1 January 2012 - It's About Time!

It is a new day, a new month and a new year and it certainly is about time that I wrote here once again.  Much time and many events have passed since I last sat down and put my thoughts down on these "pages".  I won't bother going over most as they have been and gone - what is the use of rehashing old events? 

But today is a new year.  A traditional time of refreshing and renewing.  Not one in which I make all kinds of rash Resolutions, though.  Not ones which others will hear about, at least!  We all like to think that the New Year will help us to become better and wiser etc, but it takes dedicated and honest commitment to change.  Commitment that needs to last beyond the first few days, or even weeks, of the New Year.  Do I have that kind of commitment right now?  Maybe, but perhaps not to make ALL the changes I would like to see in myself.  So slowly, slowly wins the race.  So slowly even the tortoise may be considered an olympic sprinter!

So, what has been happening chez "Roselea" lately?  Something good happened right before Christmas - I won a giveaway on Amanda's Small Acorns blog!  You can surely imagine how thrilled I was!  See below for the lovely parcel I received:

Aren't they gorgeous?  Everything was wrapped individually in either tissue paper or brown paper and string (how long did THAT take??) when it arrived.  The little packet of pegs and string (bottom right) is now on my wall with Christmas cards (including the one Amanda sent with the parcel) dangling from it.  The bird, mushrooms and heart are all hanging on the Christmas tree (I so love ornaments that aren't the usual mass-produced commercial type) and the little pixie looks so cute propping up a photo on a shelf.  The sweet little notebook and pencil are waiting for just the right inspiration to come before they are used.  Now wasn't that a great parcel?

And speaking of parcels, I also received a very unexpected Christmas surprise (a cute sheep tea towel) from a blogging friend (you know who you are!).  Thank you so much!  I never expect to get presents but it is always nice when I do. :)

Christmas was a busy time for me with all my family here either for a meal on Christmas Day or on Boxing Day (or both).  The weather was beautiful and meant that the little ones were able to get outside and play with the t-ball set and the water guns they had been given.  I love seeing kids, both young and old, running around and having fun together.

New Year's Eve was spent going to Dunedin to help our daughter move her larger, heavier furniture into the flat she will be living in this year.  As it was another beautiful warm, sunny day we took the "long" way home by going on a tiki tour - first of all around the Otago Peninsular...

I didn't take many photos yesterday but this one is looking down the Otago Harbour from about halfway along the south side of the Peninsular.

At the farthest tip of the northern side of the Peninsular is a lovely little place called Aramoana, made famous because of a rather unfortunate massacre there in 1990.  The above photo looks across one of the lovely beaches at Aramoana towards the soth side of the Peninsular.

Once we had travelled both sides of the Peninsular we headed up the Northeast Valley and over the old road up Mt Cargill bypassing much of the motorway.  Coming out at Waitati onto the main highway we then turned east a few kms further north at Evansdale and followed the coastline going through Seacliff and past where the old mental hospital was.  Beautiful seaviews all the way along the windy road which crossed the railway line so many times I lost count.  We turned back to SH1 once more at Karitane, where my parents lived when my sister was born many moons ago.

We stayed on the main road then, stopping at Hampden for their famous fish and chips which we ate on the beach watching the waves and the camping folk busily building a campfire for their New Year's celebrations.  From there we headed straight home, happy but tired. 

Traditionally, we go to Timaru to watch the fireworks at New Year but this time we were too tired from our travels (are we getting old?) and so stayed home like a boring old couple.  Oh well, maybe fireworks next year?

New Day, New Year

Happy New Year!

It is a little late to round out the old year with a final posting so perhaps it's a good idea to start afresh this year.  Not that I have anything in particular to say.  I've just been on here giving things a little tweaking, bringing them up-to-date at last.  I'm not sure about adding images - you may, or may not, get any this time around.  If there aren't any you will know that I haven't ironed out the bugs of that one, yet!


Christmas, for us, was reasonably quiet.  For the first time since our children were tiny I didn't put up any decorations.  Not even a tree!  As we weren't going to have anyone here for any part of Christmas I didn't really see the point in putting in all that work (and let's face it, dragging out the decorations and putting up the tree is WORK!  Not to mention having to take it all down and put it all away again later) for just the three of us.  Scrooge's ba-humbug, indeed!  I must say that I did feel rather like that this Christmas, too, but that is another story and I would rather just forget about it, thank you, than re-live it all again.  So, no decorations apart from the Christmas cards that arrived.


This year we were to join our eldest son (T) and his wife and family for a Christmas bbq tea.  On the way we visited our youngest son, his new partner and his daughter as well as my sister and her partner, my father and my uncle.  A long list of rellies but in reality only two stops to make.  It all took time, though, and we were a little late getting up to T's.  No surprises there!  The kids were a bit hyper by that stage (as only 6 and 4 year olds should be - even the 9 month old was excited to see us) but that was to be expected.


The food was good, nothing particularly fancy but that is how we like it, and the company was pretty good, too.  The girls opened their little presents in between courses and seemed to like them.  If I can get the images to upload I'll try and find the photos on the camera of the bags I felted for them and show you next time I post.  I was quite pleased with how they turned out, considering I haven't done a lot of felting before.  I'm not sure that either of the girls (I didn't make one for the youngest) really appreciated them, though, nor did their parents.  If I did it again, I would wrap them differently, and separately, to try and show off their real worth, rather than to include them with the rest of the present.


After the evening was all wrapped up, and the girls dressed for bed, it was time for us to head for home.  I think it was about 10pm (late for the girls) when we finally left and never has that hour and a half drive home seemed so long!  I was glad that I wasn't the one driving.

Now, a week later, it is New Year's Day.  Last night we went to see the fireworks on Caroline Bay as we usually do every year.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to go this year, especially as it was a little showery but, as it was the Bay Carnival's 100th anniversary, I thought that it may be just a little bit special this year.  How special can fireworks get?  Yeah, they were pretty good.  They lasted about 20 minutes which isn't too bad.  Any longer and you can really start to get fidgety.  I'm sure they're not as loud as they used to be a few years back and that was what I really liked.  Those huge, big bangs that echoed off the surrounding cliffs!  The countdown?  What countdown?  That fell down even flatter than a pancake.  No singing of Auld Lang Syne and no tooting from any ships in the harbour, either.  Mind you, I didn't check to see if there were any in port last night.  So, some parts were good but the actual running of the whole show needs a real brush-up. 

After the fireworks were over it was a general melee to walk back across the Bay to get to the street entrance.  So many people wanting to go the same way.  Fortunately, most were well-behaved.  It really helps that there is a total alcohol ban on the Bay for the duration of the evening.  We were parked in a little side-street close by so across the main road we went (along with what seemed like another hundred or so other people) and back to the car.  Easy.  An easy road to go down to get back to the road home, too.  All this a far cry from years ago when we used to spend at least half an hour or more idling along in the car trying to get out of first the carpark, then to turn out of the side-road and onto the main road!  Diabolical.  Still a very late night for me so I'm tired again today.  So what's new.

(PS - the opening image, yes I got it to load, is an old one but I'm sure you will enjoy it better than nothing.  I preferred to watch last night, than take photos.)

I'll tell you a little about my latest knitting next time I post.  Until then, stay safe!