i’m glad i was turned down for photoing the Foo Fighters as it absolutely chucked it down with rain today with more flooding etc. still quite warm though.
this afternoon the girls went shopping while i worked on a revamped website.
this evening we all played cluedo. i won.
i did take a photo but everyone looks too horrible so i won’t share it. but at least taking the photo triggered me to remember to update the blog. yay!
i had a trip to wellington for work. the meeting itself lasted thirty minutes and i said one sentence. luckily the massive storm which had blown through on thursday had mostly gone, although there were no hot drinks served as ‘there is a lot of weather about’.
jane had a good day at school and her new class seem nice
kezia had school which seems to be going ok i think
esther hung around the house with gold old Samikins
and, you’ll be pleased to know, i bought a replacement camera
this morning (saturday) esther and i took her phone to the Samsung repair centre and went for a drive on the motorway and in to town. looks like we got in to town just in time as the high tide was once again spilling on to the motorway causing one lane to be closed by the time we drove back over it half an hour later (many parallel parking practises later)
quails invaded the pool this morning
the entire ocean encroaching on the motorway
nearly covering the new boardwalk. sea height is a combination of king tides and storm surges from the cyclone remnants
sorry about the lack of updates. me not having a camera all the time means i don’t sit down at the computer and upload the images each night which is what would trigger me to write the blog.
so as far as i can remember, we’ve been busy.
it’s been stupid hot – rarely dropping below 20 degrees at night and approaching 100% humidity. it’s lovely though, but makes going out a bit exhausting.
i photoed Roger Waters for Getty. I also photoed a music festival and the prime minister for Getty.
jane has been back at school for a week and the kids finally arrived this Tuesday
Kezia went back to school for half and day on Tuesday and has had her first proper day today.
esther is doing odd jobs round the house and generally getting herself ready for university – she moves in to halls in a couple of weekends time. she’s had some trombone lessons to get back up to speed on that.
i’ve had work, but am off sick today
it was auckland anniversary weekend last weekend so we all went in to town to watch the new lights on auckland bridge do some fancy things
then the next night we went down again to listen to an orchestra play while some fireworks went off.
photos above are from laneway and below of roger waters (pink floyd)
saturday kezia was out doing churchy thing
in the morning jane and esther walked pearl and in the afternoon esther and i went for a drive (her first time driving on the motorway and first (and second) time driving over the bridge
in the evening i went out and photoed some bands
on Sunday we had church then we went out for lunch to celebrate the girls’ exam results.
After that we went to a fantastic thing at the Civic Theatre which was put on but a performance group from Wellington. the set up was a rather crazy steward/usher was showing each little group round the theatre and as we went on our tour of the historic building there were little dramas and interactive things happening. it was totally hilarious so a good time was had by all.
today is monday and jane and i have had work. jane had first aid training. i had a long day as i was in at 7.15 and had meetings until 5.30pm
no photos to show of the (rainy) day due to cameralessness, but here’s some pictures from saturday night to cheer you on your way (it was quite a shouty evening)
jane and i are back from out trip up to northland. sorry about the quality of the photos – they are straight out of my phone.
the girls had a good time home alone by the sounds of things.
they both got their exams results on tuesday and both did well.
esther has now applied for all her university courses so that’s exciting.
here’s what jane and i did on our holiday.
on the way there on Monday we stopped at Matapouri and scrambled up cliff sides to reach the mermaid pools, followed by scrambles back down then a walk over the cliffs (on a formed track) to another beah before heading back to the car.
we then drove to our accommodation in Russell , followed by a sit on the beach then dinner in the very posh Duke of Marlborough (it’s approximately half the cost dinning with the two of us rather than the usual four!)
this was the view from our holiday house deck on the first day when the sky still contained elements of blue
day two we went for a walk over and beyond flagstaff hill after breakfast in a cafe. the walk claimed to be ‘strenuous’ which in practice involved even more danger than the climb to the mermaid pools the day before.
there were more bits of frayed ropes dangling off trees which we had to use to dangle our way off sharp rocks, relying on the knots of strangers to hold us as we lowed ourselves gradually off cliff edges.
you can only do the walk at two hours either side of the tide, so we assumed that meant at those times of day you could walk round the sandy coast. we were wrong.
at one point we were clinging to the edge of some rocks on tiny footholes and just had to let ourselves drop in to the ocean and hope it wasn’t too deep. we ended up with wet shorts, but managed to keep all our technology dry in our backpacks. when we saw the next beach had a footpath back up to flagstaff hill we took that rather than risk our lives any more round the coast. our shoes eventually dried about two days later
here’s a dangly rope to help you drop off the edge of this bit of cliff
i stopped taking photos after a while as it got too dangerous!
you can see the triangular roofs of our holiday house on the horizon here
on Wednesday we drove out west a little to do a long walk across to another beach. the weather was starting to draw in (the wind was picking up and the sun was rarely seen)
the walk was up for ages then down for ages so good exercise. probably best that we didn’t do it in blistering sun. still ~100% humidity though
at the bay there was an old whaling station which is where they took the whales they’d just caught and boiled them down in to whatever stuff they created from whales.
in the evening we went back to the duke of marlborough for dinner as it was so nice.
on thursday the rain and wind really set in to we decided that was going to be our day to go to the Waitangi Treaty grounds across the way. it was so rainy we decided to drive rather than get the boat/walk
on the way we met up with a new photo friend who talked at us for an hour and a half. we stopped briefly in paihia then had lunch and a wander round the museum at waitangi
friday (today) was our last day and we drove home via a cafe which was a bit out of the way but very nice
i seem to have mislaid my little camera which is a) quite impressive as it’s usually always on me and b) quite annoying. photos here are from other cameras and my phone.
sorry for the lack of updates. jane and i are off to Russell tomorrow for until Friday evening so there won’t be any updates next week either.
We had a family day out on Thursday which started with an escape room (not great performance from us this time) and then we went to see Paddington 2 at the cinema which was good.
The girls have had various days out with their friends. jane and i went to the tip with a load of garden waste. jane has done great works chopping things back
we also walked up Mount Eden volcano with pearl which had a nice view (evidence now missing)
the weather has been really sunny and extremely hot/humid, but there’s a storm coming through all next week which should make jane and my holiday soggy.
today we had a family trip to the botanical gardens.
just usual summer stuff. trips to the beach, shopping, hanging out with friends.
i photoed Fleet Foxes last night. the photo pit was really small and we had to climb over a big fence to get in to it much to the amusement of the crowd.
my photos are up on getty here: https://www.gettyimages.co.nz/search/photographer?family=editorial&photographer=dave%20simpson&excludenudity=true&sort=newest#license
and here’s some photos
jane and i went to the beach in the morning.
esther went in to town with her friend sam and then sam stayed the night.
kezia spent the day with some of her friends and they had a sleep over
in the afternoon i went to the zoo where i watched some of the keepers get pecked by flamingos while they were checking on their egg volcanoes
the girls are back having had a good trip. we all had a nana nap this morning (including me as i’d been up at 4 to collect them) and we went for a walk at takapuna beach this afternoon while kezia had her hair restyled.
we saw quite a bit of damage to the sea wall due to the massive storm which swept through the last couple of days.
i’m still fighting technical problems on my computer, phone and my different websites so apologies for the lack of pictures.
