Long W/e

it is tuesday night and we haven't gone back to school yet.
This has to be the definition of stress free - a long enough w/e to have a whole day for farm jobs, a day for rest, a day to go out for a trip and a day to get ready for school!
So Friday we lay in and did very little. Some of us had a go at a 24 hour fast, just to remind ourselves what it is like not to eat. I found it hard at times but cannot say I really felt hungry even after 23 hours without food.
Then we killed a fat lamb to be ready in tme for Easter.
We broke our fast with fresh liver and kidneys and belly flap mince burgers. Scrummy!
Up early on saturday to carve up the carcase that had been hanging overnight. Stuart and Eric had done the skinning and gutting, but only surfaced in time to see the meat go in the freezer.
I am getting more sophisticated at butchery and used a saw to cut the ribs and back bone this time.
We did farm things and were going to go to Diggers, but their fert truck ahd arrived so we satyed at home. good job as our neighbour Bob turned up with his tractor and mulched the fields. The grass was getting long, but was nowhere near as bad as last year when it was over my head.

Easter sunday was another day of changing plans and I ended up doing very little apart from cooking for friends. We made them work for their tea as one of the Pitt Island ewes had flystrike for the second time and we had to catch and treat her before we ate.

Monday was lie in time and I actually went into school to get some work ready. eric and I had an epic fishing trip to our favourite place. I caught a large kahawai on the first cast and we had another 2, a couple of snapper and eric even hooked a huge stingray. I had to take over his rod as it was heading for China, stripping line off the reel at a fair rate. I managed to get it back to the rocks, but the line snapped as I lifted it in. Probably a good thing as we werent sure what we should do with it.

The weather broke today which was an ideal way of making me get stuck into my pile of marking and prep. Chan was back at work, so we had a boys day at home. Snapper and kahawi for tea.

Back to school tomorrow. Pictures will follow. The rain has stopped so off to check on sodden sheep. Stop press: Skippy was very "interested" in Nippy the ewe. Did you know that a ram's penis is about 18" long?

Mostly Farm Pictures

Mike's Birthday

It was my birthday on Wednesday and I am now 42. The wags have been telling me that I now know the meaning of life and maybe they are right! I reckon I have got more idea of what it is about than I did half my life ago when I was 21. I remember going on a holiday hitching round Ireland with the purpose of working out what life was about - and singularly failing to do so.

We have had an up and down week. Eric and I went fishing on Sunday at our favourite spot. It was calm with the threat of rain but still pretty sunny. We were surprised to find 2 other cars parked up and our fave spot already taken. We had a go a bit further round the rocks. It was too weedy and we had no bites. Fortunately the other people went so we got ourselves a feed of mussels and moved. The water was very clear and I couldnt see any fish. We fished for an hour with no bites and I was resigned to going home empty handed. I told Eric I would reel in and then we would go. As I reeled in slowly, the bait wa staken with a whack and I was into a massive kahawai. It was all over the place trying to lose the hook. I was afraid the rod would snap as I pulled it out of the water but it was safely brought in. Measured about 24 inches. We ate fried fillets for tea and it was lovely.

The next night we had snapper courtesy of Aaron who had been out on his kayak. One of the benefits of living in the Far North.

Stuart is enjoying his new bike and went down with me to the museum on Saturday afternoon. We had not been for at least a year and I had forgotten how good it was. There is a good mix of natural history, geology and human stuff. Always something new to see and ponder about. This time I was struck by the number of moa skeletons that had been found near our fishing spot.

We have had a few losses on the farm this week. The worst was Picton the cat getting run over this morning. Eric was pretty upset especially as his last cat got run over as well. We lost our only sussex pullet to a hawk on Wednesday and then lost a barred rock hen today. At this rate we will have no chickens left by next w/e when I had planned to move them to more secure quarters. We will have to make it a priority tomorrow.

I was at school on Wednesday for my big day and so it was a pretty normal. The boys had made cards which was nice. Chantelle got up early and made me breakfast which was nice. We had an Indian curry for tea from Redan Road dairy. We had butter chicken, chicken Korma and a lamb rogan Josh(?). The korma was best, but not a patch on a Lancaster Nice and Spicy. I reckon we will have to get the spices and have a go at doing it ourselves.

