Posted in This 'n' That

In the ten years that we have been married, my husband and I have lived in 8 homes. The longest, so far, that we've stayed in one house is two and a half years. I guess we just like trying out different houses. However, this last house, that we built, is the one we hope to stay in forever. We love it - it suits us, and we have a wonderful, friendly neighbourhood.

We've built two new homes and renovated 3. So we have had lots of tradesmen come into our lives over the last 10 years. And we always seem to make friends with them. Not all of them, of course - there have been one or two that were just plain grumpy - or strange. But most of them have been fantastic. And they're so interesting. I'm quite a shy person, but I love hearing about other people's lives. I guess that is why blogging has taken off - there are lots of other people out there who also like hearing about other people's lives. It's the detail I like too - the silly little moments or facts that make a person what he or she is. My favourite tradesman to date who I am absolutely in love with is Jimmy the painter. He's near on retirement age - a good guess would be 68 - but I love him! He painted our new house with his two sons in the family business. He's a real chatterer, is Jimmy. He advises me on the horse races (not that I would consider gambling at all), he helps me with my vegetable garden - he's a real encyclopaedia when it comes to gardening. He's white haired, whistles and sings while he works and is just a real cheerful person to have around. We love him! We worried all through his heart operation last year, and the updates on his son's wife's cancer treatment, and the trauma of their other son's divorce, and on the days he didn't turn up (all tradesmen have those days), we heard he was at the races - and forgave him.

Then there was Graham - the kitchen man who came to install our trouble-filled kitchen. A middle-aged bachelor. He wouldn't let me even peek at the kitchen or the laundry until it was complete. He said it 'had to be a surprise, so I got the 'wow' factor'. He cycles 5 hours a day - before work - and likes to make healthy smoothies for breakfast on his industrial smoothie machine. I used to like giving him my surplus vegetables to take home for dinner at night. He always appreciated them. And I heard all about his drunken first wife who left him not long after they got married when very young, and he vowed never to marry again.

Then there is our builder, Lance. We love Lance too - he's almost become part of the family. He and his wife gave us our dog, Poppy (the Jack Russel) after our children fell in love with his dog Briar who had puppies. Our littlest son, Teddy likes to pretend to be Lance the builder - and insisted once that his name was now Lance, not Teddy. We've been around to their house a few times, and shared nice little family moments with them. He is scrupulously honest, one of the nicest, cleanest, friendliest builders we've ever had. We're just looking for building projects just so we can have Lance.

And I'll never forget John the builder - who ripped us off a little - but did it in such a nice friendly way, that we still like him! He was fun to have around too when we were renovating. And he sub-contracted some of the work to Lance, so we'd never have met Lance if it wasn't for John. I used to play audio tapes while working in the kitchen, while they were working in there too. He is one of those rare builders who never had the radio blaring. One time I had Wuthering Heights playing. About two hours later when I turned it off, John calls out, "What's the name of that story?" He just about blew over when I said Wuthering Heights. He never knew the classics could be so interesting! And the next day asked if I could put it back on! The funny thing with John is that he is a member of one of NZ's wealthiest, snobbiest families and is in the inner circle of Christchurch's snobbery. (Of all the cities in NZ - Christchurch is the most English and the most snobbiest). But he was such a nice guy - great with the kids, loved our dog - whom he called 'Cricket the killer dog' because for some reason Cricket took a strong dislike to him. I used to love making him and his apprentice really yummy fattening things in the kitchen, because they really LOVED everything and raved about it and begged for more. We heard all about his elderly uncle who treated the entire family to a 5 day cruise on a private yacht around Fiji; and the troubles of his son at the extremely private, extremely exclusive, very expensive, (got cute uniforms though), very English private school in town. And we liked his lovely green Land Rover SUV. And if the winter day happened to be very sunny, he wouldn't turn up because he'd be going skiing up the mountain. (I told you tradesmen were like that)!

There are lots more tradesmen who have come into our lives who I want to write about too, but I'll have to leave it for another time. This is getting way too long already.

The next blog post is my 100th, and I've been planning a give-away in celebration.