Company number one…excellent sales man although he lost points when he turned to me at the end of the meeting to hand me the designer grill covers. Clearly this part was the woman’s job. Fail.

Company number two…A clown in salesman clothing and not the funny kind. I think the word Seb uses is boeuf.

Company number three…Pointed out that we should insulate under the house before they put the ducting in or it will be a painful mission afterwards to do it. He’s the only one who pointed this out and his price was better than the clown and the chauvinist.

Company number four…Same product as company number three but more expensive because he’s contracting a lot of the work out.

That’s it. Four companies, one clear winner. So we signed the paperwork and we should have our heating installed in the beginning of June before refrigerator weather kicks in. Yay. Now to insulate.

Holy hell what a nightmare. I find it hard to believe that it could have been worse but yeah, I guess if there was duct work under there it would have been unbearable. For two days three of us, me, Seb and David, army-crawled and shimmied our way under the house to install the polystyrene insulation.

Let me be the first to say that the guy on the instructional video is lying to you when he says it’s easy. It might be easy to install in a house where you can stand under it and where the joists are the same width apart. Our house is 100 years old. The joists are covered in dirt and splinters and spider webs that could double as a wool blanket. The construction of this house certainly didn’t follow any code as the joists seemed to be put in all willy nilly at varying widths. And the worst was the fact that we were in dirt all day on our back trying to get the damn polystyrene to fit…which in many cases it wouldn’t so it had to be scraped back until it would.

And then there was the dead cat. In the shallowest part of the house with his face nearly up against the joists Seb discovered the dead petrified mummified cat when he came nose to nose with it. Clearly a memorable moment. I only wish I’d taken some pictures under the house while we were working so you could appreciate the horribleness of it all but we were all in such foul moods and were desperate to finish the work. The good news is that it’s done!

The schizophrenic front bedroom clearly had other ideas about what colour it wanted to be painted. We thought green but after painting nine test versions of green we couldn’t choose the right colour. The office was easy. I wanted green. It unfailingly wanted blue. It won. The bedroom however wasn’t so easy to understand. In exasperation I choose gray. I wanted Weimeraner Gray but somehow I ended up with Depression Gray and to make matters worse I bought flat paint so that when we were finished with the room it felt like we were on the inside of a jail cell or the hull of a ship. Attempts at brining in the beautiful wood skirting and suggestions about painting the fireplace white didn’t alleviate the overall feeling of “oh my god this is horrendous”.

We spent the evening in the kitchen choosing yet another green. The one we chose looked beautiful in the light of the kitchen on it’s 2cm square of glorious colour however on the wall of the bedroom it screamed flouro-granny-smith-apple. It was nauseating at best and we only covered one wall before we stopped to regroup. Lesson #213269, ALWAYS GET A TEST POT.

Regrouping over a few glasses of wine Seb came upon the bright idea of mixing the gray and the green. It was tenuous at best but we really had nothing to lose except more paint and time. And the good news is that it worked. Now we have a gorgeous sage colour that we’ll never be able to replicate but hopefully we never have to. The room is soothing and the colour blends beautifully with the natural wood features.

The room was not done with us yet though. We still had to paint the fireplace surround. After thoroughly sanding the hell out of it we almost left it but then at the end Seb decided he’d like to paint it chocolate brown. Bad idea. It made the fireplace look like it was literally a chocolate mold. Fear that it was going to melt if a fire was started haunted us. So back to the white it was and with relief the room seems happy with itself. No more colour therapy needed.

The days now aren’t so bad though and in fact they’re quite good and we really have no reason to complain. We’re lucky to live in a beautiful country although we could do without John Key running it, but that will pass. We have been in our new house for ten months now and we spent an amazing summer entertaining our friends and family there. The cottage in Coromandel is nearly done with a few minor finishing items to complete. Renovations are moving along at a respectable pace.

As summer changed into autumn I wanted to record some of the things that I really cherished in the last few months. Our vege garden was one of them.

After planting a good selection of crops we had some hits and misses. The broccoli grew into 3 meter tall trees and rarely produced a viable floret but somehow it managed to boost the white fly population (not good). Our green beans however were the star of the garden, producing huge handfuls of beans everyday. Everyday was an adventure searching among the beanstalks for beans that were ready to eat. Missing one that was ready meant it turned into a huge bean the next day. We ate the huge ones too but the smallest were the tastiest. The lettuces and tomatoes did quite well too but the rocket bolted under the hot sun and had to be pulled.

Having a yard this summer meant we spent a lot of time outdoors especially when we weren’t doing renovations on the inside. The bi-fold doors of our dining room opened up the whole house to the outside and vice-versa creating an excellent area for entertaining guests, having numerous bbqs, a big xmas party, and several other casual get-togethers with friends. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner outside under the big umbrella was so refreshing and added a relaxing quality to every meal. Swinging in the hammock under the great grapefruit tree became the perfect place for a nap.

Trips to Coromandel were well planned to include a swim on the way. We didn’t spend as much time as we would have liked in Coro but the times we did make it were fabulous. We had a lot of friends visit us in Coro this year including Aurelia and Etienne and their son Jules with Aurelia’s mom, dad and sister, Julia and Eric and Noah, Diane and Tristram and their boys, David, and Delphine and Lionel and Levana. Plus we were thrilled to have Seb’s dad, Daniel and Jennifer from France.

Now with winter on the way we can look forward to spending time in front of the fire. Not a bad trade-off for colder weather!

That man must have nothing to do. Maybe I should hire him as my P.A.?

