Today marks a couple things, 22 years since one of my Great Grandfathers died - on Anzac day, sad as he was a veteran. 23 years since Mum and Dad got engaged - yep, on Anzac day. And 100 years since Anzac day began, while I also can't believe it's been a whole year since the Anzac memorial thing at Te Papa was unveiled.
Only five days left of April 2016 - this year has gone incredibly fast and it's concerning!
They're saying it's getting more and more important for our younger generation to remember our ancestors who were part of the war/s, to know their stories and pass them on. But I only ever met one out of my three Great Grandfathers as the other two had already passed before I was born. I hear the odd story now and again but I can never remember the finer details or who they belong to, which is sad.
The only story I know, although I'm not too sure who it belongs to on Mum's side of the family, is the bath theft. I'm not sure whether it was normal back then, or just in this battalion, but the lower ranked soldiers weren't allowed to bath - only the head honcho's, so to speak, were entitled to have one. I'm not sure how often or why. Could you imagine lugging a bath around in battle? Probably cast iron, and not even being able to use it?
So, they stole it. My Great Grandad among them, took it, hid it and they all got a bath. lol if it was my Grandad's Dad, then I can actually imagine it, as my Grandad was a bit of a comedian himself!
It's been a busy month filled with milkings and fencing and the like. I've just had another cool weekend milking with Hamish and I left on Sunday night with my car boot filled with some amazing produce from their garden. I've given them some feijoa's because we've got so many, and sent a bit of baking their way to the cowshed as well. He said at the end of milking just before he ran off to do more jobs that he'd left a few pumpkins in the back of my car, but I didn't expect to open it to find five pumpkins - a couple I've never seen before or even tasted, as well as a massive basket overflowing with kumera (they're blimmen huge too) and potatoes. It really warms the heart, being surrounded by so many good people.
Our day today has been filled with so many things around home, we're trying to tidy up a few things as well as make some areas a little more dog proof - currently the little munchkins have a few exit points out into the paddocks next door and into the vege garden, therefore the compost bin. Yum, not. So while Dad was playing tractors spreading dirt around and flattening some areas after all his time playing with dirt prior to Christmas (there were just massive mounds of soil...) Mum, Nick and I fixed up the garden gate - changing the hinge system around a bit, adding more rails so Tessa can't just hop through the gaps, and raised the entrance area with dirt and terracotta chips so they can't go under the gate either.
Kills ten birds with one stone really, stops the dogs from getting in, means we can now open the gate in or out, preventing another common mud area into the garden by spreading the terracotta chips, and well spreading the terracotta chips was a job that's been waiting for like, four years lol.
And Dad, playing tractors (haha) spread all the dirt and Nick rode around on the four wheeler towing an old pallet (makeshift harrows) so it's now finally ready to have new grass seed spread. Tidied up all the fencing stock - posts, rails, etc., and pulled up a few old tree stumps along the boundary so we can carry on with the last section of iron fence. Thus stopping the darling munchkins from escaping through another point. Only issue now, Tessa can squeeze her little body between the wires on our post and batten fence - it's like, ten wires, I don't know how she does it. While we did fix up something so they couldn't get into the front yard, darling Tessa is proving her Terrier jumping ability is in perfect condition, so she just leaps over anything in her way.
It's a serious hassle, but they're never outside on their own anyway so it's not too big a deal thus far.
I'm preparing myself for a busy week, although I don't have any work on again until Friday, my social life is suddenly busy! Dinner with Chantelle and Sam tomorrow night, which will be great to catch up with them again. I'm off to the movies with someone else on Wednesday night. Thursday night is our young farmer meeting - although I'm not sure whether I'll go or not yet. While Friday night Mum and I are going to a girls night thing, should be fun. I probably sound like a social butterfly haha, but I haven't been out "socialising" all month!
Oh yeah and bonus, I saved up a massive amount of money to get my car fixed up - ya know, that airbag issue? I was told the part would be anywhere between $400 and $600, plus all the extra costs involved. Anywho, I got a nice surprise from the auto electrician who I don't like seeing all that often but I like him more and more the cheaper the costs are, when he said it was just a bit of faulty wiring - about $150 in total. Completely stoked. Phew!
Showing posts with label dinner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dinner. Show all posts
Monday, 25 April 2016
Saturday, 19 March 2016
Self Defense
Life is great when you have some cool people to spend it with :)
I've been busy, lots to do but also not a lot at the same time, and a fair bit to update on here. OK.
I've been doing women's self defense courses/sessions/things, whatever you wanna call it. It's where I basically drive over to the next town, catch up with Chantelle and we buddy up and get taught how to beat each other up - for our own protection. Lol, sounds a little off, right? Nah, there are some Kempo instructors who have decided to run a quick, one hour long session once a week for four weeks so that some women can learn a little bit of self defense if they were to need it any time in the future. It's cheap - $10 a week, and we get taught some helpful things.
