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we set off for hamilton at about 7am and had our breakfast on the way at a lovely cafe.  which had a historic washing machine

we knew it was going to be a good trip

here’s kezia with her hot choc

 

then we went straight to hamilton zoo which was jolly good

 

here’s some gratuitous animal shots

 

 

 

and there were plenty of amusing signs which will appear on the main blog in due course

we then did a geocache which required us to climb in amongst these

after checking in to our lovely motel we drove in to hamilton where a cycle race was going on

hamilton’s most famous resident is richard o’brien who is of course famous for writing the rocky horror picture show

the shadow was just as impressive as the statue

 

we then headed back to our motel and that was the end of day one of our three day extravaganza

it was back to work for everyone which always seems to hard after a long hot bank holiday weekend

the girls had tennis after school and i picked esther up on the way back from the bus station which was a rare moment of coordination.

jane had school and supermarket shopping

in our life as landlords we’re got two potential candidates for our UK house when the current tenants move out at the end of the year, so hopefully one of those will be ok.

we’re back from a gorgeous three day long weekend.  today was labour day which meant no labour, so we took advantage of the extra day by driving a couple of hours south and having some fun

we’re all feeling quite exhausted from the windy journey home and three days in the glorious sunshine

i’ll do a proper report on what we’ve been up to over the next few days, but i think you might be able to guess one of the places we went to from the pictures above.

we’re off to hamilton for two nights so i’ll update the blog again on monday.  everyone at work has laughed when i said we’re spending the long weekend at Hamilton.  i asked one of my colleagues why people were laughing and he said he didn’t know because there is NOTHING funny about hamilton.  we’ll see.

on our whistle stop tour we plan to visit Raglan, the Waitomo glow worm caves, Hamilton Zoo and of course the toothbrush fence …

i worked from home today which was nice as the house was quiet and the sun was shining (though i was inside all the time).

the girls had a good time at school and then had their swimming lesson

both are a bit injured at the moment – esther’s foot still hurts from the cricket last week, and not to be outdone, kezia managed to bend her knee in a strange way on the trampoline.  jane had various lessons at school and this evening we all watched the second part of that BBC documentary on Pacific islands.

now we’re all busy packing for our two nights away in hamilton.

 

there’s been two lots of union actions in new zealand recently:  there’s the actors one which has backfired rather dramatically as it now looks like the Hobbit may be filmed somewhere else.  And there’s a teacher’s strike going on for secondary schools which has been less well covered in the news although there’s a nice cartoon of little john key (we like to say it like ‘little donkey’, the christmas song and we thought we were very original until i noticed it in the cartoon) here

 

esther and kezia had half days at school because their teachers went to a union meeting, but i’m not sure how related that was to the strikes.  anyway, they didn’t mind

esther went to the cinema with her friends from her class.  they saw something involving an owl and it was one of esther’s favourite movies so far.  And Kezia washed our cars and had fun with jane

this evening i’ve had a work call to the UK then some urgent requests from the Telecom regulator i needed to deal with so it’s all been a bit busy

i’m working from home tomorrow and then we’ve got a long weekend so i’m already feeling a little demob happy.  although stupidly i bought a weekly bus pass on wednesday which i’ll only use three day of.  oh well.

 

and there’s a van selling fresh strawberries on the main road near our house.

not much to report today either.  busy day at work for me.  girls seem to have had a good day at school.  i saw this sign which just says thank you for no apparent reason.  it’s a nice though and i like it.

this is the place where the pub was standing a few weeks back.  they are now digging the big motorway tunnel with this funny grabber thing.  you can see the pub in the background

jane’s gone to her choir practice and i’m putting the girls to bed.  kezia read me loads of poems from a book at her bedtime.

not every day is hugely eventful and today was a good day of just getting on with life.  girls had good days at school and me too at work.

kezia bought me a bandana at school which has the four square man on it which is great (although i’m not sure if i’ll wear it in bandana style)

home group this evening, a spot of telly watching then bed. 

i got a bit of a soaking on the way to work whilst walking up the hill to my office which was a bit of a shame.   Spring is the most unsettled season of the year here with quick swings in temperature and weather.  It’s like summer is flying in to a bumpy landing.  over time it settles down in to the hot and humid summer we’ve been waiting for.

it seems everyone had a good day at their various schools.  i arrived home as the lovely Lilly arrived at the front door doing a survey on esther.  we’ve no idea who she was but it’s a shame kezia wasn’t around when she was here.

sausage, beans and mash for tea.  and i booked us up a nice little motel for saturday and sunday evening in hamilton as it’s a bank holiday weekend this one coming. hoorah.

kezia and i were up just after 6am this morning to go to church to do sound for both the services.  kezia had her kids club in the first service but stayed on for the second one to give me moral support

meanwhile esther invited her friend Sunny to church this morning and then they came back home to play (making cartoon of school teachers) until we took her home at 2ish.

then jane went to jenine and tracey’s art equipment sale party thing

and then we had a couple from church round for afternoon tea which was really nice as we’d not properly met them before

and then before bed (and violin practice etc) i went with the girls to do a spot of geocaching near our house.  we looked at a spot near the creek where we could possibly put one, and walked up the hill where we could see our house (almost directly in the middle of the picture below)

so, quite an exhausting but sociable weekend !