Bath Time

As many of you may recall, we have been redoing our bathroom.

Ok it is not totally finished, in that it still needs painting! One day Steve will get round to it, although it has been a little too cold to paint. Damp and wet does not make for great ideal paint enviroments!

Anyway, we were actually brave when redoing the bathroom in that we took out the bath and have not replaced it!

We have just a shower in the house now.

We looked at how many times we used it and found it was about once every 6-8 weeks and even then it was just the boys jumping in for a splash around.

So the decision was made and the bath disappeared.

However, the other evening, Alex wanted a bath, he had had a rough day and you could tell it would calm him.

When the boys were little, we actually used a 50l fish box in the bath, saved us having to fill the huge bath with all that water for such a little person. It worked well, Ben used to love his deep bath.

So Steve came up with the wonderful idea of getting the bin out again, and so the boys had a shower bath instead.

Kept everyone happy, although I am going to have to make sure the bin disappears again soon, because they seem to want a bin bath more than a shower now!

Lesson Learnt

If you let your kids have fun wave jumping on the beach and then leave their clothes on the sand, the clothes will get full of sand.
If you then place said clothes in a bag and bring them home to be washed, they will be wet and full of sand!

This is where the lesson is then learnt......you can not just place said clothes in the washing machine with the rest of the dark load!!
The sand will wash out of the clothes they were in and attach themselves to all the other wet washing in the machine!
When cycle has finished you will have one huge load of wet washing, covered in sand!

Moral of the story........rinse the clothes before placing them in a washing load.
Ok point taken, lesson learnt for next time!

Washing

I am sick of washing clothes. I think we should invest in disposable clothes, would make life so much easier.

It is not that I don't like doing the washing, sometimes I do, it is just the amount we seem to create and then the joy of getting it all dried on wet days.

I have realised that of course it is worse in the winter due to the fact we are wearing more clothes.

In the summer the average person wears a t-shirt and shorts, with underwear of course, so this amounts to very small things per person per day to wash. Unfortunately in the winter everyone wears 15 layers, well it feels like it!

But when you have had to wash per day for one person, socks, trousers, vest, shirt and jumper, some which are not thin things because that wouldn't keep you warm! Well then you end up with a full basket after just 2 days with 4 of you wearing the clothes.

No wonder it is never ending in the winter but so easy to get through in the summer.

Oh by the way, I do now own a tumble drier, only a little one, just big enough to do a small load if need be, my spirits are rising..

To Dry or Not To Dryer?

We are in the middle of a huge storm that has come across New Zealand.
We have had torrential rain for about the last 2 weeks on and off.

It is cold and very wet!

Ok we have had some spectacular lightening and thunder storms to go with it which have been amazing, house shaking amazing actually. Apparently we had 1500 bolts of lightening on one night, I am not actually sure if anyone in the Waikato was asleep at 3am that night, well with the exception of Alex!

Now I don't own a clothes dryer, never have!

In fact I was never bought up with one. Mum never had one, it wasn't the thing to have in England.

I have never had one the whole time I have lived in NZ either. Can't see the point, have a wonderful clothes line in the garden and a heater in the house that when clothes are placed on a rack and left over night they would be dry the next day.

When I rented accomodation when I first lived here, then yes there was a dryer, I did use it but only for sheets, towels and underware and this was only when I couldn't get them dry on the line.

In the last 2 weeks I have decided I am sick of wet washing.

I don't particularly need a dryer, but I can see the advantage of having a second hand one in the garage for those odd times. I know they are electricity eaters and that in these expensive times everyone is recommending that you get rid of your dryers, but like my mother, who has one in the garage but never uses it, it would be nice to know it is there in those desperate times.

I usually take the pile of wet towels and sheets to the local launderette to get them dry when the weather is really bad that I can't hang them outside. When we were in Auckland I could do this and it only cost $6.50 for the biggest load you have ever seen. Here in hamilton it is so expensive. One small washing basket load, which is probably 1/3 of the size I would have in Auckland, cost me $6 the other day and before that I got charged $10!

With Alex toilet training at the moment, which is going really well, then I am constantly having racks of wet washing in the garage which are not drying, the heater in the house is always drying the clothes in the evening and I am not enjoying it.

Add to this the fact that we are just about to install a heat pump in the house so the heater will dissappear and suddenly I am going to get over come with wet washing.

Now I don't want a brand new one, I am happy to go to Trade Me, auction website and purchase a second hand one, just something that will finish off the clothes if need be and also make it so my house no longer resembles a chinese laundry!

Weather

We are finally getting the much needed rain to the Waikato region.

Ok not a lot but some is better than nothing with the dry summer we have just had.

But could it have at least waited until I had the washing dry???

Pictures

The middle of August in New Zealand is winter, and yes we have our fair share of crap weather, but then slipped into the middle of it all you get a day like today. The sky is so blue, the sun is warm and your spirit gets raised at least 200%.

This is what makes it so nice living here over the UK, you don't get days like this in the middle of winter in England. As our front deck gets all the sun all day, then it was silly not to have a bench or 2 out there to enjoy the sunshine with. We regularly have lunch out there. Show me a child that can resist bubbles. Ben and Alex love them, but then so does mummy.Ben decided to help me with the washing. How could I not let him help me hang things up? At least they were pegged up, I can work on the straightness another time(I know picky picky at least he is helping) This is what I like to see....a man on his knees working!