Day 72- Mizzly

It's a day for indoors. I double check the hob at Noel Leeming then go to Bunnings to look at sinks. They're all boring. I meet Lance on site and compare options for front door reds discuss wall paper, then head home. Lance has been so long in the business, and I have decision fatigue. I'll be happy to go with whatever he recommends. It will be easier and save the to'ing and fro'ing of decision making. I'm hitting the decision fatigue limit. Along with mid winter low energy, it's paralysing. 

It's a quiet night at home, especially when Chris puts a pillow case over his head.

Day 67- Queen's Birthday

This post nearly got forgotten under the weight of too much going on and too little technology working. It's not really Liz's birthday, she had it a month ago, but here in Enzed we get a mid-winter long weekend. And it's an appropriately grey sky. I let Kahu sleep and get in the car to further my quest for kitchen appliances. No luck but I see a few more. Choosing is cumulative- looking helps decision making. When I get back Chris has co-opted a friend to help problem solve an old amp.

Jenny arrives, she's been to a NZ protest for George Floyd, killed in Mineapolis, Minnesota when a white police officer knelt on his neck for almost 9 minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on the street. His death has sparked anger in the States, and world wide. It has sidelined Covid in the news and social distancing has been ignored as people pour onto the streets. This is a watershed moment. 

Jenny and I drive to a Convergence gathering for Clive's father's memorial. It's so good to see people who are like family. There for birthdays, death days and celebrations of any other kind.

Day 71- Problems to solve

We leave in the dark and rush to put out the green bin at College Ave. At school I have a marking meeting. It shows the difficulties of doing assessment under lock down. Reports will have to be revised to pass. I make time to mark and get school work done. I'm staring down the barrel of junior reports so am hoping for a quiet week next week. There's teacher deadlines to meet. I squeeze in time to count union votes at lunch before heads down again till the last bell.

As we pull up to College Ave, Kahu and I spot Lance's red Chevrolet. He's done work on it and is selling. We have a business talk then I go inside for a catch up with Kirk. This takes in the venting for the fans, they're in the skylights spoiling the lines, and in the wrong place in the laundry. But not cut through the gib yet so there'll be an opportunity to move them. The fuse box can be put in the wardrobe and one of the boys will plaster over the hole in the gib. We look at the heights of the bathroom window and door. Kirk is going to place the architrave to line them up for the tiling. And we organise with Mark, the plasterer, to come back tomorrow to skim plaster the living room ceiling. It needs to be near perfectly smooth, apparently, otherwise the LED strip will show up the imperfections and look crappy. Lucky Kirk is onto it. 

A bike ride up the hill later and my head is clearing...problem solving is tiring. My next problem is finding the hard drive to store pictures and see is my phone will work better. Not to mention uploading pics to my Google account now has storage on a paid trail basis. Better to do a clear out. Too many layers clogs storage and the brain. A wine is in sight.

Vehicle envy

Picture avoidance

Day 70- Winter

The weather has turned. We're shuffling round in a cold, grey, dark world. Remaining leaves are hanging by a thread with leaf piles lying in humps, and random odd bods are scattered in gutters. There's welcome winter drizzle escalating to rain. Moisture drips slowly, slowly, soaking into parched earth. Our east coast summer was dry and autumn in lock down produced day after day of clear blue sunshine. Kids' brains are hibernating as we spend hours indoors in humid, close quarters. Great for Covid spread but New Zealand's last new case was ten days ago, ish. We have only one active case left in the North Island so we're sliding into casual contact. Covid is talked about but we're thinking beyond social distancing and isolation. The world is distracted too. George Floyd' death at the hands of four white police officers, and the resulting Black Lives Matter protests around the world, sweep anger onto the streets. People forget Covid to march in support of change. We're appalled at the entrenched injustices of institutionalised racism. What century is this anyway?

House action today consists of Mark and his mate sanding the plaster they slapped on last week. I pick up sample tiles for the kitchen and main bathroom. Tossing up an expensive option for a capping tile. If it's going to happen it has to be now. 

