Blog

i walked to the park and ride this morning and there was a lovely sunrise and some nice silhouettes of trees.

this flag has appeared in the floor of my office.

i spent the day today talking to an australian technical expert who called me ‘sport’ at one point.  i was pleased with that

jane and the girls picked me up from work and we headed over to the auckland zoo to watch our favouritist local band, the phoenix foundation.

unfortunately shortly after the first support band played it absolutely chucked it down and we got absolutely soaked in the way new zealand rain only can.  it rained and rained.   Liam Finn was the second support band. he was excellent, but the rain continued and some of our party became a little sad at the situation.

Liam Finn is the son of Neil Finn from Crowded House who i spotted in the crowd.

Unfortunately then the concert was then rained off as everything was too wet and dangerous.  so we left all very soggy. 

esther and i said hi to one of the singers of the phoenix foundation so it wasn’t all bad.  and jane made a nice picnic, and most of us enjoyed the wetness

everyone’s now gone to bed.  so i must too.

good news today.  esther got moved up at school in to the extension classes which means she’s one of the brainy ones.  she must get than from jane !

as a result she’s changed her home class and her whanau (house), which means she’s got to make a new load of friends.  but she likes doing that so that’s good.

i’ve no idea what jane did today as our paths only crossed for a short while this evening as she’s off a crafty chicks.  And kezia has a good day at school.

that’s all.

i worked from home today so i could go and pick up kezia from camp early this afternoon.  you can just make it out, but that’s the sea under the horizon over the back of the trees.  quite an amazing place for a school camp

i’ve had another manic day at work due to a big deadline for something tomorrow.  jane and esther both had good days at school

kezia also had her swim squad session this evening. so that’s that.

we all had a 2 minutes silence at 12.51 today to remember christchurch.

this was the strange effect on my work window today when i arrived due to condensation on the outside and strange rain drops

i had a really busy day at work again which was good

 

and jane had a busy day zooming about doing school, mowing, visiting kezia at camp and then coming in to town after work for dinner

we went to the belgian beer cafe which was jolly good

then we got the bus back

then esther did her trombone practice which was a triumph of strange noises (it’s early days but she’s getting there with the blowing technique) and a rather nice sounding violin piece

busy day for all today.  kezia went off to her school camp for the next couple of day

esther had both her new orchestra and her first trombone lesson so had to take two heavy instrument cases in to school.  she’s a first violin in her orchestra which is excellent, especially as it’s an orchestra for the whole of the middle school and she’s only just arrived.  the trombone lesson was good too and she’s got to learn to do the mouth blowy shape thing

jane had a good day at work too.  people are very impressed by the resources she made last week whilst everyone else was at camp.

and i had one of my busiest days ever at work which made it zoom by which was good.  for the first time in 16 months i felt like i was in the thick of it (i’m sure that feeling will only last a day or two !)

then after work we had drinks as Ruth (in the picture with an empty glass) is leaving her important job at work to go and make jewellery

 

i walked back from the park and ride bus station (phoning the fish and chip on the way to get some snapper and chips for tea).  And on the way i walked past a car which seemed to be kerb crawling next to an empty field.  it soon became clear he was ‘walking’ his dog which was pooing and sniffing all over the place whilst he drove slowly down the road.  eventually the dog jumped back in the car and off they went.  nice

i feel i should say something about christchurch but it’s all still too sad.  But here’s a light hearted look at look at things (trademe is the new zealand version of ebay)

as we received emails from the UK informing us of daffodils springing in to life there, today was apparently our last day of summer. But the warm weather should continue for some time yet (hopefully!)

 

church was good this morning with much prayers for christchurch.  we stopped in at a cafe for afternoon tea on the way home

this afternoon we’ve been to a couple of open houses in our street

 

and then we joined three other families for afternoon tea on the beach (and the girls had a swim in the sea)

then i took esther and kezia to kezia’s first flippa ball match.  she’s joined esther’s old team and she’s bit too short to touch the bottom at the moment which makes it quite tricky.  she did good though and her team won 4-0.

kezia’s got her school camp starting tomorrow and esther has her first trombone lesson, and a violin ensemble so has to carry a huge weight to school !

meanwhile christchurch stays in our thoughts as the human stories are reported.  we’ve pretty much stopped reading the papers and websites since it happened, and we feel guilty going about our everyday business when other people’s life’s have been so disrupted.  i remember feeling something similar after the 7/7 bombings in london.  all very sad.

our friend andy emailed me last week to say his good friend Tim was visiting Auckland and could we be kind to him

so this morning i picked him up in town and we then drove up to tawharanui

we did some good body boarding.  there were some big strong waves, but they didn’t come very frequently, so lots of bobbing about waiting.  but when they came they were tremendous.

then we went for a walk round the reserve a bit before heading back via the ice cream shop.

then this evening we had barbie burgers which was jolly good.  he lives near twyford and it turned out we’ve got various friends in common through church, school and community connections.  this really is a small world we’re inhabiting

tim’s just taken up geocaching so we gave him a travel bug to put in a UK cache.  here’s the great handover.

 

and then i drove tim back and now it’s now.

by the way, there’s a good article in the guardian today about the christchurch earth quake.  well worth a read

 

jane hosted the ladies bible study group at our house this morning and then had her hair done.

i had a busy day at work with various things.  then the girls had their swimming lesson/club after school

then we watched a bit of family telly (joanna lumley catwoman part 2) and then jane and i attempted to watch Four Lions, but gave up after 30 minutes.  so that’s that.

jane had a good day i think.  i think she had morning tea with chums, then went to Kezia’s school for a ‘pupil lead parent teacher conference’ where kezia picked her learning objectives.  And this afternoon they went to a music shop in town to get esther’s trombone.  apparently it’s really loud.

this morning i drove in to work and parked up a hill about 25 minutes walk from work. 

i decided to go a more scenic route and really enjoyed getting lost on the waterfront whilst the sun was rising

it took me an hour and 15 minutes to get to work, but that was fine as i’d left plenty of time.

 

it reminded me a bit of my old walks across london town to get to work although the scenery was quite different, and i can’t remember london being so hot and humid (expect on the tube where the view wasn’t so nice – unless you like close ups of business men’s sweaty armpits)

 

 

anyway, the reason for driving in and parking up the hill was because after work we had a department trip to a bowling club.  it was jolly good and you should all take up crown bowling.

 

i think most of the people who are members of the club sit around drunk in the club room, drink beer from frozen glasses (which are stored in a fridge), and play pokies (gambling machines).  but i might be stereotyping them a little !

[the title of today’s post is a pun on the band name ‘bowling for soup’.  i’ve no idea if they still exist anymore]

i left before the bbq so i could be back at our house for 7pm as we were hosting a little church meeting for a course that starts in March.  And that was very good. as was a conversation with the leader who knows a couple of people who work in telecoms/utility regulation, so he’s going to arrange for some morning coffees.  All good contacts in case it ‘goes to custard’ at Telecom !

  

and my headache seems to have gone away which may because my head is looking more pink that purple.  so that’s good !

(by the way, keep the people of christchurch in your prayers.  grim news still coming from down there and i suspect it will for days to come)

esther is back from camp

 

she had a good time and the things she did included:

• snorkelling
• sailing
• mountain biking/orienteering
• kayaking
• walking
• team building

kezia had a good day at school and then had her swimming club after school

 

jane went to mainly music, had coffee with chums from church and then had afternoon tea with another chum.

meanwhile i’ve still got my headache which i think might be a cold brewing.  and i took some photos of lost shoes

things are still bad in christchurch.  please spare a prayer/thought for them over the next few days