The Eagles have returned!

We have been tracking the northwards migration of Grandma and Granddad. Their plane from Singapore was delayed by about 40 minutes, but has now landed at Manchester. We do not have definitive proof that they are on the plane, that sort of info is not publicly available just yet.

It is a weird feeling Friday night as half the family have been at school for 3 days, but I am still technically on holiday.

I have been into school to prepare for the new term, but I also made time for a day doing my own thing yesterday. I was torn between going birding or fishing and eventually decided to do both by going up the Karikari to do some lake watching followed by a fish at Puwheke. When it came to the crunch, I decided that i had killed enough fish recently and that at $1.70 a litre for fuel, it was an extravagant trip to make on my own. So I went for an environmentally friendly bike ride instead. I sampled the delights of unsealed riding, going all the way to the end of Church Road, down Kaingaroa Hill and then back along Fischer Road. It was very interesting, lots of things to see, houses and road cuttings and bits of bush. There were some good downhill stretches after the long climbs. then the rain came on, along with thunder and lightning. I wondered what it feels like to be struck by lightning. I was not wanted upstairs just yet and made it home soaked to the skin, knackered but very happy.

Island Pictures

Island Life

The pictures will lag behind real-time events for some time, so the blog will be like the newspapers where they use archive footage to illustrate their articles. it all helps to break up the text.
In real time, Mum and Dad flew out of Kaitaia airport this morning a little bit delayed at 0940. The boys were allowed a late start to school to see them off. The plane to singapore left Auckland on time at 1400, so they are on their way back Lancashire! We have all enjoyed their visit. We had a lovely meal last night with our neighbours Goff and Janet, roast pork with apple sauce (made by Eric), followed by Goff's fantastic trifle and Patrick's Anzac cookies to go with the coffee. It was Anzac Day yesterday and I took Ma and Pa to the sevice at Kaitaia Community Centre.
It was moving to see the veterans, to listen to the speeches and hear the music. I used to have a problem with Remembrance Day Parades in the UK, but as I get older and less liberal, I have started to see some of the greys in the world, where it was previously black and white. Sometimes it is necessary for people to defend their values from people who would otherwise walk all over us.

The pictures are of Motoroa Island where we stayed last week. The island is a wildlife refuge, intensively trapped to keep down the number of rats and stoats so that rare endemic wildlife can flourish. It seems to work - Chantelle and I saw 2 kiwis in the wild for the first time, we also heard North island Robin and dad took a picture of 2 Kakariki on the fence next to the house we stayed in. I only saw these pics when we got home, or I would have spent more time looking for these particular birds.

More boat pictures

Boat to Motoroa

Last Wednesday we took a boat from Paihia to Motoroa Island. Paihia reminded Chantelle and I of Bowness-on-Windermere. Lots of feverish activity around a wharf. Trips are run out to a sea cliff that has a hole in it - it is called the Hole-in-the-rock trip. Kiwis are very functional in their place names.

There will be more pictures. We are making the most of the camera man.

Domestic scenes

I am going to post small regular bitsas I was having trouble loading up pictures yesterday.
Here we have Grandma doing some gardening and Zephyr doing his best to pretend to be a human.
I am a week behind in real time from where we are up to. We had a good trip to Motoroa Island, good weather, antastic accommodation, lots of healthy walks and fishing. Between us we saw some of the rarer birds that live on the island.
I got ill over the weekend and had to take it easy, but Ma and Pa have been in good health.
We went to The Orana for a meal last night. It was very pleasant and we all got to taste unusual things.
Today we are going to the ANZAC ceremony and will make ANZAC cookies .

Back at the ranch

I have been having some trouble loading up pictures so this is a little trial run.
Mum and Dad reckon we have not done justice to our place with the pictures we have taken so here are a few more. We will have to get some of the interior.

Holiday update

We have been busy, so its about time that i put up some updates before mum and dad depart.


We had a good trip up to Cape Reinga on Easter Monday. We stopped at Houhora on the way, and then again at Waitiki Landing where we had a snack. On to TePaki dunes. Most of the younguns got to the top and were impressed by the views and steepness. If anyone wants a good way of building up leg muscles try climbing up these. Patrick amazed us by going up and down 3 times.

We carried on to the cape and did all the usual things, went to the light house, admired the meeting of the oceans and the Pohutakawa tree down on the cliff.

Then it was onto Paua for a fish in the rain. Grand-dad relived his glory days, but Chantelle was the only one to catch anything. An undersized snapper and a parore.

Easter Pictures

Easter Sunday

Kia Ora folks
We are sat around in various stages of dazedness, and degrees of chocolate-overdose. We all go up before dawn to go to an Easter breakfast on the beach run by the Salvation Army Church. It added to Grandma and Grandpa Bryan's list of unusual ways to celebrate Easter.
They have been with us since Good Friday. Managing to reach us by plane from Auckland from a fog-bound airport. They had the Market experience yesterday. A very busy market as it was a busy tourist w/e.
Back to the beach this morning. It was a clear calm morning. We had a hymn and a reading and a few words and then got on with a simple breakfast of fish and flat-bread. The kiddies hunted for easter eggs among the boulders and dodged the incoming tide while the adults took little walks and chatted.

I shall endeavour to post a few updates now that we have visitors (with a camera!) and we are on holiday. What pleasantness it is to able to sit on the deck on an autumn afternoon in the strong sunshine, eating good food with one's neighbours and just chilling out for a couple of hours. Follow that with a bit of digging on the veggy plot in preparation for sowing some autumn crops. Finish it off with a few beers and King kong the movie. What a choice day!

Chantelle is about to go off collecting honey with Mike and Rissy. She is learning the business of bee-keeping first hand off the expert.

Til next time.

The circus comes to town

We all went to the circus on Saturday night. It was pretty good we reckoned. Very small circle so quite intimate, I was quite worried that the tight rope walker might fall off and impale us with his pole as he was almost over our heads.
There were jugglers, clowns, acrobatics. The only bit I didn't much like was the performing (or in this case - non-performing) animals. The llama was having none of it!
The costumes were pretty far-out and there was a good dance track playing at times.
The verdict from one girl at school was that it was crap compared to last year, but we had little to compare it with, and it was way better than watching paint dry on the lounge floor at home.

we have been pretty tired this week-end, hence the lack of updates. The w/e before was even worse. We are doing the jobs, little bits of DIY and a bit of homework and tidying up and a siesta here and there and wow! The w/e is gone.
It has made a difference now that it is dark at 6pm, the nights are longer and the daylight at w/e is more precious.
Farm news, all doinmg well, one of the muscovvies is sat on a huge clutch of eggs in a gorse bush, so Eric is counting his ducklings before they are hatched. He took a tiny mouse off one of the cats last night, but liberated it again ths morning as it seemed to ahve recovered. When I got home from work tonight, he was effing and jeffing because he couldn't lock away his chicks for the night. He told me that they were grounded for a month.
Patrick has moved back to Pamapuria school. He was very miserable going to Pompallier. Not really a fault of the school, just where he is better off being.
Stuart is into everything as usual. His latest project is buying a fish tank, but that was yesterday so it will probably change soon.
Better go and do my homework as it is a Monday night.
Haere ra