Blog

i went for a walk at lunchtime to buy some christmas presents and came back via the viaduct.  the harbour looked lovely and flat

and just a few whispy clouds going by

it was a shame to head back to the office

here’s a building which developed a crack last friday and was pulled down (before it fell down) despite it being a historic building

jane had her day off today so was busy doing various things including her own batch of christmas shopping

then this evening i went for a walk with warren which was jolly good

i’ve got a bit of a stinky summer head cold which is working its way round the office, so am off to bed

and i need to be up early to drive to the airport for a day in wellington tomorrow.

byee

 

here are some pictures of the girls’ kapa haka troup from Friday thanks to Janine who was there with her camera.

 

church was good this morning then kezia, esther and jane went swimming whilst i tried to work out what kind of mortgage we could theoretically afford (and the impact of UK house prices and the poor exchange rate), just to see how the land lies

there was a chance some friends might pop round this afternoon so we had a day at home again just taking it a bit easy.

then i took esther to her flippa ball where they lost 1-7, so they’ve got their old form back.  it wasn’t helped by one of the opposite team being so tall the water only just went over his waist whilst everyone else could just get their head out.   it’s their last match of the season next week.

and here’s a baby swallow.  there were a number of them lined up on the trampoline net edge all week being fed by their parents.  they’ve started flying now but still like to come back here and poo on the trampoline whilst waiting for their fly through dinners.

here’s one i failed to photo properly.

we’ve been here for 13 months and a week and we finally got round to having our one year in NZ celebratory meal today

we went to beesonline which was a place we went to on our rekey visit in easter 2009

it was still mighty fine

the fish was still nice – we thought it amazing when we came last time, but i think our local fish and chip shop is even better

and the girl’s ‘sundaes’ which were actually just a blob of ice cream on top. a ‘beedae’ is you like (or perhaps not)

then we headed over to the west coast beach of muriwai for an arts trail.  some of the artist’s homes had amazing views from their back yards

and one had a beetle on a fence post.  this is a burnt pine longhorn  Interesting.

and a photographer had a bird which would sit on people’s shoulders

we visited quite a few places which was jolly good

then we came home and i went to the supermarket whilst jane did the lawn.  i had a good time

esther’s friend is staying the night so they’ve just watched a film.

and now i’m going to watch a film with my lovely wife.  so there.

 

(oh, i forgot to mention the day started with the girls having a double length orchestra rehearsal and me booking a mini-excursion to wellington for jane’s parents who are visiting in january).  there.  done.

it’s starting to get quite hot here now. it was 20 degrees when i left home this morning which is jolly nice.  i was hosting a meeting for various industry bods at work this morning in our new building which was a bit stressful as it was a videoconference down to wellington.  thankfully all worked well and we only lost one person somewhere in the car park under the building, but she eventually found her way back out

and we’ve decided to maintain our friday lunch time eating out tradition in the new building.  we went to a post cafe and i decided i was going to have corned beef on sour bread, but when i got to the front of the queue they’d run out and i panicked so ended up having this ‘breakfast smoothie’ for lunch instead.  it contained various berries, loads of yoghurt, honey and bee pollen.  my colleague simon knew i was going for corned beef so was convinced it was a classic meat smoothie. 

the girls went to some massive kapa  haka schools thing which i need to ask them about tomorrow but sounded like it wented well.  and jane had a good day at school.

 

we’re all now exhausted from the week and are looking forward to the weekend.  the weather forecast is rather wet and grim though which is a shame. but still nice and warm.  right.  bedward.  see yas

hello

here are some pictures of around and about my new office

my photoing of the school principals went ok.  i don’t think i got the best set of photos ever, but they were really nice and it was fun running around with a camera.  here’s a gallery of some of the photos. 

There are still a fair few duds in there so it’ll be interesting to see whether the Telecom magazine or the charity themselves use any of them !

 

the rest of the day was really busy then this afternoon i had a meeting in a wicker bean bag type thing with sasha who is the person who sits next to me (above)

then this evening i’ve been out mending a friend’s computer network.  not sure how successful i was, but it’s in a better state than when i arrived which is always a good thing

here’s the foliage behind my desk and here’s me in a lift taking a picture of another me through a glass window at the back

jane is still really busy and the girls are busy with various things too. 

oh, and i had coffee (well, spirulina) with my good friend abbie straight after the photoing and that was good to catch up a year on from moving here as she was quite instrumental in getting me the job at telecom.