Back home, I'm exhausted. It's been a busy week, again, and it's not over. I should sit down to mark, and I start half-heartedly, but red wine, and Sherry's arrival put paid to that. I settle on the couch and sleep while Chris and Sherry have a catch up.

Day 69- Kitchen Appliances Ticked Off

Leaving for work in the dark feels like groping around the cave during hibernation. It's the quiet season of sleep. I understand why Europeans after a long, dark winter did not want to endure a long lockdown. So Sweden didn't and people are moving towards restarting their lives in spite of the presence of the virus in their midst. Here we are having day after day of no new cases with only one active case in the North Island. And no-one at school is sick. We've kept healthy by staying away from people. The classroom is a haven for coughing, sneezing and sniffing, but so far so good. Everyone seems well. I keep opening the windows to maintain airflow. The signal is kids' heads drooping when they drop off as the carbon dioxide levels rise.

At lunchtime I head back to Moorhouse Ave and the kitchen appliance warehouses to meet Nicki. Having looked at the range several times, I need some help to finalise an oven. And make sure the hob and range hood meet the grade.We spend a couple of hours looking over what's on offer and, low and behold, the best oven for price is a Fisher and Paykel. Good old Kiwi design. Our salesman, Adam, apologises at the end of a long session for being half dead. The weekend was mayhem. People spending after lockdown. I'm relieved I've got one more set of decisions made. Now the kitchen can go ahead.

I'm late to pick up Kahu who is patiently waiting at school. On the way home I take a quick look at washing machines. I know what I want but after so long in the build game, I'm fussy on price. I know the discounts are available if you ask.

Night and blog writing...my e-mail is log jammed. Means pictures are again delayed. The technology gods are against me.

Pete's corner- terrible for business

Day 68- Overwhelmed by Choice

I get lost in the dark on the way to our first post Covid PPTA breakfast meeting. But I get there in the end. The story for today. I spend my teaching time feeling overwhelmed by cornice options. What should go where? And, have I overdone the plaster? Is such a thing possible? I conclude it is and I feel like this time I'm going too far.

After school I meet Nicki and the kitchen joiner on site. They go over the measurements and we look at plugs and consider curtain options on the french door beside the kitchen. A practicality I'd overlooked. It's impossible to catch everything. The house has been closed in cold weather and feels cool. But there's high moisture content in the plaster, and in the air. 

I've got plaster samples with me and Nicki, Kahu, John and I get the ladder and hold them up to the ceiling. Actually we can't figure which way up they go. I'm immensely relieved to go back to plan A. The same cornice in the main bedroom as the hall, and in the other bedrooms. Job done. Simplicity is always best. 

A shorter bike ride up the hill in fog. John's here for a cuppa and we chat about the house. He hasn't seen it since he helped me tie the trees to the fence to protect them from the scaffold. A build lifetime ago. He takes a light shade I've had on Marketplace to hand deliver to Invercargill. Personal, old friend service. Thanks for all your help, John.

Day 66- Appliances

It's a relentlessly tedious exercise. But important, price wise and longevity wise. Appliances are utilitarian and we take them for granted, but we need good ones. It would be nice to go in and point at what I want but at this point value for money is essential. And the kitchen is imminent so I need to know the makes and models for gap sizing. I'm getting to know my way around Kitchen Things and Noel Leeming where the staff are very helpful and price appliances at Nicki's discount for designer level. 

Nicki has sent through links of models and I have a chat before heading in. At KT I see an end of run Smeg dishwasher, but I have to check what else is around first. I go back to Noel Leeming and check the range hoods. Silent ones are best and more costly. You get what you pay for. 

On the way back I pick Kahu up. We've organised a family visit with Mert, his godfather. I pay for the dishwasher while we're out. Mert's good but waiting for a hip operation. It's a quiet evening at home. We're all in recovery mode. Kahu wants to go out again but I know he needs a rest.