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here’s esther’s new glasses

she absolutely loves them and it’s been really funny listening to her getting excited about being able to see things clearly

we went to a friend from church’s house this evening for a meal and kezia said ‘the good thing about your glasses is that if someone throws some food at you it won’t go in your eyes’.

church was jolly good this morning although a little quieter than usual because of the school holidays.

esther and i walked back from church (which happens at the secondary school where esther will go to in february) because esther wanted to practice the walk home !

kezia was at a party most of the afternoon so esther and i went to the coatesville farmers market which was incredibly busy (except around the ice cream van)

we had some lovely fresh food which we then followed with slices of brownie pizza. 

brownie pizza is a big fat round brownie as the pizza base, covered in red icing, some grated white chocolate and then a choice of M&Ms, chocolate fish or pineapple chunks (the last two being classic kiwi confectionary). 

then this evening we’ve been out to a friend’s for a meal and card games which was good.

 

jane and i are back to work tomorrow so the girls are off to various friends this week which they are looking forward to.

finally, here’s a nice quote from the police about longboarders.  apparently they are idiots.

that’s all.

a meal with my work colleagues the night before meant we’d not had much sleep by the time our alarms went off at 5am.  we got to the airport just before 6 and had our breakfast in the business lounge.  we didn’t have too much though as flights to wellington are notoriously bumpy

the flight was fine though and we were even able to check in to our accommodation early when we got there at 9.30am

it was a long thin place rather like being on a canal boat.  but central to town and very nice.

wellington was very windy.  not hugely cold, but most days required an overcoat

we had a quick walk round the waterfront and visited the info centre

and saw the royal navy band playing to celebrate the visit of hmsnz wellington to Wellington

  

we had lunch in an old bank then all had a lie down for a couple of hours to catch up on lost sleep. that turned out to be a good idea despite questions from the youngsters as we all woke up feeling fresh enough to walk up mount victoria

 

mt vic is 196 metres high so a bit of a trek

but there were things to do on the way, like this home made swing

but it wasn’t all play

 

 

but the view from the top was quite excellent

that’s the interislander ferry which takes you from/to the top of the south island to/from the wellington which is at the bottom of the north island

when i go to work in wellington my office is the right white roundish building on the front of the picture above (the one without Gen-i written on it)

airplanes dominate wellington and i was struck by how noisy that made the place.  almost like being back under the heathrow flight path in the UK

where’s wally ?

wellington is very windy because of its geography.  you can read why on this website which has some nice pictures

the top of the mount contains a carpark which is a little disappointing if you’ve walked up there as it doesn’t feel so exclusive

but well worth the trip

on the way down we did a geocache or two and wandered down oriental bay back to the town

darkness fell and that was the end of the first day

hello.  we’re back.  did you miss us ?

i have to admit i didn’t miss writing up the daily family blog each day.  but as my punishment i’ll have to give you double dose for a few days to cover what we got up to last week.

anyway, after some confusion with the taxi at 5.30 this morning we made it to the airport in plenty of time for our 7am flight which was nice and smooth and got us in to auckland at 8am.  we then picked up esther’s new glasses (pictures tomorrow perhaps) and then had a couple of hours sleep before heading out west for a walk.

 

we went to muriwai which is a wild west black sand beach very popular with gannets and surfers.

 

jane chose us a very excellent walk from her walking book

luckily it was the full ‘arduous’ version

but we did go on an extended loop which took us up very high for some fantastic viewpoints

but involved some lovely bush areas of native plants

 

and of course great views along the massive coastline which was all of a blur because of the sea and sand spray coming off the sea

  

there were some people filming on the beach which is always good fun to watch. i think they were just photographing, but it looked quite intriguing

 

 

i think i’ve mentioned the west coast before. 

it’s wild and windy (compared to the calm golden east coast which is a bit nearer to where we live – 15 minutes vs 40 minutes)

the blackness of the sand comes from a volcano down the coast.  the sand is high in iron and allegedly magnetic (read to the bottom to see if that’s true)

 

another amazing place about is the gannet colony

 

which is huge

the birds return here (from australia i think) to re-establish contact with their life long mates

it really is chocablock.

 

here’s a load of gannets for you

 

 

 

and here’s some crazy fishermen who somehow weren’t swept out to sea

 

and here’s another bird

  

as usual we didn’t use our allowance

and here’s a couple of beasties from our house

the thing above was dead and fallen apart and is similar to the things you find in the UK

and here’s a little funky spider (not its proper name).  it was quite teeny and looked a jolly little chap

i mentioned we decided to prove whether the sand was actually magnetic or not.  kezia took her giant magnet and we did a little video.  unfortunately it was so windy you can’t hear what esther is saying.  i may try and do some cleverness to see if it can be salvaged.  but for now here is the magnetic evidence

we’re off to Wellington for a week of holidaying.  normal service will resume next Saturday hopefully.  Meanwhile you can watch the big funkypancake blog which is updating itself every day (you get the sneak preview of the best pictures here though!)