Patrick has been growing in front of our eyes these last weeks and he was off on Thursday from the effort, plus a tummy bug. We knew something was wrong when he didn't go out for an hour on his bike after tea. I took the day off because Chantelle's stuff was less rearrangeable than mine.

Thanks to everyone for their birthday cards and wishes. The celebrations continue ... I like to string my b'days out for at least a month. Had cake with my housegroup at school today, then drank the english beer I had been saving for a special occasion at Social club tonight. Tomorrow C and I are off to The Beachcomber for a meal.

Pics to follow .... after I have taken some!

More rain

Saturday morning and the rain is back. Heavy persistent rain that is forecast to be here all weekend. We shall be working indoors by the look of it.

We have had a fast quiet week, settling into our routine. The karate is going well and they have gone twice a week for 2 weeks. Stuart went on a school trip to sketch rock pools yesterday. They go out more here than in the UK.

Last weekend we went for a family walk on Sunday afternoon, carrying on a long Bryan tradition. Much resistance was encountered from the boys, but it evaporated when we got there. We went to look at the scout camp up near the quarry. It was abandoned and overgrown. The expected track that would take us up the hill for a view, had either not existed, or was overgrown. The bush here is so rampant that tracks soon grow over if they are not regularly cleared. So we made do with the familiar track. Patrick was on his bike. Chris and Clinton went past on their mtb's and that was enough to get Stuart to want to get a new bike! That is today's job, along with making his video for Lets get inventing.

Eric was off school this week with a stomach bug, but he was back by Thursday. He reluctantly missed his cadets on Wednesday as he had been off school.

Chantelle was off one day as well with a bug. She is keeping busy with her work. As am I ....

Farm news: I am keeping an eye on Skippy the ram to watch for him mating the ewes. The white ones all seem good and they have plenty of food. I am checking them twice daily for flystrike. We have 2 little ewe lambs that will end up as roasts at Easter weekend. That will leave us with 2 rams and 4 ewes to breed from over the winter. Our land cannot cope with any more than that.
We have had a do with broody chickens this week. Finally found out where the red chicken has been hiding for the last few months - under a sheet of roofing iron with 11 eggs. She has not been near a cock in ages so they were all infertile. I took 11 eggs from the bottom coop and put her on them in the wire coop on the lawn. She was unimpressed and refused to sit on them. We let her go and put the eggs under a desk lamp in Eric's room. We will see if our home made incubator does the job.

Show Pictures

Here are a couple of pics.
Eric took out second prize at the A&P show with his scones, beaten only by the infamous Alice Yuretich who took out many cookery first prizes. As predicted the outdoor show was cancelled because of the weather.
The other photo shows Patrick on his bike ride last w/e.

Rain in Northland

Kia Ora Whanau
The rain has set in Northland and we are forecast to be getting 150mm (6 inches in old money) by tomorrow night. Good for the dried out soil, grass and sheep etc that eat it. Good for the veggy garden and for filling up our water tank. Not so good for the adolescent population of Kaitaia who have been denied their annual end of summer party venue at the annual A&P show. On the one hand it is a pity that it is raining as it will be a wash-out even if it is not cancelled. On the other hand there is often trouble at the A&P showground on a Friday night, with old scores settled. There has even been a suggestion/ rumour that a virulent youth gang is going to have a presence. So from a teaching/ concerned adult point of view, maybe the rain will keep the town a bit cleaner.

