One week in ...

End of another hectic week. Ian amd Margaret have been keeping the boys busy. They took Stuart to Whangarei on Monday where they had a Pizzahut and saw the museum. Paddy went fishing on Tuesday and did Tarzan impressions in the playground at Cooper's Beach. Eric crossed the Hokianga on the car ferry to Rawene. He also had a wash in a sulphurous pool and came out smelling better than usual.

The boys all went to school on Thursday and then took today off to go to Cape Reinga. More fast food was consumed and Ma and Pa were very unpopular when they vetoed the KFC. Mean parents or what?

Ian's comment: "3 cars in 50 km , the rest must have been in Auckland! 90 mile beach was nicer today with only 2 people."

Margaret and Ian sample the delights of Kaitaia

Well they have made it up here and are having an action packed time. Visiting the beaches, Kaitaia market, the Warehouse, museum, Waipapakoura for 90-Mile beach, church and they have only been here 2 days so far.
Margaret says "I'm here, enjoying every minute. Overawed by the beauty of the place. It is great to se the family. Feels like I have been here for ages". Ian was unavailable for comment as blog went to press, but we will interview him later.
Sad news on the soccer front - the Pirates were knocked out of the tournament by Ahipara. 3-1. Tough match, paddy scored in the first 5 minutes and then played defensively for the rest of the game. As Sharon's mum put it " Ahipara players use their ears!"

Fruity fruity

As well as the many things we have been doing, we broughts some fruit plants. Eric chose a lemon tree, called Lemonade- it's a lemon/grapefruit hybrid ,and is suprosed to be good for making summer drinks. Stu stuck to a grany smiths , and Paddy opted for a "Banananananana" tree. There is also a passion fruit, peach and an olive to plant up next week. These are joining our fejoa's, orange? ( we are not sure yet ,it's in bloom,) and a lemon.

Ducks, Footie and FROST!!!!

Ground frost on the flat bits at the bottom this morning, no wonder we were so cold last night. The woodburner took the chill off in the morning.
The ducklings are a week old now and are getting bolder.
Patrick scored 3 in the Pirates defeat of Kaingaroa, his team mate Chanaye scored 2. Final score 5-0.

The Grandparents have arrived!!!!

Well after their long haul, Margaret and Ian have arrived. They plan a weeks journey around the north island ,taking in Rotorua ( known as Rotovegas to us Kiwis), Napier, Whakatane, Kaiaua and then up to Kaitaia.

Colin, again has come up trumps with some lovely photos.

And then there were ducks!

The latest addition to the menagerie - 10 ducklings courtesy of Ruth. They were a brood of an Aylesbury that is not a very good mother so they have come to live with us. The chucks have laid 4 eggs so far and we have eaten 1 of the cocks, very tasty it was too!

The chucks have landed

Now 'tis Friday night and I have just got back from checking the chucks. We have 10 altogether thanks again to Peter. They have only been here 36 hours and have laid 2 eggs, which was sooner than expected.
They are a mix of Wyandotte, White Shaver and Barred Rock.
It has been lovely today, a gentle breeze that is drying up the mud rapidly. This afternoon I found out that treatment of dental problems is at least as costly as over in the UK. The dentist is very good though and showed me with the help of a large model, how I should have been brushing my teeth for the past 39 years.
The boys listened to a reading of Harry Potter Book Six at the local library. It is a fantastic place, better than many libraries in much bigger English towns. They have a current range of fiction and non-fiction, jigsaws, even a pedometer, not to mention lots of magazines that you can take home to read. The only thing it lacks is a cd collection, but even then I think that one can order them. The quality of my life has been boosted considerably by all the libraries I have visited over the years. They are such a good money-saving socialist idea that I am surprised they have not been quietly banned by now.

Making poultry accommodation

At the moment we (or at least I) am obsessed with making the chuck shed. We have been at it all this holiday, in various combinations of help. Hopefully it will be completed today and we will go over to Peter's tomorrow and get the birds.
We have sited the coop on the flattest part, and I am hoping it wont be too wet. The posts were difficult to get in solid as the holes almost filled up with water. Let the pictures speak for themselves.

Sheep!

The sheep arrived yesterday - thanks to Peter and Vincent. Peter told me what breed they were: a mixture of Romney, Suffolk and Merino(?). He also told me all their names and ages and sexes. I do remember that one is called Independence (born 4th July) and the small one is 8 months old, also there are some rams and some wethers (castrated rams). The rest I have forgotten. So over to the experts! From the pictures can you tell us the breed, ages and sexes. Bonus points if you also know their names (psychics only for this section).

I have also put up a counter to see how many hits we are getting. Apologies for the pop-up that appears with it.

Life on the farm!

We moved in on Saturday, with a big help from Stephan and Matthew. It took one big van load to shift all our stuff - on top of the 10 car loads we had taken during the week.

Since then we are gradually feeling our way into the job. Feels like a nice place to live. The woodburner keeps it cosy when it is kept fed with dry wood as opposed to wet stuff. The boys are all together in the downstairs room. Chantelle has done a brilliant job on the bath-room and made sure that the utilities were all on in time.

