HAPPY ACTUAL BIRTHDAY DANTE

First up for today, the birthday cake from last night's dinner:

ABOVE:  a 'Smash Cake', bought from Woolworths.  I'd never seen one before.

ABOVE:  This was amusing, then terrifying... that boy scared me!  I was sure he was gunna stab himself in the eye!!!  

But, disaster averted.  Cake smashed open, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it.

I am sewing this morning.   And at around 11 am I have a man from the Hamilton City Council coming to do the compliance check on our swimming pool.

Fingers crossed all is as it should be.  I'm pretty sure it is, but I won't relax until we get the confirmation email.

Now.... time to start the day.  I hope you enjoy that video!  

ONWARD...

ABOVE:  My view this morning!  What a stark contrast to yesterday.  It's nice though, as it's cooled things down.

I'm now sewing...

And then the building inspector arrived.  And took a million photos, crawled into the shrubbery, hung over the fence... and said "You only need to remove THAT tree".

So I removed said tree, after borrowing Steve's reciprocating saw.

I got it all down except the trunk.  Bex came over with the kids and she took down the trunk for me... cos it involved lots of bending down low.

Not my strong suit.

Once it was down there was a gaping gap in the fence line, it looked awful.

So I solved that eyesore real fast.

ABOVE: Our Willy the Waiter came off the front fence and got mounted quite high on that fence... to fill the gap.  Then I dragged our Tomato plants and put them there as well.  And some pottery chooks.

NOW it looks good again.

Problem sorted.

Now I await the building inspector's email to confirm all is legal.  I had to send him a photo of the tree down, which I did.

I will probably go and buy a nice shrub for that spot, cos I don't want to leave our tomato plants there forever.  But that can wait.

NOW... I'm off to have a shower, I'm filthy!

I worked on those runners this afternoon, but got none finished.  I'm kinda knackered.

I have not received the HCC email yet, bugger.

DOGSTARS AND KY GIRL:  Mel answered your questions perfectly.  Pool safety is a big thing here in New Zealand, and I 100% endorse all the rules and regulations. If it saves even one life it's worth it.

Stew arrived home, and did EXACTLY what I told Bex he would do!

He took most of the tree cuttings OUT of the trailer, cut them up smaller, then put them all back in again.

ABOVE: Taking it all out...

ABOVE: All chopped up, and back in the trailer.  You sure can fit more in when it's cut up I must say. 

We are now done for the day.  Hopefully tomorrow we get confirmation from the Council that our pool is compliant with the regulations.

Stew reckons it could take a while, as they are notoriously slow.  But the man today did say he would get it to me today or tomorrow, so I live in hope.