Tuesday; Happy Anniversary! A great excuse for a day off. We woke up at Bridge Point and had a lazy morning. In town we went to Steampunk HQ since we haven’t done that. It was what I expected it to be, interactive and fun. I loved the mirror illusion room the most. The local bakery makes good pies. The chocolate danish was huge. We had a few hours wandering around. I thought we could do something else but we were Victorian out by then. We went to Herbert in the afternoon and stayed cosy, reading books, chatting and relaxing. It was a fantastic day.

Wednesday; A Herbert day. I focused on pulling everything out of the container we dumped a few weeks ago and packing it all back in. It took a long time to sort out but it was well worth the effort. It had been niggling at me, so it was great to finally get it done. Rowan and Cory smashed out the other jobs around. At lunchtime Rowan had an old farm bridge to pick up and left us to it. We got a lot achieved and the place is looking a lot more tidy. Our neighbour Chris came by and will come finish off the area he started. Can’t wait to not need chocks to park Camele.

Thursday; Before heading into town we have a trailer that needs freeing. Rowan and I struggled but got there in the end. The worst bit was the first time we got the trailer out and Rowan hadn’t connected it properly and I attempted to stop it with my hands. I slowed it down enough to stop the trailer taking out all the supports and starting again. My hands were not happy. Rowan tied the rope around the two supports on the left and we tug them out. The bridge dropped neatly into place. At Till St Cory pulled down the last of the lean to. Yay it is finally gone. I kept the front frame as it is rather cool. Cory and Rowan got into GIB in the kitchen while the weather came in foul. I stayed out in it doing window putty for the studio. I am a lot faster than Cory, I just wanted the job done. I came in a few hours later to warm up. I got some little annoying jobs done. Then we called it a day. We had dinner with Leona in her office. It is such a cold evening. Our showers in the dark left little to desire.

Friday; It’s about time we got that lawn seeded. Talk about wrong time of the year! We are hoping the hay will keep frost off while it establishes itself. Cory did all the hard work we just helped at the end. I got some paint on the exterior doors and some satisfying seal and peel removal! Once that picket fence is up it will look like the cutest cottage on the street. A lead light pendant I was going to use inside will be the front light as it has all the right greens to it. I can’t wait for it to be installed.

Saturday; Rowan and I are on a mission to get the water set up at Herbert. We have to go bush bashing to get all connected and we ran into town to get more irrigation parts. It took longer than we hoped but we now have water at Herbert. We no longer need to fill up at the local hall. Wahoo! Now we have the rest of the afternoon to chill and get up Mt Misery to camp.

Sunday & Monday; We stayed camped up at Mt Misery and had two blissful days of nothing but reading our books. It was amazing!

Tuesday; Cory and I against the world! Rowan is at Herbert. I start painting a few hours before Cory gets there. First on the agenda is clean up, the house is extremely messy and even more so from the sparkys. I clean up enough so I can carry on with my day. I plug everything I can back in and get some towels on to wash. Cory arrives and I get him up on the high stuff. Rowan said I am not allowed to get up on the big ladder on my own. Cory and I paint for 5 hours, it is looking better and better! I am hoping to be completed by the end of the week. We shall see.

A bit of a funny. Cory asked if I came in the truck on my learners haha. I said no, I have my full license just my learners motorbike. 😂

Wednesday; Yay a day off, a much needed day off. Rain and snow is coming. Definitely not worth trying to paint. Rowan and I have a fairly relaxing morning reading our books. Into town to go empty Camele and get a spade. We have four shovels but some how no spades haha. After a look around second hand places we end up with a new one from Mitre10. We get some lunch and visit the new antique store. The English man there is selling off his collection of over 50 years. There is a lot in there and I say to Rowan this is what we should be doing haha. After we sort Camele out we drop in to Gerry and Margaret. I sure hope they are home, we haven’t had a chance to see them in such a long time. We have a lovely catch up and the weather turns from warm to this horrid windy, wet and cold storm. It was quite a scene to watch. We say our goodbyes and brave the weather. A few stops before heading back to Herbert to stay warm for the evening. It felt good to have a day off with no real pressure to get anything in particular done.

Thursday; A cold, cold morning. Once the ice was off the ute I headed for Till. The sun will hopefully help dry my paint. I dubiously start on the south side and to my surprise it starts to dry. I am on my second coat on the lighter green colour, determined to get it done. I finish about 11.30am. Phew, now white and darker green to go! I get back to Herbert where the boys have been working. I take care of the bbq, I really need to open up the container and get organising but my motivation is low. It is not a quick job and I would rather do it properly than rush it. Cory has been making a soak. My tomato plants are now dying off with the frosts. I will need to plant something else.

Friday; We are all at Till St today. The weather is too cold and spots of rain, no painting! However we get the place a lot more cleaner and organised. There is so much chaos. Cory loads up the trailer with iron to take back to Herbert. We take out the crappy shelving in the back of the garage and put the rear back door on. I tidy the dining room, it is such a mess stuff everywhere. Rowan and I take a load of stuff to the dump. After we finish it looks and feels much better. I am going to make sure I do a good tidy each day I am here so we stay under control.

Saturday; prepare for photo bomb!

Rowan and I were wide awake, he had to pee. “Kate get your ass out here quick!” I got out and could clearly see the red wall of light. I tell him let’s get in the car and go! Annoying I was about to have my first coffee of the day, but auroras are allusive, they come and go quickly. At the top of Herbert Hill we see a wall of red, orange and a tiny of green. I can’t believe what I can see with my eyes. The camera makes it much brighter but I am amazed by how much is perceived in person. We watch it in awe. Turns out this is what we should expect all weekend! Natures light show. Absolutely incredible we are both buzzing. The sun comes up and ruins everything. Also signalling I need to get some paint on the house. I take noodles in to work, but first I stop at the warehouse. Rowan needs a water bottle and I am thinking some cheap slippers he can wear outside. It is our anniversary on Tuesday and I want to spend the day doing fun stuff. Life has all been a bit much lately. It will feel great when I have finished painting the trim. I won’t bore you with the rest of the day, I will bomb you with photos instead! We came out to bridge point to see the show and was not disappointed. There were quite a few people coming and going, some had good etiquette some had bad. But by 10pm everyone was gone. So let’s start with more morning Aurora Australis.

Dusk Aurora

Brighter as it gets darker

Mellows off from 9pm till Midnight

At midnight, we get a spectacular light show, a little bit of colour but most importantly this incredible pulsating vibing show. It is like going through foggy clouds, with an electrical pulse running through them. We are truly in awe. Most of these photos are taken directly above us. Rowan and I stayed outside and slept under it. I didn’t last all night but Rowan did.

Sunday; Cory, Presley and I are out to get this paint done. I don’t think I will be done today but I will be a step closer. I have done two coats of the lighter green and today I want to get two coats of the white done. I get there by the end of the day, wahoo! Cory completes the dark green of the awnings. Yay we are looking good! Not far off taking the glue stuff off the windows. I came in on my motorbike today and I ride back to Bridge Point. Rowan left to do some work at Herbert and came back. It was a much warmer ride back than on the way in. I definitely haven’t quite got it yet. I just need more time on the bike. We have a stripe club. Now to get Noodly some stripes.

