When One Adventure Ends, Another Begins

After two months together I am at a bit of loss now that Dad has returned home to England. Isn't it funny how quickly a big change can become normal in our lives. After all, his arrival was quite an upheaval in the normality of routine here. Work was shuffled, our diet changed, our pets got extra attention and of course me and Dad travelled about 6,000kms in my poor beat up old car! I'm sure that soon enough the big change of him leaving will become normal too and my routine will drop back into place but for now it's all a bit odd.

We dropped him off at the airport super early on Friday morning and, as ever, when presented with an emotionally charged scenario I kinda wandered off into my brain to distract myself. For example check out the control tower. It's a face right? That's not just me trying really hard to find something else to think about is it? Well maybe...

Once we got home I kinda threw myself into doing stuff to keep busy. I sorted out Dads room, got the washing on and then started loading books onto the shelves that Dad had built for us. I'm hoping to have these full pretty soon along with the rest of my shelves. These bad boys are the start of my home library and will soon have the company of a few more shelves hopefully.

Rush is going to miss Dad too because everytime he showed up it meant that it was walking time! Over the next few entries I'll tell you some of the tales of the things we got up while Dad was here as well as writing about what I'm getting up to in my day to day life now that things are going back to 'normal'

Merry Second Xmas!

So if you hadn't already realised that I'm a bit odd it may come as a surprise that my family is rather odd too. My father and sister live in England while my Mum and I live in New Zealand so every so often we visit each other and this year is Dad's turn to visit us here in NZ. Since the post is so expensive we don't really send gifts to each other very often and if we do they are usually small. When we travel however all bets are off and we carry whatever will fit in a suitcase to give to each other. This meant that we knew Dad would be arriving with quite a few gifts for us which are always labeled as 'belated bday/christmas' presents so we decided why not have a little christmas to celebrate his arrival and enjoy our gifts.
We set the date for the Saturday after Dad arrived so that he could have a few days to settle in and wrap gifts before the big day! We had bought a few little things and put them under the tree ready and when Saturday rolled around we had quite a haul to open.

I got books! 9 Terry Pratchetts and a recipe book written by Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall and 4 dvds of his too. My sister drew me an A4 picture which I love and also gave me a new duvet set which has deer on it. I haven't set it up yet but when I do I'll be sure to include a photo. I got a few other little bits and bobs too but I won't bore you.
After all our present opening we went into town to check out the market where I bought a cornish pasty for breakfast. I've been eyeing them up for the last 3 years but since they never advertise the price I've never actually bought one. I decided though that since it was xmas I could treat myself but cripes I got a shock when she told me the price. $6! For a pasty! It was nice but I didn't enjoy it as much as I had hoped, the price was a bit of a sting. Oh well at least now I have tried one and won't need to try one again.

While we were in town we thought it'd be nice to pop along to one of the local schools as it was having a gala that had promised to be quite big. They had advertised a spinning Jenny which I had never heard of and since we share a name I wanted to see what it was and how it worked. As it turns out you 'buy' a paddle with a number on it and then the guy spins the wheel and if your number wins then you get the prize pack. I bought a paddle just to say that I've given it a go and of course I lost. I never seem to do very well with anything that involves luck but I don't have high expectations so it's never much of a let down.

For dinner I had planned a rather ridiculous fancy menu but eventually cut it down to just fish dinner and cake. The cake I made myself, vanilla cake with lemon butter icing and decorated with malteasers and chocolate fingers. It was pretty good if I do say so myself.
The fish was the snapper that my cousin gave me a while ago, baked whole with lemon, butter and herbs. It was a rather simple dinner but nice none the less and a good way to round out the day.

Sunshine, Sand and Seagulls

Urgh! Why is it every time I forget to take my camera/phone with me there is something amazing that I want to take photos of! Murphey's law or what.

Today me and Dad took Rush out to the beach for a walk because the weather was pretty good and also so that Dad could see what had changed.

We stopped at a shop on the way to get an ice cream each, candy floss flavour, which was actually pretty good but not as fake tasting as I had hoped.

