esther spent the day at the secondary school she’ll be going to in february today doing sporting things
actually, i think she was just supporting and cheering, but seemed to have a nice day
and jane had a nice day at school and met her work chums at a cafe this morning, so that was all nice
i was going to photo some big cheeses signing a contract at work, but they’d double booked 2 photographers so i was happy to stand down.
here’s my colleage danh, adele (our PA visiting from Wellington) and simon and sasha (in the hidden pods) dangling in some of our meeting chairs.
our new building is such fun and full of these hidden little things
then this evening the four of us went for a walk round the creek which back on to our house for a bit of evening air.
finally, here’s an american cockroach i saw on the way to work this morning on the viaduct. i’ve not been reporting on the beasties in the house as we’ve not had anything new in !
hello. jane and kezia spent the day at the beach today
it was kezia’s school trip and jane went along as a helper. kezia went swimming at one point and jane went in up to her shorts (!)
much fun was had by all
my diagrams at worked turned out to be useful so that’s good. and there were a couple of cruise ships parked up in the harbour today. and for the first time i saw some lost tourists wandering about with their P&O lanyards on. proper tourists. good.
esther’s going to albany junior high tomorrow for a sports day, but doesn’t know if she’ll be playing. she doesn’t mind though as she loves supporting/cheering from the sidelines anyway
and jane’s out at her penultimate choir practice before their concert on Saturday.
finally, it seems last monday’s crossword in the Herald was a little too cryptic …
here’s our tea from last night on the outside table. kezia did the salad
and here’s esther school project which is about my favourite childhood toy which was lego.
i went for lunch with buzz today. he’s getting baptised on friday which is quite fantastic. we went to a chinese restaurant called wongkok
buzz found a bit of tooth in his meal. luckily (sort of) it was his own
then this evening i went for a walk with warren to do some geocaching up a big hill. it was only 5km but we went up 100metres. here’s a little map
and there was a geocache at the top which was jolly good
and a few kauri trees on the way back down
jane had a good day at school and is doing some extra cover lessons later in the week. and kezia took in her picture of her and the netball star to show her class !
the day started with church (and some hide and seek), then kezia and me went in to auckland on the bus to watch the annual santa parade
we happened to walk past temepara george who is one of the commonwealth gold winning netballing team the silver ferns. i had been reading an interview with her before we left so i knew she would be there.
This being new zealand and her being lovely she whizzed across the safety tape to have her photo taken with kezia!
then kezia and i found a shady spot under a tree and waited for the parade to start.
it was a strange mix of kiwiana, mardi gras weirdness, corporate sponsorship and christmas (in that order)
but it was great !
for an hour and half we sat in the scorching sunshine watching marching band after marching band and floats go by
various inflatables were negotiated by humans on strings (glad there was no wind)
and here’s the mayor who was pleased to see me
but not so sure about the people behind me
he’s only recently been voted mayor of the super city, so perhaps this was his progress report
there were some great maori dancers of course
and this lady who seemed to have raided a kids fairy shop was having a ball
this was probably the most religious float
it actually had two jesuses on it. one up on the roof and the other in the float below
i liked the up top jesus best as he had a little mullet
and of course the kids were there to see santa
well, all the kids except these three.
it really was a great day out. it took 90s mins for all the floats to go by
and as we walked down the hill to get our bus home we could see the precession in two directions
it was heading down the road in the distance, and then back up in the foreground
here’s temepara in the parade itself
and here’s a festive darth vader and storm troopers
one of these chaps looks like he should give his uniform a clean
more inflatable things
whilst kezia and i were in town, esther was at a fantastic birthday party.
the party was for her friend amy and it was a competition with 12 or so activities in as many locations throughout the local area
one of the activities was at our house so we saw her for a short while as she went by. they are now having dinner at the beach.
jane’s been busy doing school work and we’re all exhausted so ready for the new week
here’s the full selection of photos from the day if you are up for seeing some more (these ladies in the foreground on the first pictures are air stewardesses who just happened to be walking by !)
let me apologise in advance for anyone reading in the snowy northern hemisphere. you had your hot months and now we’re in to ours.
so i won’t feel guilty sharing our day with you which was mostly outside.
anyway, the day started with esther and me having breakfast on the deck. the sun was in esther’s face so she moved chair ! jane and kezia had their own breakfast on the beach as they were up earlier for kezia’s piano lesson.
then whilst jane and the girls were at orchestra i mowed the lawn in what was now turning out to be quite a hot day
lunch was picnic outside the auckland museum on a place we picnicked at in easter 2009 and discussed as a family whether we’d like to come and live here
it was my office christmas party this afternoon which was held in a sports arena in town and was a celebration of kiwi christmases
it was good, although very busy and long queues for the kids activities etc.