Monday; I came in on my bike early, just in case the sparky turned up. I started with the front door. It has these added on panels and I thought I would see what is under them. Rowan told me not to, but curiosity killed the cat. I started gently and it all looked well. I knew they couldn’t be fully stuffed as it is bare wood on the other side and there are no holes! I take off the middle panel and discover at the bottom the veneer has lifted, bugger. I pull out all the old nails and stick it back on. Looks like we are keeping the panels haha. I remove the paint from the glass and sand the door down before putting on an undercoat of paint. I work of the two other external doors. I get Cory up on the ladder putting a second coat of paint on the barge boards. Then I head out to the tip shop and mitre10 with Rowan. Cory waterblasts the gutters and has another go over the studio. I try cutting out the seal and peel and it works magically. I am never using anything else to mask up glass when spraying or painting. I got Cory to do the dishes since we have no hot water at the moment. I stayed around until after 4pm with the sparkys. I was happy to leave by the end of the day.

Tuesday; Last night was an early one for us and we got into work before dawn. I am on a mission to get the windows prep done. I sanded and filled in spots until I couldn’t anymore. Now to wait for it all to dry. It is a great day to paint but there is rain coming tonight. So we decide not to risk it running down the weatherboards. I do get painting in the veranda area as it is the safest spot. I am loving the greens! This should give sufficient motivation to do the rest! Cory fills in the hole for the plumbing, yay we can walk right around now. It also makes it much easier for me for the windows. He does some putty of the windows for the studio and then a good site tidy with lots of scrap iron that we will take to the dump tomorrow. Rowan helps Dave with the shower tray installation and finish off the framing of the windows for the studio and workshop. I am shattered, we head home early to get an early night. One good thing about daylight saving is I can be hoping into bed at 5pm.

Wednesday; The weather has packed it in. We start off with breakfast at Vanessa’s then we go to the dump to get rid off the old scrap iron. We end up in Ōamaru just before 10am. After unloading the car we set Cory up with the water blaster. Cory is working through like the champ. A quick run to the hardware store for supplies and Cory gets an indoor jobs done. No time to do anything at Till we have an appointment with the surveyors at 11am. That appointment leaves us with questions for the council. Let’s see if we can see the building team. I must say it is the first time we have walked into the council and had rude customer service, I think this lady needs a new job. No luck with seeing anyone as the lady at the front desk isn’t having a bar of it. Now it has changed to a bitter southerly. I try to get some work done but it is not easy. I do get some sanding but that’s it. Fred, comes to say hi and checks out what we are doing. As Fred leaves Jim arrives for a look. Then my new motorbike arrives too. Cory heads off to pick up Presley, while this is all happening. We take my bike for a WOF and service. It does have a current one but nearly out. I will get it some more rego too. Heading off to stay warm, we come across a guy who lost his load. Rowan helps him then we follow him home to make sure he gets it there safely. Rowan cooks us Thai for dinner. I take a hot water bottle to bed. It is the coldest it has been so far.

Thursday; A perfect painting day, I even got a little bit on the Southside of the house done and it dried! I painted up a barge board for the garage to get its guttering. Rowan put up the polycarbonate to make it all weather tight and we have natural light in the garage. Cory sanded ahead of me while I came along with the enamel. It is coming along nicely and I am hoping for another full on day tomorrow. My bike has a fresh WOF and Rowan rides it home. He said he likes it more than his bike haha. I took it for a ride around Herbert. I have to get used to the bigger size, weight, gears etc. I got it to 100km which I hated lol. Rowan is getting me to ride into Ōamaru tomorrow, I am nervous just thinking about it. We have a ride training course on Saturday. I am not sure I am confident enough to be in the traffic. But nothing like getting thrown into the deep end. It is an 8 hour course but is only $20 because ACC subsidies. Makes sense, safer riders less accidents.

Friday; My first long ride into Ōamaru, it went really well. I stayed pretty calm the whole time, when we got to Kakanui the sunrise on the waves was incredible. I slowed right down so I could appreciate it. Rowan was riding in my old bike as the guy was coming back to pick it up. I am a bit sad that it is gone, it was a good wee bike. He made it home 8 hours later, I am glad he didn’t pick it up the other night. At Till we have another beautiful day for painting. I nearly get a full coat of the Te Aroha green on. Most importantly I get paint on the south side and it happily dries. Cory helps paint the high bits on the south side. He is a lot slower painter than me, but he does a good job so I don’t care.

Saturday; We woke up early hoping to get some paint on before our training. The dew was heavy so we knew there was no way we could. Weather was absolutely stunning to paint. On the way in I struggled to keep my visor down, so my face froze. It is an icy morning. I am nervous for our training today, I hope I can keep up with everyone. I get us Subway, while Rowan goes to give his tyres more air. A quick breakfast and we are sitting down ready for some theory. Trevor (same guy for my basic handlers test) runs us through a few things like where to sit on the road so we can see clearly and where it is safe to sit behind a car etc. This goes on for a few hours, now time for practical. Laura has come on the training too, so we only have three strangers I haven’t met before. It is an even class 3 girls, 3 boys. Laura’s bike is having a battery issue. I call AA and pretend I am borrowing her bike for the training and get it started. She heads off to Vinnie at Colin Clyne so he can get her a new battery. We take off to the car park I did my test in. We ride in a line so we all get a chance to be upfront and watched by Trevor. When we get to the car park he shows us a really interesting technique to keep our bikes really steady at low speeds. It is one Rowan and I are going to practice a lot. After that we ride out to Enfield to have lunch. From there we head out into the wopwops further. I am now behind Trevor and it will be my turn next. They have to slow down because I get us far behind them. I am a bit slower as I haven’t done much high speed riding. Now it is my turn in front, I am wanting to brake before the corners and he keeps telling me not to, Rowan pipes up and explains I haven’t done any riding like this. Trevor coaches me through and gets me riding faster around the corners. I definitely need to practice this more. He also tries to get me to do 100km I do 100km on my clock which he says is 92km on his haha. Rowan passes through with flying colours, but that is to be expected. When we head back towards Ōamaru I am getting cold and tired, I have had enough for the day. We have a bit more around town time and do some u turn work and parking. It is now time to say goodbye. We get a little gift each which is cool. The thought of having to ride to Herbert annoys me. Rowan and I head off to the supermarket to get some dinner and then head back. I must say riding in the dark isn’t much fun, but we make it back. Have our showers eat dinner and I am asleep in no time!

Sunday; Rowan and I ride into town, the plan is to get some paint on. I put the washing on and we sit down for a coffee. I waffle trying to decide if it will dry or not. In the end I am really unsure so it is best to not paint. Tomorrow is supposed to be a bit yuck so I will do any prep touch ups necessary. Rowan and I have been struggling mentally. We had a good chat and we are changing our approach. I am in charge of Till he is in charge of Palmerston. This means I can focus on the renovations and not be distracted and same with Rowan. Moving forward I think this will make our lives much easier. After the washing is on the line we head to the supermarket to get supplies for dinner. We ride back all the way along the coast and then up the Waianakarua River. When we get back we charge up Camele, do a tidy around Herbert and I knuckle down and do a few hours of paperwork. Really looking forward to getting the exterior paint done and taking a real day off! Picture of Rowan grabbing my plants from behind the kitchen so they can be watered 😂

Monday; We pull up and there are three shiny electricians waiting for us. Yay today they get stuck in. It is bloody freezing today, I am surprised I didn’t freeze off my bike. I attempt to do some exterior prep. I am limited with no power. Rowan heads off to Leona’s todo paperwork and I am out in the elements with jealousy. I get all I can realistically do without getting in the way. I send a smoke signal for hot food. We end up having pizza with Leona for lunch. Today they said it may rain, it didn’t but it was so cold it would have struggled to dry. Rowan and I decide to take an early day and we head back to Herbert. I ride home doing 60km, the wind is so strong I can’t safely go any faster. All the pre wire will be completed and we will have one live outlet to work with.

