NZ Diary

A description of what I get up to in my new life Down Under

Saturday, September 19, 2009

New house and helicopters and stuff!

Hello everyone - Sue has returned!

The weather is getting better and we are biting at the bit to race into summer! Boogie boards are waiting anxiously, as are kayaks and boat!

Kev finally used his helicopter ride birthday pressie yesterday (from January no less) and I gallantly watched him from a blustery deck (I know I said the weather is getting warmer - but for some reason yesterday's weather was a huge pile of pants! Still the rain held off long enough for Kev's ride). He had a great time trying to hover and flying around us in big circles!

We now have a new home - tis all official! A luverly bungalow! Have been very busy looking for bits of new furniture - but generally we have all we need to fill up our abode. Kev is very excited cos he will now have his cinema room! The family area is lovely - I can see the TV from the open plan kitchen lol. We have a lemon and lime tree in the garden and a little veggie plot area in the back garden - lots of herbs too. Oh my - gonna have to get into growing some veggies - everything seems to grow very easily here, so that's good.

We will be in just before Guy Fawkes - the club at the back of the house has a fabbie fireworks display every year - so guess who's gonna watch it for free! Could be our first get together of friends that night!

Visited our new place yesterday afternoon and partook of scones (made by lovely current house-owners) and victoria sponge (courtesy of moi) and tea (of which many pommie jokes were made when I asked!). It was good to refresh my memory of where everything is - forgot a lot already! One of current house-owners said same thing of her new house - she does not remember seeing a toilet anywhere and is rather worried. We reassured her to the contrary!


One more week to go of school, then it's the hols - 2 weeks woohooo! However, twill be 2 weeks of going through and sorting the billions of boxes in the garage - not so good in one way, but will feel proud at the end once it's done! Have already gone through most of my clothes - just gotta take it all to the Sally people. Next term is a short one - 9 weeks, then a glorious summer where I can settle in properly.

Hey ho! That's us so far - sorry it's been a while - have spent every weekend looking at houses - thank goodness that's all over now.

See ya!

x Sue



Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Sunny day!

Hellooooo!

Tis a luverly sunny day, so we are going to walk to Eastern Beach and back! Have got home-made soup and bread on the go for when we return from our trek.

It's still chilly, but we've had a couple of sunny days - was out playing with some of my class on Friday just in t-shirts - FAB! It was so pleasant and warm.

The dawn chorus is VERY loud lately - maybe its cos I am able to sleep until it happens, rather than get up just before in the pitch black! So good to sleep in until 8 or 9 rather than get up at 6 - whoopidy dooo!

I am currently half way through my first week of school hols - goes too quick, but will try not to think of that! Sigh........ Got a friend and his cute little lad visiting tomorrow and we may even go away to Rotorua for a couple of days next week! Lovely hot spas - mmmmmmm - great in the winter weather!

Now then - to continue with our holiday piccies......

Whilst we were in Germany, we visited the lovely city of Koln (Cologne) by train and yes, I did buy some 4711! We had a little explore around the city, were in awe of the cathedral and had a FANTABULISTIC cruise along the river.








As you can see - we were still a bit jet-lagged!

Gotta go fer walk - tara!

x Sue




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Friday, May 22, 2009

Oh my!

It's been aaaages since I spoke on here last - and during that time I've flown right round the world, met new members of the family, watched my first born get married (sob - want her here with me - very selfish I know), met up with friends and family and seen the end of summer!

It's bloomin freeezing here now!  Although the weather is beautiful here today - it's quite chilly morning and night - log burner is a burning each evening and there has been frost to greet me on my chilly work journey each morning!

The feijoas are falling off the hedge, mandarins are in season as are some other very nice fruits but I can't remember their names - round and orange (NOT oranges!) with green tomatoey type thingy on the top.  You have to skin them otherwise your mouth goes to cotton wool and they taste like sweet melon!

