Took the plunge and tore out our firewall in the fireplace in the living room and had an inbuilt wood burning stove installed. Seems to be the "in" thing to do these days. In fact, there are now so many that when I went for a walk last week one night I came home half an hour later and my jogging pants reeked from smoke.

You see we have this ancient English Black walnut tree in the corner and it tends to grow walnuts and these sooner or later fall to the ground. Since March (its now May) I have been husking, drying the nuts and then cracking 20-30 in the Black and Decker vise, a day. When I have enough I roast them in the oven for about 10 hours. No big deal, except this year is a bumper crop. We didn't finish eating last year's crop and this year's is more than twice the size, so looks like friends will be getting nuts for birthdays and Christmas gifts.

Ever since we moved to Papakura way back in 1973 Gail has had this cough that hangs on for long periods of time. The last two years it's been even worse, keeping her up at night and making breathing very difficult. Doctor just kept giving anti-biotics for virus/bronchitis. Well, one night in April Gail said she couldn't last the night, so we went to the emergency doctor and she was put onto a nebulizer which is a breathing gizmo which put ventolin into her lungs and BINGO, almost immediately she cleared up. ASTHMA. Or at least that is the current theory. So, we was given seven types of drugs and seemed to get better the week she was here.

Her father, by adoption, finally ended his battle against cancer on April 23rd and Gail was on the plane next day and was fortunate to make the funeral. She is still in Arizona as I write this and as she pointed out she will have been away from us three out of the past six months. This time she doesn't want to come back as she feels that the climate there is doing wonders for her health.

Had our annual garage sale which was different in that we usually clear a lot of clothes (mostly Renee's), but this time it was the miscellaneous stuff that sold well. Managed to clear about one third of the stuff, so I think we will have another before Christmas.

It's now the May holidays when Gail and kids have two weeks break from school. Since Gail is not with us we aren't making any long trips into the countryside. We did climb a volcanic cone here in the Auckland area with the Whites and we'll get out next week a couple times. Ian has let David have a school computer for the week, so we are staying home so he can maximize his time playing games. Each night we play a board game.

New Zealand has an overseas debt of $55 billion, which is minute compared to the US' trillions, but it means that our credit rating is at risk. So the government is (and has been) making drastic threats. July 1st we find out what we are in store for in the future. To date major cuts in Social Welfare, Health Services and Education. More to come. As of yesterday unions are totally powerless and there are great fears that everyone will be working for less money in future. Have to bite the bullet and most have to suffer now so that the country will have a future. It has been maintaining its standard of living by borrowing for the past 15 years and now it can't afford to borrow anymore. So it is pretty gloomy around here economically, but at least we don't have crime, murders and drug related problems like other places.