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well, we did it.  40 hours without electricity (including the internet)

i got home from the john key event with 20 minutes to spare before we went electricity free and were plunged in to darkness

we pulled the girls’ mattresses in to our bedroom and there was telling of funny stories before people eventually got to sleep.  i managed to bore everyone to sleep by retelling John Key’s economic summary without his expert delivery.  all my talk of Chinese economic boom, commodity prices and pension (kiwi saver) finished everyone off

jane got up at 5.15am to go off for a run with her friend marah.  kezia set up an alarm on her watch for her.  but unfortunately  whilst setting it up she reset the time so it went off at 12.30 to everyone’s confusion.

the rest of us got up when it started to get light and i used the time to file a load of papers in the right places which was good.

then, after a bit of lack of sleep related misery, we headed off to kumeu for lunch in the famous ‘carriages’ restaurant where sit in actual rail carriages (quite a novelty for new zealand).  the girls went their when we were on our reccy visit and i had flown down to wellington for an interview but they didn’t sit inside the carriages as it reminded them too much of the airplane

after that we drove up north to helensville and then along the pensinsular to south head   

when we got to the end of the windy gravel (metal) road we came to a place called mosquito bay, which wasn’t a promising name.  but all was good, despite the steep footpath to get down (and back) from the parking

despite it being a chilly day we were down to t-shirts once the sun came out and the view across the harbour (claimed to be the biggest natural harbour in the southern hemisphere) were superb

we saw a few jellyfish and a squashed bouy

and an old can of beer

after that we headed back down to helensville

but not before we stopped at a little box at the side of the road selling produce from a local farm

we got some satsumas and carrots.  we had a few satsumas before we set off and they were fantastic.

 

then it was in to the hot pools at parakai   the girls swam and chucked themselves down the unregulated flumes, whilst jane and i sat at the side and chatted.  we were there for a couple of hours until it got dark

 

then it was back home for egg cooked on gas and sandwiches.

then rummikub by candle light (tricky telling blue from black)

kezia got a load of glow sticks out

everyone got to sleep quicker after their exercise

 

then this morning it was my turn to get up early as i had to be at church by 7.30 for music

i got home just before 1pm (two services then the church annual meeting [which happens once a year according to the guy leading the meeting] )

after the great switch on we had to vacate the house for another open home.  So we drove over to our new house and did some geocaching round there

we found some nice views of the creek and a load of chickens.

and now it’s now.  i’m off with kezia to flippa ball in a minute then an early night i think before we get back in to normal life again!

and thanks for all your sponsoring.  very much appreciated by all involved!

This is an automated post because we’re doing our 40hr famine from electricity and our internet is turned off.   It’s not too late to sponsor us!

(text from our earlier post)

would you be kind enough to sponsor us?  We’re doing 40 hours without electricity next weekend which means no electricity, internet, heating, lights or anything else which makes life livable!

advance warning they’ll be no blog updates next saturday

you can donate online here It’s a WorldVision thing so should work internationally.

Alternatively, you can tell us what you want to sponsor and transfer the money to our UK bank and I’ll pay it in a big blob at the end.

thank you kindly!

 

we’re just about to turn our internet / electricity off, so here’s a very last blog entry for 40 hours.  it’s john key who was speaking at our church men’s group this evening.  he mostly stuck to politics, but he tells a good story and was very down to earth and entertaining

and i had lunch with a chap i used to work with when i first started working in bracknell 16 off years ago.  he married a kiwi and lived here for a while, then went away and has come back again.  it was great to chat so i’m sure we’ll be seeing more of each other.  especially as his office is 2 minutes walk from mine!

right, i’m being told we need to flick the switch.  apologies about the quality of today’s pics.  not really had time to fiddle with them properly.  See you on the other side …

it’s been raining like a completely mad things all day.  unless you’ve experienced new zealand rain, you don’t quite understand how wet it makes you.  but it’s good clean rain and nice and it’s still warm out (20 degrees C) so it’s not unpleasant.  just very wet.

esther had her new concert band today with her trombone which went well i think

jane’s still really busy doing reports.  and i chaired my regular industry meeting and convinced everyone to do something different which was my objective!

this evening i had a band practice and have a few nice distorted bass lines to play.  unfortunately i’ll have to practice them unplugged on saturday due to the electricity famine.  oh well.

we’ve had various paper works to find and sign for our UK house so that’ll be in the post tomorrow.

esther had a science workshop of some sort today at school done by the national milk conglomerate.  i’ve no idea what it was about.  sorry. 

kezia had swimming and they both had violin.

jane’s still really busy with school reports.

jane went to esther’s parents evening this afternoon.  esther got a glowing report which was great.  hoorah for that.

