Blog

today started off with the usual sports – kezia’s swimming at 8am and esther’s tennis at 8am.  i went to tennis with esther to take some pictures and it was extremely cold – two coat cold in case you were wondering.  but she did really well and although she lost she’s starting to get quite good

jane and kezia then came along to tennis (which was in albany this week) and once esther’s doubles match had finished we all went over to coatesville for esther’s friend Amy’s birthday morning tea.  that was really good

whilst we were there the paddle boarding people phoned and said they would like to cancel our lesson this afternoon as the sea was too rough!  so that’s was a bit of a relief!  we’ll do that in january instead

on the way back home we voted, then we came home and did domestic things until tim the ex-lodger came round for tea, and some election watching as he’s back in town for a few days working, before heading off on a tiki tour with his family.

and that, my friends, was our saturday.

lots of box packing and desk clearing today at work as we prepared to move to a different floor in the current building.

i had a meeting across town in Newmarket which i decided was as quick to walk to as getting public transport.  it took me through a couple of parks and past the auckland museum which was good.  the meeting was ok too.  then it was back to the office for some more packing.  at 3ish we all headed off to a local bar for an afternoon lunch.  i deliberately drove to avoid drinking, but my team aren’t huge drinkers anyway, so it made for a nice afternoon

the saddest thing is danh and gavin (above) who have worked together for over 20 years doing complimentary jobs are going their separate ways with Gavin going to Telecom and Danh to Chorus after separation. 

kezia did something with her haka group today which went well.  jane has a picture of here somewhere on her phone which i’ll try and extract at some point.

jane meanwhile had a surprise last minute dentist appointment (just a routine cleaning thing but sounds like it lasted ages)

esther and kezia had swimming this evening.

busy weekend ahead …

hello. busy day at work which was good. the IT project i’ve been coordinating for our team hit a snag as we overloaded one of the servers meaning no one could access their email archives all day which was a bit of a problem as people need to get their archives organised by tomorrow really.  oops.

i had another of my roadshow meetings with a telecoms company which went well (there was quite a high potential for it not to, so that was good).  the challenge though was getting to the office where we were meeting which was across town on the 9th floor.  but you needed a swipe card to get to that floor in the lift.  i managed to get as high as the 5th floor, but then had to press the lift and ask everyone going up if they were going to the 9th floor.  i made it in the end, but it rather subverted their security!

then after work we had an industry christmas party which was jolly good.  i was driving so just drank orange juice which was good too.

so i got home after 8 and i’ve no idea where the last 2 hours have gone.

esther had tennis today and that’s all i know about anyone else.

the walk to work this morning was gorgeous.  the wind has picked up now and is due to increase over the next day or so due to a weather storm bigger than australia covering australia and we’re on the edge.  or something

there was some very strange boat parked up in town today.  it’s some chinese ship which tracks satellite launches or something.  very interesting.

other than the helicopter, i had a good day sorting people’s computers out at work prior to the separation which happens next Wednesday.

kezia had swimming until 7.30pm, then we came home to find fibre optic cabling is poised to arrive down our street.  exciting.

otherwise all good i think

and here’s my scratched car.  the scratch goes from the front tyre on to the back passenger door (though you can’t really see it in the picture).  that’s unfortunate.

good bye

big news of the day is a helicopter crashed in auckland quite near my office.  in fact i took some photos in the place where it crashed a couple of hours before it crashed.     luckily no one was hurt

before:

after

read more and watch the amazing video here

No pictures today I’m afraid as Jane is on my computer looking through photos which we can use for show and tell when we come to the Britain at Xmas.

I had a very drink focused day today. I had a berry smoothie at lunch and then our old team met our old boss who was up from Wellington for a drink in a cafe (I had a raspberry drink). And then I met up with my friend Abbie at a cafe. Only she was late and the cafe was closing and she was a bit late so I ended up drinking a big glass of fresh orange juice really quickly and then meeting her at our second rendezvous point where, you guessed it, I had another drink. Water this time.

Life doesn’t get more outrageous than that – 4 drinks in 2 hours. This is blogging at its best.

