Sun, swim, light breezes, more sun, more swimming, hanging out with hubby and small daughter - the last few weeks have been delightful. My ex-work decided that they would pay me out instead of having me working out my month's notice period, so I have had an extended summer break and it has been good. I have't really had a holiday for some years so it has been really nice to enjoy myself with the family. Some of my university work has also arrived so I've been doing some study for this year's courses (that start properly in March!).
We haven't wasted the holiday though. We've washed the curtains, tidied the conservatory (and it needed it!) done some more work in the garden, rearranged small daughter's bedroom, finally found ourselves a new computer as our old one (6 years old!) is rapidly giving up on us, etc. We've all swum about every second day or so, ballet has started again - it's twice a week in the school holidays, so I'm working up a regular sweat! - and gone for walks, caught up on some people, and tried to go away for a weekend.
That didn't quite work to plan: we went to Ekatahuna (one of those tiny NZ blink-and-you-missed-it townships) planning a couple of nights away. However, having small daughter in the same cabin with us when we were on a hideously uncomfortable bed, rustling around in sleeping bags, didn't work - she kept waking up every time either of us tried to get comfortable. We finally rocked her to sleep in her buggy at 2am and came home on Saturday night, rather than not-sleeping over another night!
However, we did manage to explore the countryside a little on the Saturday. We went to the Middleton Model Railway at Cwmglyn Farm in the morning - really amazing. It is a huge layout in a massive garage-type building, and it's all run to a timetable (real time speeded up 6 times) with about 6 trains on the tracks. There's about 6 or 7 stations, hills, towns, cities, a cathedral - the landscaping is beautiful - and they make their own cheese from their cows. Very nice cheese it is too!
In the afternoon we went up to the Tui Brewery in Mangatinoka - not that either of us actually drinks Tui! They have a tour of the brewery which we went on. I was interested from a H&S viewpoint in how they had set it up, as well as in the mechanics of the actual brewing process which both of us were relatively familiar with. Yes there were complimentary beers afterwards (I had lemonade!) and we got to keep our tankards.
We've also graduated small daughter out of her sleep sac into sheets and a duvet in her cot - she'd grown out of the last sleep sac and we thought summer was a good time to teach her how to sleep under sheets. She looks so cute under the Noah's Ark quilt one of our friends made for her - and there's a second one with animals on it that one of my aunts made her, so she can have some variety. So far she's doing okay in sleeping relatively in one place, although we have been checking before we go to bed that she still has the quilt on top!
That's about it for now.
Pachyderm
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