Tuesday; Take two! We have mentally prepared for not being able to go today. But I am hopeful we will be on the road in the afternoon. I have a few jobs I want to do today. Trade depot is first on the list. For Till we need a rangehood and a mirror. It takes a while to make a decision. There is a cheap damaged black oven I eyed up. Because the ceiling doesn’t have enough space we need to vent through the wall of the house. This means the rangehood is sitting on the wall next to the oven. We end up with an angular rangehood so that it hopefully fits in a bit better. I have my 6 monthly blood test, then go to get Rowan more hair stuff. He isn’t running out yet but I don’t want to worry about when he does. We throw in some op shops to fill some time. We get to catch up with Jo and Paul for lunch today. I am glad we get to see them, if it all went perfectly yesterday we wouldn’t have. Lunch was fantastic, it was really good to catch up. I got a call at 2.30pm to say the car is ready. We were having too much of a good time to leave. Jo has just moved in her mother so she can look after her. The picture is with Zack, such a cute dog, and now the leader of the pack of Jo and Paul’s two dogs. The three of them must get some attention on their walks. All of a sudden I realised the time and we had to hop foot it to the mechanic to get Camele. Luckily I checked the time because they close soon. We made it with time to spare. As we leave Rowan hears a funny noise but assumes it is the trailer. We get stuck in peak hour and we really notice it when we pull into the gas station. He drives around in circles and try to repeat the noise so we can work out what is wrong. Well there is no clearance for the new tyres we have. It is touching the wheel arch. When we go over a bump it touched the top. Mmm not good. By the time we work out the problem the mechanic is long gone. Luckily we weren’t planning on heading south. Hopefully it gets fixed easily. When we get back to Rick and Liz it is dark. The last lot of colour in the sky. We have a nice brinner (breakfast for dinner) with them.

Wednesday; Rowan calls the mechanic, they order different tyres but they won’t be in until the afternoon. We say our goodbyes and attempt to see Billy to pay him. No such luck. From there we head to the container to load up the back of Camele. We get a few stacks of boxes in. We are nearly at the point where we get past the cabinets and have all the childhood stuff. Camele handles the heavy load well. From there we go to trade depot. I have decided I do want the oven. We can’t fit it through the door, the next idea was the passengers seat. It is too tall and goes too close to the drivers seat. On the draw bar of the trailer it is. At AA we get the tyres changed, we get out of Christchurch at 1.30pm not bad for timing. A slow drive back to Herbert. A stop in Ashburton at the op shops, then on to Timaru where we make it to the St John’s before they close. We get to Till around 6pm and quickly take the oven inside and take the trailer off. We put it at the top of the hill. When we get to Herbert it is dark, I move the ute out of the way and we park up close to the container to unload. The outdoor light does a great job. Rowan stacks everything inside and I stay in the camper handing out each box. It doesn’t take long at all. By the time we finish and I make the bed and Rowan starts cooking the hot water is ready for the shower. I turn my alarm off, let’s sleep in tomorrow. I know it is ANZAC, but I am getting grumpy.

Thursday; Not a huge amount on the agenda today, we are tired. At Till St we unpack the kitchen, which is harder than it should be as there is a norwester wind that slows us down. We had to unload in a different way to make sure we didn’t end up with items flying down the street. It fits in the living room, I am sure not all of this will be used but I am thinking of using some in the bathroom. We will see. I water my plants, a lot of them are very thirsty. I have all these wonderful old crocs I purchased from Liz. They came out of a pub in the UK that her family owned. I don’t want to drill holes in them so I need some plastic pot liners. Once we got some washing done we headed back to Herbert to sort out stuff we dumped. We put a load of it on the other side of the land and it looks much better. Next door at Jim and Sylvia’s we catch up. Jim was nice enough to keep an eye on our property while we were away.

Friday; Cory is here today, he got the garage iron cladding done while we were away. He water blasted the garage for us then moved onto fixing up the studio. I fixed up the leaning pipe and planted them out with succulents. I got more washing done. We only just made it back with a clean pair of underwear each. Rowan helped out Cory and then Dave. Dave came in the afternoon to do more plumbing work. Annoyingly the waste for the shower was supposed to be a corner waste. Well it is a centre waste. Now we have more digging out to do. I was looking forward to having that shower put in place today. I sanded off the last little bits I needed to do. Tomorrow (weather permitting) we will spray the house. We ended up having dinner with Leona, KFC. Very gourmet haha. It was nice catching up with her.

Saturday; Cory can’t make it today, we are on our own. Let’s get this undercoat on. By the time we get the house brushed down and sweep away all the autumn leaves and dirt, then make sure everything is out of the way to spray. There is a light wind that will work in our favour for drying the south wall. The temperature is good. First attempt our Wagner is not priming. Googling doesn’t fix the problem, we better pull the machine apart. Well we don’t have time for that. Let’s go hire a sprayer. At Mitre10 there is a cheap sprayer for $500 that is a lot less than a new Wagner. Off we trot with a new sprayer. Now whanau take a moment with me… I know you all know what an awesome person I am, but I need to a smug moment here. About 3 weeks ago (and repeatedly) I said to Rowan “let’s make sure the sprayer is working and we have all the parts.” Well he checked the parts but didn’t attempt to run it. Now for the smug part. I held my tongue, I didn’t say I told you so, I said nothing. That is until after the whole thing was resolved and we finished painting for the day and were back at Herbert. I still didn’t say I told you so, I said aren’t I awesome for not haha. It really was a moment where I didn’t need to say anything because I knew in his head he was thinking Katie told me to do this weeks ago. Back to the new sprayer. Unfortunately most components we have don’t work with the machine. Rowan tightens it as much as possible but it is still dripping a bit. It’s a bit of wait and see! Rowan has a go and gets the undercoat on. Not too bad! It does pretty well for a cheap sprayer. The paint is drying fast, but the day is getting on. Tomorrow we will get a top coat or two on!

Sunday; Top coat here we come. It is super still here in Herbert. I hope there has been a coastal breeze at Till. The place is dry enough and ready for a top coat, we only have enough paint for one coat. Guthrie Bowron doesn’t open on the weekends. Not that it ends up making a difference as it gets dry enough to get a film on it but you wouldn’t want to do another coat. We do decide to run to Mitre10 and see if they can make the garage paint. They don’t do all of the Dulux colours but we are in luck. The lovely dark green I have chosen is called Waimarama. When we need more I will get another pail from them. We learnt this lesson the hard way years ago, make sure you stick to the brand and to the shop if you need more paint. Each brands base is slightly different which affects the colour and each place has different tinting machines which also affects the colour. The weather is perfect, the first coat goes on without a hitch. Cory and Presley have a few jobs like filling in the holes and taking out old broken glass in the studio. Most importantly cutting the concrete out to a middle waste ready for Dave tomorrow. Tomorrow looks promising for the next coat. Danny has his last day at the dump shop, we have dinner up Mt Misery to celebrate. It was a lovely evening and we get an amazing blood moon to watch. I also sell my wee motorbike to a guy on Facebook. He picks it up on Friday.