 

(this is some of the essential wires and chargers we’re taking with us)

here’s a chap advertising himself as an auckland super city mayoral candidate.  i’m not sure i could stand in the street holding my own picture like that.

and at work i had a very long meeting across lunchtime which calls for plenty of coke and chocolate.  it’s been a really busy week at work, although good.  I got some really good feedback on some slides i produced for some of our execs so that was encouraging !

  

and i saw this dummy on the way back.  excellent.

 

this evening we went round to my colleague’s house for what turned out to be an excellent sit down meal.  5 of us who work together were there with our wives and various kids.  that was excellent too

the only problem is that it’s 11.30pm and we’re up at 5.15 am to go to the airport for a week of holidaying.

kezia won a $15 book token for getting her sponsorship money in to school quickly after her sponsored tree question athon.  And jane bought some jump leads.  just in case.

well, the good news is it’s looks like the weather is calming down, at least up here in Auckland.   i’ve quite enjoyed the winds actually.  it feels like proper weather.

so, the big news of the day is that esther has got to wear glasses for reading the board at school.  she’s secretly quite pleased i think as she’s chosen a nice pair

this evening they’ve all been to a school play at a friend’s school which was jolly good.  and jane spent the day doing preparation work for going back to school as we’re running out of time before we head off on holiday on saturday morning for the week.

here’s the pub up the hill.  coming along nicely isn’t it.

i gave a presentation at work today which went down very well so i was pleased about that. the rest of the day was manically busy and as soon as i got home i had a work call to the UK.   be good to have a break !

i’ll leave you with these two pictures of a mini garage near my office.  i took quite a few pictures trying to get one without cars in it. as soon as i too the photo below i realised if i’d waited half a second i’d have got this old yellow mini in front of the new mini garage.  oh well

it was SO windy today.  it made walking up this hill by my office really tricky even without dragging a trolley.  in fact winds faster than 100km/hr made walking anywhere a challenge !

after work today i went to a lecture at the University presented by a professor from Aberdeen who was talking about the role of economists in the UK banking crisis.  funny i had to travel to the other side of the world to hear someone giving the inside story on what actually happened behind the scenes in the UK with Northern Rock etc.

i’m now back home, the girls are asleep and jane’s out choiring.  so i can’t tell you what they’ve been up to. sorry about that.

our equivalent of VAT called GST is increasing from 12.5% to 15% on the 1st October. the shop above is a bit stuck.  it’s the $3 Japan shop will have to start calling itself the $3 plus GST shop.

Jane beat the increase today by buying a bed for our spare room so visitors can sleep in style. 

in other news we ended up doing various UK house things remotely (in a landlord capacity) and arranged some gardening things with our landlords here. all fiddly time consuming stuff.

then this evening we had our home group. our excellent friend eugine arrived an hour early by mistake but that was fine as he arrived just as we were having desserts.  he then played our girls at the Great Moa Hunt (a board game) whilst i prepared the study.  by the time everyone else turned up we were all organised !

as you can see from the pictures it’s still really wet and really windy

but it’s also quite warm here unlike the south island which are having an altogether colder and more unpleasant experience of the storm which is still passing over the country.

here’s some signs of spring

 

it’s still really windy as the storm continues to pass over new zealand.  i spotted this fallen little tree near my office, and on the way back to the bus stop this evening, this branch fell off a tree above me, but lucky missed me by a metre.

anyway, the exciting news of the day is that jane flattened another car battery.  this time it was the one in her own car and happened when she was taking the jump leads back to our friends !  She went in for a coffee (a ‘flat white’ perhaps) and when she came out bob’s your whatsit.   we went over this evening to jump start it and then i drove it up and down the motorway a bit.

i went to an art gallery at lunch for a quick look round.  they only had 2 small rooms there and there’s usually something exciting on.  i had a good look round and only spotted it was closed when i left.  no wonder it was so quiet.  ooops.

here’s the pub they moved.  they’re making good work digging up the space where it was.

it was absolutely chucking it down in a sideways way this morning as i left for church just after 7 this morning.  but once i was in the school hall, all was dry.

i was in two bands this morning which was exciting.  it was nearly very exciting because i was an emergency stand in for the bass player who had to play drums on a performance track during a slide show of pictures of church couples.  the only problem was i’d never heard the song before last wednesday and the only version i could listen to in advance was in the wrong key.  oh, and we didn’t have a practice.   but it was all ok so i needn’t have worried.

after church i came back and got on with my photo course (which is why there are a couple of puppet pictures) and then i got a call from jane who had taken the girls to the local swimming pool to say my car battery was flat and wouldn’t start.

so i phoned our friend john who is a practical chap and borrowed some jump leads.  he also showed me how to open the bonnet on my car.  who knew there was so much going on under the front bit of a car ?  anyway, all was good and we got it going again – although we were worried about decapitation as the gusts of winds threatened to drop the bonnets on our heads at any moment.

then esther had her last flippa ball of the term (another loss today apparently), then a game of rummikub, followed by some family skyping for me

jane says “hello”.  you should email her and tell her your news !