We have had another manic week, perhaps not as much of a trial as last week as we all adjust ourselves to the routine and get used to getting up early. We had some good developments this week too. Patrick and I went mountain biking with the big boys last sunday. Cool!! We went up Larmers round onto a track that runs through the bush to diggers Valley. If i was really dedicated I might show our route on Google Earth! I have pictures and even a bit of video that might end up on Youtube. After our little escapade in the paddock when I took a rather painful tumble that might have had consequences on family size 10 years ago, I was a bit shy about going any where near full pelt up a track on my bike. Paddy had no such qualms and we could well have discovered an outlet for his interest in risk-taking that C and I had been looking for. He was off in front of me, going through streams and over roots and getting off where it got too steep. he put me to shame with my 18 gears against his single back cog! Time to get him a better bike methinks. He often spends an hour cycling round the yard in the evenings. Meanwhile my fitter colleagues went off much further and were clearing the track so that it could be ridden from end to end. By the end of our run I had picked up speed and dropped the saddle right down. I started to get up to speeds where you get an adrenaline rush from going fast and having to make split second decisions where a slip can send you over the bars.

Stuart came home upset on Monday because of some nasty kid who was playing mind-games with him at his new school. Another kid had been giving him physical grief. We went down to the karate school which runs 2 nights a week, by coincidence in his own school, and Patrick and he enrolled. From my observations on Monday, it is run by a number of men who have a good grip on what is going on, without making it too serious. There are lots of kids lives that are blighted by bullying and there are some answers and a lot of hand-wringing. We shall see if karate helps Stuart.

Thats all for now.
Ka kite ano.

Pictures

Pics to go with last post.
No people this time!
Survivor is the white sheep that Chantelle and I shore last night. This will hopefully stop her from getting flystrike.
The horned beast is Skippy, patriarch of the herd.
Beans speak for themselves.
The citrus has grown well this year but has a deficiency that I have trouble correcting. Older leaves are yellow between the veins. Magnesium I thought, but generous applications of epsom salts have not changed the look of the leaves. Any advice welcome.
Finally, we discovered that Patrick's banana has fruited.

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.

No limo's

I would like to clarify that there will be no limo's appearing in Kaitaia,or anywhere else for that matter. ( As it would be a total waste of tax payers money!).

But a 4x4 would be approprite consisdering the area concerned.I look forward to starting/ continuing a challanging job, full of colourful people- and that's just the boss!

Party over - back to school

Well that is it for another year and we all went back to school last week, apart from Chan who has been back at work for ages.
Patrick started on Monday and was keen to return. He has an interactive whiteboard in his classroom and is one of 4 boys in a class of 31. For Patrick this is not the good thing it would be for an older boy. Girls are currently described as "gross" and "sick" in his 8 year old world-view.

Stuart started at Intermediate with old-hand Eric on Thursday. He had the usual fears that go with going to a new school, but he met is teacher the day before and seems to have made a good start. Eric is glad to be back and as a Year 8 can lord it over the new ones, so he is happy.

We had a gentle start to the new term, doing at most 2 days and then Wednesday was a public holiday - Waitangi Day, so we were off again. I went to do some prep in the morning and then Chan, Eric and I all went for a fish at Aurere. It was exhilarating as the swell was high on account of a tropical cyclone that was releasing its energy into the seas to the north. We had to be careful with the waves coming onto the rocks. We had some good fish on and lost some good sized ones. We landed undersized kahawai, trevally and snapper and took home one snapper for eating. This is the first one we have caught in a long time and very tasty it was too.

School for me semi kicked off on Friday when the Year 9's all started, but the big start is this Monday when everyone is back and I will meet all my classes at last.

The pictures have slowed right up now that school is going. Posting up some of the end of our holiday. An innocent eric at Gatwick, a possum up our cabbage tree and its ultimate fate. The final one is a strangely named refuelling machine at Melbourne Airport.

Chantelle is keeping busy with her job and went to a big meeting in the city (Whangarei) to talk about a new pilot project that has been set up between the Sallies and the Ministry of Social Development. I am waiting for the ministerial limo to turn up for her in the mornings.

Until next time then. I notice we have had a reader from the African continent! Wecome to the blog! Welcome to all our readers! Do not be afraid to comment, question or argue.