Monday; Get that paint on, wait, it is wet. We came in nice and early thinking we can get the paint on, no we need to wait there is too much dew on the house. That’s okay there is plenty to do. Rowan cuts the glass to replace all the broken panes in the studio. So that is 11 panes of glass and four entire windows. Basically every window had a problem or two haha. Cory got some last minute no more gaps in, anywhere I missed. He got the undercoat done on the barge boards and anywhere else that needed a bit. I am stuffed and ready to go home, but Dave is coming soon so we will wait. I do a bit of hand painting around taps and things the sprayer couldn’t get too. Then just a rough site tidy, it was all I had left in me. Dave didn’t take too long, and the beer all round made it much more pleasant. The rest of the week I will be behind a sander, get those windows done! Looking like a real house now. Our neighbours came over to complement the colours. Yes I know, I am clever and modest lol

Tuesday; A bit of an odd day. We had a plan in place but as one knows plans always change. Cory is not working anymore so we change our day around to suit. We drop the trailer off to be signed off for the WOF. We get all prepared to go away packing blankets and strops. Once that is all done we drop Noodly off to have the WOF done and pick up the trailer. We load my old bike and a few other things into the trailer. This is going to be interesting. I hope Camele can handle a kitchen on this trailer. So far so good it handle the empty trailer fine. We head into Till St and do some last minute tidy up. It was a pretty easy going day, nothing major to do or be in a huge rush. We take Leona out for dinner as it is her birthday tomorrow. We end up at Scott’s Brewery which we haven’t been to in years. It was a really nice night. Rowan got a sour beer which he absolutely loved. He even got a bottle to takeaway. After dinner we decided to get some driving done rather than go back south. We got to Wainono Lagoon, which was a great spot to stay the night.

Wednesday; We have a few appointments today, on the road with the first being 7.30am in Darfield. Rowan is meeting up with Andy a friend he hasn’t seen in a while. Then off to AA Hornby to get a WOF for Camele. Waiting at the AA for that to be done to find we need a few things to be sorted for WOF. We book it all in for Monday next week. Then Rowan has a doctor’s appointment at 10am. I sit around in the camper and have a cuppa. It is a bit strange being in the city in the back of a camper. Rowan and I get some sushi for breakfast then head out to Waikuku Beach to see a motorbike that may work for me. The motorbike is alright but it is quite old and needs a bit of work. We continue on and get up to Kaikōura. A quick stop at the dump shop ends up a lot longer. It is really strange Camele won’t start but the light come on. We call AA and a guy comes out to get us going again. It isn’t a flat battery, the battery is good. But it may be a starter motor or alternator. We take it straight to the auto sparky who is unsure exactly what it is as it isn’t happening again. The only thing he can think of is the starter motor. The suggestion is to park on hills just in case we need to roll start. Well that is annoying, we make sure when we park up that we have signal to call AA. We end up at the Hapuku River for the night.

Thursday; Happy Birthday to my Dad! A beautiful sunrise and no need to rush today. Blenheim is on the cards and we op shop around until our friend Jase is available. We catch up with him before heading to Logan’s. We haven’t seen Logan since we left on our free wander. By the time that all happens it is 5pm, time to get to Picton to see Kate and James. Rowan hasn’t seen them since their wedding and I haven’t seen them ever. But heard lots about James, who went to John Paul College with Rowan. James is the deputy harbour master for Picton and moved over from London. Kate is still looking for work as a speech therapist. They have a wee boy Connor who is nearly two. We had a great dinner and we gave them my old bike.

Friday; Off to Nelson today with a quick stop at the Pelorus for an hour. A walk around the river while Rowan fossicks. A cold but beautiful start of the day. It doesn’t take us long to get the op shops done in Nelson. We end up at the Patisserie for lunch which is more breakfast for us. We head to Kelvin’s and hang out the rest of the afternoon and day with him. Kelvin cooked dinner for us. Paula and Millie are in Auckland so it is just us and Lucy.

Saturday; An early start of the day to pick up the kitchen. It takes a bit of planning but Rowan works out how it can all fit in. I only put the glass shelves and doors in the camper. Tony the guy we got it off helps us load it all in and then we get our large heavy tarpaulin to keep any potential rain off. Tony very kindly offers us to leave it here until we go back on Sunday. We were a bit late to the local carboot sale but that didn’t matter as we are not buying much. On the way back to Kelvin we stop at a salvage yard for a chandelier I want for the living room at Till St. Back to the French Patisserie for croque monsieur and baguettes for lunch. Rowan and I pack up the camper ready for tomorrow. We grab a bunch of antiques we have had at Kelvin which he sold quite a lot of it for us. We can’t take it all but we can at least take a bunch of it. In the near future we will come up with an empty trailer to bring it all back. We have Chinese for dinner and call it an early night. I am exhausted.

Sunday; Following Kelvin we headed to the Sunday Market and helped him set up. I ended up finding a Elis Kuappi ring which I was very happy with. It goes into my mid century Scandinavian jewellery collection. After the market we thought we better have one last lot of amazing French breakfast before going up the Aniseed River for a fossick. We headed out to Wakefield around lunchtime and got the trailer and of course a famous Wakefield pie before heading south. We want to get to the Lewis Pass tonight. We decide to get over the major part before finding a spot to sleep. The spot we were recommended was blocked off. We found a truck area and parked up there. Camele handled the weight of the trailer really well. She also hasn’t missed a beat since she decided to play up in Kaikōura.

Monday; On the road at 5.30am. We have to make it to the rust repairer by 8am so no time to dally. We make it in time and go for a walk around the city to waste some time. At 10am it still isn’t done so we wait around in the car park like cool kids

Tuesday; We have some paperwork to get underway. A quick stop at Till St so we know what plumbing we have and can look up the data sheets. Thanks to the lovely Leona we can come in and out of her office as much as we please. We get all our consent in order and I see Dave has messaged to tell us he will be at the house today. Perfect, we will get him to check what we have done before sending it off. Dave checks it through. We wait for Cory and Laura to arrive and get their tasks underway. Laura is painting up high and Cory is pulling down linings so the electrician can access it. They are multiplying! Two hedgehogs in my hole now. Well we will save these two and hopefully have no more. I later find out they are looking for water, if I put a bowl out they won’t go down the hole.

At the office we put in our consent and come back to work. I am outside with Laura doing prep and Rowan is inside helping Dave. The day goes pretty quick and we have a sense of accomplishment!

Wednesday; We remove the bikes of Camele hoping to bring in the trailer from the mechanic but the tow ball is the wrong size and the correct size is in Noodly! First we couldn’t remove the bikes because the key was in Noodly, which we now have, now this. Hopefully we get the ute back today. Paperwork to do, we get a new exterior interior to do list made. I also have a lot of bills to pay, there goes $7k. I feel like we are bleeding money. Before Dave comes back he has given us jobs to do. First is to use leveling compound for the toilet and shower. We try a bit of the bag to see how it goes and just start with the smaller of the two, the toilet. Rowan uses no more gaps to create a barrier, it works really well. We thought we may get Cory today if the weather packed it in and he couldn’t work. Well the Wild West Coast weather hasn’t got to us yet! I take the opportunity to clean and vacuum in Camele after all the building materials we put in her. Especially when we should get our ute back today. I also do a tidy up inside, the place is getting out of control again. Noodly is finally ready $2400 ouch. Today has become very expensive. I think this mirror will work for above the vanity, what do you think?