Such as blocking a punch, getting out of bad situations like grabs from behind and the like you'd expect from not very nice people. Apparently I have a very good punch - I would expect nothing less after growing up with Nick! (I joke) and sometimes all I want to do is actually try it out.
See these little sessions are great, but for obvious reasons we can't have contact with the friend you're doing it with, so when you want to elbow someone under the jaw you put a lot of "oomph" into it so you know you're doing it correctly - but you certainly can't actually do it! Which is kind of frustrating. I wish there was some type of robotic thing that you could practice on that resembled those sorts of attacks from a person, and you could do it properly without fear of injuring somebody...Anyway, there was one occasion in our second week where Chantelle did actually get me in the face - it kinda hurt, but we were all laughing too much to really care.
The instructor reckons that if you put a palm heel into the attackers face, top lip/nose sort of area, if you hit it hard enough you could actually induce vomiting - which is how you know you've done a good job. It's a pressure point filled with nerves, and yeah that's where Chantelle hit me, thankfully not hard enough!
It's fun though, we've got just one more session to do this Wednesday night coming, and twice we've gone down to the pub for dinner afterwards for a debrief and catch up on how our week has been. It's nice to be spending more time with her, even if only for a few hours. When we were younger we'd do three or four day weekends hanging out, now we hardly get time, so it makes a nice change :)
I'm back working at my favourite cowshed again, you know that one I just won't shut up about? Automated system, so much fun, Cameron and Hamish, etc., etc., etc.? Yeah, that one. I'm on my second weekend there and today I'm helping feed calves too, which I'll help out with after milking for the next few weekends as they need the help - until the busy period of autumn calving is finished. They're calving 250 cows, and officially started a week or so ago - it's a short stint of calving, so they're pretty busy beavers at the moment. It's great to be back, I had a good catch up with Hamish last weekend, and now Cam. I think they're just glad to see a new face in the cowshed again - it must get kinda boring without me to chat to every so often, and I'm stoked to be back. Well I was, until I found out my favourite friendly heifer died over the summer when I was away, to think that I was so looking forward to seeing her again, but hey.
But last night Jo - Cam's wife - invited me to join them all for dinner. It was their family, Cam's parents, Hamish and his family and my neighbour, Sam - who's Jo's brother. I've known Jo and Sam's family for years - since I was about 7 or 8, so it wasn't too big a deal to join them. Jo said it was just a farm dinner thing, but it was nice to be invited and it was good to go to dinner without it being too dramasome.
It's funny actually, usually if we were invited to dinner there is a clear separation of "adults" and "kids" and I would always be sent off with the kids. Yeah I guess we aren't often going to family friend's for dinner and vice versa, it's been quite a few years! But last night it was the same, except I hung out with all the "adults", just chatting and listening - and watching the kids all going crazy outside as kids do.
So it was quite pleasant being able to just go, especially on my own without any of my family or whatnot being there too - it was like any big family and friend dinner should be - everyone talking with everyone. Much more preferable over young farmer meet ups, where you sit and if someone speaks to you you don't know where to be happy about it or not - depending on who the person is...
It's also good to be considered good enough company to be invited around for dinner, not just the "relief milker", although I won't say it wasn't a coincidence or there wasn't an underlying reason why I was invited - I'm pretty sure there is something going on in the background that involves me. And I'm pretty positive I know exactly what it is, but unfortunately for you guys - I'm going to leave you hanging ;) for the meantime anyway, sorry! When there is updated, public information, I'll let you know. Don't try and guess!
Oh, and it looks like we have ourselves a new full timer starting in June! It's my friend Nikolai, I've known him through youth group for these last few years and, ironically, he used to work for Jo and Cam - but he moved to the Waikato for a farm job there and left me to pick up the slack with Cam and Hamish. Anyway, he's heading back this way, needs a job and we have one for him. He came around this morning for another catch up and confirmed he definitely wanted the job, which is great for me as now I can definitely RSVP to go to a wedding in June, oh and we can also start taking more bookings now too.
Fingers crossed it will all work out well.
In other news, the weather has certainly changed direction as most days now are quite cold and icy with the wind, work is continuous - although I have a few days off and get bored out of my mind sitting around at home. Jackson and Pippa are still BFF's. Oh, and Nick has a girlfriend - although he still hasn't updated his relationship status on FB yet - I'll keep you posted! hehehe
I've been busy, lots to do but also not a lot at the same time, and a fair bit to update on here. OK.
