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i’ll tell you about my day – hot, humid with the appearance of ginger bread men in the afternoon thanks to Simon (looking at the camera in the picture above) getting some corporate freebies. 

i also got a free apple as part of some ‘walk 10,000 steps’ thing which is happening in February.  one of my colleagues is convinced it’s walk 2,000 steps.  it’s good to set your targets low.

and the most annoying part of the day was my bus getting stuck in traffic so it took nearly two hours to get home rather than the usual hour.  but it did mean we went slow enough for me to take these pictures of someone sitting at a bus stop.  and i’ve just been out for a 45 minute stomp round the local streets to keep fit (i rewarded myself with a kitkat when i got home). 

there was one other comedy moment where i left a meeting in the wrong direction and ended up in the kitchen instead.  i then had to walk past the person i’d had the meeting with and go out the proper door.  ooops.

jane will now tell you about here day of sportiness:

Esther had a try out for Flippa ball today with school. We had to go to the pool where she normally has lessons and the children had to swim up and down a bit and then got a coaching session by the resident coach. Sorry, Flippa ball is like the junior version of water polo, but you can touch the bottom. Looks very tiring. And you get to wear a funny hat, so your team can see which side you are on. Everyone gets to be in a team, we’ll find out which one tomorrow and matched start on Sunday!

Also the girls had their first tennis lesson today, which went very well.

Here is a broken jandal. Byeee

i went to wellington today for work and it was very good actually.

my taxi picked me up at 5am to make sure i got my 7am flight.  but in fact he made such good time i managed to get the 6am flight instead. i had an entire 6 seat row to myself, but it was absolutely freezing.  wellington itself was cold too – a welcome relief from humid auckland

so i celebrated with a slap up breakfast in the railway station.  it was great sitting in a traditional cafe with a big window watching the world arrive by train.  although it also meant people stared at me eating a big breakfast through the window

i had a couple of really good meetings and had my lunch on the quay looking out in to the harbour

 

in the afternoon i had a meeting with a chap from the regulator on a street called ‘The Terrace’.  i wasn’t entirely sure where it was so thought i’d start at one end and work my way along it.  unfortunately i had to walk up about 200 steps (or so it felt) to get to the street.  and guess what, the street slowly sloped downhill for a kilometre and i was a the wrong end !

but the weirdest coincidence of the day was at Wellington airport where some sporting stars were signing t-shirts.  i did a google for the sponsor’s name which was written on their shirts and it transpired they were Fiji team from the recent Wellington Seven’s tournament.  I watched with a amusement as these rather muscley fellows said goodbye and went through security to their flight.

i was sitting near the x-ray machine and the last player through pulled out a big metal trophy cup from his bag and put it through the machine much to the delight of the security guards.

when i got home esther was doing her current affairs/news quiz homework.  one of the questions she asked me was “who won the NZI Seven’s rugby cup this year”.  And, yup, you guessed it, it was the Fiji team and i’d seen the cup just an hour and a half earlier !

 

and in other news the girls have signed up for tennis lessons with perfect timing as the new season of lessons starts tomorrow !

the picture above is of the dessert we had last night at our friend’s house (we went there after kezia had written the daily blog).  I’m sure these are called something and used to be very popular along with babysham and snow ball drinks in the 80s.  but what are they ?

Today me,daddy and Esther went to se the NZ rugby team open day.

These men are in the rugby team.

 

This the the tent that the men above were in .

It is the signing tent.

 

 

this is blue bead the pirate                 

we also went to see the mini cars racing .

 

By Kezia

it was waitangi day today which is a public holiday and you don’t have to go to work. 

unfortunately it falls on a saturday this year which means you only get the day off if you usually work on a saturday.  no bank holiday roll-overs for this particular holidays i’m afraid.

anyway, we decided to make the most of this most historical of celebratory days by having lots of fun.

it started with a party for kezia’s birthday.  it was due to start at 10.30am but jane and i didn’t wake up until 10am so it eventually got underway at 11.30.

