Boom, rattle, wheeee

Fun weather at the momment - forecast sumarised it as "showers", but what it actually is, is bands of heavy rain for about 2-5 min, followed by sun for a while, followed by cloud, followed by some more brief heavy rain with strong wind gusts throughout. 3 am thunderstorm last night, though fairly quiet one which Z slept through. Apparently wind gusts in the morning reached up to 100km/h (shock horror, quiet from those in Wellington giggling slightly) and there has been some minor damage.

It is actually (relatively) cold and nasty out - though still in double figures.

So, of course I needed to duck out to the shops for bread and eggs. 5 min walk max, so no worries. Picked a good gap for heading over - there was sun, but it quickly disappeared as the nice grey clouds rolled in from the ~NW. Got to the shops fine and wandered around the supermarket and listened to the nice loud rain on the roof. Got everything and headed to the back door. Still raining, though it appeared to be easing and you could see cloud detail in the right directions. Safe to depart. Nope - big fat raindrops, well spaced so you could see cloud easily between them but still packing plenty of wet. Still not as bad as the downpour a few minutes ago from the menacing dark grey cloud now behind. It picked up slightly once I got under the veranda, then stopped and the sun came out briefly.

Damp now and need to defrost my fingers.

Fun though :)

Hot water...

There are definite advantages to a gas hot water system like the one we have here. While not the instant hot water type, it is a good sized cylinder and will do more than two showers in a row and me washing my hair happily with no threatening of cold (unlike the pitiful little electric bucket we had in the last place in Canberra - no way could you wash your hair within 30 min of someone else showering). No running out of hot water.

Until today.

You know those nice strong winds I mentioned in the last post. These do not combine well with an outdoor cylinder, even if it is in a nice usually sheltered southern alley way between the house and next door. Z discovered this when he went to wash the dishes and there was no hot water. Much muttering and wandering out into the cold, followed by a large panel with the instructions being lugged inside to read where it wasn't so miserable and nasty. Then things (pilot light) were relit and back into action. I was evil and stayed inside during these proceedings. Will find out how to relight etc soon in case we get the same sort of thing when Z is in the field, but will do it in daylight when not so cold and wet. Gotten wet outside twice already today. Not repeating.

So, Z is currently back at the dishes, having boiled the jug several times in the hope of having them done before midnight. I am pausing in the sewing of the psuedo victorian chemise, having found where I stopped and swore lots and biffed it in a box last time. Unhappy sewing machine stitch unpicking time. But 2 1/2 of the 6 side seams are done now.

But after sleep.