veggie garden

I've just been composting some borage that was well past its best. Even with thick gloves on some of the wee spikes went right through and into my hands. I am not liking wee spikey things in my hands!

 Brandywine tomato

 'the corn is as high as an elephants eye'

Our new irrigation system is working terrifically. Finally, with the warm weather things seem to be growing faster than they were. My alderman peas are already about 2 feet taller than me ( not hard as I'm 5ft 3) and have their first pods on them. I was so impressed that I planted another lot a couple of weeks ago.

Kopi cat the helper, garlic to the right of her, courgettes to the left...

The gem squash have their first flowers. Nothing yet on the cucumbers but at least they are growing. Tomatoes are all looking good with the exception of one which is at least half the size of the rest. I can see no reason for this as it look healthy enough.

 All in all I am delighted with how things are looking on the veggie front. I might have been a wee bit late getting them  in, but they're coming along nicely.

First hydrangeas

Mum only has one full day left up here, then the 2 of us head down to Auckland for a night then she's off home again. I just cannot believe how quickly her trip has gone. Anyone got any ideas on how to persuade a dad who has problems walking any distance to swallow his pride and get a chair at the airport? I would dearly love to see my dad over here again and it would mean they could stay for a couple of months rather than 2 weeks. ( Roll on April, eh Dad?) 

Oh yes I knew there was something else. Our dental practice got broken into yesterday... twice. Close your eyes now if you don't want to be offended by my bad language. Are they closed?  Yes?  Right.

FECKERS.

Ok got that out of my system, except to say Claire ~ lovely dental nurse and Debbie ~ lovely receptionist...thank you and we love you.

ok what else?

Loyd has made tiramisu for dinner tonight, well not the whole dinner, but the desert part - so soon we'll all be stuffing our faces

JOY.

West Coast Dental... in a magazine!!

with thanks to Bella who found it and told us!
West Coast Dental
I think it's a great photo of Lloyd and Richard, it was taken by Charlie Smith when he was doing the Wallace Cotton Catalogue.( I took the others!) The reason we didn't know it was coming out is that the article was written months ago, way back in February for a business magazine. This never happened, so it was a nice surprise yesterday when Bella told me she'd seen it in Good magazine. I'm keeping a low profile in it! heehee.

we have the best patients!

 Yesterday one of our lovely patients arrived with wee slipper socks she'd knitted for us - they're so cute and perfect for the chilly evenings. I love our patients - in the summer a lot of them brought us fresh snapper that they'd caught. How lovely.

We're very lucky.

Oh and we came back home to sprouting mung beans, chick peas and huge peas, but nothing from the adzuki beans yet. It's all very exciting!

Bob is a spoiled wee monkey.

He has been around me his whole life. He doesn't mind when we go out and are not physically there, but if he can hear us and knows we're there he doesn't like being shut in a different room. When I'm at work he whinges and often barks and we can hear him ~ loudly ~ from the 'dog's room'. I decided that if I could get something that would keep him behind the reception desk, I would give it a go.

Anyway here he is!

this is waiting for Dad aka Lloyd ( with my lovely Cath Kidston satchel!) 

note the novel use of a fire guard!

I think he's happier... and the patients seem to like him as he gets a pat from everyone that passes!

cupcakes for patients

well actually only the children eat them, they have no worries about eating cakes in front of their dentist!

they were delicious! I ate one.

Karma

The police arrived about half an hour ago. They had our laptop! A wee bit leafy and dusty, but in total working order, not a scratch on it. 

No sign of the other things, but the laptop was the important one anyway!

They told us they found it at 'an address' and 'all' of them are locked up now.

Amazingly fast work by the police. What stars.

We are very happy today.
 

      This is the happy fish! As you can probably tell I'm writing this at work and didn't have any photos, the fish flying across the room (taken with the webcam)  will have to convey our happiness! I think he does a pretty good job.

A few things today...

Firstly a photo or 3 of our edamame beans. They're not ready yet, but there are pods on the first lot! I'm hoping just a couple more weeks and they'll be ready for eating.  Mmmm boiled then served with salt and pop straight into your mouth, delicious!

 

 

The second lot was only planted about 3 weeks ago!

Second ~ we got a lovely, cute wee egg cupboard. It only had one shelf for 8 eggs, but our fridge egg holder ( which we don't use) fitted the bottom shelf perfectly, so now the wee cupboard stores 16 eggs comfortably.

Lastly,  the Dental Practice got broken into last night :( They kicked through one of the low windows, breaking the frame and the glass. The alarm went off, but they must have run round quickly and grabbed the laptop, the security camera (!) and the portable dvd player the patients watch.

It was a total waste of time as they didn't take any of the adaptors for the things so they will die and the laptop is password protected. 