It was a pretty perfect day for being out at the beach, the sun was shining, there was only a light breeze and there were hardly any people around. I love taking Rush to the beach because I can give him almost total freedom, I still call him in if we see another dog or if he is trying to eat something disgusting but mostly I just let him go where he wants as there is ocean on one side to pen him in and cliffs on the other.

Today as we wandered along with Dad I checked out the tide line. There had been a good influx of shells and I found a few pretty ones to bring home to add to my room as decoration. I don't often pick up shells as I have so many already but the ones I got today were large and unusual for our area and they will also serve as a souvenir to remind me of Dad's visit. 

Rush was having a great time finding old walnuts to eat that had washed up on the shore, splashing through the shallows and chasing the seagulls and other little shore birds. He never gets near them of course but he likes to try. I watched him take off after a particularly large seagull and suddenly realised that he was gaining on it, it splashed into the ocean and tried to swim away from him but of course he caught up to it easily. I thought the poor bird was a goner and perhaps it would have been better for it if Rush had munched it as it turned out to be on deaths door anyway.

Rush once he realised it wasn't going to keep moving wasn't quite sure what to do with his new friend. He gave the tail a few curious sniffs and then moved around to look it in the eye. SNAP! The gull had life in it yet and had made a grab for Rush's nose, luckily though it missed or the poor boy would have been whimpering. The were still out in the waves and Rush was getting out of his depth so I called him back in and we headed further off up the beach.

Once we reached the river which marks my turn around point I found a nice log out of the wind and me and Dad sat down for a little rest and a sun bathe. There were a whole lot of large logs damming the river and they made a bridge of sorts over the river to a little spit of sand on the other side. Of course in my mind all I could see was a challenge! Could I make it across the logs to the sand without falling in and getting wet? Answer.. After a little careful testing, Yes! So for the next bit of fun, could I entice Rush over too? Definitely, but mostly because there was a dead sheep jammed in the logs on the far side!

After I got him away from that we headed back down the beach and soon enough encountered the poor dying seagull again, Rush chased it into the water again and it went under a couple of times before I managed to get close enough to pick the thing up. It was all wet and bedraggled I got the impression it was quite an old bird that had just done it's time as there was no visible injuries on it. The fact that I had it in my hands made Rush all the more interested of course but he really is a lover not a biter and he was very careful when I lowered it down to show him. I can't say the same for the seagull though as it gave Rush a resounding peck on the nose! I wanted the old bird to be left alone to die if that's what it was going to do so I moved him up to the base of the cliff away from the waves and after a final sniff from Rush we left it be. I can't say that I hope it's dead now but I do hope that it isn't suffering, neither me nor Dad had the heart to put it out of it's misery and we may have taken the cowards option of leaving nature to take its course but you can't argue with nature.

After the beach we also stopped in at Bason reserve just to check out the scenery and I made sure I took my phone along this time so that I could get some pictures. 

 

Ducks and Dads

As ever my week has been unusual. For a start my Dad flew in to visit us for 2 months which means the guest room is in use! I picked him up from the airport yesterday lunchtime and he was pretty tired. He lives in England but segmented his flights by staying over in Bali and Australia so although his flight to New Zealand was only 5 hours or so he was on a night flight so missed out on sleep.

I took him shopping for some groceries and then he came back to work with me. I mowed lawns while he read a book (from my library) and dozed in the car. I don't really have anything too exciting to report at the moment apart from the fact that I hope I will have something exciting to report in the near future! I have signed up for another house stay over the long Easter weekend, this time for my cousin who lives about 2 hours away from me on a farm so that should be interesting but I shall divulge more when it happens. Make sure to stay tuned for more weirdness to come.

On a cute note we had lunch at the lake the other day and as ever we got surrounded by ducks. One cheeky chappy actually hid under the bench we were sitting on and would pop his head up every now and then to see if we had a tit bit for him. Of course it was so cute and funny that we couldn't help but feed him.

Hello, um, Human? Do you have anything to eat?

 Ooh! Whats this human? Is it tasty? Can I have it?

 *sniffs* Ooh corn snack! Yes please!