esther got this great certificate from school. very proud.
big news of the day is that we exchanged contracts and completed on our UK house. i’m not entirely sure where the money has ended up (nothing showing in my account yet) but the solicitor assures us it happened. hoorah.
so i’ve spent the evening phoning various UK companies and cancelling mortgage life insurances, landlord insurances etc which we no longer need
kezia had swimming.
they both had violin. when they walked in the person before was playing a tune and jane asked kezia if she recognised it. she didn’t. it was the UK national anthemn! To kezia’s defence (and esther’s too) they’ve only heard God Save The Queen a couple of times. whereas they sing the NZ anthemn most days at primary school (maori and english verses) and esther sings it twice a term in her assemblies.
kezia went to play with the girls next door after school so that was good for neighbourlyness. the eldest girl is just a little bit younger than kezia and she’s got two younger sisters.
one of jane’s colleagues came to our house for morning tea this morning.
and jane also met our neighbours on the other side who have been away in europe/uk since we’ve been here but are now back home. they came round to say hello which was really nice.
so now we (or at least jane) have met the neighbours either side, the next but one house where one of kezia’s school friends lives, the people directly across the road who run the tennis club esther has joined and some people diagonally up the road (where one of kezia’s flippa ball team lives). So that’s all friendly neighbouryness.
this evening when i came back there were kids playing a friendly game of football in the middle of the road (but soon moved as i approached). it’s just like olden day times when everyone knew each other 🙂
(hello to our ex-neighbours in twyford by the way!)
i had two nerve wracking meetings today which were both cancelled at short notice so that worked out nicely too
i was going to go for a walk with warren this evening but instead we decided to have coffee and desserts in a local restaurant which was pleasingly busy for a monday night
kezia has been chosen to be a travel wise coordinator which means she gets to go to a workshop held at the Hilton Hotel tomorrow next week in auckland and learn all about using public transport to get to school
i accidentally took esther’s glasses to work today which wasn’t very clever
jane had a good day and bought a floor cleaner and an ironing board
and i got asked to make a poster for a work drinks evening for the legal team which will have a japanese theme (because new zealand are playing japan at rugby that night).
i went for a walk at lunchtime for inspiration and saw these
and this is what i’ve come up with so far. this is the first draft which i’ll test with colleagues tomorrow
church was good this morning. jane was teaching one of the young kids groups and had a really good time by the sounds of it
after church we drove over to mairangi bay to sign esther up for tennis lessons and interclub tennis competitions. that’ll start in a couple of weeks time and will involve esther having a tennis competition most saturday afternoons somewhere around and about so that will be good for exploring. it’s a really nice tennis club.
we had morning tea in mairangi bay and had a quick walk down by the sea before heading back home
the people who were running the registration looked at our address and said ‘oooh, we live near you’. it turned out they live directly on the other side of the road from us. when they realised which house it was they said ‘the house with the pool’. all our neighbours have said that!
here’s a monarch butterfly doing its thing in a hedgerow
this afternoon we’ve done various chores and john has been back over to mostly finish off the garage lofting.
this evening whilst we were having tea we could hear a really horrible rasping noise. after much searching in the house i opened a window and it was outside.
we narrowed it down to the pool where we’d left an attachment on which was causing the most amazingly loud (and amusing) rasping noise. our neighbours will suspect we’ve all had rather unfortunate stomach upsets.
i didn’t video the rasping but here’s the pool shimmering in the sunlight earlier in the day
and finally, it’s the annual inorganic waste weekend in our area where everyone puts out stuff they’d normally take to the tip for the council to take away for free. because it happens once a year, people are ready for it and there’s all sorts of stuff out on the street.
and like last year within minutes of stuff being put out it’s taken away by inorganic waste vultures who drive round with their trailers and vans lifting anything which might have some scrap value before the council takes them.
this chest of drawers lasted about 30 minutes. And i suspect there was a bit of competition going on between the neighbours. one had put out a giant hot tub! Another had put out a bath and we saw a couple of toilets. And a giant bean bag had spilt all its beans just down from our house making a lovely snowy scene.
kezia had flippa ball and won 8 – nil again which was very satisfying (it would have been even more satisfying if the game in the next pool hadn’t been 13-nil!)
