Backyard Garden

Well it was our pleasure recently to watch one of the Agricultural students projects which was a DVD on backyard gardening!! Apparently growing your own food in your back yard is great for fitness and supplementing your family’s health and well being plus it saves you money!! Tonight for dinner we have had a BBQ with salad made from lettuce we have growing in the back yard and cherry tomatoes, which I’m informed might be the first of this variety in the country. Thanks to customs for letting me in with the seeds. Lunch time was tomato and pesto sandwiches with pesto made from our own basil crop munched up by Adam’s new stick blender. Very yummy and delicious. So nice to have some recognizable food for sure. Mind you we also had breadfruit chips on the BBQ which were great. I love breadfruit!

Another Fun Run

Last weekend was another 5km Fun Run along the Apia waterfront. This time I couldn't convince Angela that it was worth getting out of bed for, so I left her sleeping and headed off for the 6.30am start.

It was another good run, I came second again in the 'Masters' division. In this event if you are over 35 you a labelled a Master. The first time this happened it made me feel old, and a little offended, to be lumped in with the 'oldies', but I am getting used to it now. There is a cash prize for the first Master to finish, so all I have to do now is figure out how to beat the one other Master that keeps finishing in front of me (or arrange it so that he doesn't turn up!) and I will be in the money!

Why all this running some people are asking? Well, earlier this year the US Veterans of Samoa decided to organise a running event that they have called the Samoa Perimeter Relay. As the name suggests this is a relay run around the perimeter of Samoa. The course this year is actually going to go about halfway around the main island (Upolo) and the following year the route will do the other half. Anyway, this means that this year the run will be approximately 64 miles (103 km) to be completed by teams of up to 6 runners. The course is divided into 24 legs, with each runner to do 4 legs.

The New Zealand High Commission decided to enter and somehow I found myself on their team, so that is why I have started doing some running. At the end of August I somehow have to drag myself halfway around Samoa!

If anyone wants to find out a bit more about the event they have a website up now so check it out.

Lindsay - if you are reading this in Palmy have you got any tips for running a relay event like this? I know you guys do the Taupo Relay and any advice will be appreciated. By the way, the organisers are taking international teams so if Manawatu Striders want to enter a team I will look after you!! It would be a great way to escape the miserable NZ winter!

On the road again

We are very pleased to finally have our car back on the road again. After all the hassles eventually the right windscreen arrived and was successfully installed.

I was surprised to get a call from the insurance company saying that the correct windscreen had arrived and that if I delivered the car before lunchtime they could have it installed by the end of the day. This seemed very speedy for Samoa! So I delivered the car and we checked again that they had the correct piece of glass then left them to it.

When I went back at the end of the day I was very happy to see our car ready and waiting with its brand new windscreen. I had a quick look to make sure everything was OK before heading home. Everything looked fine, then even managed to transfer the rear vision mirror over without breaking anything!

On the way home I had to use the windscreen wipers to clean the windscreen. I got a bit of a surprise to hear the sound of metal scraping on glass and when the wipers had finished their sweep they were pointing at strange angles across the windscreen! When I got home I was going to get on the phone and give the installer an earful, but realised that they were closed for the day. So I went out and had a closer look. After scratching my head for a while and trying to figure out what had happened I finally realised that the wipers were on the wrong way around (the drivers side wiper was on the passengers side and vice versa). I guess they must have taken them off when they were installing the windscreen and put them on the wrong way round. Fortunately it was and easy thing to fix and there was no damage done.

So, the trusty Subaru (or Knight Rider as it has been christened here by some of the students) is back in one piece again.

Baby Photos

Well, Angela was right - Lucky was due to have puppies.  The other night she didn't come around for dinner, which has never happened before. Then the next night she appeared and got us to follow her down the road to the empty house where the Americans had been staying. She then squeezed under they gate and disappeared under an old shipping container that has been left in the front yard.  The gate is locked and we don't have a key.  The fence and gate is topped with barbed wire, so climbing over didn't look like a good idea.  In the end I decided it was the only way I was going to get in there and manged to get over the barbed wire without doing any damage.

