It’s been a busy few weeks, hence why I’ve been a bit slack at updating this blog.
Firstly, we headed back to the mainland for Mummy’s 60th birthday. This gave us the opportunity to organise a hire truck to bring yet more ’stuff’ across to the island. We spent a good couple of weeks sorting through all the mess at Waiwera. Peter had been chopping up his vintage Volkswagen collection, and the six wrecks that lined the driveway at Waiwera had now been turned into two working rust-free wrecks, and many large piles of spare parts. The scrap metal yard had some earlier in the year with their trucks to take away the VWs that couldn’t be resuscitated, leaving Peter with his two prized ragtop ovals, each with different coloured bonnets and doors and sides given that there had been a mass VW organ and bodypart transplantation process happening in the driveway for the previous few months. So, yes I have buckled, and Peter is allowed to bring his VWs to the island, but only if they are in working condition. The collection has now been downsized from 14 specimens to a meazley 6 vehicles. Now we just have to build a large shed over here on the island in order to house the migrating collection.
On top of sorting out vehicles, we also had to sort out the years of rubbish we’d been hoarding down in the chalets and the shipping container at Waiwera. It took a truck and trailer load to the Hospice Shop, two trailer loads to the scrap metal yard, and three trailer loads to the dump before we could see some light. Then much of the remaining hoarded ‘precious items’ were then packed into the truck and three cars that we were taking across to the island on this voyage. Record collections, my new kitchen, VW models, boat models, outdoor furniture, our new worm farm, building materials, clothes – it was all packed in so that every square inch of space was filled. My worry was that we’d hit a judder bar driving along the road and the truck would split open, given it was so tightly packed!
Despite having moved about 10 full truck and trailer loads to the island over the past two years, the house at Waiwera remains fully furnished, as is the house on the island, so I’m not quite sure what we will do with everything when we finally sell Waiwera.

Peter's precious mismatched VWs on the ferry
The convoy of trucks, cars and VW bits made it safely to the island on the car ferry, and we were greeted by fantastic weather. Despite regular rainfalls at Waiwera, the island had been very dry and the locals were starting to worry if they were going to have enough water for summer. The summer weather had certainly arrived – scorching hot days and lovely calm seas. We walked up to the orchard, and the plum tree was in fruit, and fortunately the birds hadn’t noticed, so we’ve been enjoying beautifully sweet plums for the past week. The pohutukawa are starting to flower, and the peach and apricot trees are bursting with fruit that is about to ripen in the next week or so.
Our friend Andrew, the booze hag from Wellington (he is so going to slap me for saying that), came and joined us last week for a gorgefest on the island. Again there was beautiful weather, lots of BBQs, a spontaneous liquid fuelled jaunt to the local Irish pub, a trip up north to Port FitzRoy to get a hamburger, and lots of laying about doing very little. Then, as Andrew went to leave, the island retaliated, and the weather packed in, and all flights off the island were cancelled. So in a flurry of activity that resembled a bad Hudson and Halls episode (a TV cooking show from the 1980’s), the wood fired stove was fired up, and the kitchen turned into a food factory that produced lemon cheese cake, focaccia bread, delicious chocolate brownie, home-made brandy snaps (Andrew did quite well at these) and a gorgeous beef stroganoff. The next day Andrew managed to get a flight off the island, and I gave my liver and stomach the day off.

Let's see, is it Hudson, or Hall?

Delicious chocolate brownie (Jo Seager's recipe)

Andrew's brandy snaps

The cremated brandy snaps I forgot were still cooking in the oven
Peter’s sister Anne is currently over visiting us from Darwin, Australia. She was trying to fly in when Andrew was trying to fly out, so she got to see a lot more of Auckland Airport than she bargained for. To make matters worse, her flight to the island was delayed yesterday by two hours because some ‘goon’ had opened the emergency door on the plane as they hopped in, so they had to wait for a technician to come from the North Shore to reset the door.

Peter and his sister Anne from Darwin
Peter and his sister are off at the natural hot pools at Kaitoke today. Again the weather is beautiful. A large pod of dolphins came into the bay yesterday to show off their swimming and jumping skills. And my new vegetable garden seems to be flourishing despite the fact I don’t know what I am doing and I always forget to water it. Peter however, avidly checks it for caterpillars and snails and everything else that wants to eat the fruits of our labour before we get to eat them ourselves.

My vegetable garden (on the left). Well, one needs to start small, and build up slowly
Anne flies off tomorrow, then we might get stuck into finishing the kitchen ahead of Christmas. Lovely fresh flat-pack boxes of kitchen cabinets lay stacked up in the corner awaiting my attention. This will be the third kitchen I have put together in recent years, so it doesn’t feel daunting this time. Let’s hope all the correct bits are here – coz I can’t just pop down to Placemakers for the rest of the bits, unlike on the mainland, if anything is missing. Maybe I’ll just substitute a VW spare part if something does seem to be missing – we certainly have enough of those lying around here at the moment!