 

Work was rather manic too. 

Around the time came for my interview with Telecom back in Easter 2009 it had put forward a proposal to build a national network bringing fibre broadband to the homes of 75% of New Zealanders.  Finally, over 2 years later, the government has finally made up their mind and Telecom will provide a big chunk of it.

So that’s good. Except it means Telecom will have to split in two.  So exciting times ahead.  The splitting thing is no surprise and will happen by the end of the year, so we’ll have to see what that means job wise.  fact of life though.  hey ho.

And we have a moving date – we can get in to our new house on the evening of the 14th July.  Next step is to confirm our exit day with our landlords which will include a couple of days overlap to help with cleaning and stuff.

we’re skipping church Life Group this evening as jane is still really busy with reports and i’m out on thursday night doing music practice and friday night as john key is coming to our church group(!).  And i need to practice for the practice.

Kezia’s current affairs quiz is now an online activity.  It doesn’t stop the questions being as grizzly / inappropriate as before though with 3 murders and 2 lady-scandal questions !

 

not too much to report today.  everyone going about their everyday business

i got to see this amazing sight from my office window.  it’s the sun reflecting off a tower block and making beams through the morning fog.

the fog was just in a long thin band across auckland so a few minutes walk away it was perfectly clear.

and here’s today’s headline of our national newspaper about a lady who’s hair colouring went wrong.  just goes to show how much real news we get in NZ.  pretty upsetting for the lady in question though i’ll grant you

i had lunch with buzz today then looked at a picture.  and here’s that crane we saw going up on saturday (which is next to the block of flats with the light beams shown above)

also shown today is the variety of different weathers you can get within a few minutes of each other in auckland.  never a dull moment (except when the sun is covered by a cloud)

church this morning was good, then jane went shopping whilst kez and i had a whizz round the house tidying.  then jane came home and did all the hard cleaning which was too tricky for kez and me

we finished tidying and threw some stuff in the chilly bin (cool box) just as the first open home people were arriving.   the sun was out and we had a lovely picnic on the beach in a create-your-own-sandwich-using-the-ingredients-provided kind of way

then this afternoon jane’s been doing school reports and i spend a hour with the chap who bought esther’s high up bed.  he wasn’t very talkative, but between us we deconstructed it, together with a desk chair and the two foldout bed/uncomfortable chairs in to his station wagon (estate car)

then i took kezia to flippa ball (they lost 4-1 but put up a good fight against a good team, including one boy who growled at kezia when she went to get the ball much to her amusement and his embarrassment!)

then this evening esther and jane rustled up a meal they’d seen on masterchef  it was chicken schnitzel and ‘panacota thing’

 

this evening there’s been various video conferencing skypes and texting skypes and i’ve been reading an ebook i borrowed from our library which is quite a neat idea. 

the day started with our now usual weekend routine of tidying the house for an open home.   although today jane had a chance to go for a run and the rest of us had a bit of a lie in.

then we headed in to town to go up the sky tower.   first of all we went to a food court near my office where jane, esther and i had korean fodder and kezia went for a chicken burger from the kebab kiosk.  then the weather cleared up a bit so we went up the tower

we didn’t see any firemen but there were plenty about

after that we had a wander round the shops of auckland before heading exhausted home

this evening we had debbie and warren and laura to watch a Mike Leigh film to learn them about proper britain.

and as for the crane …

 

have you ever wondered how they put cranes up?  i have.  and today, whilst we were at the top of Sky Tower we got to watch some of the process.

we watched the lifting of the long sticky bit and its associated attachment, and then the beginning of the loading of the concrete ballast

first contact …

once the arm was attached they strung it up before the blue lifting crane released let it free

and then a chap walked to the far end of the long arm whilst they rotated it to start loading in the concrete.  all interesting stuff

 

so there you go.  i found it fascinating.  the ladies weren’t quite so impressed but let me watch it whilst they played eye-spy and ate ice creams.

would you be kind enough to sponsor us?  We’re doing 40 hours without electricity next weekend which means no electricity, internet, heating, lights or anything else which makes life livable!

advance warning they’ll be no blog updates next saturday

you can donate online here   It’s a WorldVision thing so should work internationally. 

Alternatively, you can tell us what you want to sponsor and transfer the money to our UK bank and I’ll pay it in a big blob at the end.

thank you kindly!