24 January 2013

This week is not really about the house, but I thought you would be interested.

On Monday our friends had their stuff moved from their house, they are moving to Wellington. At about 4 pm. Louis called, they cannot get everything in the truck, can we help please? We started moving surplus stuff to our place, and also removed all rubbish that was left over from Friday. I was fortunate, two young friends turned up at our place at the right moment, and they were commandeered into service. At 8 pm everything was cleared (the sun is still shining then). The new owners would be moving in on Tuesday.

Tuesday was spent to sort through the stuff, and cutting up timber for firewood. I also took a load of scrap to the dump.

Wednesday we took the day off for a visit to Hamilton, and doing some shopping. The rest of the week just disappeared, nothing to report.

Now we get to Saturday, the interesting day.

When we moved in here, there was a hole in the ground outside the back door, which we filled in for safety sake. The next door neighbours told us that is where a well has been. We also planted an Olive tree and some shrubs. Sometime in the week, somebody opened both our outside taps, we suspect young guys doing it for the kick. Well, the hose was by the Olive tree where Elna has watered the garden. It got very wet. The next day we had a sinkhole, 500 to 600 mm deep, with the tree and shrubs considerably shorter. I decided the proper solution would be to lift the tree back up and backfill it. Saturday I made three legs for a tripod, and Barry (Barco) has a star that he has made just for that purpose. I called on Barry for help, we assembled the tripod and pulled the tree and shrubs up. Then we filled the hole and replanted the tree and shrubs.