Jack and Katrina's Place

Back in October they said on the radio that Percy the green engine would be giving rides in the carpark of a local shopping centre (Newlands) Admission was by gold coin donation to plunkett (infant and child health). Guy is a big fan of Percy and for the occassion he wore his favorite jersey that his Granny knitted for him.

Here he is on the 'train'. The event was almost too popular and there was a long wait which Guy endured very patiently. He is quite fasicnated with my hair, ordinary as it is. Although he says he wants to be train driver when he grows up from the look of this photo, I wonder if he might be a hairdresser!!

The last few months have been takenup with a project to refurbish the upstairs bathroom. After 20 years it was looking a bit tired, the shower mixer would only run full hot, the toilet would only flush if you held the button down for at least a minute, and carpet all around the bath and toilet was proving incompatible with toilet traing a little boy. So out it all came. Something satisfying about standing in your bathroom and swinging a crowbar into the wall linings. Less satisfying is the couple of hundred hours it seemed like I stood underneath a sanding block trying to fair the new wall linings in with the existing plasterboard. Mask and googles kept most of the dust out, but turned my hair grey, I ran downstairs to ask Katrina if I looked llike George Clooney (as hair colour is the only real difference between us) but she wasn't convinced!

Anyway to help with this process Katrina's brother Ian, who is actually an apprentice builder instead of a George Clooney lookalike, came to help me install the bath and waterproof wall linings etc. This took a bit of doing as fitting new stuff into an older house is fiddlier than just building all new. There was lot of measuring to be done. Guy detected early on that this was a male dominated environment and thus something he should 'help' with. Here he is getting amongst it with his Uncle Ian. He mastered the tape measure and when Katrina popped her head round the door, Guy was holding up the tape measure and calling out "it's two ninety nine mummy - two ninety nine!" What you can't see in this photo is that Guy is out of nappies and wearing teeny little underpants. Everytime he bent down with his tape measure, he displayed the worlds littlest builder crack!

Katrina makes a start, at this point we were committed.

"This looks dangerous, can I do some?"

"Its two nintey nine mummy"

Helping Ian break he plasterboard, waiting for the bang

Mummy brought morning Tea and we laughed at Uncle Ians jokes.

Reviewing some photos from mid September, when we had a trip to Castlepoint in the Wairarapa, (Southeast coast of the North Island post this into your browser http://www.teara.govt.nz/Places/Wairarapa/Wairarapa/en ).

It is a magic place, with it's saltwater lagoon presided over by the 'castle'. This photo also shows why Guy is taller than most of his sub three year old mates, we centrifugally stretch him! Actually I was trying to spin dry him after he stumbled in the shallows and got soaking wet. Being without trousers didn't stop him from exploring the warm sand dunes though.