Well ... into March already - doesn't time fly when you are having fun! We are nearing the end of term (aaaarrrrrggggghhhhh haven't ticked anything off the 'to do' list yet) and still feel unready for the year ahead - but have now set up another blog for the Bookclub I have just set up at school - there is a link to it ReadingRight so give it a couple of weeks and check it out - am going to encourage my group to make regular posts! Let the fun begin!!

New Year 2010

Another New Year ushered in at home, with family and a modicum of alcohol! We went to Hunters Bar (as is usual on a Friday night) and had the very sobering and sad experience of driving home past a fatal road accident - which made me appreciate so much more that I had my family safely at home. We had a great night with Maurie and Thomas making huge inroads into a bottle of tequila, and the rest of us drinking good wine and champagne, dancing and enjoying each others company - long may it last!

Walking Opo-style

After reading Megan's blog (live-by-the-river.blogspot.com) about her awesome walk (of which I am really jealous) I thought it time to post some photos of the walk Shirley and I do from her place each week. Since we started we have managed to rope Catherine in as well as a few others. This is the one of last years mountain bike courses that the more able ( and dumber) bikers rode. It is hard to show just how steep some parts are - it is always a challenge!!

Photos show the climb, where we are headed and the view from the top.

Christmas 2009

It has been and gone now but it was a good one - apart from not having Sam and Phillip here!!

Maurie and I fetched Thomas from Hamilton on the Wednesday and on Christmas Eve , as if by magic, a tree appeared in the lounge and was ably decorated by Waitapu and Lucy.

We had a quiet day, and were joined by Adrian Stevens for a late lunch. Weather was superb and it was great to sit outside to eat, drink, chat, laugh - generally to enjoy the company of a great bunch of people.

Santa did manage to visit, and as usual, his delegat ( in the form of Maurie) ably assisted by his charming fairy-like sidekick ensured we all received some goodies.

Its been along time ....

Well I think I can forget the rest of the adventure race post for now - most has disappeared from the hard drive anyway!! Well the rest of the year was pretty much same old same old so will begin anew!

In November we once again biked around the lake. The photos show the view from the house we stayed in taken in the early morning, the rest are post race and we are obviously having in depth post race discussions and planning tactics for next year!!

What else would you do on a fine weekend in Rotorua??

My adventure race

Well you have all read about how an adventure race goes for the competitors - here is how it goes for the support crew! I felt a bit removed from the build up to this race this year - probably because I was still a little bit annoyed with Maurie for refusing to be sensible and withdrawing from the race after he broke his rib, but I had enjoyed being part of the support crew last year so was happy to do it again. This year it was just Ted (Lea's dad - the hard worker) and me (the decorative less useful one) .

Ted enjoying a well earned cuppa after establishing an excellent camp site at the Lake

By the time we arrived at the camp site on Friday all was set up including a double height airbed for Maurie and I - Lea made the ultimate sacrifice - that girl rocks!

Food this year was great - a big thank you to Pete who did the cooking (which meant I didn't have to-yeehaa!) and as with all Pete's food it was yummy. Thanks also to Bev who makes the best fruit cake ever - which Ted was gracious enough to share with me. After a good nights sleep we were up at 5am to get ready for the big adventure - after an initial panic about whether the lake was going to try and drown them the crew set off in their kayaks for a shortened first leg. Spirits were high as they set off for the first trek which would take them up and over a high thing to the Tarawera Falls. After packing up for the next two transitions Ted and I took off for the Falls - which I had never seen and I had enough time to go and see them - spectacular!

Well thats halfway through and it is time for the best tv programme for ages - True Blood.

Part 2 tomorrow.

Autumn harvest

Look at this!!

In a vain attempt to get a few winter veges in and to clean up the remainder of the summer garden I ventured into the wilderness last weekend and this was my reward. The eggplant is amazing - one plant has produced over a dozen fruits (much to Lucy's horror), and the chillies just quietly got on with their job to produce this abundance. The little ones are habaneros - very hot - and we haven't been game enough to try them yet, the long thin ones are called wildfire, and the fatter ones are a mild salad chillie which is able to be stuffed and baked. We have an abundance of apples - several varieties which have done as hoped and ripened at differing times - yummie, tamarillos are ripening well - almost sweet enough to eat! passionfruit were not so great this year - time for a rethink and replant! Feijoas best not mentioned, so next planting round will include more of these, pears and maybe a persimmon - they are the most beautiful autumn tree for colour and fruit. All this amazes me as we had such a long hot and extremely dry summer - and autumn is looking to be equally as dry.

