Rain, puddles and bits and pieces

Well the rain arrived with a vengeance over the past few days, but at least it stopped last night and today has been hot and humid, but things got done today.
I managed to get the steps covered with the matting I bought, and decided that I need to paint or cover up the cork tiling at the front steps. So a trip to the paint shop will be on the cards soon.
Found a little splat on one of the rear panels where the paint has cracked and that along with one of the vertical strips at the back which has cracked the paint and started to rust, a trip to a painter is on the cards too!
Constant little bits of tidy work.

So decided that there will be only a few Christmas pressies this year. When you start adding all the siblings, nieces and nephews and their children up there seem to be thousands of them!

At least Brenda and Roger have theirs. I managed to get some shirts embroidered with their bus name Dragons' Rest in the same font. They look great and Roger wore his to my farewell and it looks really smart. I was wearing mine as well.

So a lot of the afternoon was spent creating Christmas cards in Photoshop.

It was funny seeing all three of us sitting with laptops on our laps and me diving between two laptops, my mac and my pc! Now nothing on TV tonight so all three of us again with laptops on our knees, playing games, reading blogs and writing blogs.

Hopefully tomorrow we will head off somewhere for a walk or bike.

Finally starting to get a programme together for the next few months.
I have to head to Manukau to see my ear doctor on Monday 16th, so will be using that as a start off of my Great Northern Christmas. Next week will finally (hopefully) be the kayak loader completed and on the bus. There have been some design changes and a couple of delays in the laser cutting of components but I'm happy to wait for them to get it right as Dave from Badger Films and I am going to be making a video for this and it will probably be a great little side earner for the company Cullen Engineering of Te Aroha.

So I intend to head off up SH 1, stop off and see my son and his family in Whangaparoa, if they are still there.....and then wander up the road towards Whangarei. SH 1 or SH 16....I have to stop off in Welsford and catch up with my friend and ex workmate Gavin and I believe there is an aunt who has a 90th birthday in Mangawhai some time soon as well.
So I just need to check that I can get up my sister's driveway as she has a beautiful Rimu tree that overhangs a bit.
After Christmas I will head across to Dargaville and the Kai Iwi Lakes and up through the Waipoua Forest to the Hokianga harbour and then up to Cape Reinga and back to the Bay of Islands and see if I can do the Cape Brett tramp...... or something like that.
There are some places that have some quite significant family history in the area of Dargaville and the forest. My grandfather (J.P. Church) was the engineer/surveyor who surveyed the raod through the Waipoua Forest and was also the engineer on the old bridge over the Northern Wairoa River at Dargaville. Originally it had a centre section that opened to let ships through. It was one way with passing bays every so often and I have a beautifully turned bowl that was made from the recycled timbers of the bridge when it was replaced.
Also many, many years ago when I worked as a draughtsman for the Ministry of Works, I got to straighten a piece of road just north of Kaihu. When we got out the original plans of that piece of road, my grandfathers name was on the plan, so I straightened a piece of road that my grandfather had originally built.  It created quite a stir and was mentioned in dispatches to Wellington head office and was written up in the MoW journal at the time.
So plan are sort of made, but my attitude is... take one day at a time and see what it brings, like tomorrow.....