Barb from Harmony Fine Arts was asking me about our winter today.  Yes, we're in the middle of winter here in New Zealand and have experienced several hailstorms and lots of rain in the last couple of weeks.  The sun is shining today, but it is very cold outside, the forecast for today is a high of 9°Celsius and it had been at least 2°C below zero overnight.  We have a lovely fire though and have just recently installed a heat transfer system which is designed to pump the warm air from the living room through ducting in the roof to vents in the bedrooms.  It works really well, our bedrooms are toasty warm at bedtime!  We're not so prepared here in NZ though with things like double glazing & under floor heating, so we probably feel the cold a bit more.

I thought I'd post a map of where we live here in the North Island.  We live in the town of Feilding (pop. 13,500), just north of the city of Palmerston North (population approx. 78,000). My parents live in the largest city, Auckland (pop 1.3 million), a day's drive north of us.  If it snows on the main route through called the Desert Road, Mum will have to take a detour when she comes to stay after baby is born.  We could travel about 2 hrs north to play in the snow, but it's something we've never done with young children...one day!

I hope you can spot Feilding!  It's in the lower central part of the island between Palmerston North & Dannevirke (which isn't as big as it's lettering suggests at a population of around 5500!).