   

it was really fantastic.  you might have guessed from the pictures above that it was a Gary and Grimbods themed party.  (Gary and the Grimbods are Esther’s imaginary band of frog musicians who have their own fan club and everything).

we got to dress as different band members.  i was particularly honoured to be Gary himself

at the party we played bowling (this is me having just taken my turn)

we each had our own microphones

we played pin the microphone on the Grimbod. we also played some flappy paper frog racing game and a hunt the jigsaw game and a musical dancing game.

it was really quite fantastic.  so good in fact that esther wore a tea-towel.

after all that fun we took kezia to a swimming pool party for one of her friends

so the rest of us went to mairangi bay and had a wander about looking for geocaches and generally enjoying the really warm weather

we walked along the bottom of the cliffs to the next bay and back over the top again.  it really was lovely

then we had an icecream, picked up kezia and went home.  jane cooked up a pizza which we then took to long bay (our local beach)

after a while swimming in the sea (for the girls) we sat down to a very posh picnic.  we gradually improving our picnic technique so expect table cloths and proper wine glasses before the season is out.  today we had cloth napkins (but didn’t use them)

after eating we had a great game of frisbee which involved me being quite active, although not as active as jane who did some spontaneous handstands.  then we came home and watched ‘Second Hand Wedding’ which is a lovely film set in New Zealand and well worth a watch.

and in other news, the electric mower we bought then sold on Trademe (kiwi version of ebay) broke so we had to refund the chap we sold it too :-(  he seemed ok about it, but we still feel bad.  oh well.

 

here’s kezia in her new birthday dress.

 

so, it’s official.  kezia is 8. she had a great day at school and then went to a pool party at a friend from school’s house who shares exactly the same birthday

we had this lovely cake for tea.  if esther looks worn out it’s because she’d just had another 45 minutes of gruelling swimming lessons

work again for me.  i’m really busy at the moment as some pesky alternative operators have made a sort of complaint to the regulator about certain Telecom products.  it turns out just about everyone in the department has tried to crack this tricky problem but has failed, so it’s fallen to me to have a go.  although this time we’re more up against a deadline because of the complaint

anyway, the sky was amazing this morning as i went over the bridge.  this picture doesn’t do it justice.  the beams of sunlight were actually lots of small delicate columns of sunlight which had punched its way through the clouds.  these are (bad) grab shots through the bus window as we whizzed by.

and i went out for lunch with a couple of colleagues for a curry.  it wasn’t as good as Waitrose cook-it-yourself curries.  it’s funny the things you suddenly miss !

those who follow my twitter updates (or facebook page) will know i got ‘dripped on’ on the way home yesterday as the bus roof seemed to be leaking green slime on to my hand, then arm then head.   it turned out it was coolant and mostly harmless i think.  although i was a little worried i might grow webbed hands or turn in the snake mannequin which is living in the local shopping maul.  today’s bus had the same problem so i avoided sitting underneath it.

and this morning my spirulina smoothie (think bright green innocent smoothie) was all leaky too leaving me with green slimy mitts.

anyway, in non green news the girls had a nice day at school and esther might try out for the school flipper ball team which i think is a bit like junior water polo.

kezia loves her teacher who is the nicest one ever and she can’t ever imagine her getting angry and she’s a ‘miss’ because she’s very young and lovely.  so that’s good.

esther is happy too.  she’s got a seat at the back of the class which she’s pleased with as she’s got plenty of leg room.

The lady came today to inspect the house today, and it passed the test which is good.

and jane went to the local university today to find out about courses as they had an open day.  it’s part of her quest to work out what she wants to do with herself and how to fill her time.  we always knew it would be trickiest for jane as the rest of us have natural things to slot in to.

You are very welcome to email jane with ideas – i know she’d appreciate your thoughts / encouragements / just general hellos. 

look, you can even click here to email her so i’ve made it very easy for you !

