Thursday 27 September 2012

New toys

Not that new any more, but three 'toys' that have made a massive difference to our lives.

Pushies

We have been babysitting a pair of bikes for friends who are living in the UK currently. At the start of the year we decided to dust them off and do some riding. Angus and Cheryl are both very tall and when we had the bikes serviced and adjusted the guy in the shop recommended that I don't ride either or risk hurting myself badly. New bike for Sarah :)

I may had already suspected that, had a look around and even test ridden a couple and found my bike - the Electra Townie. Unfortunately the bike in stock was pink and white, I had a look at the other colour options on the website but decided that pink and white was cute anyway and available now.


Over summer 11/12 we went on a couple of bike outings. I was riding my bike to work whenever I didn't have off-site visits and for quite a few months Matt was consistently riding a bike to his work. Sadly just a month or so before Cheryl returned to Aus, her bike, that Matt had been using, was stolen from his workplace. We have given Cheryl back Angus' bike, so Matt doesn't have a bike at the moment. As the weather warms up we might get him his own, though after riding to work regularly including through winter, Matt's enthusiasm has waned somewhat.






Rotary, two bin composter - add to one side while the other 'cooks'.

Even though I am gardening in pots I struggle to make enough dirt with just the worm farm. The worm farm also can't handle leaves from the neighbours trees and finished plants - it was frustratingly wasteful to be chucking them in the bin, even if it was a green bin. A while back I found exactly what I wanted on the Interwebs but it was horrendously expensive, so, around my birthday time I was explaining this to mum and using her awesome super sleuth skills she found exactly what I wanted from a local company at half the price. Thanks mum it is working brilliantly. I have harvested the first batch already, the 2nd is nearly cooked and the 3rd batch is filling fast.


BTW it came flat packed and I built it nearly entirely myself, by choice. Only needed Matt's long arms to reach inside a couple of times.

The dishwasher

Mid winter our (clothes) washing machine packed it in. It was 2nd hand and a top loader so rather than potentially wasting our time and money on repairs we traded in for a new shiny front loader. As we were researching the options I came across something a had seen previously a while back but never really seriously considered - a half-size, bench top dishwasher, perfect for renters - us. Something inside me snapped. After 5 years of hand washing, having grown up with a dishwasher and now that we have the available bench space I chucked a little hissy fit and insisted that we get it, it was not too difficult to convince Matt :)  To misquote Gareth "there is just something more civilised about having a dishwasher"