In a Rush

We are going away for just over a week on Thursday morning (very early Thursday morning) and I have a gazillion things to do. I offered a while back to do the mailing out of Takahe magazine, thinking there would be plenty of time, but it was sent to the printer's late, and won't be ready to collect until about 2.30 Tuesday. That leaves me Tuesday afternoon to get to another house to do the mailing and get the contributors' cheques co-signed. Wednesday is out because I have to work.

I also have to pick up the replacement for my broken glasses. I had my car booked in for a service today because its warrant of fitness expires the day we get back. Unfortunately I completely forgot until lunchtime, so I couldn't pick it up until last thing, until then I was stuck at work later than I usually stay, with no transport.

There is a writer's festival coming up, I have to find time to book tickets before we leave. And pack. And clean out the refrigerator. I was planning to post some photos of our destination from last time we went, two years ago. I may or may not find time to do that tomorrow.

I had an interesting reply from the New Zealand frog survey about our noisy neighbours. He says:
"As expected they are Brown tree frogs (Litoria ewingii). These frogs are very interesting as they seem to be able to cope very well with the cold conditions in NZ. They were originally introduced from Australia to Greymouth around 120 years ago and since then most of their movements have been directed by humans wanting to take the tadpoles home to their gardens. There were a couple of deliberate introductions to the North Island particularly around the Manawatu area. They seem to be able to withstand a certain amount of freezing - I had a student a couple of year ago who froze them to minus 2C for eight hours and most of them survived with no ill effects!"

I on the other hand don't survive freezing very well :) We had snow in our backyard last night, although it melted fairly quickly. However there has been snow on the hills behind our house all day. We are hoping for better weather at the end of the week, as we have a ferry crossing of Cook Strait - a rather turbulent stretch of water - and a long drive through the centre of the North Island where snow sometimes blocks the road in winter, the following day. The daffodils are out but it isn't really spring yet.

Apparently the Scots viewed winter as an old crone, and spring as a young maiden, with the coming of spring a battle between the two of them for dominance. The weather would swing wildly from one extreme to the other until spring finally won out. That's about how it can be in New Zealand. When the southerly blows it is a blast straight from the Antarctic. We can have 70 degrees one day and 40 degrees a few days later.