As soon as I got near the container I could hear squeaking coming from underneath.  When I looked under there was Lucky and her litter.  It was hard too see under there, but it looks like 6 or 7 puppies.  Angela has already started thinking up names for them, but I don't think we will be keeping them. Anybody want a puppy?! 

Lucky seems to be fine, she came out and had some food and water. We can't really get at the puppies yet, but I guess they will come out when they can.  

 

SMASHED!!

A couple of weeks ago we went out for a run and came back to find this!

No, we weren't parked under a coconut tree (Angela did check for coconuts, but there wasn't a coconut tree anywhere near us).   It seems that while we were out running a branch feel out of the tree we were parked under and smashed the windscreen.

Since then we have been having all sorts of fun trying to get it fixed. Of course there aren't any Subaru windscreens in the country and before we could arrange anything we had to sort things out with the insurance company.  A fairly simple job you would think, but not here.

Anyway, I was pleased when I received a phone call this morning saying that the windscreen had arrived and that they could fit it today.  So I carefully drove the car to the address that the insurance company gave me. This turned out to be some backyard workshop tucked in behind a laundromat! As soon as I pulled in and saw the look on the owner's face I knew something was wrong.  It turns out that they had ordered the wrong windscreen!! They had the make, model and year correct, but they had ordered the glass for a sedan, not a hatchback and unfortunately there is a difference.  

It looks like we will have to continue waiting until the correct windscreen arrives.  

10km "fun" Run

After spending the last 3 nights working at the South Pacific Netball Champs (serving the VIP section) Adam and I were pretty tired so headed home and ended up missing the end of netball party for all the volunteers that went to 5.00am this morning!

Lucky we did though as we were up at 5.30am and heading for the 10km fun run. I decided to enter just to support Adam even though I have never run this far in my life before. It was nice and cool and calm at 6.30am when the race began. The initial crowd took off at great speed so I found my own plodding pace and settled in. My aim was to at least run 5km and maybe have a 5km warm down as I walked back!

We headed out around the North Eastern side of the island. It was very nice running beside the sea and watching the sun rise. The thing with running in Samoa is that you have to go at stupid o'clock in the morning otherwise it's far too hot. The other thing is that you have to be ready to shout encouragement to those already returning back past you, wave to passers by hanging out of bus windows and say "Malo" (or Hi) to people standing on the side of the road watching as many pairs of palagi legs run past along with a few Samoan ones!

I reached the halfway point and was feeling OK. Nearly did not put my foot over the line so was nearly disqualified but with a bit of a sideways hop got there and had my number ticked off. As I was feeling alright and as it was a bit of a gentle downwards slope I continued to run.

The NZ High Commissioner, Caroline Bilkey went past me at the half way mark and was soon followed by Helen who also works for the NZ High Commission. These two ladies are part of the relay team that Adam is running in later in August half way around Upolu. Good to see they are all out training.

I made it as far at the 7km mark before I decided the legs were getting a bit heavy and to have a walk. It was a nice refreshing power walk in the shade. When I reached the corner where Adam reakoned it was 2km to go I decided to start to run again and see if I could run home. At the Moataa School sign away I went. I was surprised at how comfortable I was feeling and soon reached Apia Park where we play netball and knew I could make it home from there.

My time in the end was 1 hour and 8 minutes. Caroline came in at 1:01 and Helen must have been about 1:05. Adam was 57.5 so in the end after thinking I was miles and at least 1/2 hour behind everyone else my time wasn't too bad.

Feel stoked to have made it 10km only problem now is that I have raised the benchmark! After going home and having a quick shower and some breakfast I headed back out to netball and umpiring training. Now I'm working - what a day!

The patter of tiny Lucky's

The dog is pregnant. I could see her tummy moving and feel the puppies inside. OH MY GOD! Adam wants to disown me!!!! Suppose that is the end of Animal Protection Society visiting on Monday to Spay her then?