Author: dave

i worked from home today as we had a lady come to look at our outside flooring.  karen the garden lady also came along and planted some more plants.

esther had the day off but popped in to school to pick up her violin in the afternoon

here are the long awaited choir performances from the Big Sing:

Choralation (Esther’s choir)

Cantare (Kezia’s choir)

work (but home a bit early sick), school (kez and jane), wandering around town during the day cuz her exames were finished, then going to the theatre (esther), going out to pick up esther from town at 10.30pm (dave)

pool fence is now nearly done.  it rained which is good news as we still don’t have to water the plants.

school, lots of exams (esther), work

camera club, church youth

but late so will update with pictures tomorrow

school/works

bullying workshop/church sound meeting

suspicious looking boats

and a friend came round and borrowed various of my framed photos as staging for some architectural type thing

and my father’s day present arrived

school, work

esther had a french exam which she loved (bizarrely) and physics this afternoon

kezia had an exam too which went ok

the fence men came and nearly finished (see picture above).  they’ll be back tomorrow and to nearly finish it off a bit more

Here’s an exciting thing.  Esther can be seen in the virtual orchestra with her trombone here:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p046jg6s/get-playing-7-get-playing-virtual-orchestra

 

she’s on the front row in the middle on this shot (53 seconds in)

church, sitting outside, snoozing, revising, school preparation

i also took lots of pictures of the youth at church this morning in the attempt to find the perfect background picture for the new church website.  don’t think i’ve taken that shot yet.

kezia and i went in search of a bath plug and learnt about cutting edge toilet technology and accidentally went to a korean church fund raising gala where kezia bought a cup of fried chicken which had coca-cola in the bottom (in a separate compartment).  we also went to the dentist as kezia’s retainer has broken and the opticians to see if kezia had left her glasses there (they are lost, but weren’t there).  we had a walk down the beach side while we were there.

this afternoon we played gardens for a bit

esther spent the day at the library

the newspaper man drove all over our front garden this morning which was very annoying.

then this evening we all went to watch Pentatonix.  i had a photo pass too thanks to an american website i hope to do more photoing for.  unfortunately i also had to write a review made up of words.

it’s now nearly 2am and my photos and words are complete.

i’m not allowed to share the pictures of the concert, so here’s the crowd instead (i’m still probably not allowed to share this either, but you get the idea).  i’ll post a link to where you can see the actual pictures when they’ve been published.

update: my concert photos are now online here:   http://photosfromthepit.com/pentatonix-world-tour-2016-vector-arena-auckland-new-zealand-11-september-2016/

after my busy couple of days i slept fantastically well, especially as i could get up a bit later today as i was working from home

during the day a man came to put our new letter box up, the new glass for the pool got dropped off (it’s being installed on monday) and the plant lady came to look at the garden

kezia had a half day at school so went to a friend’s house all afternoon

jane and i took pearl for a walk on the beach after school

and esther went to a friend’s house after school and this evening is going to some big band or concert band thing in auckland

massive storms swept up the country overnight and wellington had gale force winds which was a bit tricky as i had to go down to appear in front of a select committee with my boss

there were various warning being announced in the airport that flights to wellington would be subject to delays and cancellations.  we eventually got out our plane a little bit later than scheduled.  the captain then said something along the lines of:

‘i’m not going to lie to you, the weather in wellington is terrible – rain, sleet, cold, gusty showers.  but we’ve got enough fuel so that if we get down there and can’t land we can make it back up to Auckland’. 

Reassuring

the flights was fine in the end, although a few bumps.  and i bumped in to my chum alex from church at auckland airport so we shared a taxi in to wellington when we arrived

the giving evidence was fine – my boss did all the talking and i just sat there and smiled nicely   then we went for lunch  as all my other wellington based colleagues were out of the office !

really wild weather in wellington – snow, hail, sleet, much wind and freezing temperatures.  glad i could put my beard to use keeping my face warm

weather was even worse by the time i was due to fly back and weather at auckland was promised to be even worse.  but in the end it was fine

but the waves were quite dramatic from the sky

Alex was on the plane on the same flight on the way back too so he gave me a lift home rather than me getting a taxi.  unfortunately due to the route and the timing that took about an hour longer than if i’d just got a taxi!

girls had school. jane has piles of marking

here’s a man with a goblet at auckland airport this morning