Bk2Skl Party

Last night we held the second annual Back to School Party or "Bk2skl" in Txtspk.
Our summer is nearly over with 2 of us back at school tomorrow and the rest on Thursday. I am not complaining as it has been an epic holiday. We have seen lots of new places and met old friends and rellies in the UK. In the last 3 weeks at home, we have done loads of stuff, diy, huntin possums in the garden, fishin' with a kite at Puwheke, killing a couple of lambs, making sausages, tidying up, cooling down with swims. The fun just has to stop ...
I had a job whittling down the photos from the several hundred on the camera to the 4 shown here. Eric and stuart have whiled away many a happy hour with just the camera and their own bizarre imaginations. The result is a memory stick full of blurred faces or lego animations, not to mention the Gbs of flight simulation landings "It only lasts for 15 minutes!"
So there is a picture of me getting to grips with a 20" chainsaw. Stuart making sausages from our own lamb meat. Chantelle and Patrick on the beach at Puwheke where we went kite fishing with some friends recently. And finally some of the folk who came to the party last night. Thanks for coming, the food was awesome as was the company.

Stonehenge pictures

More pictures, this time from the last few days of our holiday which, as is always the case, seems very distant now that we are back home.
There are 2 pictures of the rocks at Stonehenge. No explanation needed for these.
The frying pan contains that great British delicacy: black pudding. I am informed that this can be purchased from Kaitaia's infamous Saturday market.
The picturesque village green was at Crawley just north of Winchester, near to our campsite.
Finally, we have Ian and Paddy. I cannot remember what the joke was....

Meanwhile fast forward to Kaitaia and we are enjoying a spell of good weather. Atropical cyclone went over on Tuesday but we were not badly affected, just a bit of overnight rain. We all went for a fish last night at Aurere beach. The low tide was at 4.30pm which was perfect as it was cooler. We had suggested going overnight and camping on the beach, but this got a big thumbs down from the boys, so we compromised with an evening fish. We certainly had some fish, taking home 3 kahawai, but more significantly caught several snapper. I had assumed that snapper are not caught off accessible rocks any more. Chantelle caught the first but it was a bit small, so after some discussion we put it back. We reckon now that it was well over the legal limit. We caught some more undersize ones. I had a large one on but it dropped off as we tried to land it - rats!

The rest of the days have passed by in a whirl of cleaning, washing, lawn mowing, floor painting, cooking etc etc. I personally looking forward to going back to school - too much multitasking going on at home!
Til next week.

More Southampton Pictures

Here we have Granddad Ronald at lunch in a Romsey pub. Chantelle is making an interesting hand gesture!
Eric worked out how to use the timer on the camera and took the shot of evryone gathered around Grandma Anna.
Uncle Richard was a hit with the boys and he gamely took two of them off for the night. He still seems to be smiling in this picture, so has not suffered major psychological damage.

Southampton Pictures

Some more pics. Of rellies in Southampton. South coast of England.
These were taken early on in the new Year.
Current news in Kaitaia, after scorching hot weather since we landed a week ago, the weather is now turning and we are expecting the remnants of a tropical cyclone to pass over us in the next 24 hours. batten down the hatches.
eric and I were up at dawn to go for a fish before the weather closed in. We went to a new spot near Mongonui and it was very windy. I hooked into a good sized kahawai which slipped the hook just as I was landing it. the one that got away!
Pictures are of Stuart walking back from his trek round Wicken with Horace.
Sitting down for a meal with Chantelle's Aunty Barbara and Uncle Bob and their children James and Emily.
The D-day museum in Portsmouth - boys inspect a tank and the Overlord tapestry (picture especially for Clare!).

Catching up on pictures

The pictures got left out in the last few holiday updates. Here are some from New Years Eve.
Eric and Stuart in front of King's Chapel in Cambridge.
Eric pleased about his score at bowling.
Margaret tempting Patrick with yet more sweets! (They are all in withdrawal - oh yes Nick and Karla, have you found the Haribo stash behind the curtain in the guest room?)
Stuart is determined to simulate a Hawaiian holiday even though it is frezzing outside. Plus Karla snapped in the background.
Finally a walk in Thetford Forest on New Years Day.