Thursday; With the ute back we bring in the trailer to get rid of some garbage! Cory fills up the ute and trailer and we take it out to the dump. Rowan and I almost climb to the top of the pile (about 7m) to rescue some carpet. Oh how the heart bleeds. There goes a few thousand dollars of Axminster carpet. We drop off the trailer to get some tyres as the ones on there are stuffed. When I get back I finally get to rescue these old nails that were at the bottom of the pile. Look at them! Handmade, blacksmith forged nails. A thing of beauty. I couldn’t let them be put in the bin, most of them broke but I saved 6! These make me really happy. The rain is coming tonight. I take the opportunity while it is dry to get rid of the dirt that is building up on the paths and the patio area.

Friday; Definitely a yucky day today. Pretty cold and we have jobs to do. Dave needs AP20 so we shall find some. It takes us hours. We get sent from one business to another and no one knows where we can get small amount. Finally we find the only place in Ōamaru that does. It is a total rip, you have to pay for a whole lot even though you can only take a little, but we need it. If you are wanting to start a business in Ōamaru, I can highly suggest a proper landscape supplier is a huge gap in the market. Once we got Cory on some jobs Rowan dropped me at AA to do my learners test and he went to pick up the trailer. It has been 20 years since I did my test. I practiced which I am glad I did as there are extra stupid questions in there now. The weirdest ones are mechanical questions like what causes your engine to seize? Also quite a few about what fines and demerits you get when you brake certain laws. Stupid! Any way I got one wrong and that was because I did it too fast and didn’t look at the question properly. With the yucky weather we got Cory to put up these doors we got for free along the wall in the garage. It continues the random theme of the studio room. The no more gaps was dry now so we could pour the concrete for the shower base. It turned out well, we did it in two pours.

Saturday; Today we have Cory and Presley. Up on the roof! There is a hole from where the old vent pipe was, that got fixed up. There was also a leak from a nail so Cory spent the morning making sure it was all good up there and then he did some exterior sanding. So close to painting, it takes a long time to prep and I want it done properly.

Sunday; A breezy morning, I applied my down time into writing last week’s blog. I was getting far behind. After a goodbye to Danny and a clean up we headed into Till St. It is a perfect day for painting but it really needs more work before we can carry on. Rowan wanted to check out a yacht to use as “garden art.” Really it would be more of another room at Herbert. It didn’t tickle my fancy but it is his project. Our problem is when would we have time to do anything with it! Well after lunch we got back to Herbert and I got some small things done. I organised the boxes of stuff at the front of the container and I finally planted some oregano and coriander. My potatoes are doing really well. We ended up watching a movie with our neighbours and I went straight to bed. Rowan made dinner, but I was happy to just get some sleep.

Monday; Strange day, everything was just tough. It is like someone drugged us. It was a struggle to get some work completed at Till St but we trucked along. Cory worked on the exterior prep and I played with levelling out the floor in the bathroom. I really enjoyed the process. All those years of watching my dad plaster really helped. Finally a few questions from the Otago Regional Council to answer. The reply from that is we will have a draft tomorrow. I hope that is good news! I think they will give us a bunch of conditions to work with, which is absolutely fine. When we got back to Herbert we went for our ride. It was pretty cold and I got up to 80km. The fastest I have gone so far. I am surprised my little moped could reach that high haha.

Tuesday; After our early morning routine we headed up to the cemetery to watch the sunrise. We are getting amazing sunrises at the moment. At Till Tony did the door frame and now we have an awesome lead light door to the bathroom. Well let’s hope no one is shy, you can see right in! I find it freeing and love the door like that. I carried on with filling any necessary bits on the weatherboards. Few borer holes and quite a lot of damage from the paint scraper tool we used where Cory used it too heavily in one spot. Rowan got on with the windows in the studio and workshop. I had to show the layout for the kitchen now the plumber is here.

Wednesday; Our plumber Dave came in to start working on the place. He got Rowan to dig down to the sewer pipe. Rowan costs a lot less than a plumber, so he can do the lackie work. Dave notices our drainage at the moment is not right, it goes uphill. So he needs to add a gully trap to rectify it. Fred points out to us that our new shower we got from our neighbour won’t fit. It is too tall! We need 2100mm and we only have 2050mm. Rowan played labourer all day and ran between Dave and Fred being their assistant. I stayed well out of the way prepping the exterior. I ended up doing some more painting as Ian next door is just not available to help. We found out today that we can go for building consent as soon as a truss design is back for our designer Brenda. Great news! Another conundrum we cannot fit the bath where I wanted it. I make a quick decision to move it outside. This is rather annoying I would have laid the bathroom out differently. Oh well, no point worrying about it now.

Thursday; Today Cory is here and Rowan gets him clearing the tool shed more so he can fix a wall and fix the windows. Then he moves onto getting the exterior wall clad with iron for the garage. Fred gets the walls plumb for the shower. This takes a while but he gets it done. He then works on a list of small annoying jobs we want done while we make sure our shower ordeal is fixed. Mico plumbing to the rescue, we have a shower coming and it will fit the area. We had a lot of running around to do this morning catching tradies and getting our application for the bathroom consent done. Because we are only adding a toilet and a gully trap we can get a discretionary consent which is much faster and easier to do. But they still need a lot of detail. Rowan and I spend the day running around like headless chicken, in and out getting things moving in the background. Or picking up materials for the workers.

Friday; Another morning of getting shit together before the workers arrive. We start organising for our trip north to get the kitchen. Camele needs a WOF and rowan needs to see his doctor, it has been three months already! I am due my 6 monthly blood tests. Talk about all go. Hopefully the rust repairs on our truck are done today. It was a pain picking up wood in our camper yesterday. Rowan’s big job is working out how to fix the leadlight door. It has a bow in it and we have been told to weigh it down to fix it! Fred has a list of jobs to do like… putting architraves in the dining room window, toilet window, main bedroom window. Lots of small jobs like that. I am back outside preparing the exterior. Rowan is on windows in the shed. By the end of the day I feel like we got a lot accomplished. Noodly is not ready. The ute still needs more rust work. I hear the dollar signs moving. The rust guy will be at work next week Wednesday to finish it off. We can’t drive it as he had to pull out some electrics to fix it.

Saturday; Happy Birthday Rowan! Ah yes my Rowan is a young age of 38! In Orari there is a Swapmeet, talk about good timing. The south Canterbury Swapmeet is always are around the time of Rowan’s birthday. I don’t think he would rather do anything else. It started at 8am and we wrote a list of building materials we needed. We ended up there for 6 hours. About 300 stalls and it was done in a way that really made it too long for most people. Two long rows which meant a lot of stall holders didn’t see the same numbers of people as it was too far. Well we went around and around a few times. It was great because we bumped into so many people we haven’t seen in a long time. The lovely Jase from Blenheim was there, who we promised to visit when we head north. Gerry and Margaret, our friends in Ōamaru had a stall. John and Maree who we had a stall next to in Ōamaru and we know through Leona also had a stall. We got to see a lot of dealers we haven’t seen in a long time from Christchurch. It was like a social gathering. I really wanted another clawfoot but no luck. Hopefully Jase has one for us. We did find some tapware and this amazing vintage wallpaper. What do you think? That for the bathroom?

On the way back we visited a few second hand shops and made our way back to Ōamaru. Rowan wanted burgerfuel for lunch so we had a very late lunch and just a small burger each. When we got to Herbert we had Thai curry for dinner. It took 3 supermarkets to find the right curry haha.

