What with all the madness going on in the news right now my prepping instincts ran hot today.

Having seen the panic shopping just before the first Covid lockdown and the physical fights over a pack of toilet paper I thought I’d get in early, then should current events get really out of hand and we find ourselves stuck inside for a few weeks we won’t starve.

I’ve just spent $500 on groceries, stocking up on breakfast cereals, coffee, crisps, toilet paper (natch) and plenty of wine and beer. If the World is going to shit I’m going to meet it rat-arsed. I even bought enough milk powder to keep us going for a couple of works, and for some odd reason 100m of cling film.

The biggest problems if we do have a zombiepocalyse is that the house has too many doors – I would block a couple up but there’ll still be ways the infected could get in if they really wanted to take our stuff.

Also we don’t have solar panels or a petrol generator so if we lose power for a long time most of our food will go off, so it would turn into a big BBQ cookup.

Let’s hope things calm down soon, or the aliens turn up and take over. If it doesn’t at least I’ve got a fully stocked wine cabinet. Actually, made that almost fully stocked.

Are you adding the extra S?

Just realized I have ordered so many Bacon &Egg McMuffins on the self service screens that my finger goes to the exact location of the next button I want to select.

I could pretty much order breakfast in my sleep.

Another online purchase to try and help The Duchess with her COPD is a Steam Tent, which basically a padded box into which you pump steam from a boiler. My word it gets hot in there! Hell of a lot cheaper than a full sauna in the garden!

Whenever The Duchess comes down with a chest infection I get down the pharmacies and try to find something to help. This shows how often that happens …

The Nissan Leaf was starting to cause some Range Anxiety (it’s a thing for EV owners) as to whether I could get to work and back on a full charge, and it became more expensive to run now after the Government has put road user charges on EVs.

So … It’s bye bye Nissan Leaf and hello to Nissan Note!

It’s a petrol hybrid which means it has a petrol engine that charges a small battery which then powers the wheels. It’s a halfway house that is cheaper to run and more eco friendly than a traditional petrol engine but doesn’t need plugging in or incur road charges.

TBH it is still a dull, white box but it’ll get me from A to B cheaply and will hopefully last at least 5 years.

For lack of anything interesting happening here is a picture of Penny having a sniff down the park.

The local bus is looking a bit past it’s best…

As is fairly common in NZ someone dumped their dead vehicle by the roadside, in this case at the bottom of our street, then washes their hands of it. The vehicle then slowly sheds parts as it gets cannibalized, before eventually it gets torched or the Council get round to having it towed to the scrapyard.

I do quite like the fact is has “F#ck the System” sprayed on the back and the Police have put their warning sticker over the U to make it more family friendly.

Some might think it sacrilege but we bought a new air fryer to reduce use of the oven and eat a bit healthier, and The Duchess saw some Yorkshire Pudding tins on a cheap online store so we thought we’d give it a go!

First attempt was edible but a bit doughy, but the second batch with less mixture has come out better.

I took a few days leave this week – much like most of the country – between Easter and ANZAC Day and we headed up the coast to a small coastal village called Castlepoint.

We enjoyed getting on the beach with Fluffy and walking up the hill to the lighthouse, though the house we rented was pretty basic and not very clean and the only restaurant in the area was decidedly average.

Perhaps the highlight was getting to see a pack of working dogs help corral a flock of sheep along the road in front of us and into a field.

Good to have seen the place but won’t be in a rush to return.