Now I totally forgot what I was going to say and my French teacher is going to be here in 30 minutes so the pressure is on. I think I just wanted to say hi. I hope you’ve all had a great start to the new year. It’s really hot here and most of you are up to your knees in snow right now…which is fun but really really cold and that makes me even happier that I am here in humid hot and sticky Auckland right now. Except for the fact that I’d really like the sweating to stop before I become so dehydrated I resemble a raisin or worse.

Oh yes…In January we were very sad to see Daniel and Jennifer leave us to head back to their lives in France. We had a few days to adjust to the sense of emptiness before Mike, Clem and Gaspard arrived to stay with us for four days. We spent the four days drinking, partying, eating, working, drinking, partying, and running after Gaspard. I really felt bad for Mike and Clem when they left and had to jump on a plane with two things that don’t go well together…hangovers and an 18 month old child.

Check out January’s photos!

Eric, Julia and Noah came over from France and spent some time with the friends and we were really thrilled to see them. They spent the weekend in Coromandel with us and unfortunately it rained the whole fricking weekend which was incredibly bad timing, Mother Nature. We did manage to get one hike in before the rain poured down so hard we had to turn back. Diane, Tristram and their boys came over for the weekend too and we ended up having a great time despite the rain.

We’ve had so much going on that we really haven’t done much in the way of renovations but now that February is here (and half gone already!) we’re getting geared up to get back into it again. Stay tuned for more fab photos.

The weather is practically perfect. The wine is super cheap and doesn’t give you a headache. The cheese is pretty damn good. The architecture is top notch. The chocolate is divine. The people are lovely (mostly) and there’s no lack of things to do and see. Did I mention the cheese?

The first time I went to France I detailed what we did everyday. I kept a diary of sorts so that I wouldn’t forget anything and the good news is that I really didn’t forget anything which made my second trip far more relaxed. We spent nearly all of our time with family in Paris, Puyavault (near La Rochelle) and Hauville (near Normandy). In between Puyavault and Hauville we had three days to ourselves driving to tiny beautiful villages to visit castles and abbeys.

Over the next few days I’ll briefly detail our trip…in small digestible bits. We had an incredible, fun, and exhausting trip but we’re thrilled to be back home in NZ!

It seems there is only so much grapefruit two people can consume. So be warned, if you come to our house you are not permitted to leave without a bag of grapefruits.

Seb spent Sunday night juicing a sink full of grapefruits and ended up with three bottles full of the golden juice. Not bad for an hour of hand juicing.

Never in my life have I moved into such a disgustingly dirty house…and I have moved A LOT! Sure I’ve had to get out my trusty toothbrush (not the one I use on my teeth, thanks) to get grime out of hard-to-reach places but maggots??? Yeah. I found live maggots in the cupboards. That was actually comforting compared to what I found on the toilet which surely hadn’t been cleaned in the 15 years that the previous owner lived here. The bathtub changed colours after I scrubbed it for an hour. Under the kitchen sink it was a complete disaster zone and that was even before we discovered there’s no wall behind the kitchen sink!

But I wasn’t the only one having fun. The shed was completely overgrown with vines…inside and out. Apparently people had lived in there at some point and they had used anything they could as insulation in the walls. Seb spent a day pulling out the board and the lining and the vines. Seb also spent another day scraping tape off the floors in the house. It seems someone had the foresight to put tape down before painting the skirting…but then never removed it so now it had become part of the floor. To make it seem even more insane, whoever painted stepped in the paint and got it on the floors and then never cleaned it up.

The first evening we had our friends over for drinks and our not so great start turned into a fantastic night. We saw quickly how well the layout of the house lent itself to entertaining our friends and we felt the spirit of the house. We realized what a gem we had and really started to appreciate the good things…the gorgeous heart kauri flooring, the high ceilings, the big open space, the fireplace (YAY we have a fireplace) and the ability to have more than four of our friends over at the same time. We have a very prolific grapefruit tree in the backyard and we’re starting every day off with a glass of freshly squeezed grapefruit juice. As a parting gift we force bags of grapefruits on our friends. We also have two lemon trees of two different varieties though I’m not sure which so if you know some good recipes with lemon and/or grapefruit let me know.

A week later the house is still dirty in some parts. We just haven’t had time to get to all of it yet but we will. For now we are enjoying the house and loving the north facing super sunny garden. We love the area and we’re thrilled it’s literally a hop and a skip to the strip of cafes and stores. It’s a unique experience to take the foot bridge over the train as it’s coming as you’re going into Kingsland. It’s like walking into a little part of London.

The house is awesome and we’re only going to make it better. We just need to decide on what it is we’re going to do. It seems we keep changing our mind. They’re all good ideas!

There are new photos in the gallery so go check ‘em out!

In the U.S. when they’re telling you you’ve been laid off it’s usually at the same time they’re handing you a box with your belongings and prying the office keys out of your fingers.

In N.Z. it’s a bit surreal. They tell you you’ve been made redundant without saying the word “redundant” and then tell you you have to work for the next four weeks. Whah? Obviously on one hand this is good. You have four weeks to find work, sort out your finances, and put yourself on a stringent budget. On the other hand it’s just weird to come into the office knowing that in four weeks you won’t be here anymore. You’re sense of purpose has completely disappeared. Your motivation is gone. But by far the worst part is that I am an outcast. No one (except the person who told me my department has been closed down and the only other woman in the office, who just happens to be my friend too) has said anything to me. No one.

Obviously I don’t belong here anymore and this is my opportunity to do something else. I’m not fretting yet. I have ideas. I just need to wrap my head around them and see what happens.

It has to be better than this.