The people we bought our house from had a little boat that they couldn’t really take with them.  They offered it to us, and we accepted.  It was at the time lying on its back at a small harbour near here, which seemed like a nice place to keep it, so we put ourselves in the queue for a boat space there.

We got offered a  space, but got a bit of a shock at the price: 2,500 kronor a year.  That’s about £250 for the brits, or about $500 for the kiwis.  It doesn’t sound like all that much, but back in our old neighbourhood we could have had a space on a pier for about 200 kronor a year.  And if you consider that, what with all the other stuff we like to do, we may only use it 5 times in a year, that makes each boat trip pretty expensive.

So, we hired a trailer and brought it home.  Now it’s lying on its back at our house.  And now the question remains, what do we do with it?  We can look for another club where we can keep it, but most of them have waiting lists.  Or we can keep it at home, but that means we’d need to buy a trailer in order to be able to use it.  In either case, we also have to buy an outboard motor.

It’s a slightly tricky one.  On the one hand I look at it and think “Yeah!  Fishing!  Trips out to the islands!”.  On the other hand I think about the costs, the maintenance, and having to keep the kids under control while they’re in it.  Maybe it will just end up being a decorative bump in the garden for a year or two, until it becomes practical to use it.

We discovered we have a magnolia tree!

Fruit trees are blossoming. This is some member of the plum family.

I’m using the greenhouse for some of my seed starting. Here are some baby pumpkins pushing through.

Inside, we have alot of baby tomatoes and chilis.

The chickens have had a rough couple of weeks. We had to euthanise one due to illness. Then the remaining ones had the bejeepers frightened out of them by a dog – a worker from the section next door had brought his dog to work and let it run loose around the neighbourhood. One chook ended up on top of the greenhouse, one under the veranda, and one cowering behind some rose bushes. All were unharmed and it was made very clear that loose dogs were not welcome. Finally we decided to move the coop a bit, not very far (we thought) but far enough that the chooks went to bed in an apple tree and had to be caught one by one and reintroduced to their home.

Amidst all this the little troopers have kept laying!

We have had some really great weather this week. May 1st is a public holiday here and was quite crazily hot. Anneli and I were out in the vege patch with our sunhats on, though I managed to get pink on the arms.

Spring has well & truly sprung and the grass is getting long, so it was high time to invest in a lawn mowing solution more suited to the size of our new lawn. Behold the ride-on mower in all its yellow glory!

There can be a big size difference when your eggs aren’t getting sorted by weight down at the factory

I dyed some of our home-grown eggs for easter sunday, using onion skins wrapped around the eggs and held snug with a fabric wrapper and rubber band. I love the marbled effect, they were almost too pretty to eat!

The chooks have been out exploring today, having a great time scratching and picking around the garden

We collected our first egg quite early this morning. After lunch we went for a short stroll to talk to the hens and found these three eggs in the laying box. Look at the teeny weeny one!

Four white hens came to live with us today. To meet our current egg consumption we will need more, and we would like to add a rooster and get them breeding so we have a source of home-grown meat. But this little flock is a good place to start.

One of my favourite things about our new house is that I’ve got my own sewing room! I’m not quite ready to share pictures of the room itself yet, but here is the first project that came out of it: new pyjamas for Anneli, made from my worn out old pregnancy/breastfeeding nighties.

I know what some of you are thinking: “pink?!” These were of course a gift, and a greatly appreciated one. They could have been neon pink with pictures of that annoying gimp from the red hot chilli peppers on them, and they still would have been worn almost to death (but probably would have been less likely to end up as pyjamas)

I re-used the neckline from one nighty so I could keep the original snaps in place:

Anneli loves them, and I love giving new life to old things