Oh are those clouds. Nick and Karla at Kaimaumau 

First family visit.

After 2 weeks travelling around NZ, Nick and Karla joined us for 5 days.
The highlight of their trip so far was probably breaking down on 90 mile beach ,half way up a dune ,no touch , phone and with fading light. Or friend ,Patrick, a guide for the area ,and teacher took Nick, Karla, Mike and Stu out, so they were in good hands. Kiwi's love living dangerously, don't know about Pom's.
It was good to see them both.

LOVELY !!! 

Summer dead? maybe not!!

Ok, so there's been rain, but the weather is still stonking. Cool , chilly mornings ,then up it goes into the early 20's. .

Its raining!

Well the rainy season arrived this week much to everyone's relief. The pasture looks dead, the rugby field lloks painful when they tackle on it and dust rises into the air, I am mindful that the water tank on our new house will be filling up. Over here most rural houses have their own water supply, either a bore or a water tank that stores roof water and is used for all the household needs. If your tank runs dry (which it can do mid-shower!), then you have to buy in a refill from a water tanker at a cost of $100's. In any case the rain here is pretty warm compared to Uk rain. It also has not washed out pollutants from millions of cars and factories on its way to the ground, and by and large it stops raining after a short time and the sun comes out.

Listening to http://www.95bfm.co.nz/default,live.sm over the internet as I write this. I think it an Auckland Uni based radio station. They do witty adverts and the music is to my liking.

It has been another tough week at the chalk-face. (Note to UK teaching colleagues: they still have blackboards with chalk here, I am learning the art of chalk drawing, and if the teaching goes wrong I'll be well on the way to a second ... third ... career as a pavement artist).

Tough because it is raining and we all know that the slightest variation in climate is enough to turn sensitive adolescents into raving banshees. Added to which I am fighting off a bug, checking out the NZ remedies. I have to say that the slight fever has added to my classroom banter. Made an analogy today to active transport and climbing sand-dunes whereas diffusion is like jumping off said sand dunes. Factor in that it is report writing time, have to write for 4 junior classes in what seems like rather a short interval, plus the expected crashes in report writing software, printers and human support, so expected as to be predictable. I am not stressing too much about it. Tell you what though, it is nice to be able to write more or less honestly on a blog rather than write ever so cautiously on a report. How do you report on a child who regularly disrupts your lessons and seems to have experienced a parenting bypass.

Other news: there have been major land slides in the Bay of plenty area after heavy rain, Dover Samuels came to our place today offereing lots of money to rebuild the tec block, The budget was yesterday - and I cannot really make a short witty comment on it.

Closer to home, Eric says he wants to rediscover the extinct moa when he grows up, Stuart is going to be a travelling scientist with a briefcase full of equipment that opens up and a microscope comes out, Patrick played for the Pirates last w/e and played defensively, we even videoed it. Chantelle travelled North today and back along (0 mile beach so we had tua-tua fritters for tea.

Friday night comedy tv is on now so I'm off. Probably won't write next Friday as I am going to Auckland for a course and won't be back till late. Arrividerci.

Patrick plays football against Ahipara. The Pirates lose 4-0. 

Friday 13th May

Just limped to the end of another week, first beer of the weekend has been cracked open and we are into the friday night wind-down. We have just been entertained by a school rugby match on the field in front of our house. Not entirely sure who was playing and what type of rugby it was, but it looked like our lot won.

I was supposed to be going away tonight to stay at a marae near Mangonui with my Te Reo course, but it was cancelled on Wednesday for some obscure bureaucratic reason. I was not too bothered as I was feeling very run down on Thursday and was not looking forward to sharing a mattress on a floor with lots of strangers. So I have yet to experience the joys of a "noho marae". The te reo course is going quite well at the moment. I recognise more of the words than I used to and felt like I was really learning something on Thursday night. Some nights I find it all going over my head. He aha tenei? He kihine tena! (What's this? Its the kitchen). Knowing a bit of Te reo comes in handy at school especially with some of the awkward pupils who try to pull the race card on me!

Chantelle is waiting for Uncle Nick to make contact as he is now in the country. The boys can't wait for him to show up as well, especially Eric!

It is now nit-combing time so I need to log off!

MMMM, sould be able to loose the kids there for a couple of hours at least!! 

Our new home- to be

This is our new home. It's about 1.5kms outside Kaitaia. As you can see it has quite a bit of land.
What you cannot see is a lovely pond ,with it's own family of Pukeko on it.
We hope to move in sometime in late june, as there are tenants in there.