Author: dave

bit soggy again this morning, but at least that means the temperature is a bit higher than the last few weeks.

work was busy for me doing various things which is good.

and then this evening i went to a gig with simon from work.  but first we went to an ale house.  i had a bellringers ale (seen above).

i really enjoyed the black rebel motorcycle club, mainly for watching the bass player

jane had a bit of a tough day at work so the novelty and excitement of the new job has evaporated some what.  esther had a violin lesson and kezia had a school trip to the local rainforest.

and then this evening they both had their swimming lessons.  we don’t know what we’re up to tomorrow so that’s exciting !

not everyone gets to celebrate their birthday at 3.15am, but jane did.  sort of.   thanks to the all night rain our electrics fused again which meant kezia and me crashing around the house with torches finding which circuit had tripped.  it turned out to be our bedroom lights so there must be a leak in the roof somewhere, which isn’t very good in a flimsy wooden house.  so we’ve got the letting agents on to it (again)

we eventually got back to bed (if not to sleep) and then it was morning proper.  thankfully it had stopped raining by then

the girls got jane various bath smelling things

 

and her friends got her this lovely ceramic wall hanging thing

which depicts new zealand things

i got jane this vegetarian muffin.  i had the choice between bacon muffin and vegetarian so it was tricky choice.  i think she was pleased.  i didn’t even have to take the price off it as i got it for free from a cafe that was closing for the day

 

of course that’s not all i got her.  she’s going to buy some boots. and i got her a bath bomb which is (hopefully) not as dangerous as it seems

as soon as i got home i had to go out again to a band practice.  the video below contains one of the songs we’re doing on sunday.  it has a rather elaborate bass line which i think i’ve just about learnt.  everyone else is SO good in the band it’s a real challenge to keep up.  which is a good thing i guess.  (the soundtrack is of the proper people doing it, not our band)

the most complicated thing about getting the flight back home to auckland was how to take the hire car back as that involved a mini bus trip from the drop off point back to the airport.

in the end we parked up at the airport, checked in our suitcases and got our boarding passes, then i took the car back

only i had to find somewhere to fill it up with petrol before we returned it which turned in to a bit of a tiki tour round the local villages

but all was good in the end and we had a very relaxing saturday morning sitting in the koru business lounge reading the weekend papers and dining on a light buffet and refreshments.

it was a gorgeous day and kezia had a window seat.  this is what she saw going by below us

our bags were nearly the first off the plane thanks to my frequent flyer card so that made for a hasty get away and drive back home in time to drop our bags off and then head back in to town for after tea with two families from work

    

so all in all a very nice holiday.  seems like a distant memory now though of course

here are a couple of choice excerpts from the christchurch newspaper i was reading in the lounge before we got on our plane

quality stuff.

this sign sums up new zealand winters – freezing but people still wearing shorts.

you’re asking yourself is this a large satsuma or a small banana.  it’s both.

kezia had her first piano lesson today which went well.  she got her fingers numbered in case she loses one.

jane’s gone off to another choir practice as their big gig approaches.  our paths crossed at some point this evening but it feels we haven’t properly seen each other for yonks.  but that’s modern life now we’re both working.

our last full day on holiday was esther’s birthday

she got lots of books (here are a few of them)

how can esther possibly be 11 ?

 

you should savour these photos as she’s going through a camera shy phase at the moment

after a late breakfast we headed to a hands on science place where the girls got to climb up a climbing wall of science

and drop down Australasia’s longest drop toilet  vertical slide

kezia was quite fantastic and both girls spent hours (literally) chucking themselves down it whilst jane and i sat at the bottom on a little seat

we’re great fans of mirrors and other optical effects

no one attempted to guess what was doing on here, but it’s actually esther looking through a window at jane.  but the light is organised such to merge their faces.  so it’s an estane, or an jansther perhaps

 

here’s a combo of jane and me (half and half left/right)

and there was some useful light thing which showed you how you can make white light which is handy for my photo course.

in the evening we headed back in to town for our last supper which was in a lovely place.  here’s my pie and mash.  the mash is balancing on the meat and the pastry is the two wings speared on top.  it was very tasty thanks.

can you guess why kezia sat here most mornings reading her book ?  i suspect it was to do with the heat pump above her on the wall !

busy day at work for me today as my boss asked me to whip up a document on open access regulation (and now you realise why i don’t talk about my work much).  so that meant i was writing between 8am and 5.30pm with 5 minutes for lunch.

as i popped out for my sandwich i spotted a pile of all black rugby stars in reception who were there to sign things (sadly all i got with this little photo on the way by).

