Looping NZ Style: ...and the good news is....

...All necessary precautions have been taken to stop any further hacking of my personal information of every kind that we can think of. If I detail it here, that might be courting further trouble!:)
However, it did take the best part of the day to sort it all out, and it left us a bit worn out, to be frank. It is very stressful when 'crap' happens to us, isn't it?

We spent two hours at the local branch of my US bank, and then went to the Charlotte Mall for some lunch (it was 1.30pm, by this time) and to buy me some 'better' winter shoes. I currently only have my trainers! Not good for cocktail parties, lol.

Coming back into town the other day after looking at sewing machines (I forgot to document this!!), we stopped off at Pier 1 Imports...where I was hoping that the cushions I desired (and have done for almost 6 months) were on sale...everything else was.

We had purchased the green cushions to go with the new chair upholstery, and they look great. The intention was to go back and get some red ones to sit on the existing sea green leather sofas. That never happened.
I had taken all the slip covers off the existing small cushions...all the Kiwiana...to wash, and thought this might be a fantastic opportunity to go look for those red cushions. It was!

Apparently the cushions were on sale in December, but someone forgot to take a tag of one of the ones we were purchasing, so the sales assistant (associate?) gave us the discount on both. How nice!:)

We now have red cushions...the inners are down, which we particularly like. We also replaced a cup that Waz had broken. We are now complete!!!

Not very good color showing here, but they are a glorious color in reality.

While at the mall today we visited our favorite shoe store...Payless Shoes. I object to paying hundreds of dollars for shoes, so $27 was the perfect price for me. I have a titanium pin in my right big toe which the surgeon tipped up so that I could wear not much more than a one inch heel. Finding 'better' shoes that are lower, is a bit of a challenge. They are either flats, or stratospheric in height.

These might look boring, but they suit me to perfection...AND, they are comfy. I am dressed for success, now:)

I did have to purchase some hose to go with them. I only wear trousers, so knee-highs are fine. Does anyone wear panty hose any longer?

I did have some Asiago/spinach sausages thawing in the fridge, for dinner...and the fridge still smelled bad. Couldn't for the life of me think what might be smelling so bad...and getting worse. I was forced to evacuate the entire fridge contents while sorting food out for dinner.

I finally found the culprit. Masquerading as something else, was a bag with a small piece of corned beef in it. Blech!

The fridge is back to it's sweet smelling self now.

I didn't feel like cooking sausages, so I put together a yummy pot of vegetable soup. I threw Onion, garlic, ginger, potato, pumpkin, celery, leek, and parsley, and finally, some French beans. I also cooked up some croutons to throw sizzling on top.

Bubbling away on my little one burner Induction Cooktop.

About to brown the croutons. This is Seeded bread. Lots of chia seeds, among others, less than 1g of sugar and very low carb. I made enough to have with the leftovers...

Leftovers all ready to cool and put in the fridge for tomorrow lunch.

Somehow soup just hits the spot on a cold and rainy night. It has been raining all day, and the temperature has steadily dropped.

Waz has spent considerable time replacing seals in the hope that no more water will make it's way inside, through this door. This is the Pilot House door that I almost amputated my right index finger on. The bucket is to catch a drip coming from the top of the door. The bottom corners are now sealed and no water was seeping in through there, this time, thank goodness! We will have to investigate the drip further when the sun shines again. In the meantime, the bucket stays.

There has obviously been leaking from the bottom corners of the door for a long time. The staining was there when we bought the boat, and we have worked hard so that no further staining occurs. Keeping fingers crossed!

Because this is a boat, and it is floating, any time we move to one side of the boat together, it tilts that way, of course. This is particularly so when we are about to disembark. We exit on the Starb'd side right now, and because there is much water on the soft bimini of the fly deck, the water runs down the side of the boat just where we disembark. Of course the first time we experienced this was yesterday when we were getting back onto the boat. Waz had already climbed aboard, but the boat rocked again and tipped towards me as I put my leg over the railing onto the boat. Down came all the water and wet me thoroughly all down the back. It was like taking a cold shower with clothes on! ACK!! Of course it wet me through my thick sweat shirt which was duly hung on the line out of the rain. Several hours later, and it hadn't dried at all...why did I expect it to? so it had to be brought inside to dry. We have had the heater on for a bit, and it was dry by morning.

We watched the temperature drop, this afternoon, from 71F inside the Salon, to 65F, to 63F, and finally 59F. At this point I got up and put the heater on. I had been sitting on the sofa all bundled up in a rug, before that. I had to be reminded to put the heater on, lol.

We had two parcels arrive today. One had the new light bulbs in it. These are new LED bulbs which Waz has replaced as a trial, in the Salon, and the Kitchen. They are fantastic in the kitchen! YAY! I can see to prepare the food. Not that I couldn't before, but this light is bright and white. Makes quite a difference.

The salon bulbs we aren't too sure about. They appear to do the job for reading, but their beam isn't wide enough for general use. We might have to get something with a different width beam. As I said, a trial.

The other package contained the Video Amplifier for the pilot station on the fly deck. This is for he depth sounder that Waz has just installed.

Little jobs being done all the time:)

I took time out to take a look at some of my photos, this afternoon. When it is grey and rainy, it does me good to look at beautiful things.

The following photos were taken when my mother and I went to the Botanical Gardens Winter House, in Auckland, NZ, and also Eden Gardens, in Mt Eden, Auckland.

Mum has been a wonderful gardener and we share a love of plants, so our garden visits are such simple pleasure to the two of us.

I cant go visiting with her now, so here are a few of the simple pleasures to share with you all.

Remember...if you want to see the photos in larger format, click on one of the photos and you can see them all without the text. Click outside the photo when you want to return to the blog.

Babies in a nest. Rhododendron buds.