busy days at work and school for everyone except kezia who was off sick today. she ate an egg and is now better
esther got called to the dean’s office at school today and was told she did amazing in the exams last year with loads of excellences, so well done to her
esther had orchestra after school
i’ve been taking advantage of the warm bright light on my walk to the bus station to take a few photos
work, school
esther had her big band rehearsal after school where the composer of one of her pieces ran the practice
kezia had a long choir rehearsal after school but came home a bit early as she’s exhausted from her weekend away
here’s the place where you have breakfast in the lodge.
after a massive breakfast we drove to tawharanui for a walk down the beach
this is looking back at the lodge from a road across the valley
tawharanui was a bit empty which was nice. we got a bit rained on during our walk but it was ok
after that we drove home and i picked up the girls from school and jane went supermarket shopping
the rest of the day has been school prep etc.
this was the view from our bedroom window across the vine then the sea to Little Barrier Island
it was quite posh as you can see
it even had a basket of essential things you might have forgotten. we didn’t need any of these items
but we did inspect a magazine from the magazine drawer
the lodge was on a little vineyard which produced 10,000 bottles a year so is fairly substantial
they were picking the grapes while we were there as they were ready
saturday morning we had a massive breakfast in the kitchen on the communal table making conversation with fellow guest obligatory (but enjoyable)
then we did the 50 minute walk in to Matakana village down a nice little track.
after a coffee and hot water (respectfully) we popped over to the matakana market
before walking back to the lodge
while we were walking there we bumped in to a work contact who was on a stroll with her dog and her husband. they said we should pop in to their nearby holiday house if we were passing later in the day
after a quick drink on our private deck we drove over to Omaha (exploring a few places by car on the way)
temperature was in low 20s, but it was quite windy. and quite a few jelly fish and puffer fishes on the sand
we walked all the way down to the end of the beach then back via the posh holiday houses
after another cuppa at home we visited my work colleague’s very fancy bach which is a lovely little village on the waterfront
in the evening we got poshed up and went out for dinner
after work/school jane and i drove up to our posh accommodation in matakana for a couple of nights away to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary.
we checked in to the lodge (which is the kiwi name for a small boutique posh/expensive hotel) then drove over to Sand Spit cafe for lunch as the sun went down
during the day i received this in the post from the Balkans for my ice cream picture which i entered in to a competition a year ago
i worked from home, the girls had school and are off on an orchestra camp for the weekend. jane and i are taking advantage of their absence by going away ourselves for two nights, so they’ll be no blog updates until sunday night.
school, work, equinox concert at girls school, dessert party for jane. lots of big ulcers for me.
school, work. orchestra, church youth club, book club
work/school for all
i found out my Associate set of photos got accepted by the NZ Photographic Society so next month i’ll be upgraded from Dave Simpson LPSNZ LRPS to Dave Simpson APSNZ LRPS. but it’s a secret for now so don’t tell.
i went to wellington today for a 90 minute meeting, which wasn’t altogether successful. but worth going to
i bumped in to an old church friend in the street too so that was good to catch up
i had twenty minutes spare after my meeting so had a really quick look at the galippoli exhibition at Te Papa museum which kezia has already seen. she said it was amazing and i agree. these super realistic statues are massive. no camera trickery!
meanwhile in auckland everyone had school
there’s a secret plane in wellington. although it was secret until the prime minister told everyone about it here
and here’s a weird rainbow out of the airplane window
