Vince and Ben both like those strategy games...they got me to play one today but had to make me 'neutral territory' as I am no good at playing them... :) This was taken about half an hour ago...Ben's in bed reading and I am going to clean the kitchen and have a spa...talk to you all later :)

Mim

These are our next door neighbors, (remember I said the next door was paddock) I look at these sheep every morning while I'm eating my breakfast...they are right next to the garage and the driveway. We can hear them 'baaaing' at night, its very comforting and peaceful...

Farming implements...this is a farming town. I LOVE living here. It is very rural New Zealand and its wonderful to live in such a peaceful place. I have joined the local Bingo club as well (called Housie here) and if they will let me take a pic tomrrow night I'll post one...

There is every kind of farming store you could ever want in this area...sheep drench, tractors, animal stuff, I have to get Vince to take me around and explain it all to me. As I mentioned I'd love some sheep and chooks and a bit more land down the track...

This is the float of the Deerstalker Club...we are surronded by deer farms and I got such a kick out of this one...

My wonderful neighbors, Nathalie and Bernie. They are in their late 60's/early 70's and Bernie restores old cars. They have a wonderful house, with the best carpet, big red roses on a grey background...they are a pair of sweeties...

The Masterton Band...this was the beginning of the Christmas Parade that was held this past Saturday. It was great, very small town and much less commercial than the bigger parades in Wellington...we loved it.

The main street of Carterton...

A view of the land surronding the church

The old cemetary minus the 'decoration' :)

A front view of the church. I like to think about all the people that got married there over the last 100+ years and all the hopes and dreams people bring with them. It would make it very lovely...

This is the Burnside Church, when we go to take the plunge into 'unholy' matrimony this is where I'd like to be married. Being in the centre of the paddocks only adds to the charm of the place. I have to check out the rules for use, but its well kept up so I'm sure its still useable.

This is Vince standing in an historic cemetary next to a church (above photo) down by Lake Ferry. It is rather amazing as there is a church in the middle of paddocks, as far as the eye can see. The people in the cemetary date back to the mid 1800's and there are sheep everywhere.

These are the spots on my back. I am fairly well covered from top of my legs and up my back. Vince is feeling decidedly unwell today, he's where I was on Friday. These ARE fading, they were much redder and angrier looking a few days ago.

Would be good to know what they are, a bit more reassuring than just labelling it a 'virus'. Not the doc's fault, at least he admitted he didn't know.

They act like a chicken pox or a meseale, they are itchy and sore when healing. But other than feeling generally tired and a bit run down (my throat was a bit sore that is also going) its been mild. We just don't want to pass it around at work. Anyone have any ideas what it looks like?

THE BBQ OF SUBVERSION~!`

Vince very nicely offered to buy a gas BBQ, you can see by the resulting appliance on my patio that I resisted mightly!
Any fool can turn on a spigot, pour out noxious gas and throw dead animals on a grill! But this my friends, this last bastion of archaic BBQing, from a time when everyone knew what a briquette was, takes REAL skill and determination.

First of all the sucker briquettes wouldn't light...that was the first time we tried to BBQ. We abandoned it (oh how embarrassing a Canadian who can't light what the Aussies call "heat beads") and I cooked dinner in the pan, it was after 9 at this point and Vince's forehead veins were popping out all the time he was continuing to maintain a level tone of voice... :)

This time we prepared by buying a block of untreated kindling and we made a layer of wood and briquettes and wood and briquettes...it worked a charm and the marinated lamb (recipe under this post) was excellent. This is truly a BBQ dinner!

I was thinking of my dad while I was cooking...and all the effort he put in to make us steaks on the BBQ and we had a pool in the backyard. It was pretty sweet as Jake and Sime would say getting out of the pool on a nice summer evening and having steak and baked potatoes and Mum's pie for dessert, with salad on the patio. I didn't appreciate it then but I do now...THANKS DAD! Those are good memories... :)

If Vince didn't think I was strange before he does know as I was wandering around clacking my tongs and talking about 'subverting the dominant social construct of BBQ-ing" by refusing to give in to the siren call of gas with a side hotplate... :) Oh Vince says I must add this was all going on while I was dressed in my mauve flannel pajamas with little black hearts on them...hmmm wonder what the neighbors think!!! :P

The wreath of cloud around the BBQ is all of the smoke coming off of it...didn't ruin the meat however, it was extremely good...doesn't this remind you of our old BBQ Dad? Probably why I wanted it...."_

The finished product...marinated lamb in Mim's highly secret and extremely good sauce...