jane went out for an early run so i decided we should all have breakfast outside this morning as it was sunny (although still a bit chilly)
then we decided to go for a walk at shakespear park
only when we got there we found it’s closed for 6 months whilst they dump a load of poison on the area to kill all the invasive pest so they can turn it in to a nature reserve and reintroduce things like kiwis and bell birds
so instead we parked up at army bay which is next to the reserve and had a nice walk, did some geocaches then had a rather good picnic looking out towards the island further north
kezia spotted this hat in the sea
this is the view from the south side of the peninsula looking back to auckland
and of course rangitoto
by the time it was time to leave a light breeze had picked up and the clouds were moving in. still nice and warm though – we were in t-shirts for much of the day
you can tell these photos are out of order as the earlier ones have the cloudless sky and flat sea
this afternoon kezia went to a sleep over party which she wasn’t going to sleep over at as we don’t know the parents
then jane and esther went shopping whilst i stayed at home to do some domestic admin
but no sooner had i started than our friend john arrived to start putting the new loft ladder in our garage so we can get clear the decks to get both cars in (i’m not convinced they’ll fit, but we’ll see)
then this evening jane and esther went to watch a penguin film with the irvines and the dekwants whilst i started work on my UK tax return. yawn
now we’re all back home and everyone is very tired
it was nice to be by the sea again today in such lovely weather
kezia won a colouring competition run by her swimming squad so won a swim bag, swimming hat and goggles! nice work kez
she keeps her swimming cap on until she gets home to keep her head warm. bit chilly you see.
i go the bus in this morning which meant a nice walk round the wynyard quarter on the way to the office in the chilly morning air.
jane had a good day at work but it looks like her job will run out at the end of the year when the maternity leave teacher comes back which is a shame. if only she could learn japanese or chinese in the next few months then she might be ok as there’s possibly a couple of vacancies in those areas
esther had the most exciting day today as she did some school maths/exercise challenge which involved answering questions as a team and running to the score master to hand your answers in. her team finished somewhere in the middle so that wasn’t bad.
the girls had their violin and swimming lessons. And i had coffee with work chums to celebrate sasha being at Telecom for exactly two years today (and jane and my 15 and a half wedding anniversary).
At 8.30pm tonight on new zealand telly, sasha’s wife’s tv program about historic sporting moments will air on television. And bizarrely that’s at the same time as one of Simon’s wife’s programs is on on a different channel (she has several programs, not he has several wives).
only in new zealand would you work with two layers who each have a wife which each have a program on two different television channels on at the same time on the same night.
meanwhile new zealand is still rather chilly thanks to the polar blast but it’s not caused us any trouble up in sub tropical auckland. although temperatures are around freezing over night.
jane had a good day at work and got some good feedback from her boss who had been away. So that’s excellent.
kezia went to Eden Park on a school trip to see the home of the All Blacks. She got to down some secret tunnel that the coaches use and the player’s tunnel. it was very cold though as the stadium is outside apparently.
esther had some very tricky maths exam thing which is something she was selected to do. she said she had to guess some of the answers as she didn’t know how to work them out. but she enjoyed reading the names of the people in the questions. she gave me a long list of them included a boy with a name like Amit who appeared in many of the scenarios.
jane had parents evening tonight which went ok i think. as a result the girls went to janine’s after school and i picked them up from there. then we went to mcdonalds for tea and then it was some music practice and bed.
i was meant to be having a massive test / exam / interrogation with a few colleagues about the new regulatory regime but that got postponed until next week (bit annoying as i spent most of sunday revising). so instead i went for lunch with Buzz which was good (and provided the picture above)
here’s a nice video of the snow down in wellington. no snow in auckland today (not that we had very much yesterday other than 5 minutes of it blowing by)
it snowed in downtown auckland today. for the first time in 80 years. no wonder people stopped working and ran to the window.
It was a pretty wild night with big winds and rain so i collapsed the trampoline canopy to give it less chance of flying away, and as i drove to work early this morning it started hailing really hard as i went over the harbour bridge.
then i realised i’d forgotten my work pass which was a pain as not only does it let me through doors it also allows me to extract my printing from the printer.
anyway, my presentation went went ok although it was a bit disconcerting when the people down in wellington kept running to the window to watch a blizzard engulf their city.
the snow didn’t settle so driving home wasn’t a problem. unlike those further down the country. We’re sooo glad we’re not in our cold old house (although i fear for our heating bill here)
kezia said her classroom was freezing despite the heaters being on.
jane had a good school trip – or at least it wasn’t quite as bad as she feared. the orchestra played nicely and everyone was accounted for.
esther’s trombone teacher didn’t turn up that was a shame.
and the building regulation consent certificate for our UK house arrived here today having been forwarded from the UK. that’s rather unfortunate as it was a vital part of getting our house sold, so hopefully
