Kia Ora
Zepher
Chris & Lyn Darch
Wed 14 Jan 2009 18:19
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Hi Folks,
Its not a drink but the Maori Hello, and as I write
from my furrie(House) we are getting more in tune with the cross mix of English/
Maori lingo.
Events in the last week has been more
trudging around looking for houses to purchase, we now have a short list of one
!
Gaels back garden has been getting the right royal
treatment front Cpt Fluffy, she has torn into the shrubbery discovering an olive
tree and other exotics that grow here as weeds but are highly prized bits of
horticulture back in the old country .. it was an interesting debate between
Mummy and daughter about what should be saved and what not !
I have been planning out the timber decking area,
and wind break, then I was off to my favourite tool hire shop to reacquaint
myself with a kango hammer to break up the concrete, they do a good solid mix
here and it was hard going breaking through four inches of the stuff, once
through though the substrate is sand and gravel so my footing of a metre was a
relatively easy dig, here the planning is quite strict so everything you do you
photo and keep on the house file, as long as I build to the construction codes
things are fine, if you sell the house all additions have to be added and
method of construction noted, plus proof of timber used , they have had a bad
experinance here in the 70's dodgy builders , badly treated timber, and
shoddy building practices, it got so bad that 70,000 homes have been effected
which in a population of just 4 million is quite a high percentage so its buyer
beware of that period .
Anyway Gails place is a concrete house, built in
the 1940's from the eccess of the large gun emplacments built around Wellington
harbour to protect them from the Japanese invasion ! it didnt matter though they
just bought half the country fourty years later ! built a good house though it
affectionaly known as the bunker, on hot summers days its cool inside but
according to Gail as cold as a fridge in the winter, this we have yet to
experiance, ice skating in the front room !
All lost in the scrubbery the Cpt and
I
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