Monday 30th June
Even with everyone still here, I had to get up and go next door to work (and for breakfast!)
There was no coffee cup out for me though….. Was like I’d already left 😦
G was staying off school as she’d complained of a headache yesterday and hadn’t had a great sleep. So it was a morning of Kids TV which caused great excitement when the girls and Rhys came over after their breakfast.
Both cars were at the garage, we just waited to find out which was first to be fixed.
There were omelettes for lunch, T helped and also L helped too, another omelette convertee
Both cars were fixed by 4pm, Tom had just needed new battery so no major dramas.
They left by 4:30 and after a quick tidy I headed back over for dinner and then a catch up with the last episode of Broadchurch – amazing!!!!
Tuesday 1st July
Up for the first bootcamp since my cough arrived. Realised how much more low tempo they are than the individual sessions I’ve been having with Brent, lot more chat and rest time.
Got home to discover that Greet was still feeling poorly and had woken up with a slightly swollen red hand. When she got dressed she realised she was covered in a rash. Trying not to panic her I called Nita and we were off to see the doctor. Thankfully not meningitis, but she thought a strep throat with secondary scarlett fever. She did a throat swab, said we’d do a blood test too and prescribed some antibiotics. I took G to get some sweets to push up her blood sugar while her dad sorted the prescription. Having been told he didn’t need to pay for it he took T while G and I waited for it to be ready. They then said it would be $10 for the prescription, I’d left the house without my purse and with Aaron gone we had no money. Thankfully a lovely lady who’d heard them say there would be no charge paid for us.
Next stop blood test. I’m a terror with blood tests. I can take blood from someone (part of my job in UK) but take blood off me or I have to watch someone else do it I’m on the floor before you know it. Thankfully G was the queen of cool, watched every step of the way while I just held her hand and looked at the Winnie the Pooh poster on the wall! She got a cool plaster, a lollypop and a voucher for free fries at McDonald’s!
After a fun packed day we had yummy meatloaf for dinner and amazingly Grant wanted to watch Pitch Perfect – a film I’d always thought was about football but turns out to be about singing!
Wednesday 2nd July
Just as I shut the door to head next door for breakfast I knew I’d forgotten the keys…… I was locked out. Nita gave me the phone number for Mandy’s parents who had a spare key but after 2 confusing phone calls where the man who answered said he wasn’t Mandy’s dad, I gave up.
It rained all day and with G still home from school there was no Crackerjacks, trip to library or potential coffee date with Grant. But being the sweetie that he is he brought us over giant cream filled raspberry buns – amazing!
When Nita and Aaron got home I relayed the story of phoning Mandy’s parents number and Aaron said my accent had probably confused him as they were certain it was the right number. Sure enough, when Aaron spoke to him they established that they had a space key and would bring it with them when the picked Mandy and Milla up from the airport in the morning!
Thursday 3rd July
I missed bootcamp, my new alarm on my phone didn’t work (or I didn’t set it correctly…..)
Greer went back to school as she was no longer infectious.
When Mandy and Milla got back we managed to unlock the house and I ran around collecting up my things which happily I’d left relatively tidy the morning before.
At lunchtime Nita brought home her foreign language students for an end of term get together. They all brought food from their home countries – was an exceptionally delicious meal.
Was a day of yummy food as in the evening Grant and I went out for our final evening meal at Our Home – fish, spinach and mashed potato with a gin and egg white cocktail and an espresso Martini!
We then watched 2 movies, The Pretty One and Non Stop – very different but both really good
Friday 4th July
A day forever in my mind as it’s when my friends James and Jim got married. Then, as it was today, it was a beautiful day.
I had to say goodbye to Aaron as he was off to an away rugby match and wouldn’t be home before I left. He told me I was one of his top 2 au pairs. He also told me that when they’d first seen that I wanted to come work for then he wondered what kind of crazy 39 year old would want to do this….. Then they met me!
We walked G to school for the last time and then headed back wasting no time as T and I were off to the mountain with Grant to play in the snow. But first we were stopping in Stratford to see the glockenspiel clock do its thing.
It was a beautiful day with amazing views as we drove around the mountain. So clear you could see the mountains at Tongariro in the distance. We got to Stratford with enough time to get a coffee (complete with chocolate fish) and see the wonder of the clock. Various doors open and characters from Shakespeare’s plays appear and recite lines from his plays! After 5 wonderful minutes it was all over…….
We continued our journey up to the skifields, the temperature dropping all the time. I popped to the frozen toilets and added some long johns to my layers and we started the long walk up there.
Long because T didn’t want to walk or sit in the sledge, so we took turns to carry him. Eventually we made it as far as the goods lift area. Here we played snowballs, did some sledging down a little slope and T seemed perfectly content with this. We started to try walking to the skifield but was pretty tough going with a T in your arms so we returned to playing by the goods lift, snowball fights, then sledged back downhill to the car park.
We stopped at the Stratford mountain house for lunch. A lovely warm cosy place. T was so well behaved. I had an egg and bacon sandwich and fries and T had a massive portion of curly fries with ketchup.
All too soon we had to get back home to make sure we were in time to get G from school. After such a beautiful day the sky went cloudy and the rain started.
Once Nita has home from work I went to the gym for last time, there was kicking, sit ups crunches, kicking, bicycles, gloves, pinching/kicking, punching. Happily I got to say goodbye and get a photo of Janna (I’m guessing at the spelling) who in my mind looks just like Nikki and is equally as lovely and fun to work out with.
Friday night was girls night with T as a honoury girl. We had Indian for dinner, and the girls and T had got me a pressie and cards to say goodbye.
We then played charades until it was time for us all to say goodnight for the final time.
emma ross runs 