Blog

i worked from home today as my car needed its 90,000 km service (big one), it’s WOF (MOT), a pre-warranty checkup, a recall on door switch and some problems with my light.  it wasn’t cheap

the girls had school and kezia had swimming which was fancy dress. 

the pool man finally came and our pool is ready for swimming (although the water is extremely cold)

jane lost her car keys somewhere in the house

i picked up a library book for esther and had to do some coordinating for my friend Phil who is hoping to move to new accommodation soon.

our favourite chip shop is closed at the moment

kezia had swimming this evening – taught by a witch

most of the tall ships had snuck back in to the harbour over the last few days i see

girls had school. esther had orchestra after school

i went to pick up my half marathon number from the place where you pick up the half marathon numbers.  i went with my colleague sasha who is one of new zealand’s elite runners so everyone knew him.  that was nice

like last year, all the runners name were written on a car

and seeing as it was jane who originally registered it was her name on the car.  what a fraud

lovely day again today

everyone had school today and i had work

this evening kezia was baking something and everyone else was preparing or revising

usual tuesday madness of violins and swimming, but no tennis tonight as esther had a concert instead.

i had a work meeting which was meant to last to 7pm but by 6pm everyone had (thankfully) run out of things to say

there was also some coordinating to do with my friend Phil

jane took some pictures of esther’s concert from her phone.  I’ll put them here when it’s charged enough to let me get them:

esther even had a solo apparently!

the girls were busy studying / homeworking / lesson preparing so i went off and did the Auckland coast to coast walk

so i drove in to auckland and took a last look at the tall ships which were heading off at lunchtime.  some of them were about to begin lowering their sails

and this russian ship which is sitting in the harbour looking impressive!

so, i got the bus to the other coast which started by a lagoon consisting of (not the entire) tasman sea

then it was case of walking up and down and across volcanoes and residential streets for the next three and a half hours (around 18km i think)

one good thing about climbing up volcanoes is that you get a nice view of where you’ve been and where you are heading

the picture below showed roughly where i’d gone (started top right, walked to top of one tree hill in the middle, then snaked my way directly to the middle of the bottom of the picture)

i passed this building which is part of auckland grammar school which amazing brickwork

i managed to lose the official route a number of times, but worked out alternatives.

and when i got back to where i’d parked my car (on the Pacific side) all the ships had gone

jane and the girls did manage to have some fun today and went to Browns Bay with Janine.  but mostly they’ve been working.

esther had a 10 hour party today so we just dropped her off at friends house this morning and collected her this evening

during that time she climbed climbing walls and swam swimming pools and played games and ate party tea

meanwhile the rest of us went to church

and spent the rest of the day doing chores

pearl threw up all over the house this afternoon which was a shame.  but she was fine by the time we went out this evening for a walk round the cemetery

then this evening jane went out for a coffee with debbie

so that’s that.  public holiday tomorrow.  hoorah.

it’s a long weekend in new zealand so we let kezia skip her swimming lesson this morning so we could all have a lie in

this morning we headed in to auckland to see the tall ship festival

there were 6 tall ships (i think) which you could go on, but the one which took esther’s fancy was the navy ship which also happened to be parked up and available for visiting

so we queued for half an hour and slowly worked our way round the ship

this seemed like a classic kiwi thing to do – lots of actual guns for kids and adults to try, with lots of bits which could chop your fingers off (no actual bullets though)

but don’t worry, we were safe as they’d used a highly secure way of stopping people stealing the guns.  they’d put a bit of rope through the trigger area and had tyed the ends of the rope rather loosely to the floor.  so we were fine.

they obviously take the actual shooting of weapons as seriously though judging by this note i saw on one of the consoles on the bridge

outside kezia and esther had a go on a big gun which was pointing at the Hilton Hotel windows a few metres away

i didn’t find out what secrets were hidden behind this door unfortunately

but the girls got to play with some big hoses

after that we wandered back to the car and home for esther to do a load of revision

this afternoon i sorted out some photos from last week’s puhoi trip

once the temperature started to cool down a bit i went for a 10k walk (still not convinced i’m going to be fast enough to make it over the harbour bridge next week, but we’ll see)

and jane has gone to long bay with kezia and pearl

a good day!

school for everyone.  i worked from home

kezia got the results from her maths competitions she did last term.  she got ‘credit’ in both which is a really good grade and in one she’s in the top 13% of those brainy people who sat the test!  she told me to tell you that in both of them she is higher than the average year 8 (and she’s year 7).

this evening kezia had swimming.  it’s been quite windy and the pool person didn’t come.  but the mower man did.

school for all.  work for me

i went for a walk at lunch and took some photos

after school esther had orchestra practice and kezia had swimming

jane and esther went to a meeting at her school about her european trip next year so jane now knows things

petrol was on special offer at our local garage at $1.95/litre (less than a pound in old world money)

this chap is (apparently) a famous new zealand musician called Luke Hurley who often goes out busking.  just because he can.  he was quite excellent and well worth investigating.

the pool seems to have green lilly pads.

the boiler man came this afternoon to mend our boiler.  which he did.  so that was good

kezia did a school project with a water bottle lid and a CD

jane was busy at school and doing school work this evening

esther had her church youth

everyone is exhausted

i had photo club.  here are this week’s photos

Acceptance

highly commended