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This is the view i get to see on the bus on the way in to work in the morning.  it’s certainly more attractive than the M4 (although the sunrise over Slough power station was pretty special some mornings)

every day that i’ve seen this view it has looked different.  this day the tide was nearly completely out so there was lots of beach on show.  there was someone out jogging along this bit of shore this morning

but other mornings the tide is in and almost lapping at the road

and every day the clouds or weather is different – some days it’s so drizzly Auckland seems like a distant dream floating on the horizon

 

it’s a shame there’s no where to get off the bus and take a photo every day, but this is meant to be a commute to work.  so you’ll just have to do with these photos which i took yesterday morning !

Well, today was athletics day at school. It seems very odd  have all the stuff we would have in the summer term and the end of the autumn term all at once.

No photos I’m afraid as I forgot to ask Dave for the camera and I wasn’t sure if you would be allowed to take photos anyway (you were).

It lasted all day and they didn’t finish it. The sports were divided into “Competitive” and “Social”. The top 6 athletes from the competitive section would go on to represent the school at an interschools thing.

Esther and Kezia were in the social side. I turned up after lunch. Because of the uniform and the fact that they wear their caps which have bits down the back to keep the sun off their necks, it was very difficult to find Esther and Kezia. Plus the fact that they raced in age groups, not year groups (aged 7 girls etc). So even if I spotted someone from the girls’ classes, my girls would not necessarily be with them.

In the end I watched Kezia in the sack race and missed Esther in the welly wanging (called gumboot throwing here) although I nearly walked right past her.

We were invited back to  someone from church’s house for tea. She was one of the craft leaders the other night and has a girl in yr5. The Kiwis are really into their coffee. Tracey had a fantastic machine and made me a flat white. I will never be able to invite anyone back here for a nescafe.

Here’s my craft stuff from Thursday night. They are canvasses.

Guess what you’ll all be getting for Christmas!

Byeee

Hi Blog readers. Today you can enjoy a trip round our rental home.

When you come in you go into a little hallway and straight ahead is this family room down a few steps.

To the right when you come in through the front door is this living room where the telly is. The sofas are hired.

Below is a view of it from the hallway.

Some parts of the house were incredibly dusty. Here I am with my new telescopic feather duster. As you can see, I am my mother’s daughter because I have tied another duster round it, as it was soooo dusty in those hard to reach areas and I didn’t want to spoil its feathery qualities.

Here I am dusting in a tricky place.

Here is the kitchen and dining area. They are to the right of the family room.

Here’s the deck – he doors you can see are at the end of the family room. The room at the end is our bedroom.

Here is the garden, which is beyond the deck and a bit lower. Dave has managed to make it bigger than it is.

 

Beyond the garden there is a park, lower down again and a creek and then some hills with trees growing on them The Kiwis call that the bush.

 

 

Here’s our room again from the deck.

 

There are some other rooms to, but the photographer has not taken any photos of those.

here’s some pictures from my day in Wellington last Friday for work.  these are the hills / mountains around wellington

 

and here is wellington itself.  my office is in the harbour inlet bit middle right of the picture above.

 

and here is my massive leg room on the plane thanks for being on emergency door duty and agreeing to help out with evacuation procedures in the unlikely event of plane problems.

Hi Chumz

This afternoon we went out with Dave’s colleague Abbie, who he knew when she worked in England. She sails in boats so took us round Auckland Harbour to look at them and under the Harbour Bridge

We saw some birds too. Abbie told us the names of them, but they don’t look quite the same as they do in Blighty. This is a heron.

And here’s a kingfisher. Not so rare here.

Here are the girls

And here is our dinner. We went to the Fish n chips shop. There was a choice of fish but we hadn’t heard of any of them. On the left was Snapper and on the right was something else beginning with T. We didn’t reach an agreement as a family as to which was the preferred fish.

Hello,

No photos today because Dave has gone to bed already. (update – dave now awake, photos added)

Slowly getting the house sorted. We have hired some furniture – the minimum we could get away with, so we have a bed each, a table and chairs and kitchen stuff – oh and an iron and ironing board.

 

I am making a long list of maintenance jobs which I think need to be done and have taken photos of all the dents in the walls so that no-one can accuse us of making them. Actually, yesterday Lizzie, who was the old tenant here popped round with a new home card for us, which was very useful – the visit, not the card – that was more decorative, because she could show me how various things work, including the oven which has had all it’s pictures by the knobs rubbed off. She said a lot of the dents – or dings as they call them here, were here when they moved in, and they were the first tenants here. Very nice of her to come along.

My ladies thing last night was really good. I made some nice craft stuff and chatted to lots of nice ladies and one phoned today to invite me for coffee next week.

We have just been to a fireworks display over Kumeu way. After a shaky start the fireworks were very good. They call it Guy Fawkes here, but there was no bonfire or guy. Then we got lost on the way home and there was a slightly heated exchange!!! A very late night for all.

Dave will add photos tomorrow. (done)

Byeeeeeeee

here is k-road near my office.  it’s a tremendous street of crazy madness. mostly of the good kind, and we can ignore the rest.

my commute to work by bus is still a novelty which is good.  there’s one particular view as i travel in when central Auckland just pops up in to view.  I’ll see if i can get a picture of that for you, rather than more k-road strangeness (plenty more of these photos will appear on the main blog over the next few days)

anyway, today is Guy Fawkes night, either that or a rather dramatic volcano has sprung up in the vicinity.  that’s probably not something to joke about …     We’re off to a fireworks display tomorrow so that should be good (weather permitting of course).

it’s chucked it down all day today which made my bus trip over an hour long rather than a personal best of 25 minutes.  you’d think aucklanders would be used to the rain.  anyway.

i actually spoke to jane this evening to find out what she’s been up to.  this morning she went to look round the local state secondary school, and this afternoon she took the girls to be assessed for swimming lessons. Both passed and Kezia has been assigned to a group.  Ether is on a waiting list for her swimming squad.  Given the olympic team practice in the pool, we’re hoping for great things.

by the way, i’ve no idea why this mannequin has spare hair stuck all over it.  but i was delighted it had.  new zealand is surely the bizarre mannequin capital of the world.

jane’s gone off to some lady’s event at church this evening and tomorrow a taxi is coming at 5.30am to take me to the airport for a day at the office in Wellington.

I was originally going to go for a couple of days next week, but decided to go tomorrow to catch one of the team who is about to go on maternity leave.  however, i got an email a minute or two ago saying her waters had broke so that’s blown it.   Still, i’ve arranged another couple of meetings whilst i’m down there, so all should be good as they say.  and as i say too now apparently.

right, that’s me.  must get to bed.  and sort my bag out to ensure i’ve got not sharps or liquids in there for the plane.  wata pavlova.

see ya

dave (over tired and over rambly)

Sorry, too tired to write a proper entry because of new house type of stuff. All is well. Off to bed. Will write more tomorrow.

jane spent most of today doing things to do with getting in to our new house and out of our holiday house.  we’re a bit in limbo/manic tidying mode this evening as we need to be out of here by 10am, but in our new house by 9am to meet various tradesmen delivery our rental furniture.

meanwhile i went to work and found out a little bit more about my job which is all good you’ll be pleased to know.

perhaps a bigger update tomorrow (assuming the broadband is up and running – we know the router has arrived in the post so that’s a good sign)

sorry for the shorty !