New Rhodys

We have had a lot of new rhododendrons come out in the last few weeks.

Four pink 

One is red

 four or five purple

           and this very light pink one just came out today

Demolition

Yesterday we started taking the linings off the kitchen walls, in order to get them straightened out before the new kitchen arrives.  The kids were enthusiastic about ripping off gib board.  There was a mixture of Gib, plasterboard and plywood.  Behind the plywood (below the window) was tongue and groove, and behind that were some old pipes.  According to the plans, the kitchen sink used to be there.  We tacked the plywood back onto the wall because there was a wicked draught coming up from under the house.

Above the dining-room doorway there was some interesting joinery.

Some of these bits of wood aren't actually doing anything at all.  The left-hand end of the beam above the door sticks out about 8mm from the rest of the framing, which is why there was a bulge in the wall there.

Apparently if you run out of underlay, newspaper works just as well.

Interesting lino

New Growth

 There are all sorts of things coming out in the garden now that it's spring.  We have taken out a lot of trees and shrubs, but we decided to leave the Rhododendrons until we found out what they looked like.

 So far we have 3 different colours.  The first to flower was Christmas Cheer, pink - 2 separate plants

Then, a plain red one, 2 plants,

and another very spindly plant produced a red with a white middle.
Most recently we have a yellow one, which looks very attractive when first opening because the buds are slightly orange/peach, but a it's bit boring once the flowers are all open.

 This wee thing was a pleasant surprise

And this flowering cherry (?) is beautiful

 Mum gave me a bit of Rhubarb - I thought I'd killed it by letting it dry out too much but it has bounced back.

 

There is a rose jungle up the back, Bryony found this in it.  It's due to be cut down though as we'd rather have fruit trees than roses.

We've made some progress in cutting them down,

and have huge piles to be mulched.

 There was a hedge right up this fence but now we have apple trees, 6 planted, 3 to go.  Hopefully I have a couple of weeks before they start to wake up.

Dad cut down a tall conifer here and has taken a slice off each side of the trunk so we can use it for part of a retaining wall or maybe a seat or something.

Lots of work done, lots to go!

Garden shots

Before:

6 weeks later

Today

Embroidery

Last week Renee and Hannah got their embroideries back from New Plymouth.  They had entered the primary section of the National Embroidery conference, which was held in New Plymouth.  Unfortunately it was a few weeks after we left town so we didn't get to see the exhibition, but the embroidery teachers, Glenys and Delwn, sent down a couple of exhibition programmes with photos of the entries.
Hannah got first in her section which she was very happy about, and also got a nice big cheque for her prize, which she was also happy about!  Renee didn't place, but she did get first last year in the Taranaki exhibition, with her embroidered box.

We are very grateful to Glenys and Delwyn for teaching the girls, and also for doing the lovely backgrounds which really set off the girls' work.
We have been along to the Dunedin Guild and plan to join, the girls loved it and I don't mind an excuse to sit and stitch for a morning every now and then.

Haircut

Petra cut her hair yesterday...

Snow!

One of the main things the kids were looking forward to in Dunedin was snow.  Last week they got their wish - only an inch, but still enough to transform the garden.  There were snowballs and 3 snow/hail-men and cold fingers, until we tried using gardening gloves which keep the fingers a bit drier and not so frozen.

It wasn't cold enough for the snow to stay, and it was all gone by the next morning, but it's just started snowing again today so there may be more!