Well the rain started again last Friday, but let up for the weekend. Tony and I were able to walk to town on Saturday and run some errands. It is really only a 20-30 minute walk to the town center and everything is a surprisingly close stroll from there. Walking to town one of my favorite things about living in Edinburgh and Sante Fe because you get see it in a different perspective, and I don’t feel as guilty stopping by a bakery when I am walking there. This was the first time Tony has been able to do this and of course we did stop by a bakery. Sunday Tony went fishing on the Wairu river nearby and had good luck with several big trout and a huge salmon that broke his heart and got away.
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| Tony with his 4.5 lb brown trout |
I enjoyed the cloudy weather by getting in some relaxation and reading time. We walked back to the car just in time for the rain to start, and it didn’t stop for another 24 hours. I had thrown together some vegetarian chili in the crock pot before our outing, so at least we had hot dinner to come home to in the rainy weather. It rained so much Sunday night that there was about 3 inches of water standing near our front door and it just kept coming, needless to say that work was cancelled for both of us on Monday. Tuesday Tony returned to work, but I have had the entire week off because the contractors I am working for ran out of work. It is still the off season for vineyard workers because pruning season is just around the corner and everyone is eagerly awaiting the grape leaves to fall off and the trimming to commence. So during my 4 days off to myself I cleaned our little flat to my hearts content, washed clothes and hung them on the line (since there is no dryer, sunny weather must be taken advantage of), did yoga, walked to town, cooked in the crock pot, talked to my Mom on the phone alot, and edited some photos. I can’t say I really missed the work, but I will miss the money. At least Tony came home everyday to a clean house, hot food, and clean clothes. I also was able to keep entertained by MTV classics, which shows music videos all the time, including really really terrible 80’s videos such as “It’s Raining Men” and “Video Killed the Radio Star.” I suggest they air this channel in America immediately.
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| Homemade Chicken and Dumplings |
My meal for the week was chicken and dumplings. I say week because I made so much of it, it took 3.5 days to eat. I combined several different recipes, but I must say that it was not half bad for my first attempt. Please keep in mind that NZ doesn’t sell canned biscuits of any sort, so I made it all from scratch. During my time here I am slowly noticing items they don’t have at the store such as boxed pudding, Jello, pie crusts, canned pumpkin, and they only sell 2 flavors of icing. Clearly I was in the mood to bake, but I was able to contain myself due to lack of ingredients and the costs and time of the replacements.
Last night we had some excitement at our landlords house. About 3am we heard someone scream and both of our landlords yelling at someone to “get out” then begin beating on the doors of the tenants asking if “so and so was your friend.” The voices slowly died out and I could just hear the footsteps of someone pacing down the hallway. We went back to sleep as it seemed of no concern to us. This morning my landlady apologized to me for possibly waking me up and told me the story. There are 2 Irish guys and a Scottish guy that are tenants in the house. Irish guy #1 and Scottish guy went to the pub last night and “were on the piss” (which means really drunk). Apparently a Kiwi friend of theirs was so drunk, they brought him home and put him to sleep on the couch. Around 3am the landlady walked into the hall and found this fellow peeing on her hallway cabinet, which would explain the “get out” shouts we heard and the knocking and the pacing of her cleaning up this mess. There is never a dull moment in New Zealand, but I hope I don’t have to personally deal with kind excitement anytime soon.