The farm labourers have been going about their tasks with more or less enthusiasm. Pest control is popular. Stuart and Eric are quite happy to stride forth armed with loppers and machete and to lay waste to the pampas or gorse.

We are getting our collective heads around the chicken housing question and hope to have their home built and stock moved in within the next 2 weeks. The goats are interesting to watch as they go about their business.I discovered this morning that they are partial to lettuce, apple cores and particularly carrot. They shelter in the pig shed when the weather is bad. I think I will pen them in up there and get them working down the long grass. Their main use seems to be to keep down invasive weeds, so we shall see how good they are at that.

We have decided to call the horned one Sharon (Shazza for short) on account of her 80's style soft perm, her shy friend Sheryl (her original name).

Great to hear your news Gerard and Vania! Do you have a home email I can talk to you on?

Saturday 2nd July

No football today so we got to have a lie-in. Took the boys into town to get tools to control noxious weeds. After lunch we went to try them out. Used the machete on the gorse, it is very invasive and little plants are springing up in all the pastures. Eric the chemist tells me that the only way to defeat the weeds is to poison them. Buring gorse makes it more fertile apparently.

Being pretty convinced that chemical control of weeds is a "bad idea" I am loath to start spraying now. I have managed to control a whole host of nasties on my various allotments: couch grass, bindweed, thistles etc. The situation here is a bit different, different country, climate and a rather larger scale, but I want to try to do without the herbicides. If anyone out there can give me some ideas I am listening! The main problems are gorse, tobacco plant and pampas grass.

Eric saved a goldfinch from the jaws of death. Moe had this lovely bird firmly gripped and Eric chased her for a good 10 minutes before she would let it go. He then nursed it back to health and let it go at our new place. It makes a change for Eric to be so concerned about saving life as he has recently been obsessed about methods of killing animals.

The new garden

Sticking up a few pics of our new garden. It goes down to the stream at the bottom, including the dark green tree (totara) and the pond. Chantelle is dreaming about pigs.
Stuart is in charge of engineering, bridges and watercourses. Eric is the pest management officer - hopefully he will make a dent in the invasive weeds - there is tobacco weed, gorse and pamapas. Patrick is the farmer and will collect the eggs.

Paddy's Birthday

Patrick was 6 this week and had a sparkler birthday cake. He has been using every available hour to play with the lego he got as a present from both grandparents and us.

Chantelle was ref in the football match today. Pirates plyed Eastern and Pirates won 5-0. Paddy scored 4 goals! In case you suspect maternal bias, let it be known that Mum awarded a penalty against Patrick for handling the ball. Let it also be known that the penalty was missed!

Other news: Stuart has not been doing much work at school this week because it has been reading tests, he got to watch Chrlottes web. Eric has been doing a lot of catching up work with his class. The school Kapa Haka team won the regional competition in Whangarei. The Kaitaia arsonist has been caught which is a relief as the fires had been getting more and more serious.

National news is dominated by politics as the election comes closer. The Destiny Church has been allowed to release its right-wing DVD, attacking the government for promoting homosexuality and a breakdown in family values.

Til next week then!

First test against the All Blacks

It is Saturday again and tonight the waiting is almost over as the Lions play their first match against the All Blacks. I have been getting a fair amount of stick at school on account of my loyalties. Rugby over here is more of a religion than just a sport.

We went over to our new house this arvo to check it out now that the tenants have left. We get the keys on Friday and start shipping in the week after. Looking forward to having our own place. The boys here are checking out the water tank on the hill.


We will miss some things about our current house. It has been handy having the odd rugby games going on with our view out over the field.

The next England star.( sorry all whites!) 

Chocolate chops 

Guess who? 

Eric 

GO PIRATES!!

I've taken some up to date photo's of the boys.
This weekend Paddy played soccer, and very well he did too!!!!!!.
He scored both of their goals and recieved player of the match. The next Michael Owen. It's so funn y watchin 6/7 year olds playing football, it's the balls a magnet thing, swarming like bees around the ball. Paddy has relised if he hangs outside the cluster ,then he will get the ball in more space. At one point his team ,the pirates, had 4 players instead of 5 ,as one neded the loo, and the others members are off with flu. GO PIRATES!!!!

Just before Paddy's Birthday

It's been a few weeks, but time for an update.
We are into week 7 of term now and it feels like time for a half-term - 3 weeks to the end of term. The kids are feeling the strain at school even with the odd days off here and there, 10 weeks is a long time for them to toe the line. Our own are struggling from one week-end to the next. Paddy is quite cheerful because he has been counting down to his birthday for the last month and the big day arrives on Monday. Stuart has had a day off every week for the last 3. We were mean this week and sent him in with achey legs and a sore throat. He survived!
Eric is in love with his teacher because she has a whole range of inducements to keep him working, he was making chocolate fudge and blue crystals today and trotted off quite happily to his bus. In fact he complained because I kept him waiting as I was trying to get all my stuff together and he was itching to get to the bus stop.