She’s gone out tonight to some crafting evening with a strange name which i’ve forgotten.  and kezia went to bed as a 7 year old for the last time …

right, that’s me done.  to bed.  byeee

the girls went back to school today.  all seemed to go well i think with both girls liking their new form teachers and class mates.  kezia was very keen not to get a seat at the back of the class where the naughty children sit and talk, and has ended up in the middle row, so she’s happy about that.

the picture is of a pelican crossing / bolisha beacon type thing.  rather than being balls on sticks they go for flat fluorescent circles which do the trick very nicely (but don’t flash)

another great piece of kiwi ingenuity.

oh, and we had our church group meeting here tonight.  same people as last week, so we haven’t lost anyone.  we’re going to experiment with venues and day of the week to see if we can pick up a few straddlers.  i’ll let you know how that goes.

tomorrow we’re having our first house inspection by the estate agent people so jane’s made the house look especially tidy and lovely.

see ya

it’s kezia’s birthday on friday.  she asked that her present this year be a trip to the local indoor snow centre where we could have skiing lessons and a day on the snow

so jane dug out our warmest british winter coats, hats and gloves and i took the day off work, and off we went

 

our ‘teacher’ was a chap called Taylor who taught us about two things then declared it was now just down to practice.  which was fine.   so we spent about 5 hours pootling about on the snow lifts and slopes

the girls had a quick sledge, but quickly went back to their skis

by the end jane and i were exhausted so we sat in the cafe and watched esther and kezia through the window

it was funny feeling so chilly after being warm for so long. it was minus 4C most and doesn’t have any windows.

and most importantly kezia declared it one of her best birthday presents ever, so hoorah for that.

they’re back to school tomorrow which i think they are secretly looking forward to !   this evening will be sorting school stuff out and early nights for all.

it was a bank holiday in Auckland today and true to form it chucked it down with rain.  and it was really windy

 

kezia and i went out early to get a couple of photos printed for a competition that esther and kezia are entering.  it’s of pictures taken of the sculptures in the botanical gardens.  esher’s is above and kezia’s below

we got back just as our neighbours Debbie, Franklin and their daughter came round.  She’s the Debbie who jane goes running with (very early) every other morning.  we had a really lovely time with them

 

then i whizzed off in to town to go to a music festival.  this was the first time the Laneways festival had come to Auckland (it’s usually just round Australia) so there were a number of teething troubles

 

, such as not being enough food outlets, resulting in huge queues, the two stages being so close together that one artist’s acoustic set got blown away by a rawk band playing on the other stage, and there was not being enough space in the bar area. 

the picture above is taken within the festival area – the people squashed together are in the special bar area where you were allowed to consume alcohol.  that made for a very uneven spread of patrons.

the venue was a pay and display car park in the centre of town which was amusing

and it variously chucked it down with rain.  although being so humid it didn’t make much difference.  it was nice to see how people dealt with it.

 

there were a lot of people wearing earplugs which is interesting.  live music is definitely a lot louder here than in the UK so you have to do your own health and safety.  i didn’t so have a deaf left ear due to where i stood for most of the day today and the huge bass amp at church yesterday

for those music watchers, stand out bands today were echo and the bunnymen (doing a greatest hits set), the dirty three (bearded violin player below), the phoenix foundation (excellent NZ band) and Surf City (who i think are also new zealish)

whilst i was out having musical fun, jane and the girls went to an off road biking trial which sounded rather fun and rather dangerous.  but everyone had a great (and safe) time and they only got a bit lost once.

  

tomorrow we’d doing Kezia’s birthday treat for most of the day …

 

kids get longer as they grown up. before we left the UK we realised that esther was too big for her bikes so she passed it to kezia.

and we promised to get esther a new bike when we got here.  and today was the day

so we did, and off they went for a colour coordinated ride this afternoon whilst i stayed at home and did money related domesticity

 

and this morning i had my first time playing in church. it meant being there to practice at 7.30am, playing at the first service at 9am and then the second service at 11am.  i got home at 12.30 rather tired and rather hungry.  but it was jolly good fun and i enjoyed it.

i forgot to take a picture in the service(s) so here’s my guitar in the car boot.

tomorrow i’m off here in the afternoon/evening so jane will do the fambily blog