Puddles and Rodents

It was a wet weekend with lots of rain and puddles...and rain is what I can hear while I type this as well. Lovely!
We've been fairly lucky though....I don't mind putting up with some rain when I can stay indoors!

We bought bikes last week and have been cycling to work and so far haven't been caught in the rain. That's good....as long as I keep staying dry on my way to work and home again it can rain as much as it likes while I am cosied up inside!

In other news we have a mouse outbreak last week...never a good thing but something that's pretty common in homes in NZ...especially when the mice want in from all the rain! The bugman was out today though so I am keeping my fingers crossed for no more Mr Mouse....4 in 48 hours was quite enough thank you! And the dog was useless....hiding behind me! I threatened to exchange him for a cat which seemed to sort him out a bit!

That's all for today - short and sweet! How's everyone else?

Ridiculously early has it's benefits

I had to be up at 6am this morning in order to drive to Porirua (near Wellington and about an hour and a half from home) for a payroll training course.
Getting up before the sun is out or any time before 8.30am generally makes me very grumpy indeed but I managed to get through the day.
Being the good student I am I whizzed through the course and finished before 4pm enabling me to stop once or twice on the drive home and be a tourist....

Here's Kapiti Island taken from the State Highway (I promise I pulled over into a lay-by to take this):

and here are the ranges (Tararua I think? Correct me if I'm wrong...the ones that go towards Wellington) looking all lovely and snow-capped:

Not bad for a days work!

Winter

Well winter is well and truly here and it has been pretty chilly lately. We have even had to scrape ice off the car a couple of mornings. And on Saturday it sleeted....enough to make it look like snow (it's practically unheard of to snow in Palmerston North)...and with the sleet came sleetmen....the Palmerston North alternative to snowmen! I was so annoyed I didn't have the camera with me when we saw them dotted about! They were so cute!

And with winter comes horrible, yucky winter jobs like cleaning blocked gutters. I, of course, had the very important roles of holding the ladder, turning the tap on and off for the hose, passing up buckets, hoses etc.
Being outside ready to hold the ladder and pass things up at a moments notice gave me a good excuse to take some winter photos. This was the first clear day in a while. It felt like it'd been raining for years (when really it was only a couple of weeks) which meant that Lake Palliser came back to life...

But it's not all bad...we have at least one sign of the good weather to come...I can't wait for the daff's to flower - they always cheer me up immensely. I remember the daff's giving me a smile after days of feeling sorry for myself when I had the chicken pox last year in August.

And you just can't beat the sky on a crisp, New Zealand winter's day...it may be cold but you get to look up and see this...

So yes, I am looking forward to longer and warmer days but I am trying to make the most of winter while it's here!