two respects, it has been far from that.

Naturally, when making the move to a different property we didn’t know how it would all go in the bad weather. Well, we have been truly tested over the past month and most of our issues are outside although a plan to rectify those problems is in place.

I have so wanted to be outdoors and to play in the garden but every weekend has been horrid except for the weekend we helped our team man the Rural Living stall at the recent Pukekohe Home and Lifestyle Expo.

The show was a huge success and moving the expo from August to April proved a positive not only for the organisers but exhibitors and visitors. We had a lot of fun on our stand and our scarecrow was a great draw card for the children whose job it was to name him.

It was a lovely community weekend as most of the people with a stand were from the district and so many people commented that they wanted to deal only with locals. All the effort that went into organising the show was repaid by the enthusiasm of those who came along over the weekend.

We met visitors from all over the region who were thinking of moving into the district so we chatted about the big change in our lives – our move. However, I must say that not a day goes by without thinking of our old place and that’s because I keep looking for things and can’t find where I have put them. In the old house I knew exactly where everything was!

One major issue is that, somehow, during the move I lost all my handbags. How on earth that happened I don’t know. Brian is quite happy as he says there is so much more room in the dressing room. Men just don’t understand!

I had day bags, travel bags, evening bags and even a crocodile handbag I bought years ago in Singapore. As I write this I keep remembering so many more bags I am missing. I thought I had done really well with the packing, and had labelled everything properly, but so far the box of handbags has vanished.

I blame Brian, of course. After his accident which occurred two weeks before the move, it was turmoil. The following two weeks were a blank and that must have been when I packed the bags. Perhaps they went out with the rubbish, we will never know.

Those little things aside, we are really happy here and look forward to getting to know our neighbours but at this stage, and with the lousy weather, we are time poor as we have so many jobs to complete before the winter.

I am slowly bringing small parts of the garden into order. The hardest thing is that the whole property was covered in weed matting some 20 years ago. It has strangled plants as they grew tall and on steep parts of the property it has prevented water being absorbed into the ground. Instead the water runs off like a river. This has damaged some areas so we are concentrating our efforts on removing the matting.

It’s a very hard job but we will get there. So, let’s hope we see some sun over the next month and then we’ll get stuck in.

Cheers

Reay Neben is a Franklin resident and publisher of Rural Living.