We arrived back in New Zealand on Tuesday evening, January 23. My cousin-in-law brought Leo home, which was incredibly helpful, especially since I was tired from the trip. I put the first load of washing on, and sat down to watch some TV—something I hadn’t done for nearly a week. I also, of course, snuggled with Leo. I shared the photo up top on my personal Facebook, adding, “I seem to be (nearly) forgiven…”
The next day, Wednesday, I did more washing, and also went out front to do the edges and mow the grass, something I hoped to do before I left, but I ran out of time. I also continued to pay lots of attention to Leo, and I could tell he was relaxing and readjusting—he spent most of the time sleeping.
On Thursday, I did still more washing and went out back to do the edges and mow. The bank along the side of the property was particularly bad, but I managed to knock the weeds to the ground, making it possible to see the pittosporum I planted this past Spring. Here’s the after photo:
However, none of that went smoothly.
On Wednesday, the line trimmer again stopped feeding line. I opened up the bump head and saw the line had become stuck on one side, as it had before I left on the trip. Back then, I couldn’t feed line the normal way, so the week I left for the trip I wound it manually. Unfortunately, by that time I’d run out of time to mow the lawns before going on my trip.
So, this week I again opened the bump head, pulled the line out (and threw it out, since it had already been trouble), and managed to re-fill it the usual way (not winding it manually with the bump head open). After I finished trimming and mowing out front (and the side yard), I stopped for the day (the trip home the day before was surprisingly exhausting for me).
Thursday morning, I took up the job again, working out in the back of the property. I had to change batteries for the line trimmer (because I was clear-cutting the forest of weeds along the bank along the side of the property). What I didn’t know was that the weed forest had lots of biting bugs in it. I do my yard work wearing jeans to protect my legs from flying debris, and, mostly, so I don’t have to put on sunscreen. The biting bugs decided my pant legs were actually feeding tents. It was an itchy evening.
Ordinarily, mowing in summer is very hot work, but this time it was a bit different. In the days before we left for Fiji, it was around 27 degrees (around 81F) or so at my house, but when I was working outside this week it was at most 22 (around 72F), and the much cooler temperatures made it so much easier! I knew rain was headed to us by the weekend, affected by the tropical cyclone heading toward Queensland in Australia, so I was glad to get it out of the way.
When I was outside working this week, I thought to myself that it was almost chilly compared to Fiji. The temps were around 8-10 degrees Celsius cooler than in Fiji, but the dramatically lower humidity levels is what I think made it feel so mild in comparison. Because of my trip, and my mowing adventures this week, I’ve learned that I can tolerate drier heat much better than heat with high humidity—in fact, I learned that I find it hard to breathe if the humidity gets too high, as it did in Fiji.
My reaction to the weather in Fiji, and being able to directly compare it with milder weather here in Hamilton this week, has proven that, for me, it really isn’t the heat, it’s the humidity. Good to know that in case I have future travels.
There were a few oddities along the way, too. On Thursday, after my mowing adventures, I went up to the supermarket to stock up. In the past, I’d have spent the afternoon relaxing, but I wanted to get the shopping out of the way. Also, every day I did all my hand dishwashing of the stuff I don’t put in the dishwasher (which I ran on Thursday); ordinarily, I get lazy about doing that.
I’m not trying to suggest that the trip has “changed” me, but I do think that doing stuff every single day, and sometimes going places, too, just continued when I got home. Knowing myself as I do, I doubt that’ll last long term, but maybe it’ll last for a little while yet so I can get some jobs done around the house—ideally before the next time I need to mow.
While I was doing that stuff, Leo fully adjusted to being back home: Asking for snacks, jumping in my lap when I sat in my chair, and generally keeping me in his sight—except whenever he decided to take himself to bed. Overall, though, I clearly really am forgiven.
And here I am on the Saturday of a holiday weekend feeling unusually satisfied with how much I got done this week—well, just a bit more that half a week, technically. I’m looking forward to seeing how much I get done next week.
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