Back Home

Just a quick post to let people know that we are now back home. Enjoying the sun and good weather and taking ourtime to get over the jet-lag.
The journey was long but incident free. We looked after ourselves better than we did on the way out, watching less tv and getting a bit of sleep. Dubai was as horrible as it was on the way out. Very very busy and overcrowded.
But the planes ere all more or less on time, not much turbulence, good neighbours etc. etc.
We stayed in Auckland last night, that was like being on holiday - sat out on the pavement in the warm sun waiting for a takeaway. We were on the road at 6am this morning and got home by midday.
Bliss to be home. Catching up on all the animals and plant growth.
Picturesto follow.

On our way out

7.48am at Gatwick best Western hotel. Last day in England before we fly out tonight (fingers crossed!). We have been enjoying the luxury of having 6 square metres of floorspace, a BATH!!!, hot water not dependent on turning the gas on and taking the vent cover off, sleeping in a bed that doesn't make you feel seasick because it is windy outside or Eric is shifting about in his sleep.
Very nice ... we like hotels.
Kinda sad to get outta The Beast at the same time. It has served us well and taken us to some whacked out places. The last few days we have been exploring the highways and byways and industrial estates around Stonehenge. The stones themselves were a bit of non-event for me. When we first spotted them from the very busy main road that goes along each side of them, my first thought was "Is that it?" My previous images of them had always involved large open spaces and they seemed a lot larger than they actually were. All the same, big ups to the folk who brought them there 4000 years ago. Apparently some came from a fairly local quarry about 40 miles away and the smaller bluestones that go on top came all the way from Preselli in South Wales. I did not get any spiritual feeling from the place at all - mostly in fact I got a very cold feeling as the wind was strong and very biting. They had some nice sheep grazing in lines. Some were wearing raddles, so it must be mating season. One ram was sniffing a ewes urine which reminded us of Skippy at home.

That was the day when everything went a bit pear shaped. We left Folly Farm and drove west through heavy rain. Found a lovely village called Stocksbridge. Lots of nice art shops, a fantastic butcher's shop that did black pudding and pasties. Also huge trout in a very clear stream that ran along the street. Very tempting to dangle a worm in and catch our tea, but judging by the flyfishing shops it would be the sort of unsporting behaviour that would get us arrested.
On to the Hawk Conservancy Trust for a wet weather look around ... closed. Then onto Amesbury for a swim, couldn't find the Leisure centre as the signposts stopped. Tourist Info told us that there was a pool in Durrington 3 miles away and that it was open. Had an interesting drive round most of Durrington looking for said pool, again the signs took us so far and then stopped. Eventually found it down some back streets attached to Avon Community College. Yes it was open - for 10 minutes then closed to the public so that the kids could use it. The only thing that cheered me up was that all the kids and teachers here are back at school and we are still on holiday!

We ended up having lunch at Pizza Hut because we couldn't be bothered trying to find a pub open. The campsite for the next few weeks was Salisbury Touring Park in a little village called Orcheston. It was adequate; toilet block a bit dark and dirty, didn't fancy the showers, the chem toilet place didn't have a functioning hose and the site itself was a bit squashed for a vehicle of our size. However it did have WiFi, so we could at least go online for a fiver.
In the night, Chantelle and Patrick came down with a bug, good old V&D! I will spare you the gruesome details apart from saying that pineapple puke and liquid squit smells really bad anywhere and when it is in your mobile home you cant get away from it. I saw my job as keeping things normal for Eric and Stuart while letting the 2 sickies sleep it off. We had a hearty breakfast of black-pudding and bacon, went for a successful swim at Salisbury Five Rivers Leisure Centre and went to see "Enchanted" at the Odeon.
Yesterday we packed up, cleaned up and met Grand-dad Cambridge at Fleet Services to drop off all the bedding and stuff we had borrowed for the trip - thanks folks, you kept us all warm for a month! Big thanks to N&K also for the fan heater which kept us all toasty through the coldest weather.
Well thats it for now, we are basically killing time before our flight and seeing what entertainment we can find for a few hours here between being turned out of our room and going to the airport. Our windows give us a view of the end of the runway so we can see all the planes as they head off into the clouds - statrting to get that pre-flight stomach feeling.
Later g's as they say in Kaitaia

Heading Sarth

Blog update Wed 7th January

I am writing this from a small campsite north of Salisbury. We are within earshot of an army firing range and before it went dark we could hear a series of explosions. It might go on for several days as our visit probably coincides with a 48 hour NATO exercise. Most of our plans today have gone awry so I would not be surprised.
Anyway here is the news from the last few days for those who are following progress closely.

