Home safe

Lovely trip home.. beautiful day .. easy drive with a couple of stops and a 20 minute nap. 8 hours but felt good when I made it home by dark, The garden was very dry and a couple of things died but basically nice to be here. The sunset when I arrived was glorious. I need to go for a nice walk with Tui.

Who knows how much longer I will live here - I am contemplating moving to Palmerston North and need to soak up Auckland's beauty while I can.

No photos today - just a quick update.. now to do all the unpacking and a great sorting out! Other people have done a big decluttering during the lockdown. I can foresee I need to do another massive clear out.

I have spent a day today with four of my sewing friends - we are all over 70 and we kept our distance (mostly)...but it  was good to chat and hear what they had all been doing.
My travel sketching starts again on Sunday for a couple of catch up classes and then who knows.

So- onwards and upwards for the new normal.

A week since the Level 2 announcement

Well, yes we had less than four cases and several days with no new cases so we moved to Level 2 on 13 May. That meant the shops were open on Thursday 14th and provided they obeyed the guidelines some cafes and restaurants opened. So the traffic on the roads has gone back to almost normal, people are getting their retail fix and school will be back on Monday. Jonathan is not allowed back to Massey yet so he will continue to work from home.

It looks like I will head home on Tuesday but I have been seriously considering moving down here . Family are all enthusiastic although Jonathan says  "no pressure"....

We now have tree nurseries at the farm that are hexagonal, rectangular and triangular as well as a pentagonal pen. ( What do I expect when two mathematicians were doing the placement).It was fun and I got to use the power drill putting in screws.

He is a great post hole borer - wow gone are the days of digging holes for trees by hand!

We planted all these at the farm and lots more

Picnic lunch on the back lawn

Amy with the circular saw while Jonathan provides the counterweight.

Mothers Day 2020

My job - holding it steady and vertical while the muscled person does the ramming.

 

some of the autumn leaves fromt he fruit trees in Jonathan's back garden!

Well this could be my last entry for lockdown - there has only been one new case of Covid19 in the last five days and it was a weak positive from someone linked to one of the early clusters.

6 May - and two days without any new cases of Covid19

OOps - didnt get this published until today 8 May. One more case came through yesterday, so still on track.
6 May
Today there were two new cases of Covid19 after two days of no new cases, both the new cases are identifiable with known clusters so most people are feeling very confident that if we can continue a good testing regime, and really quick tracing of contacts we should be able to drop to Level 2 next week. Jonathan ever the statistician thinks we will have a resurgence with new clusters opening up. So he didnt seem to be happy that I said I would go back when schools go back. With the incubation period I am glad that no firm decision will be made until next Monday and that will be giving 48 hours notice. If that goes ahead, I think schools will open and I will go back to Auckland. I am crossing my fingers, as I have started to think I need to get back and get on with life. I have appreciated being here but my house and garden are going to need quite a bit of attention when I get back. Also will need to dismantle the exhibition I put so much heart into.

Level 3 has seen heaps more traffic on the roads - and some people have undoubtedly gone a little loopy with their desire for takeaways and coffee. Not much change for us except I did get out to the farm on last Saturday. I think the kids are getting tired of it all.  Life was a bit easier once I decided to pull back from trying to get them to really do their school work well. the children are back with their mum this week and it is very quiet but I needed to get a lot of admin stuff done for the School of Philosophy so I have needed the space.

We did do quite a few activities and the day they were banned from all devices and screens resulted in jigsaws and Monopoly and Lego making a reappearance - that was actually quite a fun day! I started receiving early morning visitors to the campervan as well...

Unbelievably Callum  and Annabelle spent and hour and a half with me getting this jigsaw sorted.

Thisis apparently a model of Mr Wu's ninja academy and fort! with tricky doors and warriors.

My creativity mojo on the 100 days project got a bit lost while the kids were here this weekend but hopefully this week I will get going again. Not sure if I made the right choice... I had a pile of over 100 purple-ish coloured 5" squares. I am going to do something with each one - possibly applique, piece, paint, decorate .... but limit myself to adding only yellow ( complementary colour, and white and black). With limited supplies and time  I am finding it challenging... and the fabrics themselves are not good quality ... so I might deviate when trying out some techniques - embroidery on one fabric I tried was definitely a disaster!  I called it Colour me Purple - so I will stick to the colours I had decided on.

Day 1 - I tried couching - the JAcobean couching needs more practice!

then I got a bit imaginative and made a Covid19 block - the base fabric looked like a stained molecule slide

Day 2 - my Covid19 block

8 May

After that it got a bit frustrating. I couldnt concentrate so I did some simple pieced blocks.
But then yesterday on 7 May I got going again - a quiet house helped and so I have made a couple more...

Day 6 100 day project

Day 7 - 100 day project

Day 8 100 -  Day project

and today I been drawing and getting inspiration, making templates and will make a start on  getting a bit ahead.

I am in a bit of a quandary, We hope that we will go to Level 2 next week and kids will go back to school - so I probably will go back to Auckland then. It was nice that Amy said "No you should stay, we have got used to you being here"... but I need to get back and sort stuff out..