Sunday; Today is the day. I am nervous and a bit out of sorts. I have to go around a course a few times to show I can be a learner rider. Now this is what confuses me the most about getting a motorbike license. You can’t legally ride one (moped yes) but you have to be able to ride one to get your learners. I feel like we are missing a step here. I get you got to know because now you can legally ride on the road on your own. They expect you to know someone who is. A, willing to teach you. B, is willing to let you use their bike or let you bring a bike. C, willing to use their land to practice on. Anyway, it was an hour long. I thought there is no way I can pass this. He ran us through the 4 tracks we had to do. Indicate check mirrors etc. The corners are pretty tight and small. I am good at low speed riding so that doesn’t worry me. But the young guy Jayden is not. He is used to dirt bikes. So I can do the corners and Jayden can change gears more smoothly than me. So can we just mix together haha. I happened to be the first to try. Argh! Trevor said he was surprised I did so well on the first track. Well what a vote of confidence that is! Rowan and Jayden grandpa thought we both wouldn’t pass haha. I remember the pure shock I had when the instructor Trevor told us we have 13min left to practice before the test. I was terrified, Rowan said it was hilarious seeing my face. Rowan also worried as he knows my learning style and thought I might tell the instructor to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine!

Now the big test! I do the first one in first gear, that was easy the second one I forgot to indicate on the first corner. I yelled out to Trevor I forgot to indicate. He yelled, yes I know you don’t need to point out what you are doing wrong lol. On the third course I almost forgot to put my kickstand up. Thanks to Rowan who did a hand signal haha. On the last one I had to come to an emergency stop doing at least 20km. Well my back wheels skidded didn’t they. That is a big no no. Well my current bike has really bad rear brakes that mean I have to push quite far before they start to work. Well this bike has good brakes haha. I was allowed to get 16 things wrong with 2 major no nos. I got 10 so plenty of room for me to make more of a mess. I was sure I failed and was so surprised to hear I had passed haha. Jayden passed too, with 7 fails. Wahoo we did it. Definitely off for some gelato to celebrate! It took me hours to come down after all that anxiety. The gelato did help haha. We went into Till St to pick up stuff and then headed out to Herbert for the afternoon.

Monday; Into Leona’s office early we started working on our consent again. Looks like we need all the data sheets for the glues and pipes. That is a lot of paperwork! When we got to Till I found a small fella in our hole. So I got him out and put him down the road. Today we have Fred for the day which we were not expecting. So we got him onto a few jobs that we never got a chance to do. He finished off the framing for the bathroom door. Fixed the ceiling in the studio. Framed up the old window between the kitchen and bathroom for GIB. Lots of small jobs which we are thankful we don’t need to do. I get a message towards the end of the day, we have replaced the exhaust in Noodly. Awesome the exhaust repair place took the ute from the rust repair guys, fixed the exhaust and returned it for no extra cost. Bloody awesome. Laura came over and gave us a hand, I got her onto sanding. She works quickly and we need as much help as possible. I have loads of paint tins half full. So I mixed them together to minimise the paint tins. I still have too many. When we went to the dump shop I noticed a very yellow ring, which I thought was dress jewellery. I love yellow! I took a closer look and it is actually 9ct gold. $8 what a bargain. I have no idea if the stone is citrine, topaz or sapphire but it is gorgeous. I have added it to my collection. Back at Till, Fred got our job list complete, it has been great having the help. There is so much more done now but a daunting amount left to do! I have listed the shower for $500 on Facebook. I expect someone will haggle me down and we paid a little over $200 in beer for it.

Tuesday; Today we drop off ute to get a WOF and the rear shock fixed. Rowan just leaves the keys in the sun visor, we will use Camele for the next few days. Fred and Cory are working today. Cory gets onto replacing the old roof on the garage. Fred continues with the weatherboards down the south side and the front of the house. Then onto the floor holes in the dining area. The stuffed floorboards he pulls up must be original. They have hand forged square nails, made by a blacksmith! I am so excited by them, I will definitely pull them out and keep them. I attack the garden, I pull out all the plants I want to keep that I planted a few months ago. The weeds are out of control, it is easier to start again. Sorry I cannot remember what Rowan did, I need to get better at keeping notes. We ended up seeing Jimmy and Sylvia that afternoon. They are also renovating in Ngapara, a property they plan to leave the kids. I think they will end up living up there and use Herbert as more a getaway. It has incredible views and is very quiet.

Wednesday; After our usual early wake up routine we hang around until Vanessa’s is open. We haven’t been here in years and Jimmy keeps saying they make the best scrambled eggs. We want to go to the dump shop at 9am and we have no Cory today and Fred won’t be coming until the afternoon. It was a great scrambled eggs, well priced too. Once we wore off our welcome there, we headed down to the beach, there we got some paperwork done. After the tip shop we headed back to Herbert to get organised. We are meeting Brenda at 11.30am. Last night we had a brainwave, do we add an ensuite into the house for Plamerston? After our meeting with Brenda we quickly head to Till, Fred starts at 1pm. Fred removes the wall between the kitchen and the bathroom, more accurately makes a doorway. On advice from Brenda, Rowan and I pin down Tama and ask a few questions. We run around the rest of the afternoon, trying to figure out what an extra bathroom will costs us. Rowan and I discuss, how easy it is to get out of control. I can see why building blows up and costs double. It is all the “oh it is only an extra $5k.” But you do that several times and the costs go crazy. We come back and Fred is packing up. I am not sure he did enough for his time sheet but it is hard to know. Back at Placemakers again, we pick up a heat transfer for Till for a grand total of $50. There is also two letterboxes that are on clearance. These are $300 letterboxes for $30. Yay, more than happy with those. We hang around a bit longer as Dave the plumber is coming at 5pm. We get some guidance from him then head back to Herbert.

Thursday; The usual morning start, we head straight into the office to do some paperwork. We end up at Mitre10 talking kitchens for Till. I really want a good second hand one, it is much better value for the money. No Fred today but Cory is here. The weather is a bit pants. Cory finishes pulling off the ceiling. In the kitchen area there is great boards under the crappy coverings. I am going to leave them exposed and paint them up. With that gone the place feels much bigger and lighter. Now I need to work out what the layout of the kitchen should be. There is a kitchen in Nelson that will work, but is very far away. I don’t remember what Rowan and I did for the day. I do remember going to the supermarket and heading back to Herbert after Cory was done. Danny is coming for burgers on Mt Misery. We meet at Herbert. I take the opportunity to shower at Herbert. It is bloody freezing today. A definite cold front and it makes it rather windy and cold. We go up further so we have more shelter. I packed extra blankets to keep us warm.

Friday; Feeling tired with our early morning start and late night last night. We do our mandatory walk and go back to bed. We end up dozing until 7am. Cory and Presley are on demolition this morning. I stopped faffing and said take the walls off. I got a coat of Gonville on the bath tub. It is a very pretty aqua teal colour that works with the pedestal basin. I bite the bullet and buy the kitchen in Nelson. Mmm now to go get it? Will need to be in a week or two. Rowan is the plumber today, he turns off the water and caps off the various fittings so Cory can pull off the walls. I roll on some undercoat, I want to see how far I get in an hour. Ian next door is going to finish it off for me. We will be doing two undercoats, this first one will show up bits I have missed. the second coat will double seal it all and then we will do some top coats. Presley has a meltdown about his shoes, so ends up going off the job. Cory continues and I get him up high doing no more gaps. Then he finishes off screwing down the roof of the shed. Laura finally has a fridge and washing machine. We pick that up and I set a load on for early morning. We have done two underwear washes but let everything else pile up. I must have 5 loads to do.