 

 

(i wondered if the letter above was my performance review 8/10 and an A grade would be ok.  but it wasn’t.  just floor 10 in building number 8).

and the other highlight of the day (for me at least) was when i was asked to quickly come up for some ideas of how to illustrate a picture about tidying desks for our company magazine.  there was a bit wheelie bin next to where two colleagues were standing so i suggested one of them got in it.  and they did !

i’m not sure whether all kiwis are so obliging when it comes to following random instructions from people with cameras. i’ll have to experiment.  sadly i don’t have a photo of this myself as i used a colleague’s camera.

 

kezia had a violin lesson today as she’s on a school trip on friday, esther had a jolly day at school and jane’s deciding how to deal with an annoying pupil.  And then after school they all went to the municipal tennis court to try out their new racquets.

jane asked me if i thought it was a good idea to drive up to a ski resort, and i said i thought it was.

i wanted to see some real snow and real mountains, so off we went.

however, i hadn’t considered that the access road to the ski place would be so steep and so windy and so, well, scary to drive up.

the last windy bit was up a ‘metal road’ which meant it’s a dirt track covered in little stones. and it didn’t have anything to stop you plummeting off the edge if you misjudged a corner or tried to squeeze by a car coming the other way

we made it up alright in our little hire car, but i noted we were parked away from the edge of the car park which was compacted icey snow and an even bigger drop beyond.

 

our little hire car looked a bit weedy compared to the rest of the cars up there which were 4×4.  and it was actually snowing and the snow was settling a bit on the ‘road’.  i was quite fearful for our descent.

after a coffee in the cafe we had a wander round a bit.  jane met one of her new pupils from school in the cafe and she came over for a chat which was nice

  

and then with lots of quiet prayers we slowly made our way back down the mountain pass and even managed to pass a few cars without plunging to our death which was nice.

it snowed the next day and the pass would have been impassable for our little car.

still at least the avalanche risk was low

the bird here is a kea which is famous for pulling cars apart (just like the monkeys of the longleat drive through place). 

 

apparently they go after anything shiny so i was quite lucky to get out alive after waving my camera at it.

     

luckily this chap didn’t take a shine to our car as he was much too busy pulling bits off this car and seemingly eating the spare tyre.

on the way back to christchurch we briefly stopped in sheffield to get a picture by the sign. 

there seemed to only be one shop in sheffield and that was a pie shop !

we then spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the modern art gallery which was excellent, but prevented photos

that picture above is the toilet sign, and below is the view from one of the galleries

then it was back home for tea.

a real back to school day today.  because it was, er, back to school for jane and the girls

 

all seemed to have a good time which was handy. i worked from home today as jane had an after school staff meeting which meant she wouldn’t have been here to meet the girls.

i started work at 7am so i could finish at 4pm and the three of us went to the mall for afternoon tea (ice creams) and a mooch round the shops.

Whitcoulis (known as ‘white clouds’ in our family) had a sale of whsmith products. whsmith doesn’t exit here so that’ probably explains the lack of things on the table (though there were plenty of things under it).

then it was back for tea and now it’s now.

after our seasickness and the disappointment of lyttleton we drove round the coast to get back to Auckland

first stop was the obligatory cafe which we got to just as it was shutting

the girls did some quizzes in their little bible books before we set off for a walk down the beach

the beach was lovely and there were plenty of interesting shells.

  here’s kezia testing her mussels on a clam

and here’s one of those nice shells you find in nice places

as we walked along the sun began to set over the mountains in the distance

i ended up taking loads of photos and i’m quite poor at whittling them down, so there’s probably a few more below than you care to see !

 

   

   

  

and here are lots of pictures of kezia in the setting sunlight.

the sleep over went ok thanks for asking.  the girls even slept in a bit

i went to church on my own (the party people stayed at home to watch a movie) then after they left we had our lunch in the garden.  not bad for mid-January (equivalent northern hemisphere date)

so we thought we should go out to make the best of the day

so we loaded the bikes in the car and headed up the coast to Orewa which is a nice beach

with some posh houses including this one with a fancy post box

the girls had a nice time zooming about on the flat beach

and we walked as the girls cycled from one end of the beach to the other (total of 5.5km according to the gps logs)

there was only one brave soul in the sea but mostly there were a good number of dog walkers and dog-less walkers.

the reason we chose Orewa was because we’d heard there was a fabulous puzzle shop there. and there was.

it was more like a play scheme really as people were encouraged to sit at a table in the middle of the shop and play with the various puzzles and games (a bit like a games workshop shop if you’ve ever experienced one of them).  the man in the picture above is the rather mad proprietor

we were in there for about an hour whilst esther chose what she wanted to buy with some of her birthday money

somewhere along the day i also popped next door to look at our neighbour’s house which has been for sale since january.  they were having their weekly open house so i took the opportunity to talk to the estate agent about leaky homes and house prices in case we ever decided to buy the place we’re in at the moment.

after 2 weeks of holiday it’s back to school for everyone tomorrow so there’s been lots of sorting and things this evening.