1/2 cup of sweet soy

1/4 cup of olive/canola oil

3 tblsp sugar

2 whopping teaspoons minced garlic

1 whopping teaspoon minced ginger

Stir all together and marinade meat for an hour...poke holes in the meat and turn it over in the bowl during the marinating time so it gets well covered. BBQ (NOT ON GAS...UGH) and enjoy!

This is a rainbow over our backyard when we got back from our jaunt to Masterton. We bought a bread machine and some torches for the lawn...and went to Moore Wilson's (kind of like Costco...but more market-y feeling) and bought great cheese, coffee and odds and ends.

Vince loves cheese as much as I do...bad bad combination...(can anyone say MOOOOOOOOO!)

Here are all the little fellas...I accidentally cut the big brown fellow out of the side of the pic I see...was hard to see the sun was a bit glary...

Hello Mummy! This is the cutest alpaca...when we walked over to the fence they were intensely curious...they perked right up and were listening to us....in a few years I would love a bit of land and some lamas and sheep and a duck and some chooks. We have room here for chooks but they tend to stink a bit so we'll wait till we have more land in 10 years or so. If the railway line ever tries to sell the paddocks next to the house we would try and buy them simply to keep them empty and THEN I could have alpaca's and sheep and chooks!!! :)

This is some of the country we were driving through this afternoon. The picture does not do it justice...it is so beautiful you it is hard to describe...the sun was coming in and out from behind the clouds and the rain was misting down...and it was warm and beautiful.

This is what is MY gear in the sleepout. Vince is going to tidy it up for me cause I look at it and get upset and confused. I'm something of a hoarder.

Will post more pics later today, we need to get moving....

Cheers

Mim

Kitchen, overlooking the back yard. That huge window is SO nice, I can cook and watch the train go past (I'll get a pic of that happening and you can see how close we are to the train tracks).

We are popping over to Martinborough today, huge wine fare to see if we can get some nice deals on wine and check out all the posh people in from the city. Will take pictures...

This is the dining area of the house...I'm stiting at the computer you can see on the right of the picture. It is incredibly nice herewe have our kitchen door open because even though its raining its warm. Makes for a good change from Wellington.

This is the lounge room in the new house. We're all moved in...behind me is Vince's huge bookshelf, also jammed with books. I did a huge pare down and that little can bookshelf represents about 1/2 of my former collection. I also did a HUGE pare down of my wardrobe.

Pic: Vince helping me do the ritual PhD draft burning...it was fun :)

Apologies for the long time between updates.

We have been crazily packing and moving for ages. We are in our new house!! We moved on Friday November 3rd and its GREAT. A couple of small things though, this house was build for TALL people so I feel somewhat Lilliputian in relation to the kitchen cupboards.

The second issue is that I, MEH declare myself to be a hoarder. OMG I have SO much SHIT!! Where in the hell did it all come from??? Its like that episode of the original Star Trek, "The Trouble with Tribbles", you buy something cute in the shops and all of a sudden you have 5000 similiar items and you have to move them all. I am getting quite severe and am biffing alot of stuff. Vince could not believe I got 6 large packing boxes out of our bedroom in Bell Road. I have a book entitled "Clear Your Clutter" The Feng Shui of Clearing Your Life" that I think I'd better memorise. Once I post this I will be heading out to the shed to go begin going through my 20 remaining boxes of RUBBISH. I am having a garage sale in two weeks and giving alot of stuff to the Salvos. As Vince said we could be quite happy with what we have in the house now, the rest of the stuff can just go. Except for pictures etc I think he's right. Ok must go to work, have to go back to *paid* work tomorrow...will put pics up online tonight before bed :)