I ran out of jobsites and jobs to apply for by about 11am this morning. Still no replies, but then I wasn’t reallly expecting anything just yet. I did realise that I’d missed two of the anti-biotic tablets I’d been given by the Princess of Wales casualty nurse for the open wound in my chest, so I thought it wouldn’t do any harm to take one and maybe provide a little boost against nasties……………..

We decided to have a look around for a firewood stockist so that we had an idea of what to do if we’re still here come the winter. As there is only an open fire in the living room, and we don’t have any other heating (except for a little heater in the bathroom, though we’re both still a little surprised to find two electricity outlets in the bathroom!) we thought it was a sound idea.

Louise found a company in the yellow pages which was based in Paraparam, so we looked them up on Google maps and made our way over there after a quick cup of tea. The guy in charge when we got there was a really big help. We just explained that we’d moved in to a rental and were presented with an open fire that we had no idea what to do with – I do remember doing the fire at Auntie Dot’s house in Bettws many years ago, but that was a closed door affair and was fairly easy to light. We needed to know what wood he sold, why which one was better than the other ones and of course what sort of size load did he sell. As it turns out, we didn’t have to worry too much about the types of wood as we ended up with Pine! We would have gone for the Macrocarpa wood, but evidently that has a nasty habit of exploding when lit and we didn’t really want to get holes in the living room carpet!! Well, it was easy and we got a good price – $25 (£10.50)  (I’d checked before we left and was expecting to pay $35 (£15) for 2 cubic metres) and found that 2 cubic metres was a wheelie bin’s worth or car boot full – still can’t quite get our heads around the metric system! I thought it might fit in the boot and we’d covered it in cardboard and plastic just in case. He did offer a lorry load at the same terms, but at about £100 for a shed full, I thought it was a little too early into our time here to decide that we would definitely still be here in the winter…………….

While we were there, Louise was her normal friendly self and was chatting to the guy about various flora – don’t ask me, I have trouble with the normal names never mind the latin ones!! Anyway, she was telling him about the tree fern that she bought six years ago for about £100 and how it had grown to about four to five feet over the following years – she’s still sad about having to have left it behind in Torquay. He stopped loading the wood into the wheelie bin for a minute and pointed behind us at these 8 ft Punga trees which turned out to be tree ferns at $15 each – that’s about £6.50 and she couldn’t wait to tell her Mum!

We decided to stay out in the car for a while and travelled up the coast through the outskirts of Waikanae to Otaki. We thought we’d have a look at the beachfronts for each and see if there was any competition for Paraparam. We shouldn’t have worried! Otaki seems a little more “”frontier-like””, I’m trying to be subtle here. We found the beach, but couldn’t find a cafe anywhere along it – strange decision there Otakians……………

We backtracked to Waikanae to see if we could find a cafe worth stopping at. Waikanae is certainly a lot more up market, when you can’t see the houses from the road because of bushes/fences/trees you just know they’re going to be smarter and more expensive. They were both. We found the beach, though no frontage like Paraparam, and no cafes. Hmm, another strange council decision?

We headed for Waikanae town and after a quick looksee, decided to head back to Paraparam for a coffee there. The afternoon was lovely, the car was smelling of pine from the boot, it would have been lovely to stop in Otaki or Waikanae but they just didn’t feel very welcoming. Mind you, by this time, the anti-biotic had kicked in and with hindsight I shouldn’t have taken it – I felt a bit iffy, to say the least. We stopped to get something from somewhere, I can’t really remember that much and Louise drove us home.

I crashed into bed as soon as we got in and didn’t surface until gone 9pm. I think I’ll leave that last anti-biotic tablet for when I feel that the nasty bugs are making their way through the scabby bits on my chest before I risk that one again!!