This all sounds very organised - but it happens despite what we do rather than because of it - even more so since Maurie has broken his rib so the serious pruning and big gardening projects I had planned for the holidays are now on hold - needless to say there is not much sympathy for his self inflicted pain!

Finally - I get to the computer

Well - long time no blog! It would be difficult to explain how hard it is to get access to a computer in this house. The alpha male comes home and catches up with his facebooking and online scrabble and blogging, as does the alpha female which leaves me with the newspaper and a book! But ever present in my mind is interesting (well interesting to me anyway!)things to blog about.


My wee Thomas came home for a week - of food, beach and relaxing - this I think has captured the moment perfectly - a cold beer, favourite music mag, sun shining and a spa pool.

It was great to have him home and I think the fact that we were back at work probably made no difference to this man's mission!
And of course he managed to sunburn himself to the max which, I got the feeling, was not part of the mission. Now we are all back into our groove and the weather has been so changeable it feels as though the summer is well and truly coming to and end.

We have had a long, hot, dry summer - how dry I didn't realise
until I saw the last rose Mum gave me - a beauty called
Sir Tristam. It needed urgent attention (oops don't know how
to get rid of italics!) A bit of water, a feed of rose fertiliser and the result was as you see. I think of Mum and my family most days and sometimes when the need to be with them almost overwhelms me, I look at the garden I call 'Mum's garden' and it always makes me feel better. It takes me back to the visits when the children were little and just before we left to go back to where ever we were living at the time, Mum would hand me a plastic bag with a few things for the garden and always the question 'Would you like a cutting/a piece/a few seedlings of ...?' I always said yes and now I have mum's garden.

Beginning of the end

Well we are now just a couple of weeks away from being back at work - and all the stuff I planned to do and all the reading I planned to get done - well nuff said about that!!


We have had our annual camping trip to Maraehako - superb weather in one of the best camping spots we have found. Talking to the other regulars there ( we meet them there every year and enjoy each others company - never see each other in the town we live in!) we are all agreed there is no where better to be - sun, beach, rocks, fishing and best of all - hot showers and flush toilets!!



As usual we didn't have nearly enough time there but it was great anyway. It was the first time we had been there with just one child - Sam where were you? Luckily Lucy had a friend staying there so she didn't have to hang out with old people all the time.


Maurie managed to get out in his kayak each day and even caught a few fish although it didn't help him overcome his seasickness! ( see http://principalpossum.blogspot.com/ )


This year there seems to have been an abundance of crayfish - these were caught by the neighbours - but it wasn't a great morning as they usually got 6 - everyday!

The fishing was a bit harder and to get the big ones you needed to be further offshore than the trusty kayak driver could cope with.

We walked around the rocks a couple of times so Lucy and Maurie could fish and I could fossick (after smothering myself in insect repellent - the biting things on those rocks can drain all your blood in minutes!) I didn't get into any of the rockpools this time after seeing the size of the octopus caught in the neighbours craypot. Where were you Sam - I usually have your company on the rocks and I really missed not having you there to poke around in the pools with me! So to make you feel better and to see what you missed I took some photos of the pools for you.

One thing that was interesting, after hearing of a huge number of jellyfish infesting the water at Mount Maunganui was seeing heaps in a crevice around the rocks -

luckily they didn't actually come into Maraehako Bay - otherwise that would have been the end of swimming for me.

A great few days - and we left with plans to return before the end of summer - as we do every year!

Quiet times

Well the festive season has well and truly gone - and this one was particularly quiet! Sam spent his festive season in Invercargill, Thomas was well into relax and downtime mode and the rest of us are just getting older!! Lucy had cuzzie Phillip to hang out with so it wasn't too boring for her I hope!We did at least manage to get a tree, creatively decorated by Thomas and Lucy, and we even had a few pressies to put underneath it (although not everything that was on Lucy's list unfortunately!) I got my camera and a lot of the photos being posted by Maurie have been taken by me (where is intellectual property right here!) so if you get to see the same photo more than once that is the reason. I also got myself a jigsaw puzzle - first in a long time and I have almost finished it. I had forgotten how much I enjoy them and what excellent time wasters they are.

