This House is My House

I drive around. My aim, to get a few tidy up jobs out of the way.  First drop is Kahu at Riccarton Mall to do Christmas shopping. Fatal. It takes half an hour in traffic to get north of Moorhouse Ave. Something about the wait unhinges my brain and I go backwards from there. I buy a light which turns out to be a lemon- sort of. Alistair at Vintage Wonderland critiques it and tells me it's about 20 years old, even though it's vintage style. The shade is lovely but the metal is thin and rusty. I consider taking it back to the Marketplace seller but I can't return it just cos I don't like it, and he's just been driven into by a doddery old lady and written that off so I decide to suck it up. 

It goes on the front porch while I go round the back to tidy up some stones. The never ending south garden job. Kirk peers round the back, having sent me two messages and tried to call. The Christchurch City Council inspector is pulling up. I'm in my filthy work clothes but no-one seems to care. It's hot, nearly Christmas and we just want to get there. I offer the inspector a glass of water and he gets going. He likes the house. I tell him Kirk and the boys have done a good job. He's from England so I distract him with chat about Staffordshire and Margaret Thatcher. It's a relaxing visit. I'm not fretting about what he's going to find missing cos I'm sure it's all been done. Except the fire alarms which I've got three of and we negotiate where to put them. Happy days. Kirk and the inspector chat about the other house Kirk has just built for difficult clients. They bond. Round the back and up the drainpipe, there are a lack of spreaders but he says he'll trust us to get these done. Clearwater Spouting strikes again- my job. Mr Inspector takes some photos, wishes us Merry Christmas and leaves. Kirk's stoked, I'm stoked. We shake hands, a tight builder's clamp. 

Fi drops in. She's stoked as well. We chat about the year and our roles as teachers. Fi's got a new job as a Resource Teacher of Learning and Behaviour. Getting out of the classroom is a constant stream in my head but I like the cut and thrust of the classroom too much. Conflict day by day, lesson by lesson. I send Fi off with a Marketplace mirror which doesn't suit my house but will work in hers. Kahu returns and is unfazed by the news this house is ours now. I'm still taking it in. This house is definitely my house. I've seen it through from conception to skeleton to arrival. Yes, it's been a bit like having a baby, the builder, the midwife. His role to see my vision become material.

At the beach the wind breezes through my dredlocks. Birds wheel and swing, buoyed by currents of air. Water rushes over my skin and massages my limbs. Bliss, freedom, the load has lifted. Memories of the swim I had, February 23nd 2017, flood back. That day I had a meeting a poe-faced representative of my insurance company, NZI, and my quantity surveyor. It didn't go well. The rep stolidly defended NZI's position and I felt like giving in. I knew the settlement wasn't fair. But Nicki said I had to keep going, that I was nearly there. So I did.

When we return Lynley, Keith and Timmy are in the living room. I'm excited, Kahu is tired and grumpy, so these old friends are the right people at the right time because I need to celebrate. We break out Lynley's damson gin, cheese and everything else edible in the fridge. I'm dancing on air and down gin after gin. Time to let loose. I've earned it. 

It's only later I realise Kahu is reading a book for the first time since he was 14. His Christmas shopping purchases. I'm stoked.

Sign Off Day...Not

I'm ready and waiting for the time of council inspection when Kirk rings to say he got it wrong. Tomorrow. All good. More tidy up won't hurt. I end up at the mall for groceries and get side-tracked looking in shops. I haven't sent a Christmas letter this year, or any cards, or put up a tree. First time in years. They're down the list of priorities. I need to get the house signed off and insurance, they're my last deadlines. In fact it takes time and effort to organise Xmas trimmings. There's a lot of work during the festive season for the brave souls of the family who take it on. Invariably women. So I've given myself permission to have Christmas off, sort of. I'll be hosting brunch for Christmas orphans and taking food to Alex and Theo's. 