Saturday; We have neglected paperwork for a few days. There are emails I need to reply to. First Till to put another load of washing on. Ian is starting around 9.30am and I want to get a few loads done. I also get a second coat on the bath tub. We leave Ian to it and head off to Herbert. I do a bit of organising by removing summer clothes that I don’t want in the camper and adding warm woolies. I thought we had too much clothing but it has been very handy using it all while having no washing machine. We hang up our overalls at Herbert and really don’t achieve much for the rest of the day. Definitely looking forward to some down time.

Sunday; A week away before I go for my learners motorcycle license. I am feeling comfortable enough that I hope it won’t be too tough. We have gone on a ride most days to make it feel more natural. The best part about that is I get various weather and conditions to practice in. Today we achieve sweet fuck all. (Sorry Nan). It is really good, I am hoping to go for our building consent soon. Which is making my brain hurt with all the paperwork and work at Till. A million jobs and a million decisions to make. I am surprised my head hasn’t exploded. Plus we have WOF stuff to think about for Noodly (ute). No today is to try quiet the mind. Which does but also doesn’t work.

Monday; I want to check out a few open homes in Palmerston so we make a day of it. A lovely breakfast of scrambled eggs at Vanessa’s starts our trip off. We head off on a tiki tour and go down some roads we have t been down yet. The weather is okay but hasn’t held us back. Out the back roads of Moeraki there are some cool cribs and beaches. Looks like they are owned by the iwi and are all leased properties. In Palmerston we pick the brains of a few agents. There is a brand new house that is 3 bed 1 bath and they are asking $595k. It is a new subdivision and it will have 6 neighbours. Which makes it piggy in the middle. I was curious to see what the feedback had been so far. The agent kept his cards close and didn’t give away much. I will call in a few weeks and see how it is going. I think the price point may be a little high but it will be great news for us if they get a price like that. We got back in the afternoon and relaxed before dinner. This week is going to be busy with lots of contractors on site!

Tuesday; 4am, now to conquer Herbert Hill. It takes 20min, google said 24min. We took two breaks to catch our breath. I feel unfit but I also am glad I haven’t lost all our fitness from the past year. Cory starts on the framing of the garage. Once he has completed that he can replace the roof iron. More paperwork, I won’t bore you with the details. Finally the Otago Regional Council has acknowledged our consent and will send us an invoice soon. I got a few house plants on clearance at Mitre10 for $5 each which I am stoked about. Leona has an early dinner with us as we finish of paperwork. We get her attention to ask about plywood kitchens, gas heating/cooking and polished concrete. It is a no to all three, plywood is not cool, people don’t like it. They want a shitty MDF kitchen that blows out if it gets wet. Looks like the people of Waitaki hate gas too. polished concrete, no, way to futuristic. I think we are too modern for the area. The buyers hate the idea of all the cool things we want to do. Oh but not the rainfall shower head, that is a feature they can get behind haha

Wednesday; No Cory today, we make the most of it by tracking down window companies and making them explain a better understanding of glazing. Vantage Oamaru has been the most helpful and they have also come in the cheapest. We have made all our bedroom windows bigger and we have gone for a great long feature window in the kitchen. Mmm I think I better show you some preliminary plans soon. Finally window shape and sizes and confirmed. Council sends us a bill which we pay straight away. Our morning walk was missed but we made up for it by heading down to the beach for a walk. A stunning day, heaps of seals around. Back at Herbert with a list of jobs to do. I completed painting the container and I did some more rust work on the trailer. Rowan sorted out the water container that Doug (neighbour) gave us. He water blasted it and tanked it. We end up at Jim & Sylvias for a few drinks in the late afternoon. This makes it a bit later than I want for dinner and bed time. Oh well, it is hard to be social and have a 7pm bedtime.

Thursday; A really full on day. Cory finished framing the garage, yay! I worked on the exterior prep work. Rowan helped me remove a few of the windows so I can fix them up. We didn’t notice damage on the inside of the frame and all the hinges had horrible screws. Which is annoying as the hinges themselves are brass and in good condition but the screws have failed. Rowan got onto some framing work. The jobs don’t seem to end. The light at the end of the tunnel cannot be seen. Rowan did a major overhaul inside, there was so much mess and stuff dumped in various spots. He did well putting it all back. Leona calls me to ask if I can help a client of hers with a laundry tub. Turns out the two we have are not quite right. Which is very unfortunate as she has been hunting for 18 months. I will keep an eye out for her while we are out at various tip shops. Talking of tip shops, the lovely Danny (works at Oamaru dump) eyed up a hay feeder, we want one and he wanted the other. So we made a deal, delivery for dinner. Tonight we pick them up and we take one to Danny’s place. He has a container home, fully off grid in Deborah, not far out of Oamaru. A late night, asleep by 11.30pm.

Friday; Oh, we feel that. Lack of sleep not so good. I drag myself out of bed, Herbert hill is very daunting. Not as bad as I thought it was going to be. We planned to get into town to do some paperwork. Leona’s office is a lifesaver. We do a bunch of work then decide to hunt down some help at Placemakers. Well, this incredible sunrise distracts us and we head down to Holmes Wharf to watch. At pacemakers we are after weatherboards, not enough there. Off to Mitre10 and we ask if they are open on Monday (Otago Anniversary), yes they are. Perfect we will get them Monday. The young guns we are wanting to use for the bathroom reno are coming to help on Monday to do the weatherboards. Which I am very happy about. Cory is on the roof today, he is replacing all the iron. It is with second hand iron, the garage just needs to not leak. It really isn’t a long term solution. We would have yanked it down but if you wanted to build it again the council wouldn’t allow you to be that close to the boundary. After midday Fred arrives on our doorstep. Fred is a local handyman who said he was too busy to help us. A complete shame as he does all the renovation work for Sam and Luke who was bidding against us for this house. He is a carpenter and is very experienced in older homes. He was visiting Leona and asking if we still wanted help and she sent him to us. “I have two weeks available, do you still want help?” I tell him annoyingly we have asked for help with the weatherboards and they are coming Monday. However there are still heaps of jobs we want done. Rowan was a bit hesitant and I said wouldn’t you pay a few thousand right now to get some jobs off our plate? Once Fred left I started making a list for him to tackle. Not long after I get a message from the boys saying a friend has passed away so can the reschedule to Wednesday. I put them on hold because I would like to see how Fred gets on, on Monday.

Saturday; A Herbie day. Rowan attacks the water tank Doug (neighbour) gave us. It needs water blasting and tanking. I finish off painting the container and do the last bit of rust repairs to the trailer. I also give Camele a good clean. By 3pm I had had enough. We ended up over at Jimmy & Sylvia’s place and Rowan had quite a few drinks. I was adamant that I didn’t want to stay in Herbert and we talked about going away. So after I worked out where all the column shift gears are on Camele we were off! It was a stupid idea, but I am pig headed and I wanted to get away. We ended up getting pizza in town for dinner and ended up in Duntroon down on the Waitaki river side for the night. It was really late and the rain finally eased. Rowan wasn’t impressed by my late night push to go away haha

Sunday; Up for our morning walk as usual. We had a cuppa and got driving. We ended up watching the sunrise as we came through Omarama. We are heading past the turn off to Lake Oahu and going to get Salmon and dinner supplies. We go to the supermarket first in Twizel, then we go to both salmon shops. On the way Rowan notices a deer on the side of the road. We turn around to take a look. It has obviously been hit, must has been a truck as any normal car would be in a ditch. It is pretty fresh, so it can’t have happened long ago. Rowan took photos pretending he shot it with an air gun and sent it to his hunting friends to stir the pot. We ended up taking the antlers by sawing them off. When we arrived at Ohau we found a spot on the lakeside to camp up. We both ended up for a cold swim in the lake and then had a good hot shower to warm up. The lake was freezing, it took me ages to get in and I didn’t stay long. The wind picked up and it got quite nasty in the late afternoon and evening. I am glad we got in when we did. We both really enjoyed being away.