tomorrow they’re doing their kapa haka thing with the pois i videoed last week (let me know your youtube account if you want to see the video of esther and kezia singing and dancing)

and finally, here’s a man with a giant usb mobile dongle.  strange things are common in the new office.  and that’s a good thing

so, yesterday i headed off for two days in wellington.  it was a lovely sunny day in auckland, but cloudy and a little bumpy in wellington

there was a really thin cloud over the top of mount taranaki

anyway, christmas is in full swing in wellington.  so i went and sat outside of a cafe some of my meetings

which was a pleasant 18 degrees ish (and less humid already than auckland)

and i walked past a pub with a snug which i’ll check out again in winter

in the afternoon i went for a coffee with eugene

and then in the evening we had a work lunch which involved much serious work conversation

in the morning i had breakfast in the hotel and at one point this bus load of tourists were waiting in a traffic queue and were watching me watching them

here’s the view from my hotel window of Post Office Square

there’s a couple of familiar sites in there.

today was an offsite meeting for my team with lots of serious discussion interspersed with team buildingness

i was in charge of the games so jane and i came up with the ‘World Of Readable Arts’ idea based on the World of Wearable Arts show which was on in wellington when we visited a few weeks back

there were three teams and the first game involved creating fictitious lobbying speeches using the headlines from newspapers

the second was to create a monument to hold a can of coke.  And the third and final was to create something wearable.

half the group were economists so there was auctioning of newspapers and scissors and staplers etc which added to the fun.  and there was a fair amount of skulduggery too

fittingly my team won ;-)  (thanks to the chap wearing the bollard hat)

the flight back this evening was great too.  here’s Wanganui

and this is raglan, the hippy surfing place we visited a couple of weeks back

jane is out at choir so i can’t comment on her day, although it appears from her write up yesterday she was quite busy !

kezia finished off her science project glossary and esther heard she hasn’t been selected to be narrator at the school prize giving evening (but is fine with that as she’s got a front row seat and can enjoy the show herself!)

so there we are.  i’ve been asked to take a picture of a load of school principals for the company magazine tomorrow as well as swapping desks with someone two seats down, and having a couple of rather large deadlines looming.  so that’s all good.

see yas

too busy

too tired

too late

good night

first day in the new office today and a bit of a disappointment to be honest.  great building, but a bobbins seat with no view and not much light (thanks to the light above me being broken, but it will get mended).  i deconstructed part of the desk to make it lower so i could see over the top and that improved things a bit.  and by the end of the day it was ok. 

but if i’m honest i was never going to beat the amazing panoramic view of the harbour from my old desk (below) !

kezia did a school science project which she’s been writing up.  you can read the pdf here

here’s esther’s current events quiz for this week.  i got 7/10.

i’m off to wellington for two days so i’ll leave you in jane’s culpable hands.  she’s been very busy at work of late.

well today worked out much better than yesterday.  i was in a much better mood much to everyone’s delight (including my own)

the phoenix foundation were excellent last night and we found a good park for the car within easy walking distance of the venue

 

we went to church this morning and esther’s friend Sunny’s day came along too which was great.  esther and kezia had to tell the congregation about the Salvation Army collection thing which they were doing at church. in the end the youth group collected so many things the church had to make two trips to the salvation army to delivery them.   And of course E & K were excellent did they talking excellently.

and afterwards we went to a cafe for lunch with mara and rodney and that was jolly good too. here’s mara’s teabag in a fine mesh teabag

after that we whizzed over to the mall and bought some weights so jane can avoid getting bingo wings in her old age, and me some trousers as mine olden ones had fallen apart. i’ve gone for some lightweight walking ones to save me having to do the walking myself.

then after some more chores, kezia and i went to watch esther play flippa ball where she scored two rather excellent goals meaning her team drew

then this evening our friend john, who’s a builder, came over to see what can be done about our sunshade.  he’s got a good plan so all will be well.

and we need it soon because my head got very burnt today which is ‘a bad thing’.  meanwhile jane has been busy with school work.

that’s all i have to say about today.  tomorrow i’m off to my shiny new office.  exciting.

today has been one of those days where we’ve all had to get on with chores.  so despite the lovely weather we’ve all been inside. i seem to have been particularly annoying today which is a shame for everyone.

the girls had orchestra this morning then kezia had a piano lesson.  whilst they were out i got finished off an assignment for my photo course.  then it was christmas letter sorting (the errors were my fault by the way) and filling in the form to get some rebates on medical and opticians costs over the last year.

then kezia and i went to a local hardware shop for a sun shade sail for our back garden which i then spectacularly failed to put up so it’s back in its box awaiting a real man to do something proper.

here are some people i saw last week cleaning windows on a building.  it’s a pity i didn’t video it as they were whizzing sideways to the right and left across the entire face of the building as they worked speedily on their dangly wires.  they seemed to be having heaps of fun.  it was the complete opposite of those people who lower themselves slowly down on a platform.  where there’s a kiwi there’s a fun way of doing a job.

jane and i are going out to see the Phoenix Foundation in about an hour.  here’s a video of the title track of their latest album.

and whilst you’re at it, here’s an older one for a song which is always a hit with the fans. 

This one was directed by a famous kiwi director called Taika Waititi of Boy fame and is one of those single take affairs which look like great fun but were probably a nightmare to film.  It was filmed near where went to see the seals when we were in wellington a few weeks back.