Blog

jane went for run, then it was off to church – the theme was around finding amusement / joy in everyday things.  loving the mundane.  i can relate to that.

jane helped with the kids so she missed the talk.

after church bruce and fleur and their kids came round for morning tea and good jolly chatting.

they left and we spend the afternoon doing computery things – jane with photos, kezia with her raclette project and esther with her school work and zoo tycoon.

then kezia and i watched the all blacks match.

this evening it was the final of the flippa ball season with kezia’s team in the final against a team they’d played earlier in the year.  in fact that match was quite memorable because one of the other players caused an injury to one of kezia’s team so they had to go to hospital to get it checked out! (it wasn’t a broken arm, but something like that).

anyway, the other team this evening took an early lead and it was 3-0 at half time.  then in the last 5 minutes of the final half kezia’s team got themselves organised and scored three quick goals.  so the final whistle blew 3 all.

but because it was the final it went to ‘golden goal’, and despite most of the action for the following 5 minutes being centred at their end of the pitch, one of their chaps managed to score so it was all over.

shame.  but hey ho.

kezia had a cough-y night so we weren’t sure whether she’d have to drop out of her piano concert in the afternoon

but in the end she did and she played her piece perfectly.  her head mistress came to watch some of her pupils so that was nice too (the concert was for all the pupils of kezia’s piano teacher so there were people of all ages and abilities there)

 

this morning we did various chores, including getting some passport photos taken in a chemist, buying a notebook, taking my bass guitar back to the music shop for a little more adjusting, taking library books back and trying to find some shelves which match the ones we already have in the house.

there’s also been various domestic organising and paperwork to sort out

but the big thing this evening has been kezia ‘hosting’ a family raclette meal

it was some sort of homework challenge so that was good

here’s esther with lowly worm

 

poor kezia was ill and off school today.  

unfortunately by the time everyone was up and realised she was ill it was too late for jane to make any other domestic arrangements and i was already at work with a day for of meetings, so jane had to take the day off school too.

so they spent the day at home, but jane had a chance to prepare lessons for Monday and do loads of cleaning and some mendings.  so that’s good.

i had a completely manic day and it was only when i got home that i realised i’d had no lunch.  so i had a quick sandwich before taking esther to her swimming lesson. 

there were lots of people in green around the place this evening.  it looked like a cup scout convention but was in fact south africans heading to the local stadium for a rugby world cup match.

here’s a flag which has blown off someone’s car

jane had a good day and is starting to form a plan around what she might do next year which is good.  she’s seen the ‘reliever’ lady at work who organises the supply teachers so there might be something there.

kezia was back at school and pleased to find out her day of fun she missed out on yesterday will now happen tomorrow instead.  And esther had a good day at school too.

busy day of meetings and documents for me. we went out for lunch with our team to a place where they sell hot lamb vegetarian sandwiches.  perhaps the lamb was vegetarian?

hello.  kezia was ill this morning with a bit of a temperature so she didn’t go to school.  i worked from home this afternoon so that jane could take esther to her violin lesson.  and a little later esther and jane went to the tennis club for esther to have her try out to see what squad she’ll be in.

kezia was fine by about lunchtime so that was good

i had a training course this morning on ‘resilience’ which had been organised due to all the changes at work.  i felt a bit of a fraud now i know my job is safe, but it was useful all the same.

here’s some cards i picked from a selection which was one of the exercises.  one of my goals is to walk round with random things (like vegetables) on my head.

we got our first water bill since we’ve been in the house.  apparently we’re using the same amount of water as an average 3 person household so that’s not bad.

goodbye

we had a frost this morning which made for an icy windscreen

otherwise a day of meetings for me and lunch with buzz at our usual food court.

this evening warren came round for a coffee whilst esther and jane went to esther’s school to watch the school play.

jane is still thinking how her life might be when she’s not working after xmas. 

jane heard today her job will end at Kristin school when her contract ends at christmas which is a shame.  and rather sad for jane as she was hoping she’d get at least some lessons from them next year. 

she found out in a bit of a poopy way which made it even more rubbish. ho hum.

i had my law and economics lecture this morning which was good and then work

then this evening we went for a walk round the cemetry to take advantage of the new lighter nights

 

esther has a new trombone teacher and he already seems better than the old one so that’s good!

it’s been really chilly the last couple of days, so hopefully it’s just holding back for a decent warm spell.  not like you chaps in britain with your easter and harvest heat waves!

sunday morning was the beginning of daylight saving time in NZ so we woke up early/late and walked down the steep hill in to Russell town for breakfast

but not before some competitive getting dressed in sleeping bag

the weather looked really promising and unlike the rain that had been forecast

as we went down zig zag path we could see Russell in the foreground and the treaty of waitangi location in the distance

this is a picture kezia took the waterfront looking interesting

 

here’s gasoline alley by daylight. 

 

we then drove west until we hit the other coast (B to C) 

and on the way it started raining and stayed raining most of the day

there were some really dramatic sand dunes across the water inlet but we could only partially glimpse them through the rain

the reason for going to that coast was to see Tane Mahuta which is the worlds largest living kauri tree, and the worlds second largest tree.

you can read more about him and his importance to maori here

(or on this sign)

it was still very wet

we drove down the coast through a road which was snaked round giant kauri trees until we got to the attractively named Dargaville.  It lived up to its name so we kept driving.

Daragavill is the Kumara capital of the world though, so we bought some from a road side stall.  we didn’t know it had this fantastic plastic kumara until we got our the car which was a lovely surprise.

they love their vegetables up there

we kept driving until we reached the Kauri Museum and spent a couple of hours learning about the amazing history of the logging and gum industry

i spent ages photoing mannequins

most of them were based on real people who worked at the museum which was a bit freaky

 

so there we are. 600km and probably about 8 hours total driving.  but another chunk of New Zealand seen, and plenty of appetite whetting things to return to.  excellent.

i’ll do this in two dollops as there’s quite a bit to fit in.

after the late night on friday we managed to drag ourselves out of bed and out of the door by 8.15am on saturday morning

we stopped for breakfast at the dome cafe on the way which is about half way to whangerei (pronounced ‘fang-are-ray i think – or possibly ‘fang-are-eye’)

there we wandered along the waterfront, looked at some shops then drove up a big hill to a viewpoint where we ate our sandwiches

 

then we drove further north until we got to kawakawa which has the hunderwasser toilets

 

if some of these pictures look familiar it’s because we did some of these items on a trip with the Laughlands when they came to visit last new year

then we caught the ferry across to russell and we found our holiday house which we got for less than $30 (15 pounds) for the night!  it was really spacious, well appointed and even had a view of the sea

after a quick cuppa we walked down to long beach (jane’s head’s warped on this picture because of the camera angle, not because her head has warped)

this is where we sat in the heat of summer a few months back

 

then we wandered in to town past an electrocution chair

 

 

there was rugby on – kezia was wearing her english football jersey whilst england was playing but we managed to find a quick restaurant where we could enjoy our food whilst listening in to the conversations of two other couples in the restaurant who had ended up sitting on the same table despite there being loads of tables free

there was lots of rugby related street decorations in russell

 

then we climbed back up the hill back to our house and watched the all black beat the french (hoorah)

today the all blacks are playing france which is one of the big games in the pool matches. it sold out really early of course so no chance of going

yesterday at work i got an email from one of our law firms offering me a free ticket to the game.

and then later in the day one of my friends texted to say he had a spare ticket!

unfortunately i had to turn them both down as we’d booked up a family weekend of adventuring up north (which is where we are now hopefully)

we’ll be back tomorrow with a live update.