20th February 2009

Hi All

I apologise for my lack of involvement but in typical Aries style I am on to the "next thing". Since Kate and I decided to move to the North Island in December my garden has been neglected as we do all those little!!!! renovation jobs that we started oh I don't know 5 years ago. Ya know the hallway without the doors painted and the window frames I vehemently were never going to paint, because they were rimu and its sacrilige!!!! Well those are white now and in fact the house has never looked so nice, I hope our new tennent Fern enjoys it. Fern is as the name suggests quite a gardener so maybe she will want to join in if anyone wants to pay a visit and tell her about the exchange.

My garden is a bit of an embarrassment I'm afraid, the first mistake being that this year I decided I didn't want to spend any money on it - just the price of the seedlings....well what can I say, didn't pay enough attention, didn't have good seed raising mix, not sure really - maybe it's one of those things about getting what you pay for. My conclusion is next time I'll be going back to Grant's Plants on Trewavas St for my seedlings. He certainly has green fingers and my garden produced bounty with his seedlings, without alot of gardening skill from me, must have tricked me into thinking I knew what I was doing, ah well we live and learn.

Other people of the street appear to be having wonderful gardens, Chris next door at No. 60, Nic at No. 18 and Zane at No. 5 have beautiful gardens, don't know if there is anything spare tho!!!

I changed the format of this page after a comment from Zane about not being able to post anything and I did initally set this up with the hope that people would swap food without my input either via the site or by dropping in. I hope you decide to continue cos it was great fun for me and I have meet some great people with alot of skills and it just nice knowing your neighbours, I'm a country girl from Northland so it makes me feel at home!!!!

So here's a "how to" instruction about how to contribute to the website by posting a message:

1. Underneath each post in small print is the time of the last posting with zero comments in green lettering.

2. Click on zero comments and write what you want to in the box provided.

3. Then click on name/URL

4. Write your name in the space provided

5. Click publish your comment

So that's it, not too complicated. I will also put a box on the left hand side of the page with the instructions repeated. I hope you will carry on - I'll check in now and then and say hi, as we will be in Caravan moving around I don't anticipate too much gardening going on tho!!!

Also we are having a little going away tea party on Sunday you are welcome to drop in from 1pm onwards 58 Poole St - maybe I will see you there.

Cheers Jan





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