Blog

work and school for all today. 

busy deadline at work for me which meant a manic afternoon of preparing a load of data for a letter to the Commission which we decided not to include at the last minute.  Still, it needed to be done so i’ve saved myself some time for next week.

then this evening kezia had her first swimming lesson in the Sharks which means we don’t finish at the pool until 7pm (esther’s lesson finishes at 6.30pm).  Kez will also have swimming lessons at 8am on a Saturday morning but that’s at a different pool which is so cold because of the ongoing national gas supply problem that people have been having their swimming lessons in wet suits!

a taihiti football team sat next to me when i was watching kezia’s lesson.  they must be training at the millennium stadium which is a renowned sport institute.  in fact i think they are playing tomorrow in auckland (capacity 2,500 – not new zealand’s biggest stadium. average attendance about 400 by the looks of it.  in fact, the more i research the more i realise this wasn’t really a brush with famous sports stars!)

i was meant to be going to a church men’s event this evening where the guest speaker was to be the leader of the opposition party (you may remember that John Key packed out the place a few months back).  Unfortunately the guy is so unpopular that the church couldn’t even get 20 people to attend so cancelled him!

here’s some good news.  Our returning residence visas ran out a fortnight ago meaning that if we’d left New Zealand we wouldn’t be able to get back in again (despite owning a house and having a job here).

it was just a formality to go through the form filling process to get replacement visa as we met all the requirements for a permanent Visa. 

and our passports arrived back today with a letter saying our resident visa is valid indefinitely.  So that’s good.  And is one less thing to worry about before our UK trip in December (which reminds me, i need to do the US transit visa thing).

 

i went for a walk round a car park at lunch which had some really good graffiti.  i think it’s allowed so it’s all good quality stuff

i got home this evening to find the girls in the pool.  they’d been swimming before esther’s tennis lesson and had gone back in again when they’d got home.  i’ve been feeling a bit better today so i threw myself in too. 

bit chilly, but it was worth it for the surprised looks on the girls face when they realised i’d caused the big splash !  it was 20 degrees when i got home both in the water and out of it though, so not tooo bad.

occasionally things happen that make you realise New Zealand really is held together with bits of fencing wire.

liek today, half of the country is being rationed with gas because of a major gas leak halfway up the north island. 

but it’s not really big news as people are still talking about the rugby.  although it’s becoming reality for some people as they endure cold showers when visiting the gym and no Burger King meals.   so far it’s not impacted homes directly though, and if they fix it in the next couple of days.  here’s the story

 

i worked from home today as i was feeling so ill over night.  i started feeling well again at lunch but i’m back to headache and neck ache so i’m going to bed in a minute

but the big exciting news of the day is that Kezia has moved up to the next swimming group.  so she’s now a Shark.  That means a bit of rejigging the finely balanced routine of violins and swimming for both girls on wednesday and a later finish on fridays. 

kezia was sooo pleased when she told me!  ‘good onya’ we say.

 

these planty things are growing on the ponga tree in our garden outside the window where i’ve been sitting.  they slowly unfold and create a new branch, with each tiny coil being the fern leaf.  very clever. 

here’s a new one nearly completely unfolded.

everyone went back to school today and had a good day by the sounds of it

i went to work this morning too, but came back at lunchtime as i’ve got a really bad cold/headache/sore throat.  i’m still feeling pretty grim so may take tomorrow off too.

as i lay in bed trying to sleep this afternoon i could hear the girls playing in the pool.  they were in there for ages making up synchronised dancing displays i think.

anyway, back to bed for me!

on friday i had the day off, so we booked a man to come round and get the pool all dosed up with chemicals.  he also showed it how it all works and temporarily stopped a leak which we’ll need to get fixed in the ‘pump room’

later in the days the girls went in.  still rather cold.  but they enjoyed it.

then we drove over to the botanic gardens which are about 45 minutes from here

they had an excellent sculpture exhibition on featuring all sorts of excellent things

like these floating things which looked like bright cakes, but were actually hub caps and cable ties!

 

or these spades (can you spot the photographer – many of the photos here were taken by kezia)

 

the statue below was my favourite

picture below by kezia

and this was good too

 

 

this morning we all got up late due to the late night.

it was also a public holiday (Labour Day – to commemorate the 8 hour working day)

so the girls went for a chilly dip in the garden

then we drove over to Long Bay for a lovely walk past a couple of bays to a river

the tide was out on the way so we clambered round on the rocks

but on the way we went the hilly route

after a picnic over looking the busy beach we went for a round of mini golf.

 

it’s back to school tomorrow for the girls who have a slightly shorter term due to school holidays being rejigged to fit in with rugby world cup final

so tonight it’s name labels and bag sorting

(picture above is of the completed holiday jigsaw project we did whilst Tim was here)

church this morning with jane singing and me doing sound.  i’ve just noted from the picture above how loud i’d made the bass !

jane did a great job at singing.  And i got a nice compliment on my sound mix.  from a deaf lady who said it sounded nice through her hearing aid 🙂

this afternoon i spent many hours transferring things across and updating jane’s laptop.  and did an invoice for Tim the lodger.

then this evening we went round to the irvine’s house to watch ‘The Game’ with friends.  the All Blacks won (hoorah) but not convincingly.  and it was all very exciting and could have gone either way right to the end.

there’s a ticker tape parade in town tomorrow (as it’s a public holiday) but i suspect most of New Zealand’s 4 million population will be down there too.

it’ll be interesting to see what happens to New Zealander after this next week of celebrating.  people have been talking about the Rugby World Cup since we came on our reccy trip two and half years ago, so what will they have to look forward to?

can you guess what this is?  answer below …

so, in a desperate attempt to catch up, here’s yesterday’s news

we got up a little later yesterday as kezia and i were back at midnight on Friday

then we drove over to a place called Shelly Beach.  which is a very common name around new zealand for some reason.

this was a really nice little bay on the mouth of a giant natural harbour on the west coast.  Being in land quite a bit and a still day the water was lovely and flat. 

we did a spot of geocaching, walked up a little cliff and then went to the end of the wharf

here’s what we could see

then we got back in the car and worked our way back towards Helensville stopping for a couple of geocaches and farm shops along the way

this chap was good value.  no wonder kiwis are such bad drivers.  don’t drink, smoke and drive people.

did you guess what the picture at the top of the page was?  if you guessed macadamia nut shell, you were right.  if you didn’t, you weren’t.

we stopped at a macadamia nut farm which was more interesting than you might expect.  Unless you were expecting it to be extremely interesting in which case you might have been slightly disappointed. but we weren’t.

 

there was a nice cafe with a great view from the deck and cakes (oh my!)

then we went for a little walk round the farm track which was the closest we’ve been to a national trust walk in the woods for a while, so that was nice.

 

after the nuts we went swimming at parakai hot pools where jane and i escaped the noise of the main pools by going in to the spa area, and then we got dressed and watched the girls throwing themselves down the slides

 

then it was home for an attempted early night for the girls, some more computer setting up for me and then half a Mike Leigh film (rest pending)

sorry, things are all a bit out of sorts.  i’ve just updated with yesterday’s rugby.  and there’s yesterday’s botanical garden stuff to go too.

today we went on another adventure and a swim.  and i started work on jane’s new laptop.

that’s another 100 odd photos to sort, so you’ll get this long public holiday weekend in stages probably over the next week !