The garden also needs time. The weeds are about to run rampant and there's a sprinkling of stones, not to mention hard clumps of earth, in the new border bed. I've bought trees and I need to get them in but I'm hesitant. Summer is the wrong time to plant and I'm afraid I'll put them in the wrong place. In 2013 when I replanted the edge along the old driveway, I just plonked. But that was autumn. I'll have to make my mind up soon, the trees in nursery pots desperately need space for their roots.

Kahu and I drive to Waimairi...he sits with his nieces while I brave the wind. We cook a fish curry for Biff and Chris- Google recipe thrown together with what I've brought over and what's left in Chris's pantry. Biff's in good pre-Christmas form. It's summer solstice and there's a super star we can't see because of cloud, somewhere in the heavens. Jupiter and Saturn are close together and bright. It happened back in 7BC and may have been the Christmas star. I'd love to see it but not today.

 

Clean Up

John brings me a cup of tea in bed. I stagger out to the living room and share the love. Cecile has been up for a while putting things in order and is looking pleased with herself. In fact, there's not a lot of extra...floor clean, wine debris and food detritus. We're on the go slow and break for croissants. John's concerned there's no music so we search for speaker cables and plugs and, with some tape, get the stereo going. I've missed my cd's. I used to play them often. The set up in the old house was the amp, speakers and player in the living room with another set of speakers wired to the kitchen. But no controls, so I had to walk back and forth to get the volume right when I was cooking. 

John celebrates with a mouth organ solo. We're still shuffling around when old school and university friends, Lynley and Keith, arrive with their son, Tim. On their way from Wellington to Invercargill where we all went to high school. Girls' and boys' high. Lynley's aunt and my mother travelled to Europe in the 1950's and Lynley and I travelled together in 1986. After spending a summer cooking for salmon fishers and grouse shooters in a huge estate owned by English aristocracy, we travelled to Sicily, Malta, Tunisia, and Algeria, weeks before their civil war broke out. When we got back to Europe we cooked in a ski chalet in Meribel. Adventures and stories we don't talk a lot about these days but lots of history added to teen growing up. We're like sisters. And my mother taught Lynely's mother. All in the family. Keith and John went to school together, then the three of us flatted together at uni for a year.

Kahu brings his photography folio out, then everyone is off. Quiet reigns in the new whare once more.

House Warming

The second part of the post build hair do is bleaching the dred tops. This is also something Anjie volunteers for and is competent at. She can turn her hand to anything. Lucky me. While we wait for lightening, we catch up. We used to do this a lot, usually me popping in on my way past, for a coffee and a chat/download. Today it's relaxed. We've finished school for the year, that strips our conversation down to the important life bits.

I rinse under the tap over the bath then double rinse in the ocean. The air is calm and the water, fresh. I'm ready for party organisation when I get home. Mid afternoon, Cecile brings John Dainty in. He's a surprise guest. Not only that, but he's super good at doing essential jobs like bordering the new seeded patch with Christmas decorations and making a shoes off sign for the door. David Hansbury arrives in time for last tasks. And brings home grown veges in a huge cardboard box. I encourage him to take it home, I've recycled enough of these babies.

People arrive gradually. I walk up and down the hall. Yes, I am proud. It's been such a big project, challenges, problem solving, low moments, high moments, funny times, stressful too. And here I am at the end of it. Almost. There's sign off to go. But everyone is appreciative, big grins and compliments. I'm stoked as bods I didn't expect drop by. Facebook friends, and yes they are friends, and blog readers like Phoebe. I make sure I get a photo with Sue, another earthquake rebuilder...finished two years ago. I'm on my feet all night. Memorable hassle, trying to get the oven to heat after over imbibing. I eventually find the instructions but it's Chris, Volker and Bertie who get it going. Simple stuff...the oven tray is in the wrong way so the door isn't closed, and I have an aluminum sheet on the bottom which buggars up the heating. By this time I'm knackered. It's 2:30 and I haven't stopped all day. I lie down on the couch and fall asleep. The house is warm.