Moving house! (at last!)

Saturday 10th October: Cool but bright and sunny. There was plenty of snow on the Hunter Hills from yesterday's wintry weather, set against a clear blue sky.

First thing in the morning we got organised to move out of our house. It is 11 weeks since we bought the house and it is completely transformed, but we haven't even started on the and yet, which is growing quickly now that spring is with us.

We hired a removal van for the day and Steve's boss Barney, friend Gordon and neighbour Allan gave up their morning to load the furniture and white goods. At the new house end our friends Gael and Jeff, and Jennie came to help out, while their children played with ours. By lunchtime everything big had been moved and the house had become cardboard- and bag-city!

We did a couple of hours of sorting and unpacking and then drove back into town. The boys and I packed up some boxes of small bits and bobs. We walked to the Waimate Stadium to watch part of the annual Waimate Shears. This is a sheep-shearing competition and people come from all over the country to compete. We went along last year and were lucky to sit with one of the spare judges who answered all our questions so we got a real feel for the skill and strength needed to shear. Today we watched the two semi-final heats for the Men's Machine Shears and the final of the Junior Machine category. The adults have to shear a number of sheep (the number increases as they progress through the competition, to 16 in the final) and they get scored for the time taken and penalties for cuts and having to go over the same place twice, etc. They can usually manage a sheep every 90 seconds! That includes unlocking the gate, grabbing the next sheep, dragging out on to the stage and positioning it! Outside the building there are two large lorries with ramps to the back of the stage area - one lorry emptying big woolly sheep and one filling up with thinner sheep feeling a little chilly! Once the fleece is removed it is laid out and folded on a table in front of the shearers, then goes into a baling machine to be squashed and wrapped (see photo).

We returned to our new house and made toasted sandwiches for tea and some muffins Jeanette had baked for us. Edward helped me put his bed up and we let the boys play in the garden until late because we had no curtains up and needed to wait until it was dark at 8.30pm before we got the boys off to bed.

Steve and I spent the evening .... unpacking more boxes!

When we went to bed we realised just how dark it gets out here in the countryside. We are about 3km away from the nearest streetlights in Waimate and there are no lights in any other direction. As we looked out into the sky more and more starts appeared as the seconds ticked by until what had looked like an empty black space was in fact speckled grey.

The photos are of the boys at the tea table, then the view in two directions from the table - one out of the window and the other of the living room with plenty for us still to do!