Blog

i went to work after scrapping the ice off my car.  i think that’s only the second time i’ve had to do that as 1) we only get a few frosts each year and 2) i normally park my car in the garage but it’s full of packing stuff and boxes.   they are coming to collect all that tomorrow which will give us a bit more space.

the girls went to a climbing wall where kezia was excellent apparently.  and there was some more tidying.

this evening we all went to layne and lorraine’s house for a life group social.  we had Hell’s Pizza pizzas and tarot cake.  i’m not sure that’s entirely kosher. they girls played some wii dancing game.  it was good.

it’s nice to be in our warm house during the current chilly snap.

i was back at work today which was a struggle.  jane finished unpacking the last of the moving boxes.  they all went to look at a new tennis place for esther which looks good (her current group has some annoying boys who mess about too much for anyone to learn anything).  The new place sounds better anyway!

it has been really cold out today with even a few drops of snow clouds over auckland – not that I saw any actual snow falling out of them (more like slightly chilly rain drops if you ask me). but enough to get people excited! 

we’ve just got back from our two days in waiheke.  after our mad few weeks of house moving things it was good to be away as just our family with no box packing or unpacking to do.

 

here’s what happened:

we got the car ferry (arrived nearly an hour early much to the bemusement of the ferry operator).  it was dark.  we sat upstairs in the ‘lounge’ as we chugged along for 45 minutes

it was chucking it down with rain when we arrived but we eventually made it to the holiday house ‘bach’.  we sent jane behind the house to fight some spiders and find where the key was hidden

there was time for hot chocolate but then bed

saturday morning brought better weather and a proper look at our accommodation which belongs to some friends from church.

we went to the nearby saturday morning flea market and the girls met a famous local author who wrote a brilliant book that kezia read as a class. the author was really nice

then it was a walk down a beach (not sure what’s happened to the colours in this photo)

then lunch at a cafe overlooking the beach

we then drove round the far end of the island

and stopped off at stony batter historic reserve

this area is famous for its giant rocks lying around which are ancient volcano remains

and one of the rocks has teeth

then we went down the tunnels.  lots of safety notices, but a real lack of safety once you got down there

 

it was a military installation built in secret to protect auckland in the case of an invasion during WW2, but was never needed

the remains of three gun emplacements and the huge tunnel system are being

for now you can go along with your torches, pay your money and wander round the pitch dark tunnels and trip over wired and walk in to head height hooks and slide in to metal covered holes

 

it really was excellent (i thought!). 

when we emerged out of the final hole up a vertical (actually leaning slightly backwards) ladder, we met some people from church standing at the top

 

we did more driving and viewing the amazing scenery looking back to the main land

then this morning we cleaned up the bach and had a look round some local shops

 

then we drove to a vineyard which was closed so we went back to the place we had lunch on saturday.

we saw this rather good parking signs

then went to mudbrick vineyard which is a really lovely posh place

we then visited another vineyard before heading back to get our ferry

 

the sea looked really rough all day, but the journey was fine.  in fact we sat upstairs and watched a live rugby game between the rugby team that plays at our local stadium (Vodafone Warriers) and a team in Sydney.  so that was good to watch a rugby game. 

and finally we made it home.   there may even be some snow in the nearby rainforest tonight which would be a novelty as a cold front sweeps in!

we drove back along pigeon mountain road.  (but we didn’t visit dead dog bay whilst in waiheke)

 

here’s bruce.  he came with the house and instructions

he’s good fun actually, even for a fish.  not the cuddliest of pets, but enjoyable to watch

he spends much of his time upside down at the top of his tank which is quite amusing.

 

i’m sure the girls will be happy to tell you all about him next time you skype them.

[normal service will resume when we’re back from waiheke]

this weekend we’ll be paying mortgages on our new NZ house, our old UK house and paying rent on our old NZ house.

to celebrate paying for a total of 12 bedrooms we’re spending two nights on waiheke island at a friend’s tiny bach.  it’s in a place called blackpool. 

we’ll be back on sunday evening.

it’s jane’s birthday today so we’re spending the weekend on a pacific island.  we’re got to catch our car ferry at 8pm in town and an hour later we should be at our holiday accommodation!

i think everyone had another slow day with jane doing more unpacking and the girls mooching about.  it’ll be good to be doing something else this weekend before the girls explode

i had a stupidly busy day at work but got loads done so that’s good.  i drove in to see what it was like from the new house.  it was unfortunately very easy and just over 30 minutes door to door.  but that was on a friday morning in the school holidays so i was probably just lucky.  but with parking at $11 and the bus at $10.50, and i’m driving 10 minutes anyway to get to the bus station it’s a finely balanced equation.

