The weather has been a little better this week, some sunshine and warmth at last.
We decided to introduce the cats to the chickens in a deliberate fashion, prompted by the fact that one cat scaled the fence covered in chicken wire and jumped into the chicken coup area! We wanted to check if it was safe to leave them out when we went out, or would we have chicken carnage when we came home! so, we put the cats, one by one into the area with the chickens, and here is what happened…
In fact, after wondering from the other side of the fence, if the grass was greener, so to speak, the cat didn’t actually care for the chickens much, and actually tried to get back out! In return the chickens carried on as normal!
The other cat, Kiwi, was terrified, and trembling before I even put her down. I think the chickens are quite safe!!
We have had some stunning sunrises this week, and equally stunning starry skies. You can see many more stars here than in the UK skies, I assume due to there being much less pollution. I wish I had a camera that was good enough to take photos of the night sky.
This sunrise was the start of the ‘can you see the moon on both sides of the world at once?’ conversation I have been having via Facebook, a question started off by my friend Jane, in the UK. Between my UK Facebook friends, and the help of my class, who looked for homework, we have conclusive evidence now that it is in fact possible to see the moon in the UK and in New Zealand at both 7:15am and 7:15pm, New Zealand time (that is 6:15am / pm UK time) One student suggested that this would only work at this time of the year while New Zealand was on daylight savings. So we are planning to repeat the experiment in a few months!!
Due to our lack of Sky TV, we walked over the bridge to the local pub, where they were showing the rugby on the TV. Even better still, we got our second jug of Speights for free, because we are ‘good local customers’! Fabulous!
Saturday was Regatta time. four races, stretched over a day, doubles, quad, fours and 8’s. Beautiful day for it too.
We managed to win our women’s fours (again, we won at the masters games too) and were second in the drawn 8 at the end of the day. This race is a fun race, you write your name on a board and the teams are drawn from a hat. Mixed clubs, whoever wants to take part. There were two 8’s boats compiled of mixed masters rowers from various clubs, then the juniors from our club and Waihopai, the one right next door (flag on the roof in that photo) decided to put out 8’s. We thought that the youngsters would automatically get the first and second [places. Nope!! We took second, the Invercargill Rowing Club juniors took first, Waihopai Juniors coming in 3rd!
We rounded off the day with a lovely evening meal out, at a local Indian – the Bombay Palace. There are only two in the city, Chinese being the more popular ex patriate nation in New Zealand. I have to say it was beautiful. We couldn’t decide between this one and the other very good Indian restaurant locally, which was better!
Sunday was study day, I am trying real hard to learn Te Reo and complete my He Papa Tikanga studying, as the assessment is due very soon and my next set of books has just arrived in the post!
Melanie Magowan 