Here We All Are

We all drove down to Te Kuiti today, having left our rental cottage in Auckland.

Our Mazda MPV was packed with our things. We have been in a bit of suspense for the last couple of days because after Matt's return from T.K. last week the MPV started overheating badly and had to spend over 48 hours being repaired. We found a terrific garage who ferried Matt everywhere while the vehicle was being fixed. Eventually, at nearly 6pm on Friday -- after our home telephone had been cut off, the carpet cleaners had been and we were waiting to hand back our cottage keys, the MPV was fixed to the reasonable satisfaction of the mechanics who, even so, have told us to keep a very close eye on it at least until we can get it properly pressure-tested.

Anyway, our cottage landlord, seeing that we were a bit tired, very kindly let us stay a free extra night in the cottage so that we could set off for Te Kuiti fresher this morning.

The MPV (called Green Max) was terrific on the way down and we got here on a lovely, part-sunny-part-cloudy Saturday lunchtime to unpack.

After that and several hours of work in the house we each had a bath and walked into town to the Riverside Lodge, our local pub (see picture on right... this was Winston there last week), then popped into The Warehouse -- an inexpensive Fred-Meyer-style store -- for some surge protectors, extension cords and a Matchbox car for Winston. Then home via the playpark. On the walk home we saw some Maori guys trying to chase two escapee dogs back into their car (the guys' car, I mean, not the dogs'). They got the Jack Russell back in but not the Rottweiler. They screeched to a halt to grab the Rottweiler and Vera murmured "Don't leave that car door open: the Jack Russell will get out!" As she finished her words that exact thing happened, the J.R. hopping out like a shuttlecock off a badminton racket! Another couple out walking cracked up laughing as, in our sympathetic and helpful way, did we!

We are now at home. Winston is asleep, Vera is pottering in the house and Matt is typing this.

A great day.