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Today I didn’t have school so spent some of the day with my chums and some doing chores. The girls went to school and had swimming and dave  went to work. Now it’s the week-end yay! We are getting ready for the Olympics.

i was up early and arrived at my usual car park so early that i was the first in (even before the ticket guy so i used some mobile phone app instead – very modern).  i dropped off my bag at work then headed over to hear the Minister responsible for telecoms at a breakfast briefing.  it was really useful actually and the rest of the day was busy.

jane had a meeting for her mainly music thing at church and i think she was at school this afternoon (our paths crossed only briefly)

this evening it’s been open day for year 6 students to look at the school they’ll go to next year.  That’s kezia going to look at esther’s school as she’ll start there in less than 6 months.   we saw lots of people we knew including our next door neighbours who were checking it out for the year after next.

Esther and jane went to esther’s netball then went on to the senior school open day.  it’s all part of a plan to understand how the various schools work as our local school uses a slightly different system to the rest of new zealand. 

jane understands it, so that’s ok

i left work early today to drive out to Avondale to go to a shop which sells sounds equipment to discuss new speakers for church.  on the way i passed this giant chocolate bar and an advert for auto darkening welding helmets.

jane had school and coffee with chums and stuff at home. The girls had school and violin lessons.  then esther went back to school with jane to hear people talking about what subjects are available as part of the ‘options’ next year.  And i went with kezia to swimming.

apparently esther did some acting as well as music last night at school so that was good.

 

and this is the place where i park my car if i drive in to auckland.  it’s a funny shed without proper markings.  the excitement of it is that unless you are in the front row (like my car) you stand a strong chance of being blocked in because there are no marked gangways and people park anywhere.

and it looks like it would all come down if we had an earthquake.  still, it’s cheap and great for the wholesale flower market it must have once held if some of the derelict signage is to be believed.

another foggy day.  it didn’t actually stop being foggy today, though at one point the clouds lifted  enough off the ground to see across the harbour, but not the building on the other side.

quite a busy day at work for me.  jane had a busy day at the church office

esther’s doing a concert this evening which jane is watching.  and i took kezia to swimming

big rains continued over night with big floods about an hour and half’s drive from here.  i dodged the rain to get to work relatively dry for our church men’s group coffee thing.

i ran out of hayfever tablets this morning too (still needed despite it being the middle of winter) so i booked in to see the doctor as i’d had as many repeat prescriptions as were allowed between visits.  Doctor visits are quite expensive here so they need to maintain their revenue streams.

i got an appointment for this afternoon as did the classic kiwi thing of trying to think up as many ailments, aches and pains as possible to discuss with the doctor to make the most of the fixed fee appointment.  in the end i got my hayfever tablets and spray.  And also had a hearing test (i got full marks), had a tuning fork placed on my forehead which was quite amusing and learnt my tinnitus isn’t the dangerous sort from a medical perspective.  

 

And because i’m officially old from next week it was suggested i have a blood test and a full medical to check all is well as i coast in to old age and eventual death.  so i trudged upstairs to the blood extraction service place and bravely queued up only to be told i should have been been fasting for 10 hours so i couldn’t give blood anyway.  yay.  will have to book up for another week.

 

jane did loads of household things today and went to the maul and mended her phone and did some church music rostering.

and then after school the girls and her went to look round a school which they thought was very good.  so that’s a potential for Esther.

then this evening we had life group which descended in to much laughter when we all failed in a communal reading exercise.

so that’s our day.

jane birthday today.  yay!

i was at church for 7am as i was on sound.  the drummer didn’t have any sticks so used two spatulas and a shaky egg

jane had to help at the kids club but that was fun apparently.  and after church (and all was packed away) we went for lunch at a nice restaurant near our house

after a power nap we went to Biffy’s as jane was planning a potential cycling adventure later in the year.  as i’m not a cycler the girls and i sat in their back room with their daughter watching netball on Sky Sports !  They iced a cake for Jane too so that was nice.

this evening we watched some Te Radar and an episode of Jeeves and Wooster.  And now the weekend has gone by and it’s nearly time for work again.

Loads of rain today by the way.

it’s been a busy day, chock full of actual and cardboard famous people

jane went running early on (over 6 miles i think) and when she got back i took the girls to the shopping mall to get various stationary items

the main excuse for going to the mall was the opportunity to put my car in for a valet to finally get rid of the smell of vomit from the incident with kezia’s friend last month.  they cleaned the car nicely throughout.  well nearly throughout as they did no cleaning around the yucky area!  oh well.

whilst we were in the mall we saw simon gault doing a cookery demonstration.

he’s a judge in masterchef NZ which the girls love

so that was quite exciting

i also met a cardboard Graham Henry (coach of the All Blacks)

and i bumped in to Justin Bieber who has actually been in Auckland this weekend.  this is the cardboard version.

this afternoon the jane went to janine’s house for an afternoon tea to raise money for Tracey’s son Logan to go to Disney Land.  Esther friend Amy came over to play, and Kezia had her friend Emily round.  so they looked after themselves all afternoon whilst i got on with various domestic chores in a genuinely productive way

when everyone had left we drove in to Auckland for the Matariki light celebrations down at the water front.

there were projections on to various buildings and structures which were good

and we spotted the actual prime minister wandering around so we joined the few dozen people taking his photo.  it’s funny where he pops up

the auckland mayor Len Brown was also there being interviewed

 

after our walk along the waterfront we headed back to where we started to grab some food and watch some of the music

and so we ate sausages listening to Anika Moa

as we drove back home it began to rain.

A normal Friday during the day. This evening Dave and I went to the church quiz night, which was very fun. Dave was also in charge of audio things. Our team came 5th overall and only 3 points behind the winning team. Dave and I won a spot prize as we were the ONLY people there who knew the names of Wham’s backing singers.

it was really foggy this morning, but then turned out very nice.  lovely

jane had a good day and had fun with her chum fleur and then did some term planning at school

the girls had school and esther had netball (they lost). 

i had a productive day at work and this evening have been putting together some music to play in the background at the church quiz night tomorrow …

that mosaic thing above is something kezia made.  she’s very pleased with it.  and rightly so!

i saw this fishing boat about to set sail this morning.  the crew had just clocked in with their clocking cards.  but there was still a big hole up front.  i’m sure they would have noticed before they set off.

the girls had school and then violin. 

kezia had her swimming lesson and is getting on so well she’s moving up to the next group. unfortunately they meet at a different swimming pool which is slightly more inconvenient, but we’ll know more when we get the official word.  hopefully it’ll fit in with the rest of their busyness.

jane tells me half of the NZ olympic team are from the North Shore swimming club that Kez is in, so that’s good.

jane spent most of the day doing church music

lovely sunny day today.