Went out for a loverly long walk today in the sun (Kev now has a rosey-red sunburned face - but I was a good girl and wore facial sun-cream stuff).  Really enjoyed it - this is the time of year for exploring - good fun!

Aaaah - I've just remembered - they're called persimmons!  Yum!  Made a load of feijoa muffins last night - scrummy!  Hard to describe their flavour - feijoas I mean - for those curious amongst you who are wondering.  Sort of appley and that yellow anti-biotic medicine flavour that kids are sometimes given!  Hmmmm.  

Work is soooo busy - still not quite caught up with myself yet!  Here are a few photos for you of our journey....

This is of our first meal in a  very pretty square in Frankfurt - the day we landed from NZ!  It was evening and it was HOT!  A balmy 25 degrees!  Not bad for Easter time!  Kev and I had a HUGE lump of pork complete with scratchings, sour kraut, mash and apple wine whilst the kids opted for sausage salad - wanting something healthy.  Turned out to be a plate full of different kinds of sausage with one limp lettuce leaf and a piece of tomato - lol!  They weren't impressed!  Well what do you expect from meat loving Germans!

Bro and sis deep in catch-up conversation.

The yellow umbrellas are where we ate (do you like the clever art work on the building behind us - they were doing renovations, but didn't want the square to be ugly).

It was a really pretty square and we were told by a local we should stay because at any minute all the bells of Frankfurt were about to ring - apparently it didn't happen very often.  That's why we decided to eat there.  I was imagining pretty bell ringing tunes from various corners of the city ......little did I know.......Well - at least dinner was a very memorable affair!  Couldn't hear ourselves talk or think for quite a while.....both during and after the meal.... lol!

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I was sooo tired by the end of that meal - my head was ringing from the recent bellish cacophony, I had a full belly, and the alcohol and jet lag were well and truly kicking in.  We made a heroic trek back to the hotel and  I did really well to stay awake until about 7pm!

Oh - I must mention this - the hotel had lots of tv channels to watch (as they often do) including 3 of porn!  Whilst Kev was showering, I was innocently flicking through to see what was on tv that evening when - yes, you guessed it - I came across one of those channels - aaaah - as I quickly turned it over lest hubby walked in and wondered what I was up to - I flicked onto another - panicked and flicked over to get the third - jeez - I was wondering if it would ever end - luckily it did on the next flick - whew!  Can I just point out here - that it was a very nice hotel and a well known one too.  Lots of families were staying there.  Gosh - you'd have to be careful with the little ones eh?!  Of course, my two found those channels too and thought it all rather hilarious!  But they're all growed up now - sort of!

The next day dawned sunny and warm.  After brekky, we wandered around Frankfurt,









 over the river and visited an art and movie museum.  The movie museum was fab!  There was a whole section on the Alien movie and heaps of interactive stuff upstairs for us to play with - and we did - seeing as we were the only people in there (apart from a very serious middle-aged British couple and a security man who watched our antics with a very serious face, but never told us off, so that was okay then.)

This is a set from a famous American movie - Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart, I think - had Sam Spade in it.  We had loads of laughs in here!  Here I am telling two ruffians off who were annoying me and my very important work.



Here is a video of Adam mucking around on the film set of something or other!  Sorry it's a bit blurry - I was filming the TV!

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This next piece of cinematic fun was of my two darlings driving a car through the streets of somewhere.  


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Finally - we hope you enjoy their very impressive acting on the flying carpet!

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Relaxing by the river on a very warm evening - it had been a busy and fun-filled day.

Next installment of our fabbie, but oh too quick trip, coming sooooooon!

x Sue

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Hot, HOt, HOT!

Gosh it's been sooo hot here!  Typical - back to school and a heat wave arrives in great big welly boots!

It's boiling in my classroom after lunch time. - gotta do sports tomorrow - phew!

Spent Waitangi Day at Piha doing a spot of the ole boogie boarding - had a FAB time - the waves were big and heavy - just how I like em!  Woohooo!  I caught LOADS.  

