Blog

the day started early for jane and kezia as they drove out west for kezia to compete in a 400m race.  it’s her longest race to date and she was nervous. 

she was aiming for a time under 8 minutes, but actually got 6 and half i think, which is a qualifying time for the next group up from hers so she was pleased with that.

meanwhile esther and i watched Dr Who then i sorted some photos for a competition whilst esther did her homework.  when the girls got back we all watched the Apprentice.

the rest of the day was spent at home. i slept most of the afternoon as i’m still feeling pretty uncomfortable

this evening jane went to the supermarket and kezia and i had a game of non-scoring scrabble.

here’s a story on the front page of our local newspaper (pants are trousers). knickers are knickers.

Dave was not feeling so good today. Boo.

I went to the dentist and went for a dog walk with my friend Mara and her new dog. Her new dog was tiny.

Esther went to school. Kez went to school and then to a friend’s birthday party after school. She seems to have had fun and played glow in the dark mini golf.

Kezia brought home the chopping board she has been making for me a school. It’s brilliant.

very rainy again today. girls had school, then afterwards esther had orchestra and kezia had swimming. 

jane went to the gym and then went for a walk round orewa with pearl and helen.  jane had a music practice this evening

here are some pictures which appeared on facebook of me giving my talk on Monday.  i worked from home again today.

i woke up this morning with massive pain in my kidney area. that set the tone for the rest of the day.  thankfully the pain had subsided by 8.30 when jane took me to our doctors.  whilst there i had an x-ray to rule out kidney stones (i’ve not heard anything back so assume that was negative).  i’ve now got various medicines and I’ll go back next week to see how they are working.

jane missed mainly music to take me to the doctors but then went along anyway as i had a bit of a wait, but the mainly music people sent her back to me!

i spent the rest of the day managing to work from home despite the doctor giving me a note saying i’m medically unfit to work for the rest of this week (hah – i know best). I’m ok working from home though.

jane then took my car to be re-tired, which actually only cost $25 as they could repair the tyre.  she also bought a new violin bow for esther from a violin expert.

then we tested the home smoke detectors which did their job beautifully, warning us that something was about to set on fire.  queue much rushing about by jane and me.  the smoke alarms are connected to the home burglar alarm and poor Pearl was a little traumatised by the time we’d found the Code and turned everything off (and then off again as the smoke detectors kept on triggering). Pearl sat at the bottom of the stares shaking for a while after that.

this afternoon jane had her teaching lesson and the kids were naughty to that was rubbish too.

this evening esther’s out at her church youth club and the rest of us are going to bed early and pretend today didn’t happen!

usual tuesday madness of two violin lessons, swimming for kez and pearl training this afternoon

i managed to get a nail in my tyre driving back from swimming. we limped home and jane is going to save the day tomorrow (and change the tyre too this evening as i’m beyond useless at that kind of thing)

esther had some sports test and came fourth for running out of all her class.  esther did some sign language learning and saw the school dentist

i don’t know what jane did.

i went back to my conference and learnt more about fibre to the home across asia, saw some pictures of street lights and looked at this rather fine slot cutting machine which drills a nice thing trench down a road just wide enough for a cable, then fills it in again.

the conference was opposite a graveyard which made for some nice wanderings before the day kicked off.

Dave and Esther set off early together this morning as Esther had to take her violin and trombone on the bus.

Kez went to school and I took Pearl for a walk at Long Bay.

Then I did various domestics and shopping and went to watch Kezia perform with her school strings group at Albany Library, what with this being NZ Music Month.

They performed in the library and then outside the library.

This evening Kez went to her first ever Zumba class which she seems to have enjoyed. Esther had tennis and I ran round the block. Dave was speaking at a conference this afternoon and brought back some speaker’s goodies.

Violin photos taking too long to upload, so will post tomorrow.

autumn is in full flow and the few non-evergreen trees are doing a remarkable thing (seen here between rain showers)

church music for both jane and me this morning.  rather hectic for me from 7am as we had a new team which needed training.

jane was up at 6am to take pearl for walk before i had to go to church

after church i went for a walk up the road to take some pictures of the trees before their leaves blow away

then this afternoon we had some friends from church round with their children.  Rachel does Mainly Music with jane and Murray is in one of the sound setup teams and we’ve been meaning to invite them round for years!  Glad we finally did

this evening there’s been home work, x-factor new zealand and homeworks/music practices/bins.

here’s a good headline from this morning’s paper

jane and kezia were up real early for kezia’s 6.30 swimming lesson.  unfortunately jane’s car had a flat battery so they took mine (and left pearl behind).

we jump started it later in the morning when they got back. 

the girls went to the mall shopping with a friend and got the bus back.  esther got a new jumper (see above)

this evening we watched a movie

Dave had two meals with special guests today.

The first was breakfast with PM John Key.

This was Dave, John and about 150 others.

The lunch was more of a select affair with just me.

It was very rainy all today. Girls went to school and Kezia had swimming and that is about all.

Bon week-end x

various meetings for me today including things which didn’t go quite the way i wanted to.  hey ho

esther had trombone things and violin things today so there was lots of equipment to transport

kezia had swimming and jane had music practice

jane also did housework, gym, food deliverying and met with Wendy

and in other news, we all got a letter from the council telling us the big housing development near our house has been rejected.  i’m looking forward to reading all the details of that later tonight.

and i got a call from the inland revenue (gulp) telling me that our transitionery tax status lasts until October 2013 and not April 2013 so that’s also a good result