Our eco life

Elise and Louca at PassItOn films provided for us a professional looking video describing what Atamai is all about. Check it out below: Thank you Louca and Elise for your amazing effort! it was great to have our paths cross - hope to see you again soon.

It's now been nearly two months since we have come to Atamai, we haven't had much time to even blink. I joined the local St. Peter Chanel Catholic church choir and am having great fun. It turns out to be a wonderful way to really get to know your fellow parishioners and embed one-self into the community. I have huge respect for everybody there as they sing with such passion, and love a good challenging SATB four part harmony. There is an obvious age gap but that doesn't much bother me, many of them seem younger at heart than I am at most times. I'm also impressed with the pianist and choir master who seem incredibly talented, and a delight to work with. The choir is doing a combined concert with another local church - together they have run this concert annually ever since they featured on " Praise Be " some 3 years ago. The combined choir this year comprises a 16+ member brass band (which is quite a treat) as well as amassing over 30 members making up th

After waiting a few weeks, our garden shed has finally arrived. This is no "garden variety" shed we are talking about, it is is a custom order 10m2 2.4m stud wooden garden shed . You get to specify where the windows and doors go, with full assembly with staining and shipping from Nelson for a tad under $NZD4000 which really is amazing value. And the best thing of all (which is quite becoming a theme of my posts here) is that it came on a back of a truck with a "crane" on it ... whoo hoo, yes another one!! Here is my picture blog ... or a Plog! The truck backs up the drive way, good thing we have had quite a dry weather patch and the ground is rock hard. She squeezes gently to get pass the container ... ... and nuzzles on down the path ... ... through some bushes It even comes with a complimentary 1/10 scale digger on its roof ;)  ... joking aside however, that digger is actually working on "our" site, cool huh! The truck driver

No matter how exhilirating it is to move to a new place, nothing beats the warmth of family. It was lovely to have Betty (Katie's mum) and Alex visit from Christchurch this weekend - our first real visitors from the city we recently moved from. How wonderful to catch up with them as we gracefully  welcomed them into our new "village" living :)  They were fortunate enough to come at a time when the village was having their 3-4 weekly AVC (Atamai Village Council) meeting. This is where the villagers gather to discuss the various things happenning around Atamai and to make communal decisions on required items, followed by a shared potluck meal and socialising. Over a glass of wine, an intricate array of interesting subject matters are included as part of the entertainment. Both Betty and Alex enjoyed the experience ...  at least that's what they told us ... ;)  We also had a nice day at our local beach, KaiTeriTeri , which also happens to be one