we stayed for a few hours though and had plenty to eat.
jane had some pavlova which is kiwi invented of course.
but we didn’t have any lamingtons
and you’ll be glad to know i didn’t get a (in)decent photo of the santa who had rather short shorts on.
we left the party to head to our friend Warren’s birthday bash on the beach where we all took our own takeaways which we ate in the park with ‘the gang’ of over 20 of us i think. we sat and chatted for hours. i took some photos, but they were all absolutely dreadful so here’s a plastic man thing we found on the grass instead.
and then when it was time to leave we went the four of us for a wander on the beach at sunset
kezia had a little paddle and there were still plenty of people down on the beach
kezia went in for a paddle and said the water was quite pleasant
she did a bit of jumping
and rangitoto was looking nice on the horizon
and some chaps had set up their fishing stall for the evening
there had been rumours of redundancies at work, but it looks like it’s just going to be some cost control measures in the short term, so that’s good (for now). no where is safe of course and telecoms is one of the more dynamic markets, so we’ll just see what happens. all good for now though.
at lunch i found a new cafe where this man was wearing a rather fetching party hat. and on the way back to the office a car park was being evacuated due to a fire alarm. no one was that bothered though so i suspect it was a falsey.
after swimming the girls went to a bbq at a friend’s from church’s house for people who helped with the youth group. i didn’t go, but apparently it was very good and i would have enjoyed it. so that’s a shame.
the other thing that happened at work today was we got to eat a big fat cake which was sent to our CEO. he didn’t want to eat it all himself so gave it to the troops. it seems sitting on the exec floor of the office is going to have some benefits !
busy weekend ahead and the weather is looking great (22 degrees and sunny). it’s weird reading about UK snow when summer’s finally arriving here. although the flip side is that it feels in no way christmasy here.
i went in to the mall after work today as it was late night shopping and i needed to present my credit card in person to pay a bill
unfortunately there was a short but very slow queue so i ended up sitting waiting for nearly 45 minutes. i was served by a british lady so she wasn’t bothered which is very un-kiwi who are usually brilliant at customer service. ho hum. anyway, it all got sorted
and seeing as i was opposite the New World Supermarket i thought i’d pop over and take a picture of the british aisles which i’d been meaning to do since my old school chum took a similar picture in New York earlier in the month. And i was desperate to use the title for this post too !
anyway, i’ve suddenly got really busy at work which is good. More about work tomorrow perhaps …
another day another cruise ship parks up for a few hours
jane says she had a good day and did french podcasts with her kids which sounds very good. the girls said they had a good day at school too.
a good day for the girls today – kezia is through to the inter-school high jump. esther didn’t get through but didn’t disgrace herself with the discus throwing.
jane went along to watch and said they did good.
i had a really busy day at work and have been given a load more work which is good. And then this evening we ate strawberries which have been in season for the last few weeks. and they are huge i tell ya. here’s kezia being amazed.
it was a rubbish day in auckland weather wise. apparently there was plenty of mizzle (that rain which is wet but so fine you can’t feel it)
luckily i got a plane to wellington which was lovely and sunny
i hadn’t realised that planes were remote controlled when they move back from the stand. interesting
once we were clear of auckland the clouds cleared and mount taranaki was looking particularly grand with its snowy peak and wispy cloud
i had a whole heap of food and drink related meetings down in wellington which was good
at lunch i met up with our auckland chum eugene again. him and his family are settling well in to wellington life
he insists on taking a picture of me every time i photo him though unfortunately.
and i had afternoon tea this afternoon which was provided on a plate rather like some from my youth which was a surprising ‘forgotten memory’
the flight back was really good too, although a little bumpy coming in to auckland
here are places we explored when we were down in wellington a few weeks back for our little holiday
that was going to be all my trips to wellington done for this year, but i’ve got another scheduled for mid December
and there’s a chance i might need to be down next week too. i don’t mind it, but it’s a long day and leaves jane to do everything at home (for which i thank her greatly)
the girls have got their athletics day at school tomorrow which they’re looking forward to
and this evening jane’s gone to some ‘crafty chicks’ thing at the race course. nope, i’ve no idea either
here’s some light phenomena to finish with. this was a shadow of our plane which sometimes came really close to our plane as we flew through clouds, and was surrounded by a circular rainbow
and here’s a proper rainbow which might have been over a reservoir, only i lost my bearings a bit as we came in over auckland due to the cloud
and finally finally, there’s auckland’s own circular dormant volcano Rangitoto in the clouds.