We left Cambs on Thurs January 2nd, starting the day with a dawn walk at Wicken Fen with Nick and the dogs. Stuart came along and it was bitterly cold. The Fen has expanded over the years and we went round a part that I had never visited before. Lots of thrushes and a few new ducks and waders for the checklist: shoveller, knot plus the first sparrowhawk of the trip. They seem to be less common than they were. Buzzards are everywhere and so are kestrels. House sparrow numbers are well down. Why is that then?

We left Stretham having said our goodbyes to Margaret and Ian and headed down the M11 to Sussex. There was a bad crash that held us up for an hour but we made it to Barbara and Bob’s house by sunset. They fed us well with winter stew and dumplings ….yum-yum. Even Patrick asked for more. The boys met Emily and James again and they all seemed to get on well.

That night we stayed at Sumner’s Pond just down the road. A carp fishery apparently, but no-one was fishing in the morning. Good toilets and amenities, no complaints at all. We even went on a morning trot to the shop for bread and milk. Then on to Netley near Southampton. We went via Portsmouth and the front at Southsea. Had a pleasant lunch at Mozzarella Joes café on the front. Very good fish and chips. Biting cold wind coming in off the Solent along with a hovercraft and a couple of cross channel ferries. We visited the D-Day museum in the afternoon. Very moving descriptions of the invasion and local effects of the war. Also the Overland Tapestry that was commissioned as an English version of the Bayeux Tapestry.

The campsite at Netley was next to a busy road and in a large featureless field. Toilet block under construction so showers were in the main house and toilets were in a Portacabin with very little room. Not too impressive.
We went off to see Great Grand-dad Ronald the next day (Friday). We went out to a pub on the River Test for lunch and the boys had a good chat about life in New Zealand.
On Saturday morning we arranged to meet Chantelle’s Uncle Richard at Marwell Zoo at 10am. At 9.30 we found that the van was bogged down on the grass. We had parked on a grass field having not parked as advised on an area of hardstanding as it seemed to be part of the roadway around the site. Chantelle went in search of the owner for help and was told that we would have to wait until her husband returned from work at some time in the future. Well, we could have waited like helpless people or we could have used some newly acquired Kiwi ingenuity and helped ourselves. I saw a pile of road material nearby and put a few loads under the back wheels. The owner rushed over saying that we couldn’t do that because we would ruin the grass. I replied that we had already done that – picture a long skid mark with a huge double rut in it! I asked her when hubby would be back and she said his ship had to dock then he would be back as soon as he could. She flustered off and I looked at the bucketful of tarmac. I dutifully put it back on the heap. There were already 3 buckets under the wheels and it seemed a shame not to see if they would work. Chantelle drove slowly in reverse and we all gave a shunt from the front and out The Beast reversed. We left a note apologising for the state of the grass and resolved to find a new site for that night!

At risk of going on a bit – I will anyway! Just skip this paragraph if you are irritated by my soapbox rantings, but hey – what is a blog if not a soap box? This little episode sums up something fundamental I have noticed in a lot of English people that you don’t get so much in our new home. In England everything has to be done by “The Expert” in whatever field you can imagine. People are discouraged from sorting things out themselves. In some cases this is understandable – if I have a heart attack I would rather be treated by a heart specialist than a dentist or a tree surgeon. When the car breaks down we phone the AA or the RAC. When the bog breaks we get in a plumber. When our hamster dies we get the Hamster bereavement service in and the Hamster Funeral director. Far fetched? I am pushing the point and those who know me will know that I am not the most practical minded of people. I have noticed that when we have hit hitches on this trip I have attempted to sort them out myself before calling in the experts. I was deeply impressed on a trip in a remote part of Spain with Ruth and Rory by the way that they fixed their radiator with a bit of roadside wire when the radiator hose split. There was no AA round there and even if there was they weren’t members. Going back to the episode that sparked this off – two final points. One: we should have listened and parked on the hard-standing in the first place, so sorry for spoiling your grass. Two: are people more or less important than the grass? Perhaps it should be a field or a turf farm instead of a camp-site? End of rant.

