Our Neighborhood

Welcome to Dannevirke!!   This is the town where the clinic is that Jay is serving while on the north island.  There are about 4 thousand folks here; 3 banks, a library, a small movie theatre, one major grocery store, 2 petro stations, 3 churches, many coffee cafes that are open thru lunch, a MacDonald's, a KFC, and one decent restaurant that is open for dinner. The Barrell House restaurant is owned by one of the six children - (the 4th son) of our innkeeper and is quite good.   The town - as are all the towns we have seen, are quite clean and everyone has flowers!  The roses are exquisite and so fragrant.  The friendly folks are welcoming and eager for us to see their country - lots of pride. 

We live about 7km (that's 4.2 miles) outside of town on an organic diary farm that is also a B&B.  It is called Gardenstone.  Note the red-tin roofed cottage in the painted sign- that is where we are staying. (Oooops! Wrong picture of the cottage, but you get the idea, and laundry gets dirty wherever you are.   Not many dryers - everyone hangs their clothes out.  What a novel idea for saving energy!!)   Jay says our cottage is the "honeymoon cottage", but while it is quite comfortable, all 600 sq ft of it, it is not my idea of what I would call a "honeymoon cottage".    The innkeepers/farmers/hosts, are very nice and quite gracious and kind.   They have about 270 dairy cows, 2 donkeys, a couple of roosters and some chickens, a few ducks and  huge pig - we don't see the latter two often. Oh, and one sheep.

That handsome rooster is our alarm at about 6 am and the donkeys are the snooze alarm- at about 7 am.  Alice was fortunate to hear the  donkeys braying one time while we were Skyping, The chickens,  rooster, and donkeys live just across the driveway from us.

Lyn, the innkeeper has lovely gardens, both a raised organic vegetable garden, flowers, and various bushes and trees that make for lovely place to be staying.  There is also a nice swimming pool which we have not tried because it has barely been 80 degrees, but the their grandchildren don't seem to mind - 80 degrees for most folks around here is really hot!!  Jay has signed up with the heated indoor pool: $2/visit, or $5 for aqua-aerobics, for the first time he was the oldest, and the only man, when in ACAC in Bon Air he was one of many, and fair % of elder ladies.

We are loving the temperatures - which are often cool enough in the evening for a fire in the fireplace.  The woodshed, just a few steps from our front door, is almost as large as the cottage.  Jay has asked if we are going to be billed by the cord, it may be that much the way we use it. Can't identify any traditional trees in the woodpile which we know except red cedar, which pops and hisses and sends sparks when it is in the fire.  

I often walk the country road around here - there is very little traffic and I talk to the cows and sheep - the latter belonging to other farmers.  We see thousands of sheep as we travel around.  Sheep, (both naked or sheared, those not sheared are for meat),  dairy cows, some beef cows, deer farms - which we have not seen, but hear about and see the venison on most restaurant menus around the north island.  We love living out of town.   It is certainly a different experience from living in Bon Air.    

Our entertainment  options in the cottage include a  clear-channel classical FM station, and a two-channel TV with rabbit ears, both NZ stations, plus a fuzzy 3rd and 4th channel, one of which is Maori, the other a

sports channel with perpetual cricket or rugby, occasional horse-racing.

Our hosts have SKY which provides satellite sports channels and let us watch the super bowl on their big HD screen, except it was a delay broadcast which she taped.  Unfortunately it shut off just after the 2-minute warning when the Colts were called for offensive pass interference in the end zone, so we didn't see the ending.  Happily, evidently nothing else of note happened.  If you taped it, please save it. All the US ads, and the post-game presentations, were blocked out and NZ ads were shown instead.  We were quite happy to see the "who dat" team win.   Did check out the ads on the internet - don't care for Denny's, but loved the chickens!!

Our $9 library membership gives us free book check-outs for 3 weeks, and video rentals for $3/week.  we rented second season of Boston Legal and it took 3 weeks for us to go thru the 7 discs and 28 episodes.  We loved it, in front of the fire. Some other casual movie rentals, lots of reading, and the cottage has a sizable reading library, so going thru more books than either of us have read in recent years. 

The relaxing and relaxed life-style is good - so far- but we are also getting a bit more ready to get to the south island, since we keep hearing stories about how wonderful it is.  Another month here first.  Our excursions heve been easy as this a fairly central place from which to travel, nothing really very far, longest trip was just over 4 hours.

Stay tuned for stories and pictures of our explorations around the north island.