Such pleasant pains

The rain and cold had set in today so it was an indoor, at home-in-front-of-the-fire sort of day. We popped out to the Warehouse together so Aaron could buy a birthday present for Caleb, and then at 4 pm we were off to the Pains for tea. We've not socialised together as families before; this was the first and was really good. Phillip had caught some fish which Janet battered and fried - yumm!!! They are a boating family so fish is a frequent part of their diet I guess (I might be corrected on this later by some Pain person!). I let Hannah loose with the camera for a while so the first three shots are hers - thanks Hannah! The rest of the evening involved rats, dogs, a parrot, several guitars, a piano recital, a violin piece, pillowfights and feathers and stinky boys, christmas crackers, laughter, biltong, dutch blitz, deep conversation and peaches and a bit of Charlie Chaplin - let's do it all again sometime!!

Having a turn

One of the items on my to-do list at work was 'studio photos'...oh was it ever fun. I was tasked with taking photos of Rachel's beautiful work space which is full of prettiness and vintage and colour and patterns. Here's just one sneak peak - come and see the studio in person for more :) (Boss Lady: I will get the rest edited soon!)The boys are really glad to be on holiday now for two weeks - there were understandably many excited children at the school at 3 pm! Had another batch of peaches needing bottling so back into it, but definitely getting faster. I'm starting to think that the bottles I have are faulty though as I used those as well as empty jam jars with half-turn lids...those sealed while my fancy ones didn't. But I'm learning: it seems the real art in preserving is frugally saving any empty bottles and recycling them :)

Makin' up them peach preserves

I've really been wanting to try my hand at bottling fruit, particularly as a school mom gave me a huge box of blackboy peaches. I've done the cooking and freezing thing, but bottling seems to be one of those farmhouse kitchen sorts of things that the very domesticated women do. I asked around for advice and some of it seemed extremely complicated (I had visions of glassware exploding inside the oven) so I went for the easiest method of cooking the peaches, spooning them into a jar, poking a knife about to release air bubbles, and then screwing the lid on. Seemed okay. I peeled and pipped and sliced and peeled and sliced and pipped and peeled...dark purple juice finding its way into every crack on my fingers and under my nails...cooked and wiped juice and tended the boiling pot...spooned it into the first of the four bottles I had purchased...and there was none left for the other three bottles! All that just for one bottle? As dear Mrs Kempf Snr said in response, you feel a bit cheated. She suggested I try scalding the peaches in boiling water first to help peel them easier, so when I did the second half of the box today I did just that, and it really made the messy job go faster. I know why they are called blackboy peaches now. It's not because of their colour, otherwise they would be called maroonboys...it's because you end up looking like a native African person when you're done with the preserving! When the boys came home today they asked if they could watch a DVD. It's been raining today and Nick had a fire going in the lounge from early afternoon. Tomorrow is their last day of school after an 11-week term, so I guess we're already partially in holiday mode :)

Goodness gracious, great balls of fire!

Have been enjoying amazing weather the last few days - we thought that with summer being over it would be pretty miserable until November, forgetting that autumn has some excellent weather still. This is a view from the studio which houses me for part of the day...there is a girl sitting in an upstairs window across the road with her legs dangling out - perhaps she was enjoying her lunch break in the sun? Nick and I have been wanting to get out for some sunset shots for a while now, and had planned to go this evening but I thought I had missed the timing in getting tea ready too late. We had partially abandoned the idea but took another look at the 6 pm sky and decided to make a dash to the northern wetlands. The clouds were great but the colours starting fading and we left. Bad idea but when you're in the moment you don't have amazing retrospective vision...we stopped in at the garage on the way home for bread and while I was in the non-moving queue I looked out of the window to wave at Nick who pointed at the sky...gasp, shock - it was flaming red!!! I deposited the bread back on the shelf and hurried to the car...Nick drove {very} fast to get to a suitable spot and I had the advantage of photographing while we drove. Hugely frustrating that we hadn't stuck around with some decent scenery - this sky would have been spectacular reflected in a bit of marshy wetland! This must have been the most incredible sunset ever though...huge tongues of cloud in the most brilliant hues of red. I've left this first photo completely naked (unedited) - no trick photography here!

All suitably occupied

Between services it was this kind of day - the boys playing Lego, Nick catching a few zzzs in the sun for a short while before getting into his sermon prep. The boys and I made pancakes before the pm service - it just seemed to be the type of sunny, mellow afternoon that called for domestic togetherness!(Caleb particularly requested that this shot of his be included in the blog - he and Aaron giggled about what appeared to be Aaron wearing a pancake beret!)
After the pm service in which there was a lot of laughter before tucking into an excellent message on Psalm 24, we came home and settled in the lounge where Nick lit a fire. We played a couple of games together and read and played music and did stuff. I'm considering moving my desk into the lounge so I can still blog or e-mail during these long dark evenings when the cosiest place to be is not my craft room! Hmmm...

