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well, the big activity of the day was esther’s birthday party.

 

esther invited three friends from here class to her party and sleepover.

lauren and amy both go to our church and all four of them including sunny(above) are in the same class at school.

 

first up we went bowling

the 4 older girls had one lane whilst kezia joined jane and me on the next lane.

kezia did some great shots and beat all the girls in the other team on the first game

here she is celebrating a strike.  pity i was using my slow lens which didn’t manage to focus in time

anyway, after all that excitement we came back and there were a few more party games

and again, here’s kezia winning the maltesers moved by sucking them up a straw game

then it was time for party tea

the older girls are now at an age where they aren’t so keen on photos.  kezia’s not there yet !

after dinner/tea they ate donuts from a dangly string

 

  

then kezia and i went shopping for washing up liquid and when we got back everyone was busy crafting.

it’s nearly 10pm now and the noise levels have dropped so we’re hoping for a quiet night !

the international antarctic centre is one of those tourist places in christchurch which you have to do

it was expensive, but the was very informative if you spent the time to read all the blurby

 

and it shares a campus with the actual Antarctic support teams of various nations which makes it more authentic

one of the best bits was getting to go in a to a giant fridge thing and experience an arctic storm which magically happens every 30 minutes.

lots of young kids got pretty freaked out by the giant husky which they thought was a wolf which was quite amusing.

just like real antarctic storms there was an emergency stop button.

the temperature started at minus 8 C during which you could slide about on an ice slide or just stand around getting cold.  then with the wind it dropped to around zero Fahrenheit.  but it didn’t feel that cold as we got to wear lovely coats

here we are pretending to drive a snow thing.

 

they’ve also got a lot of little blue penguins

only, most of them are broken ones which have been rescued

this one had a broken beak

 

here’s esther standing above some viles of water from both the north and south pole.  i don’t think that was made up.

as part of the tour we also got driven round on some buggy type thing.  but i’ll not spoil the surprise in case you go.

after we’d done all the excitement available we headed over to a delightful seaside village called lyttleton

the guidebooks and everyone had said it was a must do trip.

but sadly to us it looked a bit too much like a run down northern town with a couple of nice cafes in it.

 

there was this rather interesting looking place, but there was a man in the garden who looked at us slightly scarily when i took this photo so i decided not to venture inside in case he said ‘what are you looking at’ and i said ‘you’re junk’ and he said ‘what did you call it’ and the whole thing would descend in to a disaster

this was quite an upbeat sign though.

although on reflection i think it might have been the bus company telling lyttelton to do something beautiful about itself.

 

actually, i really liked the place for its rundown tourist  and very active industrialness

and it even had a royalty memorabilia shop

so after our short stay we headed round the corner to sumner bay

to be continued…

well, it rained today which was jolly good as it warmed the place up a bit.  but it was also quite wet

but being new zealand it was an absolute soaker for 10 minutes then lovely sunshine.  i like it like that. you feel you get a decent rain experience without it hanging round all week like you get in engerland.  i saw a little window wiper on the floor which must have been from a very tiny car.

girls seemed to have a good day as far as i can tell.  esther’s over night friend went this afternoon and swimming lessons went well.  jane’s out tonight at a extra choir practice as they are doing a concert sometime soon

here’s a note that esther wrote to kezia.  they’ve been playing holidays and esther has been valerie the Zimbabwean hotel keeper.  she said i could share it with you

 

just one more reason why you must come and visit us !

not many photos to show for day 4 you’ll be glad to know after the last few mammoth days

on tuesday we got up a bit later and drove out to hanmer springs which is a hot springs place 2 hours from Christchurch.  the roads were straight and long so the drive wasn’t too bad

when we got there we found a place to have lunch then headed over to the hot pools

they were really nice, although the temperature outside was really cold.

i don’t think it was quite freezing but not far off which made walking from pool to pool really painful.  they were doing some building work to create a new pool which meant the route from the kids fun pool to the warm pool areas was a long treck meaning stinging feet.

