A West Coast weekend.

Thank goodness for Canterbury anniversary Weekend and the old 'Show Day', which gave us a holiday on Friday. We set off for a weekend on the Coast beginning with a pleasant drive to Karamea. I felt pretty good all the way for a change - no woozies from Stan's driving on the Karamea Bluff.

Arrived at Abby and Brett's place about 12.30, to find Abby and River entertaining each other in the kitchen. Abby puts River into his little rocker seat thing and plonks him on the kitchen bench, so he can watch her doing all of her tasks around the kitchen. He looks out the window at the trees and birds and chats away to his mother madly. In fact yesterday afternoon, at the end of his first little meal of banana (which went down a treat after a few shudders!), Brett entertained him with the 'octopus banana'! So cute.

(Have tried for about 2 hours to upload video of this, but without success - sorry.)

So we had a lovely time catching up on River's progress. He is a handsome little boy, with such a cute way of looking at you from under his brow. He blows lots of raspberries and chats away to himself when he wakes up. He loves all of his toys and spends time talking to them too.

Part of the purpose of our visit was to take a cot over which we managed to buy on Trade Me. Flash! Although yesterday River didn't seem to think so, and in fact he seemed to want to spend as little time as possible in it. However, persistence by the adults around him won out, and he is learning that it is a really nice place to sleep, and far more roomy than the Moses basket which he has just come out of.

As usual, Abby made us some lovely meals. Last night while I was making a salad to have with our yummy quiche, I saw a fluttering happening in the apple tree outside the lounge window. The night before and on previous occasions, I had seen a kereru (pigeon) coming to roost in the apple tree. It was guzzling on the blossom and leaves of the tree. So this time, when I looked up, there were feathers coming down from the tree and I could see that one of the cats was up there attacking the kereru. Abby took off outside, but at the same time the damned cat had another go and there were more feathers shooting up and out of the tree, followed by the pigeon trying to get away. It fluttered across the grass and went to the long grass, but just lay there. Poor thing, it was dreadful to watch. We all went out to try and help, but really it was futile. Brett managed to pick it up and inspection revealed a couple of huge gashes on each side of it's breast. We put it into a box, but unfortunately, within a few minutes it died. It was very sad, and I gave that damned cat a good kicking.

Abs and Brett have a new van - rather different to their Toyota Surf which they bought from us last year. He arrived home from work on Friday after getting a bit of ribbing from quite a few of the locals about the appearance of his new wagon. It's fine though and goes well so no worries. It has a CD player and he used his great skill, to connect their old tape player to that too.

Enough! Just time to finish with another gorgeous pic of the Mighty River, at the ripe old age of 4 1/2 months. Hope you enjoy this catch up.

Stalkers Road

This is an exciting innovation and something which I haven't yet tried - blogging! I thought that it might be a good way to get info to people overseas, as well as photos and video footage. This is vital especially for recording progress of our lovely grandson River Chalmers-Mawson who lives in Karamea with his mother and father.

So the topic of conversation today is renovations at Stalkers Road.

The bathroom downstairs is recently completed and waiting for the last touch - rimu shelving for our linen. Garth (Stan's cousin) delivered the finished shelves yesterday, and they just have to be installed. Garth got the rimu for these and the bathroom vanity and mirror frame, from a couple of old doors which he bought in Christchurch. My gosh it's all looking just great. Have included a few pics of the room which show the beautiful paua tiles ( http://www.oceanshell.co.nz/ ) which are from Riverton in Southland, and which cost as much as the wall tiles and the floor tiles. But we figure it is worth it for the great look which they have given to the whole room.

No need to feel total embarrassment when people come to stay - hooray!

Installing the rimu vanity.

The new shower - just walk in!

So the next project is almost finished as I write - the balcony. Yes, well, I have been waiting for this to be added to the house for almost 4 years now - ever since we put in the French doors upstairs. These doors have had nowhere to go and are absolutely filthy, so it's good to see Stan and the builder (Simon) standing out there hammering their little hearts out. It has had a rather long build-up and this is actually balcony Mark 2 - due to a misunderstanding by Simon with his first attempt! All good now and the summer will see us sitting outside there having lunch, reading the Saturday Press etc!

Stan and Simon passing the time on the balcony.

The view from the bedroom - note our gorgeous maple tree which has just come out in it's summer dress.

There will be board and batten around the outside of the balcony so it fits with the house. All to be done in a few days I hope.