It's pretty horrible, really, but it could have been so, so much worse. They didn't damage anything and the surgery was untouched so really we're pretty thankful.

The security man that drives round told us that there had been five other break ins last night. Probably all the same people,

So! To cheer myself up, I got new shoes! ( they were actually ordered a few weeks ago, but they just arrived today!) 

West coast Dental
Made it into a magazine today! The Sunday Star Times had it as a 'going up' !!

Pretty cool!

(felt.co.nz is also lovely!)

C is for Cupcakes

(notice a theme!)

It's Wednesday again, the morning I make cupcakes for the Dental Practice. This week it was even better as my 'cupcake courier' had arrived all the way from Australia!
No more kamakazi cupcakes on the winding road up to Kaitaia.



With thanks to http://just-this-side-of-chaos.blogspot.com/
and www.thecupcakecourier.com.au

I'm a working girl now!
First day yesterday went really well, the dental practice is looking amazing and I met lots of lovely patients. I got up really, really early and made cupcakes. The patients seemed a little frightened to eat them though, like they think if we see them eating sweet things it'll be giving the game away!!Then I went to check the garden, feed the animals, water the veggies etc and to my joy found the first courgette flower and a teeny tiny patty pam! Yippee the veggies are on their way.

This is supposed to be a mesculin mix - looks more like a lot of Chinese greens to me! ( which are lovely, but not what I was expecting)


The beans are buzzing with bumble bees!
Everything has taken a wee growth spurt since I got home - it hadn't really rained at all and things just needed watering. They're happy wee veggies now.

and now the Dental Practice!
It's all finished so when I saw it for the first time after getting back from Scotland I was blown away. All my photographs are up and the printing is amazing.

I'm really pleased!

this is Vanessa's and my desk ~ isn't it great!
Quite tired, though. Still got a wee bit of jet lag and with travelling we're doing an almost 12 hour day. I'll get used to it though, so it's all good.

West Coast Dental - Before and After ( so far)

Well, it's not actually finished totally but it's very nearly there. The huge photographs are still to go on the walls, cabinets in the surgery and doors to be hung again, but we're almost there.

BEFORE
surgery
entrance
( how horrible!)



Reception area
looking from reception along to desk



AFTER
the surgery

our bedroom - no bed!

our lovely new entrance

etching on the windows

all painted ( and in the process) outside


Nice reception

We've also tidied up the garden, removed a lot of mess and cleared it up. Laid shell on top of the beds with a lot of driftwood - it's lovely.

Absolutely everything..
Is revolving round the opening of the new Dental Practice, so I haven't had time to do anything else!
However today I did paint and recover our chair for the reception desk!And here's all the marmalade that Ness made and I did the label for ( each one was hand cut ~ blergh!) These are just wee gifts to give to people.

We are so nearly there with it all. The whole building has been painted to within an inch of it's life. I never want to see a paintbrush again. We're now on to the more fun stuff, like getting it furnished, making the cushions and lovely shell mobiles to hang from the window - all the absolute essentials for doing teeth!
The guys are pulling their hair out ordering every teeny tiny thing a dentist needs to do his job. Now I know why dentists are expensive - the equipment is extortionate.

I still have a lot of veggies to plant out so must get onto them on Sunday. So much to do!

I leave on Wednesday for Scotland and haven't even begun to think about getting ready for the trip. The best thing is I'll be so exhausted by the time I get on the plane I won't have time to feel scared - I may just go into a coma instead!

A Doorstop...
for the Dental Practice!and other things of prettiness!


with huge thanks to
redbirdcrafts
for the idea and my total copying of it. It was just too good not to!

Just made all these for the dental practice, I rather like them though, so may just keep them! ( kidding!)

(blatant advertising)

Some very exciting news for us!

This has happened with a speed that you wouldn't believe, but due to various circumstances
(some amazing and some rather unpleasant!) we are now the proud joint owners of, what will be, in 2 weeks, a new dental practice in Kiataia!
We've gone into partnership with R&V and it's incredibly exciting. It is also, at the moment, incredibly exhausting! The building is excellent and in the best location, but it needs a lot of cosmetic work, like a LOT! and as we're opening in 2 weeks we have to work so so hard! We spent this weekend up there staying in a wee cabin at the holiday park in Ahipara and we just worked and worked. I've been mostly painting.
I have to say that I am gobsmacked by the amount of work that we got through, it's just amazing.

I shall post some before and afters once we have the 'afters' so that there's an immediate comparison.

We did have time for a quick break on 90 mile beach and take a few pics!
this one makes me laugh! Lloyd had just put some stuff into the jeep and the dogs obviously thought "You're going nowhere without us!"

Anyway it's all go! And this is what it looks like
what did we do before we had phones and computers?