after a couple of hours of being soggy we went down the road to a crazy golf course where we played until it turned dark

 

then we had tea in another restaurant and drove back in the dark

hanmer springs itself is only a short drive from a skiing place and i think it’s the kind of place where you’d lodge up for a skiing holiday.  so one to keep in mind for the future.

jane asked me to do the update today so here i am.  a nice day at work for me today which ended with work drinks.  i happened to sit next to one of my colleagues who i’ve not spoken to much and it turns out he’s a church goer too, so that’s jolly good. 

And another colleague who has recently arrived from the UK (a kiwi returning after a few years in Slough) asked if i like ale (which i do) as he’s arranging a trip to a local micro-brewery in town sometime soon.  hoorah.

and i don’t think i’ve mentioned about our banking problems have I ? not sure why i put that as a question because a) i can’t hear you unless you speak up very loud, and b) i’m going to tell you anyway.

well, i had a call from my bank the day before we went on holiday to tell me my credit card was nearly at its limit which was nice of them as i forgot that jane paid for a new sitting room chair on it.  so i transferred some funds from our current account to give us a bit of head room during our holiday.

when we got back from holiday i discovered we had new credit cards in the post, and in fact a completely new credit card account as the old one was closed.  the once we’d been moved to was a low interest rate one for people who don’t pay off their cards, but we have a direct debit which pays it off in full each month.  we only use it as we get flybuy points (think coop stamps for the ‘modern’ kiwi age).

anyway, i went in to the bank and they said we’d authorised the change as their computer showed we’d sent back a signed form.  i was pretty sure we hadn’t so asked to see it.  conveniently they couldn’t find it, but the date on the system said it was the day the chap had phoned.

all very dodgy.  no money has gone, and we’ve back to the original account (albeit with a different account number which messes up a few monthly payments i think).  the bank were very apologetic and i’m impressed with how quick they sorted the problem.

as a result we now have ‘chip and pin’ cards which is all very modern (for new zealand).

you can wake up now.  i’ve finished talking about the bank.

and in other news one of kezia’s friends was here for most of the day and then when she went another arrived for a sleepover.  esther has been helping jane preparing sunday school resources and they all went swimming this morning.

jane’s now skyping her chum tanya back in blighty and i’m writing this aren’t i ?  (no need to reply)

day 3 looked like being the last near decent day weather-wise so we drove over to akaroa to search for the rate hector dolphins

i managed to log on to the cruise place’s website the night before and book us 4 places to avoid us being disappointed at the end of our windy journey. however when we got there we saw a lovely alternative company which seemed to be run by this little dog who could hear the dolphins sounds and help locate them

   

but we’d already booked on the bigger cruise so we stuck with that.

 

 

we arrived a bit early so spent a while looking round the shops. 

 

the shops seemed to have decided to only sell things beginning with the letter S

here’s kezia

 

and here’s me for a change

and here’s kezia again

akoroa is famously a french settlement and has some lovely old building

 

we didn’t hear anyone speaking french

but we did find a fudge shop

and once we’d had our picnic it was time to go over and get on our boat

 

here it is, in the sea

(quick loo stop first of course)

and jane texted a few friends back home in auckland just in case we were lost at sea

the girls dressed up warm

then off we went.

there was a nice commentary by the driver who pointed out various features and things which i’ve now forgotten

there were some sheep seemingly stuck on the edge of vertical hills

 

and this is known as the elephant or something

then suddenly someone sighted a hector’s dolphin

a solitary one which did a little nose round our side of the boat then disappeared

i got these snaps in the few seconds it went near us

the next 90 minutes of the cruise was spent wobbling about in the pacific.  the swell seemed quite large

we all felt quite sick , especially poor old esther.