School weeks are generally unremarkable in my life apart from all the amazing things that happen at school. Not being too sure who reads this blog I am going to keep my counsel about school and work and save it for personal emails. I wonder how other bloggers manage this aspect of the medium. Surely one's colleagues find out about it sooner or later and find out alsorts of interesting things?

Last weekend was interesting. It was the noho marae (marae stay) for the te reo course I have been doing. Chantelle graciously looked after the kids while I was gone. There were over 100 of us staying in the marae and we all slept in one great big room, men, women and child alike. I gather that this is not unusual as well. In Uk people would bed down together if there was some sort of emergency, but we are pretty private about who we sleep with the rest of the time. My understanding is that Maori are a lot more sociable than us European types. So there was a good mix of Maori, NZ pakeha, and more recent immigrants from all over the place. We were all doing the same course but all in different places. It started with the powhiri - a formal welcome onto the marae that follows a particular structure of speeches and songs. All designed to determine the peaceful or war-making intentions of visitors. Once a koha (gift usually of money) had been handed over, there was a massive hongi - everyone files past the home team one by one but instead of just shaking their hand they touch foreheads and breathe the same air.

We had some food and then a couple of talks. The first was about spirituality and was delivered by a bloke who worked with violent offenders. He seemed to be into lots of different ways of healing damaged people including studying their colours and seeing their shadow people. There was a second speaker who gave a fascinating talk illustrated with powerpoint slides all about using the stars to navigate voyaging canoes. This was appropriate as it was the start of the Maori new Year Matariki - named after the star system Pleiades which appears on the eastern horizon at dawn at this time of year. This guy really could talk. He had sailed from NZ to Rarotonga on a canoe made from 2 Kauri trees that he had chopped down from a local forest. That is a distance of 2000 miles! The maori originally arrived from the polynesian islands on these canoes and his voyage was a modern attempt to recreate those voyages. I had always assumed that the original colonists had arrived in little canoes by chance. It appears that they were travelling all over the pacific establishing colonies on all the islands from Christmas Island back to Tahiti(?). They used the movement of constellations to guide them on these voyages.

That finished at mid-night, by which time no amount of snoring in the room - and there was a large amount - was going to keep me awake. In what seemed like minutes later the lights were on and people were stirring. We did 4 workshops during the day and my te reo improved massively. Haere ra kotou (Good bye!)

Queens birthday weekend

God Bless the Queen! Thanks to her we got an extra day off school today and that made it a good 3 day weekend. After Chantelle's fishing exploits on Friday, we all went to Whangarei on Saturday to re-experience the delights of its large Wharehouse. The primary objective was to get a better choice of clothes for the boys. That succeeded and they all got an extra outfit that they were happy with.
We went on to the museum which was on a large site with lots of different buildings run by various groups. We saw a kiwi in a kiwi house and had alook in a small church and a colonial style house. There was a miniature and a large railway. The museum was quite good, usual mix of artefacts, natural and man-made. We found a talking tui at the native bird recovery centre. Onto burger king for a fatty takeaway and then we travelled the 2 hours back home over the Mangamukas.
We watched the first Lions match against Bay of Plenty. Eric was allowed to stay up late to see what proper rugby is like. He has been introduced to the game at school and apparently did ok in his first game. The Lions match was Ok, a shame that Dallaglio got injured and a relief that the team managed to put on a convincing lead. The boys at school have been asking me about my allegiance and then giving me stick for supporting the Lions; as for the staff.... we won't go there.

I was up before dawn on Sunday to go on a fishing trip with Pat. He took me out in a kayak across the sea from Matai Bay to a small island where we spent a fantastic day fishing into deep water off a ledge. We caught a feed of fish and put back several smaller ones. We saw gannets at close range, a pod of dolphins and a penguin a way off. I took loads of pictures and then erased them all by mistake. Whoops! Even more whoops was not following the instructions and tipping the kayak over as we were launching it. Fortunately everything was tied on securely and nothing was lost. When we got home we had a fantastic meal of raw fish salad, crayfish (thanks Les!) and baked snapper.

We made it out to the farm at Diggers today and the boys went off for a walk in one direction whle the adults climbed up a hill in the other. We stayed in contact with walkie-talkies (thanks Nick and Karla) and re-united after 3/4 hour, both parties happy with the separation.

Back to school tomorrow for the second half of this term.

choice! 

Look Nick you missed a beaut!

Well in recent weeks my friend ,Mandy and myself have been fishing, which out any luck what so ever. We thought we had been jinksed. But today was a good day.
Mangaoni whalf , it was clouldy ,and we got there at low tide. 1 hour later Mandy's line shot of clicking into the distance. After a couple of minutes she had it close enough to pull in, but because we were on a whalf and the tide was not fully in we had to get help. One friendly fiherman from one of the boats got a hook out, but unfortunaly the line gave way ,and off it went.
I then caught a snapper ,which although was a good size ,we decided to return to get bigger, and for me to catch another day!
Then my line shot off, and this time we managed to land this 4lb Kohwai (sp).
Will make a nice raw fish sald and the cats enjoyed the cooked head.

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.