I've been doing women's self defense courses/sessions/things, whatever you wanna call it. It's where I basically drive over to the next town, catch up with Chantelle and we buddy up and get taught how to beat each other up - for our own protection. Lol, sounds a little off, right? Nah, there are some Kempo instructors who have decided to run a quick, one hour long session once a week for four weeks so that some women can learn a little bit of self defense if they were to need it any time in the future. It's cheap - $10 a week, and we get taught some helpful things.
Such as blocking a punch, getting out of bad situations like grabs from behind and the like you'd expect from not very nice people. Apparently I have a very good punch - I would expect nothing less after growing up with Nick! (I joke) and sometimes all I want to do is actually try it out.
See these little sessions are great, but for obvious reasons we can't have contact with the friend you're doing it with, so when you want to elbow someone under the jaw you put a lot of "oomph" into it so you know you're doing it correctly - but you certainly can't actually do it! Which is kind of frustrating. I wish there was some type of robotic thing that you could practice on that resembled those sorts of attacks from a person, and you could do it properly without fear of injuring somebody...Anyway, there was one occasion in our second week where Chantelle did actually get me in the face - it kinda hurt, but we were all laughing too much to really care.
The instructor reckons that if you put a palm heel into the attackers face, top lip/nose sort of area, if you hit it hard enough you could actually induce vomiting - which is how you know you've done a good job. It's a pressure point filled with nerves, and yeah that's where Chantelle hit me, thankfully not hard enough!
It's fun though, we've got just one more session to do this Wednesday night coming, and twice we've gone down to the pub for dinner afterwards for a debrief and catch up on how our week has been. It's nice to be spending more time with her, even if only for a few hours. When we were younger we'd do three or four day weekends hanging out, now we hardly get time, so it makes a nice change :)
I'm back working at my favourite cowshed again, you know that one I just won't shut up about? Automated system, so much fun, Cameron and Hamish, etc., etc., etc.? Yeah, that one. I'm on my second weekend there and today I'm helping feed calves too, which I'll help out with after milking for the next few weekends as they need the help - until the busy period of autumn calving is finished. They're calving 250 cows, and officially started a week or so ago - it's a short stint of calving, so they're pretty busy beavers at the moment. It's great to be back, I had a good catch up with Hamish last weekend, and now Cam. I think they're just glad to see a new face in the cowshed again - it must get kinda boring without me to chat to every so often, and I'm stoked to be back. Well I was, until I found out my favourite friendly heifer died over the summer when I was away, to think that I was so looking forward to seeing her again, but hey.
But last night Jo - Cam's wife - invited me to join them all for dinner. It was their family, Cam's parents, Hamish and his family and my neighbour, Sam - who's Jo's brother. I've known Jo and Sam's family for years - since I was about 7 or 8, so it wasn't too big a deal to join them. Jo said it was just a farm dinner thing, but it was nice to be invited and it was good to go to dinner without it being too dramasome.
It's funny actually, usually if we were invited to dinner there is a clear separation of "adults" and "kids" and I would always be sent off with the kids. Yeah I guess we aren't often going to family friend's for dinner and vice versa, it's been quite a few years! But last night it was the same, except I hung out with all the "adults", just chatting and listening - and watching the kids all going crazy outside as kids do.
So it was quite pleasant being able to just go, especially on my own without any of my family or whatnot being there too - it was like any big family and friend dinner should be - everyone talking with everyone. Much more preferable over young farmer meet ups, where you sit and if someone speaks to you you don't know where to be happy about it or not - depending on who the person is...
It's also good to be considered good enough company to be invited around for dinner, not just the "relief milker", although I won't say it wasn't a coincidence or there wasn't an underlying reason why I was invited - I'm pretty sure there is something going on in the background that involves me. And I'm pretty positive I know exactly what it is, but unfortunately for you guys - I'm going to leave you hanging ;) for the meantime anyway, sorry! When there is updated, public information, I'll let you know. Don't try and guess!
Oh, and it looks like we have ourselves a new full timer starting in June! It's my friend Nikolai, I've known him through youth group for these last few years and, ironically, he used to work for Jo and Cam - but he moved to the Waikato for a farm job there and left me to pick up the slack with Cam and Hamish. Anyway, he's heading back this way, needs a job and we have one for him. He came around this morning for another catch up and confirmed he definitely wanted the job, which is great for me as now I can definitely RSVP to go to a wedding in June, oh and we can also start taking more bookings now too.
Fingers crossed it will all work out well.
In other news, the weather has certainly changed direction as most days now are quite cold and icy with the wind, work is continuous - although I have a few days off and get bored out of my mind sitting around at home. Jackson and Pippa are still BFF's. Oh, and Nick has a girlfriend - although he still hasn't updated his relationship status on FB yet - I'll keep you posted! hehehe
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