here are some penguins.  we saw quite a few of them.  so we had the world’s smallest dolphin and the world’s smallest penguin in the world’s biggest ocean

here’s an albatross.  imagine having one of them as a necklace

there was plenty of nice scenery though when we could face looking over the side

and there’s a few new zealand fur seals (or something) here

as we headed in to shore the clouds started to gather

but the sickness of the sky offset the sickness of esther and all was well by the time we landed

on the way back to our holiday house we stopped at a cheese shop then again at the top of this hill

just like the view from the top of the gondola, this too is an extinct volcano hole

 

here’s the blurby (as they say) if you want to know more

and here’s how they deliver the post out in the sticks.  the post lady is eating a pie

Hi, Jane again. Today the girls and I met some friends at North head, which is at the southernmost tip of the Northshore. There is a steep hill there and people make homemade sledges out of cardboard and throw themselves down the hill, so that is what the girls did. We went with friend Julia and her 4 children. It was a lovely day with clear blue skies and really calm sea. The children had a play on the beach before we had lunch and then after lunch more playing, tree climbing and football happened in the park. It was great.

here we are waiting to get on a gondola

i’m not keen on dangling from a string in a green house, but the girls were, so off we went.

we weren’t sure what this one was for. 

possibly luxury wheelchair access ?

the view from the top was great though.

on one side was an old volcano hole which was huge (and thankfully extinct)

and in the other direction are the planes of canterbury and the pacific ocean

it was getting a bit cold and misty so we couldn’t really see the mountains on the horizon

here’s my lovely ladies

i’ll let you enjoy the view a bit (below)

that port down there is lyttleton.  we went there later in the week.  everyone told us it would be beautiful.  quite how beautiful you’ll have to wait and see …

  

here are some facts

we had a coffee then the sun started to set and the world turned a lovely yellow

here’s christchurch in the gloam

which made for some nice skin tones to demonstrate sun light for my photo course.  here are a few of the girls

 

esther and kezia pulled a few nice faces for us on the way back down the hill

here we are behind us

when we got off at the bottom we noticed this bottle of ‘smell reducer’ fluid.  nice

here’s something to leave you with.  it’s a list of name signs for bedroom doors etc.

who names their child ‘sexy’ ?

Hi, Jane today. The girls and I went to see a school holiday production of the Little Mermaid with our friend Fleur and daughters Evie and Grace. Bit like a panto in terms of audience participation. It was really good. There were quite a few Mainly Music Music mums there – that’s the church music group I help with. Afterwards we hung around for ages chatting, drinking coffee, playing on the bouncy castle….

This afternoon I spent some time on holiday aftermath and mowed the lawn.

The girls were so tired after 2 late nights they were both in bed by 7.15 and Dave has gone to a church men’s group, so I have the house to myself – hoorah!

after the service we used our 2 day tram ticket for another ride on the, er, tram.  i’ve made the photos look old fashioned because that’s what trams are right ?

we trundled around the town very nicely

 

and got off at the this street which is the nicest in christchurch apparently.

here it is in colour.

then we popped back on the tram and went up to the botanical gardens for a wander

the kids did a nature trail thing which took us round the gardens nicely.

this sign made me wonder whether our descendents will be in new zealand in 50 years time.  interesting …

here’s a fan tail

it was still quite warm and we had a nice wander about.  we popped in to a green house to look at the exotic plants, but they looked just like the ones we have ‘up north’ in our garden in auckland !

here’s something with the geographic coordinates on it.

there were many bottom jokes at the ‘bot’ gardens which made this statue more amusing.

although slightly disturbing (it’s a rugby scrum i think)

  

we’d planned to go on a punt after the bot gardens, but they were all booked up and the only spaces available were early evening which we thought might be a bit chilly

but we watched a few go by and had a bit of a nose in the punting yard

 

serves us right for not booking – i guess you could say we took a punt on taking a punt and ended up not taking a punt.

so instead we decided to go up a hill and watch sunset.  on the way back we walked past our final bottom related sign.

to be continued …