The Friendly Seccombes

Definitely wanted to get together with the Seccombes again while they're in Timaru so fetched them from John and Joan's house around 10.30 and headed over to Caroline Bay and the beach where the six kids together could let loose while us grown-ups could chat while keeping an eye on them all. The boys particularly hit it off terribly well; Raffie is 12 and Elijah is 10 while Georgina is 9 and Talitha is just 5. Hunger eventually brought us back to our place for hamburgers and more conversation - it's been fantastic chatting to these 'real life missionaries' and striking up a friendship during their whistle-stop stay in our town. After lunch they had to get going with a three-hour drive to Dunedin ahead. Nick and I spent the afternoon sourcing photos for a St Helena presentation for a Bible Society function which was held at our church. I'm still a little unclear as to what the actual purpose of the meeting was but it seems that the core group of about 15 enjoyed the presentation; we certainly enjoyed the spread of desserts!

The Missionary Seccombes

For weeks we've had on the calendar "Missions Presentation at Youth" - the Seccombe family are missionaries in Japan in a medical support capacity (living in a city far out of the reach of the earthquake). They've long been known to us as photos only but are now in New Zealand for a few weeks on home assignment before heading off to the UK and then back to Japan, so we took the opportunity to grab Martin and Sam and the kids while they were in Timaru to tell us about their life and ministry in Japan. It was all extremely interesting and is not an easy mission in so many ways - one of the biggest frustrations being the language barriers. We had opened the evening to the whole church and had a really good turnout; we started with an informal kiwi supper before Martin took up the podium. We also heard from Raphael and Georgie about their schooling, and Sam gave us a short language lesson which was more than enough for us to see just how complicated it all is. It was super to meet them all and get to know the family in the flesh!(Aaron working on his preaching skills - will have to grow in more ways than one before he's quite ready!)

The sublime blessedness of normal

On Monday I was all excited about the lighter start to the day what with daylight savings and all but at 7 am when the boys got up it still felt really daaaahk (that's kiwi for dark). No wonder though with a sky full of heavy rainclouds which opened up around breakfast time. It rained all day - literally - rained and rained and rained and rained. And rained. And then it rained some more. And then it was dark again really early too, like 6.45 pm...On Tuesday when I was taking the boys to school we saw that the mountains were snowcapped, with what looked like quite a substantial layer. So just like that, summer is over and winter has begun. Tuesday, Wednesday and today have been clear and even though it's been cold and windy with southerlies, the washing I've had hanging out back has dried. The boys have been on the tramp regardless of wind and chill - that doesn't seem to bother them. They couldn't wait to get back on it after the weekend away and felt horribly inconvenienced by Monday's rain. We've been pretty much in a regular routine of school and work this week, so nothing radical to report or share - sometimes it's great when things are ho-hum or normal after busy weekends! Work is going great - I still feel like a kid in a candy store especially as I've been unleashed on some rather fabulous projects :)

13 more, and that concludes the weekend

With daylight savings ending during the night we had an extra hour to work with this morning and despite sitting around chatting with Carl and Miriam and Shirley at home, we still got to church early! Got to love the earlier daylight. Sat listening to the worship team at practice and thoroughly enjoyed the more contemporary style of music. Miriam says I'm always doing sneaky things with the camera - would this be one of those times? Nick preached his earthquake message (follow the link top left for a full manuscript) to a fairly full church; although some of their regulars were away, they had several visitors (including us - we practically filled a whole pew!). After church and much chatting and getting to know more people, we left for a picnic lunch before the long drive back to Timaru. The preferred and preplanned spot at the beach would have been great had a light rain not started - the boat pictured is cement and contains wooden picnic tables on the deck. Plan B was a covered spot a bit further inland which was ideal. I'm told it rains a lot on the West Coast but I'm starting to think this is a conspiracy theory as we had the most amazing weather the whole of Friday and Saturday, with just the tiniest bit of gentle rain today. What a blessing though as we could not have done all our exploring with sheets of water falling from the sky. And then, we were off. Thank you again so much Carl and Miriam for hosting us, and Peter and Harry for sharing your special climbing place and showing Caleb and Aaron your room! It was really a most interesting and relaxing and enjoyable weekend. The drive home was uneventful apart from me being super-stressed around the death corners again and wishing it was over! We noticed these red-painted rocks and plants on the way to Hokitika and wondered aloud why they had been painted. Shirley suggested (without a hint of making us feel silly) that the red colouring came from these little red-headed lichen growing on them. The red blobs are only as big as a pin head but together they obviously make a pretty good show.Had some amazing weather again and very beautiful skies. Dropped Shirley off home around 6, making it a 4h20 journey.