Where were we? Oh yes, meeting Uncle Richard. Which we did at the zoo. And had a rare old time looking at all the animals. I hadn’t heard of half of them but there were some fine specimens. As far as zoos go it was well laid out with natural looking cages. Kind of sad to see a mountain leopard in a rocky cage staring longingly at the red panda up a tree in the next enclosure. We had watched a programme about them the night before. The TV crew had spent 8 weeks in remote Pakistani mountains trying to find one in its summer habitat. It took us 1 minute to spot it in its enclosure. Sorry, nearly got into another rant about zoos ….
Eric and Stuart went off to stay with Great Uncle to talk planes for the night. Chantelle Patrick and I went off for a quiet night on a new campsite near Crawley.

That brings us nearly up to date so I will stop there. Eric is busting to have a go, probably to check out the price of laser sights on TradeMe.

Happy New Year

Happy 2008 to all our readers!
The pictures and posts have got away from us/me a little as the tour continues.
We left Lumb the day after Boxing Day to spend 2 nights in Lancaster. It had proved difficult to find a campsite anywhere near the city that was able to take us, and we couldnt think of anyone who had a drive big enough to fit the van, so we ended up at Hollgates in Silverdale. It was pricey at nearly #40 a night, but the site was well placed in the limestone woodlands witha view down to Morecambe bay. Even better for the boys was the reception complex which held a large indoor swimming pool, along with a spa pool, steam and sauna room. That made up for the extra cost as we swam every day we were there. The weather was truly awful with howling gales and driving rain. The van rocked so much that it was hard to sleep.
Stuart went to stay with his old school friend Matty. We were all treated to a little party in the Cathedral library by Fran, Barbara and Sheila. Thanks ladies, it was a really nice gesture.
We spent a bit of time in Lancaster city centre on Friday - not pleasant- very busy and shops full of useless tat! The boys needed a dose of cheap crap though. Then onto the Greggy to meet up with Alastair and Roger. Didn't get a pic of you Roger! Good to catch up on all the news of lancaster and Scotland.
We returned to Lumb on saturday for a family party. I met up with all my siblings for the first time in maybe 4 years. There was not enough time to really catch up. It felt a bit like we had all met up at the same bus station before our paths whipped us all apart again. Not that I am comparing Mum and Dads house to a bus station - he adds hurriedly. Still even a brief meeting was better than nothing. The boys got to meet their cousins again. There was a bit of hierarchy settling as Patrick discovered that he is the youngest cousin and could not throw his weight around in the manner he is used to with his older brothers. Stuart seemed impressed by the musical abilities of his cousins. I certainly was impressed by Tom's songs. Check out his webpage: http://www.myspace.com/theshybairns
It was good too see all my sibs and nephews and neices and in-laws.
On Sunday I went for an excellent walk at dawn (8am!) up to wheathead again and over the tops along paths that I used to tread when i was living there 20 years ago. The woods were taller, some farmers are looking after their walls and some have fallen down any more. The grass was bitten pretty short with lots of sheep grazing.
We took off back to Cambs after taking our leave of Mum and Dad.
Now it is New Years Day and we are in Stretham. We had a plaesant party last night at Nick and Karlas. I took the boys into Cambridge for the day. Eric had been very desperate to go on a train. I had hoped to go to the Botanic Gardens but it was closed as was the Fitzwilliam Museum and the public Library. We had to make do by eating danish Pastries at the Copper Kettle. Went bowling in Ely and then back for the party. Tres fun ... 2007 all over ......

Christmas celebrations

Various images from Xmas day.
A day spent doing the usual xmas day stuff: church, presents, eating and drinking, talking and watching tv.
Alex and Elisha joined us for dinner. Very tasty beef and chicken with all the trimmings.
Main TV was Dr Who. Have to say that mainstream free to air tv has deteriorated to the point that there is very little worth watching. Good job we got lots of DVDs and vids as well.