rain is forecast for the weekend which is a shame.  we’re just grabbing pizzas then off we go.  see you on sunday evening …

the girls had a day at home.  kezia didn’t even get changed out of her pyjamas.  this is what mid winter school holidays are all about.

jane did fantastic work tidying as you can see by our kitchen.  i had a busy day at work.  and our other table is now mended thanks to an excellent furniture restorer.  and they put up the girls’ british curtains in their rooms.

and it rained enough today for the pool to be back up to its proper level so we could switch the filter back on.

this evening jane’s gone back to the cinema we went to on monday night to see the french film we didn’t see with debbie.  meanwhile i need to pack my bag ready for our trip to waiheke island tomorrow evening

my dad will be proud of today’s title which is honour of my hair cut last night. i pulled some faces before and after

i was back at work today which was a shame, although we’re going away this weekend so it doesn’t really feel like going back to work

the girls had fun by the sounds of thing though.  jane did more good work organising the kitchen and helping the girls with their rooms.  kezia has found the whole unpacking process slightly overwhelming so has been doing her sorting in bite size chunks.  they also went on a bike ride around and about.  they also went to a pet shop to get some accessories for Bruce.   have i told you about bruce yet?

then this evening kezia had swimming which is just 5 minutes drive from my new bus stop so that was handy after work for picking up.  and esther and i finished off her desk and were pleased with the results

and i found a passport photo this morning in auckland which is very exciting as it’s a little hobby of mine.  i haven’t found one for years so it was a delight to grab this one.

 

and for those concerned about our table, the man came along this afternoon and took the leg away.  he’s apparently come up with a solution and will be delivering it back to us tomorrow.  excellent!

we all woke up around 8 this morning.  it’s going to be a struggle being back at work for me tomorrow. 

we had breakfast outside because we could!  although it’s the middle of winter and around 6 degrees in the morning, when the sun is out it’s actually quite warm in a crisp kind of way. here’s the view from the end of the table

this morning the girls and i went looking for desks for esther and some gadgety things for me.  we found an excellent shop for gadgets where the shop keeper was really excited to show us some graphs he’d made himself of the performance of different types of batteries that were for sale in the shop ‘I like to experiment, and graphs are a hobby’.  excellent stuff.

we found a desk and jane and esther went back in the afternoon to buy it.  we had lunch in our local DIY shop and bought some shelving for the garage which nearly broke us when we lifted it to and from the car. 

then it was time for mini golf

this afternoon a furniture restorer came to quote us for repairing our posh table which has suffered a non fitting leg thanks to the movers removing it multiple times when they got the leaves stuck in the gap (because they turned it sideways without removing the extra wooden bits and they slipped out and got jammed)).

they also messed up the mechanism a bit too.  we’ll hopefully get the removal company to cover it under the insurance and let us off the $200 excess because it was totally their fault.  we’ll see. it’s going to take a few weeks to get the right parts and get fixed.

 

this evening esther and i have been busy building her desk. it took us 2 hours to get this far.  only the drawers to do tomorrow so not much more work needed.

jane went for a run first thing which is brave as she’s faced with a hill if she wants to go further than the end of the street.  but all went well.  

then she headed back to our old house to supervise some carpet cleaning whilst doing more cleaning herself.

meanwhile the girls and i went to the diy shop for various bits and then went looking at beds for esther.  we grabbed some food fodder from New World supermarket and had a makeshift picnic on the deck at our old house with jane.  it’s really strange being back there now and our new house definitely feels like ‘home’ for us already.

the girls and i then came home to do more unpacking and jane arrived back an hour or so later and she let me help her unpack some of the kitchen boxes (i’ve been banned from opening random boxes now as i’m just spreading stuff around rather than being helpful!)

the people we bought the house from came round this afternoon to show us how to work the swimming pool and the under floor central heating.  they are really lovely and obviously really miss the house already.  unfortunately we overdid the demonstration of how to remove water from the pool so we need to hope there’s a decent rain shower in the next few days before we can switch the pump on again!

this evening jane and i went to a boutique little cinema to watch a french film with gerard depardieu.  she’s been wanting to see it for ages and dropped various hints so i arranged a babysitter and off we went.  however, it turned out to be a different french film featuring gerard depardieu on at the same 4 screen cinema to the one jane wanted to see !  (what are the chances of that).  however it was still excellent despite the subtitles gradually getting lower throughout the screening to the point where you couldn’t actually read them.    And before the film we had a great meal in the italian bistro next door.  all good stuff!

you’ll be glad to know my hand is now getting near to being normal size although the bite location is a bit blistered and my whole arm is still really itchy so it was probably a spider bite.  i suppose you could consider me a bit of a hero (!).  it was probably just a mozzy bite, but that wouldn’t sound as good!

And, after a couple of stroppy calls to our telecom provider (also my employer) we got our broadband back this evening.  hoorah.