Housesitting, Biking and All That Jazz

This week my parents have gone off to have adventures, so I'm all by myself on the homestead. I'm not sure it counts as housesitting if it happens to be at the place where you actually live, but its certainly interesting. It causes one to ask all sorts of questions, like 'how can the fridge still appear completely full when I've been eating from it for the past three days?' or 'how long before I go completely insane and start talking to myself out loud?' or 'if I rearrange all of the furniture, will my parents care?'. I thought that the cat and I were going to become best friends, but unfortunately he has disappeared - probably miffed that I went away for a good portion of the day yesterday. Hopefully he'll come back soon; I like it when he gardens with me.

As you might have inferred from my mentioning being away yesterday, I haven't entirely been sitting at home forlornly while my parents have been away. This week was the Nelson Jazz and Blues festival, and I do love me some jazz and blues. Plus, I have a mountain bike loaned to me from one of dad's mountain biking friends. The sum of these two facts meant that I biked to two of the festival events, and learned that biking places when you like the country takes ages. I have gained a certain understanding of the prevailing car culture, I think. On friday, biking to the Woollaston Vineyard took me an hour and a half (including one misdirection), and the bikeride I took to Richmond yesterday took over two hours. Two hours! Worse yet, much of those two hours were on a highway, which admittedly is only two lanes but people drive fast. I won't be going on that route again soon. In fact, I was quite fortunate that I could get a ride back from both events; its one thing spending two hours biking somewhere; its quite another having to turn around and bike back again, although it is lovely to be biking places again.
And the jazz! And the blues! By talented NZ artists! Live music is fabulous, and it doesn't hurt when you can bring a summer picnic and share with friends at the same time. Did I mention that two of these events was at a vineyard, and the third was in a park? Location, location, location. So even if the weather hasn't been completely summery, and my parents have abandoned me at home, I got to wear big hats and skirts and swan around listening to live music and eating finger food. Life is good.

Speaking of life being good, the garden is taking on a life of goodness all its own. Its really a shame that there is still so much food in the fridge, because we're just getting the first peas, beans, carrots, beets and escarole, and we're bursting at the seams with broccoli and zucchini, among other things. Why are there only so many meals in a day? How am I supposed to keep up? Good thing my parents are coming home in a just a few days. And now that the festivals over, I'm back in the garden doing useful things. Like building yet more trellises. And pulling still more weeds!