I real new, Esther had her parents evening and got a glowing report from her teacher. When got to discuss longer term school options too so that was useful.

The girls were in the pool when I got back as finally the recent blowy winds stopped and the humidity and temperature increased.

And i discovered this morning that my car got scratched in the car park at the bus station yesterday. Jane took it to the panel beaters for a quote and it’s going to cost $920 to repair properly as it’s all along one side of the car. Boohoo.

That’s enough words. I missed the pictures today. Did you?

esther had no school today for some reason so spent the day with her friend Amy.  She came here in the morning then they went to her house in the afternoon.

jane’s friend lorraine came round this morning and mentioned she had a spare iron which we could have (which is excellent as jane was going to have to buy one today as hers kept tripping our electrics yesterday evening)

i had a great day at work – lunch with buzz and then some really good meetings so that was good.  i’m working on a project at work to do with getting people’s email archives and documents moved to the right places before part of the business gets demerged.  that seems to be going ok despite the deadline for me completing it having jumped forward a few days.

this evening i watched a televised debate between the two main political parties (election day on saturday).  i downloaded a little app on to my ipad which allowed viewers to comment on how positive they felt about the person speaking.  the TV station then aggregate everyone’s feelings in to a little wormy thing along the bottom of the screen.  it was like a little lie detector!  all good fun.

here’s a news story you might find funny:

Victim gets call from angry burglar’s wife – National – NZ Herald News

jane and i were both in the church band this morning.  it all went well.  (it’s looks rather empty and chair-less in the picture above as this was during the sound check before everything was set up)

after church Colin and Lynn came round.  they go to church and live on our street. Colin is a semi-professional classical guitar player and a school teacher / faculty head, so there was plenty to talk about

this afternoon kezia’s friend emily came round and esther’s friend alexandra.  jane invited her mum in for a coffee so that was very social too.

whilst the girls had their friends over, i went to the church office for a small meeting on a new version of our church statement which  is more of story than a set of bullet points.  it was only a small meeting, but really interesting.

then later this afternoon i took kezia to flippa ball.  she was quite confident her team would win, but they were beaten 10-1 by a team which beat them last time.  the other team had an advantage though as one of their team members is taller than i am so the water only came up to his waist.  He was also responsible for dislocating someone’s shoulder in kezia’s team last term so they were understandably rather timid around him!

the weather has been really sunny for most of the weekend, but it’s been a bit windy meaning it’s not felt that warm.  Kezia and Emily still managed to brave the pool though!

today’s been a very domestic day.  jane and esther took kezia to her swimming lesson early this morning (esther was not rostered on for a tennis match this morning), and then did a bit of shopping.

meanwhile i got on top of paperwork including sorting our US transit visa for our trip to the UK (now less than 4 weeks until we touch down in blighty)

unfortunately we found quite a leak in the pool shed which was related to stuff the pool cleaning people had done.  so esther and i went to the shop.  And all credit to them they sent someone out within the hour to mend it, and replace some other bits at their expense.  so we’re now leak free. hoorah. 

(except the heat exchanger thing which has rusted away which interfaces our under floor heating with the pool, but we don’t use that)

once the mending man had gone jane and esther went in the pool (picture above)

we also turned down the chlorine making button.  just in case you are keeping notes.

esther and i also took jane’s old computer to a special e-waste facility which visited our part of auckland every few months.  it was the ideal opportunity to get rid of the case of jane’s old computer for free (it costs money to take things to the tip).  and it was so easy.  you just drove up, then they opened the boot and took the bits out and that was that.  excellent.

kezia spent the afternoon at a friends house and this evening biffy and malcolm came round for a slap up roast dinner and a game of cards (which i won – hoorah!)

jane went to school today

this guy was sleeping on some steps this morning (picture above and close up below)

kezia spent a day as a helper in one of the infant classes helping the kids do their writing.

we went out for lunch at work which was nice

and then this evening i caught the wrong bus which ended up delivering me miles away from my car at mairangi bay.   i had a spare hour to kill before i met up with jane at the swimming pool so i walked back which was nice.  although mostly all up hill (except the down hill bits).

this evening esther has been to a church movie night.