Tuesday; Tea and Tears, I start the day by telling the girls we are buying an UM car and how much of a sign that is. I am already feeling a bit emotional and then Sarah gets me going with one of her messages. I end up crying so much I wake up Rowan and he comforts me lol. The weather here today turns foul. It is cold, wet and miserable! I threaten Cory with outdoor jobs. Lucky for him I want this GIB done. I get another coat of pigmented sealer on the kitchen and it is still bleeding through. Hmph! I really am unsure about painting it such a bright white like the cupboards. I may need something more subtle, I have leftover exterior paint. I also find some resene paint I was gifted that is quite beige. I mixed it up and put some on cardboard to see the colour. It looks good with the kitchen cabinets. I think we have a winner.

Wednesday; I walk up the garage to pick Noodly up. I say thanks to Mel and I take her back down the road. Rowan is taking in his motorbike so I head off in the hilux. I don’t get far down the road before the noise starts again. I stop and wait for Rowan to catch up. I make him sit in the car and listen. I decide to head back to Mel to check. His face is grim. Ah fuck, she is rooted. A bearing in the bottom of the engine block will be causing that noise. Well bugger. (Actually Nan I swore like a sailor). So I limped her back home and got on the motorbike to get into town. I text Liz and tell her, I need to pick the car up sooner rather than later. Well that puts a funk in our day. Poor Noodly, we absolutely thrashed you. The large heavy loads over the entire South Island. For now we will make no decisions we will just put her out for pasture and decide if we want to rebuild her engine. Mel said one of the big contributors would have been parking it up for a long time and not turning over the engine regularly, as well as our heavy hauling. We are attempting to put it out of the priority queue for now. At Till St I got some outdoor painting done and that is about all I remember doing. Oh I did get some Zinnser oil based stain blocker, I needed to bring out the big guns to stop the staining on the ceiling of the kitchen. The pigmented sealer wasn’t cutting the mustard, I did four layers before I gave up. Cory finished the GIB in the bathroom, I will get him to plaster it tomorrow! I got a layer of oil on my kitchen doors and got a second coat of paint on the garage doors.

Thursday; An early start. We make our way to Vanessa’s Cafe in the dark and have a spot of breakfast before continuing to Palmerston. Rowan is going to go back on his bike. I am driving the Corolla. We have a good cuppa with Liz, before we know it it is time to leave. The car is smooth as, the gearbox feels tight with no room for error. I think I am so used to the hilux that this feels like a modern spaceship. At Herbert we drop the motorbike off and jump into the car. We make it just in time to see our workers starting haha. Today we have Laura and Cory. Cory is on GIB until the job is done. Rowan realises that Cory hasn’t let the ceiling lights cables out of the GIB. Luckily our electricians weren’t born yesterday. They had a map with where each fitting should be with measurements. Laura is in the garden spreading the hay and doing a clean up. I only get the ceiling in the kitchen painted today and some no more gaps. As I started painting I freaked out a little, it looks super dark against the pure white of the undercoat. I trust I have chosen well and carry on. Once it started drying it started to look quite nice. Rowan and I had a lot of errands to do so we are in and out most of the day.

Friday; Laura and I smash out the paint. A high of 19 degrees today. Talk about saying goodbye to Autumn with a warm day. I got skinny pinny Laura on the roofs. The paint is just leftover paint from several tins of paint. Silly me thought there would be plenty and started painting the eastern wall. Well Laura nearly runs out. I add some water and stir more vigorously to get it to finish the roof. The colour goes darker. What I think has happened is there was some thicker paint bits I pulverised with the water and stirring which made the colour darker. The studio roof looks more like a patchwork quilt haha. It is still much better than nothing. I was planning on doing nothing with this shed. But giving it a quick tidy just helps preserve it until something more permanent is done. Laura really starts running out of paint. So I jump in the car to Mitre10 with my paint tray with dried paint on it. As it is a super mix I will just find a similar colour. I end up with 4L for $70, man paint is more expensive than I remember. I got some funny looks going in with my paint tray. The colour is actually a bit brighter than the last. Gee I hope our neighbours like green! We got a lot done, tomorrow I will attempt to finish the main part. Rowan did some gutters at the back of the house which is really helpful as I find the back veranda gets very wet without it!

Saturday; Smashing it out on my own. First day of winter and we are going to reach 21 degrees. Rowan and I get breakie at McDonald’s and I get chatting to a Māori family on a road trip. They are surprised by the weather and I joked and told them it is the South Island secret that we actually get better weather than the North. I get the rest of the main paint done and start fiddling with the rest. I take it a bit far with a blue colour and quickly paint over it with the bright green. I get over it by lunchtime and my hands ache. Time to give up and enjoy the warm day! Yes the green is really that green! I haven’t put a filter on the pictures.

Sunday; A day off! We have plans to meet Mish, a friend of a friend of a friend who wants to sell her villa in Palmerston. We know her sister through the grapevine and she told her we would be perfect to fix up the place. She has had it for over 20 years (along with other places) and she has never had the time to do it up like she has always wanted. She doesn’t need the money she just wants someone who will bring it back to its former glory. We came down a few months ago and looked from the outside. We have been chatting for quite some time now. Today we finally get to see inside it. We started our day nice and slow and headed out to Palmerston at lunchtime. We went to both dumps. Hampden and Palmerston. The Palmerston one was a great treasure for us, I got a nice ornate mirror that I hope fits the bathroom. We also got some mid century shelves the same as I have had before and installed at my mums place in Papamoa. They were $2 each. From there we had lunch at a local cafe and then to meet Mish. The house is better on the inside than the outside. It will need a lot of work, the question is do we want to do the work? We are there until late afternoon. If we are to take it on it needs a plumber, electrician and builder straight away and $50k straight into it! We cleared out Noodly this morning and put her out to pasture! So sad! It will be good to get some storage in Palmerston. Then we can have a lot of building materials gone!

Monday; Laura comes in for a few hours later in the day. I get painting the outside shed and then move onto plaster inside the bathroom. It takes me 2 hours to sand, cut bigger holes for outlets and do another layer of plaster. Thanks to a magic trowel it means minimal sanding and a much better finish. I am sure the old way is doable with years of practice but ain’t nobody got time for that! Didn’t get a lot done but I am happy to just get a few done. I have asked Fred to come back and do a days work for me. Then I can have the bathroom and kitchen painted and wallpapered next week.