The weather has been amazingly summery - hot and fine ( which brings its own problems with lack of water) but the sea is warm and lazing on the beach is a fine way to spend a little bit of time.

These piccies were taken on 7 Jan 2009 at Tirohanga Beach with a view to the west (you can make out Whale Island on the horizon) and to the east looking to the hills.

And here we have a sample of the bathing belles you will often find on the beach.

Sam, Auckland and travel.

Christmas has come and gone and it is time to update!

Our trip to Auckland went extremely well - apart from trying to get through Tauranga before 8 o'clock in the morning! At least 30 minutes ( felt like much longer) to go less than 5km. Major works on a roundabout coupled with school drop offs (every school in Opotiki had closed by then so this was a real surprise) and then when we finally reached the roundabouts they had lights installed on them - couldn't quite work out how they were helping traffic flow but a few very deep calming breaths and I was a little more reasonable about it (I think). So we got to Auckland later than planned - but Sam was even later. We were waiting at x-ray for him when this extremely tall, very thin, harried looking young man burst through the door. It took a couple of seconds to realise it was Sam. All was well with his checkup and he can now have them done down south which is a relief to his parents credit cards! We stayed at City Lodge ( run by the YMCA - quite appropriate really) which was ok. The first night a group was having a farewell do outside until the wee small hours, then the cleaners started followed closely by the construction site next door - luckily Saturday night was a lot quieter and we had a much better sleep.


Maurie and Sam having a quiet read Saturday afternoon!

Saturday night we had a lovely meal at Sri Penang on K Road with Jackie and Eryn. Unfortunately Alex had a sleep over so wasn't there. We then visited Franklin Rd to look at the Christmas lights - absolutely amazing - well worth it. Sunday morning began very dramatically with Lucy tipping out of her bed - my shrieks of laughter were not much appreciated!

Later that day we travelled home via Hamilton to pick Thomas up and bring him home for Christmas - the whole family together for the first time in a year -a fabulous way to end the journey.

Countdown to Sam

Despite my dread of early morning starts, the one happening on Friday I am looking forward to.

We set off from here before the dawn chorus to head to Auckland to link up with Sam. He has an appointment at Starship so we will be there to support him, and then have a couple of days in Auckland with him and Lucy. We will also be able to catch up with Eryn and Jacqui, though not Alex as he will be at a birthday party. So I am looking forward to it. Sam will come home briefly but will be back in Invercargill for Christmas - the price of a job and a flat to support!

The (slightly older) foursome will take the city by storm!!

Blushing Lucy

Finally - what you have all been waiting for! After my good intentions to update not coming to fruition a wee bit of nagging from Maurie has

got me at the keyboard.

I'm sure time speeds up at this time of year - as usual I am not on schedule for Christmas ( or anything much else for that matter!) but I am sure it will all drop into place.

The title of this post refers to the most spectacular climbing rose of the same name. This was given to me a few years ago - where it was originally growing it was continually eaten by possums - and since I already had a Lucy I was lucky enough to get a rose to match.

I wish I could say this is a tribute to my tender loving care - but this wonderful rose seems to thrive on neglect and erratic pruning ( it does look a bit like Sideshow Bob with the random branches sticking out where I can't reach them!)

And continuing the theme of Blushing Lucy - this amazing child has not only topped her class this year, she has been named Junior Dux ( or equivalent - she couldn't remember the title!). I have to admit - with all due modesty - that she takes after her mother here!! I feel as though my heart could burst with love and pride. Her nana would have been so proud as well.

Kia manawanui Lucy.

Motu piccies

Finally - the photos I said I would post! Bear in mind I am not the best with a camera!

This is the team Lucy competed with - from left to right - unknown mountain biker, Lucy, Amber and Nicole. It wasn't quite as dark as the photo implies!



We see this gnome at Motu every year so thought it would be cool to have a photo of him!





Lucy and a worried looking Nicole waiting for Amber.



Lucy kitted up and ready to go - unfortunately still no Amber. Note lack of bikes in the racks behind Lucy!




Lucy at the kayak changeover - made it before cut-off time and Amber was limping badly but mobile.