Training

No pics this week as the camera is poorly. We are struggling on towards the end of term next week. Stuart has is on antibiotics for a sinus infection.

We have been having pretty quiet weekends. Chantelle and I did another kayak trip on my birthday up to Houhora Heads. The forecast was not too flash and we were not keen on the size of the waves as we went into the sea, so we retreated to calmer waters and fished from the kayak around a small island. I hooked onto what was probably a sting-ray, but fortunately did not land it. Chantelle got a John Dory up to theedge of the boat, but it dropped off. We were trying plastic baits as they are recommended for kayaks.

Last weekend, I took Paddy and his friend swimming. We were headed for the town pools, but they were closed. I am training for a Tryathlon (sic) whih will be held tomorrow, so I really needed to have a swim. So we shot up to Lake Ngatu. The level was right down on account of the drought, but it was very clean and refreshing. I had a go at swimming and then running. Mmmmm!

Last night I tried the cycling run transition. Quite tough to run the km after having cycled about 7km hard out. The actual event involves a 300m swim, a 9km bike ride and a 3 km run. That is the short course that I have opted for. The longer course is the same swim but a 15 km bike and a 6km run. The event has been organised by our innovative Doctor's surgery as a way of getting blokes to exercise. I am the only white person who has been going to the training sessions because it is a Maori Health Provider. It has been a eyeopener spending time with Maori men as we all figure out ways of incorporating exercise into our busy lives.

I had better not say anything more as the event is tomorrow. We might have pictures.

Eric and Stuart both have done well in the school chess ladder and are in the training squad for the team. Eric will be in the second team and Stuart is a reserve at the moment. Chess club has been running 3 lunch-times a week for the whole of this term.

Patrick went on an overnight camp with his school last week. They did a variety of activities including an assault course and kayaking.

Grandma

 

Great Grandma to the boys and Mike's Grandma died aged 98 on Monday morning after a short illness.

We are all sad and have been exchanging memories during the week.

The boys' most vivid memory is being given pound coins when they went to visit.
Chantelle remembers Spam sandwiches.
I have lots of memories - all good ones, as it should be for a Grandma!
Those Boxing Day parties when we would sit on plastic sheets and eagerly await big plastic bags of goodies.
Grandma as a double act with Grand dad and their humour.
Grandma as the great matriarch of Mum's side of the family.
The infamous kitchen drawers full of interesting objects that I never had a good chance to look through.
The immaculate garden at King Edward Road.
I remember them both coming to look after us in Heywood. I told Grandad that I had no interest in gardening! Don't remember anything about Grandma there though.
As a parent myself I remember taking Stuart over for an inspection. He cried so much (on account of his lactose intolerance as we later discovered) that she phoned ahead to warn Mum that the baby heading over to her was a real crier.
She liked to tak about her exploits at the swimming pool.
I do not ever recall leaving any of her houses with her, but can imagine that she would have been awesome company.
She put on an impressive show with the marching batons at her 90th birthday.

All the best Grandma!

Raft Race

 

 

 

 

Last weekend we went over the hill to Taipa for a raft race.
It had been organised as a way to bring together all the local church youth groups. What a good idea!
I think that this is the third year that the race has been held. It is the first time that we were involved.
It was a typical Far North event and most enjoyable for that.
No fuss, advertised by word of mouth, looked like it was not going to happen, seemingly crazy to a safety obsessed ex-Englishman. And in spite of all those things, thought had gone into it. There were 2 safety boats. The course was about 4 km down a pretty wild estuary with limited road access. The rafts ranged from the ramshackle to pretty seaworthy. In fact one girl swam the whole way holding onto a piece of bamboo. The kids themselves were fully involved in the whole thing as they had built the rafts and most crews were all under 18's. What is more, they all reached the finishing point, some needing a bit of a tow from the boats to make sure that we were not waiting too long at the finishing point. They all enjoyed themselves and were all stretched mentally and physically.
Despite all these good things, I am pretty certain that if the same event had been proposed in England, it would have been banned - or made so cumbersome with safety regulations that everyone would have been tied up in knots! And yet all the positives came out and no-one has drowned yet.
That is why I like living here!

Stuart was our family representative as he is most active in the youth group and had helped to build the raft. His friend Lance completed the great voayge as well.
We finished up at Taipa Sailing Club, with the obligatory sausage sizzle and spot prizes followed by some beach games. Choice!

Stuart ready for the long-jump

 

2010 A&P show

 

 

 

 

Last Sat was the A&P show. This is one of the big events on the Kaitaia social calendar. As usual the main event for most of the College students is Friday night. We went on Saturday, which is the main show day.

On the Thursday night we put some last minute entries to the indoor section. Stuart had been working on a Hellboy gun and he was stoked to win First prize with it. I( entered 3 categories of the veggy section and was pretty chuffed to get 3rd for my yellow tomatoes and 2nd for my dwarf beans.

The show was the usual mix of fair and commerce and animals and horses. I enjoyed meeting some familiar faces hanging around the greeny sections. We also helped the ATC to person one of the entrance gates.

Other news this week: we had a big dump of rain on Tuesday night. About 2 inches fell overnight. It helped to keep our tank fuller than it had been. The soil remains very dry. We are on a high fire alert and the town water supply is critically low. They are even talking of rationing and turning off for hours at a time. One of the school kids asked me if the school would be shut if the water was cut off. I said that it might be and her response was to tell everyone to turn on all the taps to bring forward that time!

Wednesday was School Athletics Day. Very hot and a fullon outside day. Lots of good things. Eric has got himself a catering role. Along with a number of other non-athletic souls, he was on the cooking party. They went around with tasteful stripey blue aprons, carrying tea and scones to the teachers scattered all over the grounds. He reckoned that he walked further than most of the runners ran in their races.

Stuart had to wear red to represent his House (Ngarimu). He informed us at 8am on Wednesday that he had nothing red, in a display of true adoloescent good planning. He ended up going round all day in a rather sweaty red Swanndri ( a NZ woollen knee length hunters shirt).