Monday; Up at 4am, the weather rocked us all night. We took a short walk and got ready to leave. our coffee to go this morning, we will drink as we drive. We have plenty of time to get to Till but we are actually heading to Herbert so we can swap cars and take the trailer in. Fred is working today, which is actually a public holiday for Otago. We get him onto the windows first. The hardware needs moving around and he is better off with the fiddly jobs. After that we get him to do the trim in the living area. There are several bits missing, which he easily fixes up and does a bloody good job of it. Then onto weatherboards. Rowan starts the demo in the bathroom area. Looks like when the roof was replaced they insulated the ceiling. Awesome, that is great! I am on more exterior prep. The day goes quick and I feel we have achieved a good amount of work. I am really happy to have the weatherboards done.

Tuesday; 9am plumber it is all go! Then Cory arrived and not longer after Laura saying she has her key. A few more loads and we get away to get some more paperwork done. It is good getting this all off our plate, we like the balls to be in other peoples courts otherwise we are the ones holding up progress! We set off to the Waitaki District Council to ask what we need to do for Till Street. Sounds like we may get away with a discretionary consent rather than a full building consent. At the St John’s op shop I found a very arty piece. Didn’t buy it, thought it would suit someone else more, haha. I honestly don’t know what we got done for the rest of the day, this week has turned into a blur. I do remember heading back to Laura’s to help her put her bed frame up. She needed our drill. Some ladies from the church and her mum came to pray and we quickly scampered with Nina so we didn’t get in the way.

Wednesday; Oh look, more paperwork!

We tried to track down Dave from Placemakers as we had a question about roofing types. We have gotten a lot of conflicting information. Looks like he won’t be around until tomorrow. We then hunt down Eugene at Mitre10 and ask the same question, he is unsure and says he will get back to us. Next we make an appointment to see Brenda our designer, she should be able to answer the question after all. We are not going to get any major answers today. Next on the firm up list is windows, no one wants to give us the hand holding we need. I think windows are a license to print money, I think they all decide this is what it costs me and I think these guys can afford this price. The lowest quotes have been around the $10k mark and the highest around $22k. Rowan fires off an email to all quotes we have received asking for a price breakdown. It is really hard to make decisions about size and design when we have no clue what makes double glazing cost x amount. Our windows need argon gas so they are low E and they also need to be thermally broken. They need a certain thermal rating, which is great. It gets cold here, there needs to be more efficient buildings. We are only 30 years behind places like the UK.

Thursday; A box covered by a black bag is sitting on our doorstep. At first I thought it was from Laura but then also thought she can’t afford to be giving thank you gifts. There is a box of beer, some chocolate and a card. It is from Alistair, Laura’s ex husband. A very long card offering payment for helping Laura and so on. Rowan and I wanted to give it all back with a card to say thank you for the gesture but it is completely unnecessary. We talked to Laura about it first to make sure we do as she wishes. She tells us to accept it but do not acknowledge it. Off to Placemakers to see if we can get the roof shape pinned down. Dave thinks our cheaper option will be hip. Which is rather annoying because when we asked this question back in December everyone said go monopitch. After a few emails we leave Leona’s office to meet Cory at the house. Cory is on sanding the weather boards. We set him up and head out to meet Brenda the designer. Brenda helps us with the roofline design, it turns out monopitch or skillion as some people call it is most costly. Then gable, then hip. Rowan and I are adamant to have a monopitch, this house is rather small and the height will make a huge difference to the feel of it. We have settled on flat ceilings in the bedrooms and bathroom, with traditional trusses. In the living/kitchen area there is an 8 degree pitch, giving us the height we desire. Before we lock it all in, let’s make sure we are not adding a huge amount of cost. We have said with each decision that we will take the most economical option. This often means the cheapest, however if it is a small extra cost to make it more liveable we will make that choice. We have given the green light for Brenda to move ahead, get this designed so we can apply for consent and get proper quotes for materials. There was an insulation check done by some company to see if our home complies. There is no room for underfloor insulation, but there is batts in the higher part of the house. Cory has finally completed the sanding.

Friday; Feeling exhausted, brain has turned into mush. It takes a lot of time and energy working out all of these small details. More paperwork, at least it feels rather good as each step we take makes it a lot closer to getting the consent done. Off to Placemakers to get an idea on what this roof design is going to cost. The cladding is a cost but not that large, of course the plaster board on the inside too, but not so bad that we are going to say no. I think our best option for cladding is Hardie cement weather boards. They are easy to install, come with a good warranty and reasonably priced. because we are going over 3 metres there is now a need for stronger walls, which costs about an extra $500 of wood. They will just double up the 2×4. There is need for special venting for the roof so moisture doesn’t get trapped and make the insulation damp. The roofing lady scares us at first with a, “oh, that is going to cost you.” Turns out it will cost us but not as much as you would think. An extra $1,500k, which is not bad. Sure if you were building a big home I can see how these costs could spiral out of control. By the time the day is complete, I am ready to switch my brain off house materials.

Saturday; Herbie day, well more of a day off. We read our books for most of the day and ignore our phones as much as possible. Cleared out the ute and put back only what we want in there. I started to go through some jewellery. I am torn between putting some effort in and selling it or just put it in a large box in the back of the container and worry about it in 10 years time. No conclusion yet! Part of me regrets getting our little place in Till Street. It is a cute cottage and I love it a lot, but it really is on the back burner which makes me feel a bit guilty. I am sure once we have the consent lodged it will get the attention it deserves.

Sunday; A hop, skip and a jump to Dunedin. A copper cistern came up on trademe for $100. Well worth it and some gorgeous lead light doors, six in fact. More than we need, but these never come up for sale. You see small amounts in doors but not a full door like these. While we are here we go to the op shops. Obviously not all of them but three are open today. We get lunch on our way out of town. Leaving at a reasonable hour and easily go to the two dump shops on the way back. We pick up a nice mid century chair for $2. Probably shouldn’t have got it as it is not something we need, but for the price who can complain. I will drop it off to an op shop if it is not useful.

Monday; New week, new start. To be clear 4am starts. Rowan suggested we go back to early mornings like we used to do. Brilliant idea, we will achieve a lot more and it will give us a much needed routine. Our first job at the pre crack of dawn is going for a walk. Not too far or long, but up the Herbert Hill to the cemetery. Or if we are somewhere else whatever we can find. Like today, we are up Mt Misery so we walk a bit further up and back. We got into leona’s office bright and early, 6.30am. I notice my first grey hair today, I have been wanting some white hairs for a long time. My sisters got them a decade or more ago and finally I join them. Is Rowan really stressing me out so much I am going grey? HAHA. Another day of paperwork, we have a bunch of responses about the breakdowns from glaziers. Only two have actually broken the quote down. The other 8 are telling me why they can’t do that. It shouldn’t be this hard but they sure don’t make it easy! Tama comes around after Cory has left for the day. We have a bunch of questions that we need to ask him. We also get an idea on what he is charging for labour $20k – $25k.