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men’s prayer group, work meetings, cake (see above), worship team meeting.  jane teaching and admin. esther violin, kezia swimming.  you know.  usual monday.

Here’s jane’s official race times

it shows she was:

• She was one minute off finishing within 2 hours
• 2,474 out of the whole 7,219 half marathon finishers (lots of people didn’t finish)
• 758 out of the 3,880 female half marathon finishers
• 103 out of 617 of her female age group.

fantastic work!

jane left home at 5am or something, and the girls and i left at 6.30ish to find our location to shout encouraging words to runners.  we ended up sitting on a little berm which meant at times we had people running each side.  After 2 hours of shouting and clapping and whooping in our little area we were done !

the girls and i came home, quickly exercised pearl and then went to church knowing that jane had completed the course and was finding her friends to get the bus back

jane got back about the same time we did and she had a nap whilst i took esther for an audition to join the orchestra at her new school.  i’m not sure when we’ll hear about that, although the audition lady was also asking esther about her trombone so that may also be an option perhaps

then this afternoon jane took esther for her first tennis match of the season.  jane has been nominated as the team manager so they had a couple of hours doing that.  esther didn’t win her match but it was close and she’s improved loads since last year

then this evening (whilst jane and esther were still out) i took kezia to flippa ball for the first match of her season.  They drew 5-5 in a hectic match.

 

so, quite a busy day.  and weekend for that matter.  we’re all a bit spent.

today has mostly been about preparing for the half marathon tomorrow.  after taking kezia to swimming we spent a couple of hours driving the route (not all of it would have involved going the wrong down the motorway and across the harbour bridge.  it’s quite a long way and quite hilly

once we’d done that we were nearly all dead from lack of food (not technically true) and in our hungry state we failed to find a cafe so just ate a french stick and kumura crisps. then jane got her race pack and we saw a car with all the participants names on it.  you’ll see there’s a david simpson in the race.  that’s not me.  but the real jane is

there was lots going on at the viaduct including and there were loads of people about.  and the roads were really busy on the way to and from devonport so it feels like we’ve seen a busy new zealand which is usually pretty hidden.  gorgeous sunny day though

then we spent a while in an ice-bar drinking cocktails from glasses made of frozen water (ice).  that was good, but they don’t let you take your own photos and charge you $8 for the privilege of buying theirs so we didn’t bother.

 

the girls went in the pool this afternoon when we got back.  it was a bit chilly apparently.

i worked from home today which means i’ve got a bit of an idea what people did today!  jane had school and her prayer group and did some grocery shopping and had lunch with a friend and picked up kezia from school and took esther to violin and then took esther to swimming and did her cycling class

the pool man came this morning to clean the pool and get it ready for the new season.  it’s still a bit cold but you are meant to get it done before it warms up or everything turns green (or something).  then, because i’d just sat in the same place all day, i went for a walk round Lake Pupuke. i had an hour and a bit and it was 6.4km, so i knew it was going to be tight for time

but when i got about half way round i realised i’d do it well within the hour which was perfect because i then saw this baby’s dummy by the side of the road

so i spent a good 5 minutes trying to get a nice shot of it

then of course i was distracted by lots of other things to photo.  but i still arrived 15 minutes early for Kezia so that was ok

here’s a bit of the lake

and here’s the old pump house which is now a little theatre.  the light this evening was excellent.

busy days for all.  weather was great.  someone’s started painting a couple of silos.  i met a man from christchurch to talk about moving my UK pensions to NZ.  and i was giving a presentation to my department which was going really well until everyone violently disagreed with the approach i was taking which was interesting (but in a good way i think and i think i can convince them that i’m right.  possibly).  

just as i was leaving work this giant card arrived on my desk for signaturing.  it’s for the head of legal who is leaving next week and it’s made up of photos i took last month at our team away day.  i’d not seen it before so it was a pleasant surprise.

esther had got chosen to do a maths challenge quiz again which she’s looking forward to.

pearl the dog threw up in the car

then this evening jane and i saw Gomez in Auckland.  they were excellent and we had a fantastic view right next to the stage.  and once again it was only 25 minutes from the stage to our home.  excellent.

now it’s after midnight on a school night.  ooops.

after all the wind and rain of the holiday weekend we were back to lovely still blue skies today. i had a good wander around before work enjoying the light and posh rubbish, like this champagne cork.

jane had mainly music and school i think.

kezia found out she’s qualified for some swimming competition, but unfortunately we can’t take her as it clashes with lots of other things.

and this evening jane and i went to a lovely evening at church for volunteer leaders which was great.

and now i’m worried my passport photos might be rejected as one of my eyes was a little obscured by my glasses.  that despite NZ post office taking my photo in a meant to be approved way (which is why i did them there).  we’ll find out in a month’s time whether i’ve wasted hundreds of dollars unnecessarily 🙁

i had some passport photos taken today for renewing my british passport.  it’s going to be sent to the other side of the entire world and back so i can get a new one.  i wish i’d straightened my glasses and cut my hair before having the photos taken.  but at least it’s better than the last one which looks like my head is balancing on a volcano

i had coffee with phil and a busy day of meetings.  jane had did some teaching and her church job and was generally amazing (so she tells me).  the girls had school which for kezia involved a long test for the school she’s going to in January.

Pearl seems to have upped the wrecking factor today and has done a fair bit of gardening for us.

it was a public holiday today.  not much to report from today though.

jane went out for along run this morning and kezia came back from her sleep over party later this morning.  sounds like they didn’t bother with the sleep part and just focussed on the partying. i’ve done lots of admin and mostly cleared all the piled up paperwork from my desk which is good.

this afternoon we went to the cinema to watch frankenweenie in 3d.  Esther put on her glasses and said “what do i look like”? Quick as a flash Kezia said “you look like a stupid owl”.  Then Esther said “why don’t i look as bad as daddy”.

then this evening it’s been music practice etc.  back to work tomorrow.

much of today was spent on sound things.  i was at church from 7am to supervise the set up team and then we were trialling the new speakers during the service.  after we’d packed away we then had our sound team meeting to discuss which speaker option to go for.

we’ve narrowed it down and now it’s a case of getting a final quote and writing a proposal for the church elders

kezia went off for a sleep over party early this afternoon so esther and i set up her new email domain name and then we played a dreadful game of scrabble (from my perspective) followed by some good watching of Chariots of Fire.

we had domino pizza for lunch and dinner.  both time delivered. we’re living like kings.

jane and kezia were up early for kezia’s swimming lesson and a run.

meanwhile esther and I went to church for 9am to help put the carpet down and the stage up ready for testing another sound system at 10am.  we finished just in time and i was there until 1.15pm.

the girls did some shopping whilst i was out playing with equipments and this afternoon we’ve done various adminny things, animal entertaining and watching some telly.

 

and pearl (aka milky) the hound has finally been allowed access to the entire garden.  which she enjoyed.