Farewell to the Telstar

When Leif and I first arrived home the reality that NZ is certainly not set up for car-less people was very obvious. We got by for a couple of weeks borrowing/stealing cars from family but soon realised we needed to buy our own one pretty quickly. Particularly when living in a small town 90 minutes from anywhere!

Never ones to shy away from a bargain we saw a car on the side of the road for sale for $400. $400! And it was even drivable! So stoked were we we handed over the cash and forgot to bargain (despite honing those skills throughout Asia the previous months!).

The car was a silver (and grey spraypaint) Ford Telstar with a lush red velvety interior. An automatic transmission with a electronic dashboard. Only problem was that the electronics took about 5km to warm up enough to function. I am sure in 1984 it would have been flash-as.

Alas we were sucked in by false economy. As soon as we bought it things started going wrong and it wasn't too long until we abandoned it on the road in front of our house. Pretty soon it had a flat tyre and was leaking oil. After four months of this we thought we had better dispose of it before the neighbours complained...

Spring has sprung...

Emerging out of the winter suddenly we are surrounded by daffodils and the sound of newborn lambs calling for their mothers. Sounds rather cheesy but I am not sure I have ever been so relieved to see spring alive. Living in a rural area the seasons seem to jump out at me so much more than when living in the city... there have even been a few days when our fire has not been lit.

Further evidence of spring is that we once again have vases of flowers appearing on our doorstep. Our very sweet neighbour is a keen gardener and kept us well supplied in flowers last summer also!

We have spent the last couple of weekends weeding, mowing lawns and planting seeds for the summer garden. We are currently eating broccoli, leeks and silverbeet from the winter garden and the cabbages and cauliflowers are not too far away.