First week back

It was our first week back with no days off. By Wednesday the boys were finding it tricky getting out of bed and we were all relieved when Friday night arrived.

Not much to say really, just get up, go to work, home, eat, work, sleep then do it all over again. You are familiar with the routine.

Not strictly true though, there have been highlights to brighten up the tough situation.

I went to a village called Pangaru on Tuesday afternoon to meet my new senior science class. They are a 120km round trip from Kaitaia so I will mostly be teaching them by videoconference. It was great to meet them face-to-face first rather than through a tv screen. Pangaru is situated close to the West coast near the Kokianga Harbour. The school nestles below mountains coated in dense bush. The road there has about a million bends and on the way I met a horse, some cows and going home a single sheep. All in the road! It was good to get out of Kaitaia and be reminded of the amazing part of the world that we live in.

On top of that we have been enjoying the lovely evenings and the light until gone 8pm. I like to go and play in the veggy garden. Patrick joins me every few days so he can have first pick of the strawberries. It has not been very successful this year, but we get little crops of veggies every few days. A few tomatoes, a courgette, french beans, beetroot. I picked all the french beans that had gone to seed when we were on holiday, shelled them and we had chilli with them.

Most nights the boys have been out playing ball games. They like French cricket, piggy in the middle, catch. Eric calls it their quality time with me and I suppose it is; it is difficult to stop doing all the jobs and make time to just play with the kids.

We all went to the staff college picnic out by the river last night. I should have taken the camera as there were some great images. The kids had a swim, we all had a bbq, a huge fire was built and the kids played with burning brands! We were serenaded by the 3 tenors on their guitars. Most of the staff were pretty knackered, but it was chilled out and the kids were all happy, so we went home content.

Stuart applied to be on a NZTV show called "Lets Get Inventin". It features kids who have a wacky idea being teamed up with people who can build their invention. He had a letter yesterday saying he was in the shortlist for the show and requesting a video of his idea. He would be a natural as inventing is his long-time obsession.

Chan has been at work all week as well. Most of what she does is so top secret that I can't talk about it on this blog or she would have to kill us all!

So that's all folks - til next week.