I just love it when you see the wave hurtling towards you containing arms, faces, boards and legs sticking out at various angles from various peoples!  It's at this point when I turn around and begin to kick like a crazy one - holding onto my board for grim life whilst grinning like a nutter at the thought of the speed with which I'm about to be conveyed to the beach. Waheyyyyy!

Unfortunately, yesterday I did a very silly, yet very funny thing at school which has put my back out ever so slightly (and may curb my boogie activities for a while) - but fortunately, I have a great chiropractor who has magically straightened me up (this morning).

My classroom is set up on a slight incline with one side at ground level and the other at much higher than ground level.  On the higher side, the rain was spitting in all over the desks (we've had such humid sticky days this week) and my pupils asked me "could I possibly please close the window?"  

"Of course", I replied, skipping across the room gaily.  However, I thought it was the top window that needed closing and went to put both hands onto the bottom window for support whilst doing so.  Unfortunately, the very large bottom window was open too - and if it wasn't for my stealth of a ninja super reflex action of grabbing onto the window frame, I would have gone hurtling down towards a not very nice demise!

Due to these quick reflexes, my body tensed up and my back promptly became annoyed with me!  Ouch!

Anyway, it gave me the giggles all the way home - just had these visions of my pupils running out the room shouting "Mrs Tung has fallen out of the window"  for the rest of the day!  

Oh well!

Hope youse are all well and will post some photies soon.

Laters.

x Sue

Friday, January 23, 2009

Helloooo!

Well - it's been busy, busy as usual and today w
e have given ourselves a break to do washing and school work - yawn.....  I know!

The weather is absolutely GORGEOUS now and we are well into summer - which is annoying when you have to go back to work!

Last night, we trekked into Auckland to watch the Anniversary Day fireworks which were totally awesome!

Below is a little taster for you!  It went on for aaages.  We all just oohed and aaaahed the whole way through - the atmosphere around the harbour was really wonderful - families and friends just gathered together to enjoy the sights and sounds.  There were fantastic tall ships, a navy boat, coastguard boats and a myriad of private boats on the harbour all ready to partake of the spectacle!

The orange lights in the distance indicate the road leading up to the Harbour Bridge - hopefully they all concentrated on their driving as they went over it!






The finale was spectacular and deafening too!  The sky just became full of gold sparkles - beautiful.

We have been out and about on our boat - yesterday we travelled to Motuihe Island and anchored there for a few hours - such a pretty place and we should have taken our fishing net! Kev threw some bread into the water and two huge blue cod swam around us (in about 1.5m of water)!  It would have been soooo easy just to scoop them out.  They were well above the allowed size for catching (30cm).  Shucks!




A few days ago, came our chance to try out a gift given to Kev by his previous workmates - a harbour yacht trip including lunch.  I wasn't really sure what to expect having never been on a yacht before - but it was FAB!  The boat was soooo quiet as compared to our noisy little one! Wind power!  The weather was a bit dodgy at first, with a sudden deluge as we made our entrance into the harbour - but it made it all the more fun.  We shared the journey with Ozzies, Americans, Kiwis and Pommies!   And a great time was had by all.
Tara fer now!  x Sue

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Saturday, January 10, 2009

Beached as......

Hi all

Just a quickie for you!

A friend showed me this on you tube - it's how Kiwis talk - lol.

Take a look.

x Sue

www.youtube.com/watch?ZdVHZwl8pcA

Thursday, January 01, 2009

Happy New Year for 2009!

Hi all - hope this year is a great one for you all!

We brought the new year in with family and friends.....

Began with a rather nice Mexican meal and drinkies.  This was then followed by cocktails made by our children - they used their newfound 42 Below University training (as a Christmas pressie from us to them, we sent them to lessons at the Vodka Uni in the city) - glad to see and taste that all this learning is now paying off!  

We then moved on to watching The Sound of Music, followed by bashing a pinata, followed by watching the Sky Tower burst into firework explosions at midnight, followed by our own display, tv, then bed/collapse!

Here is the happy pinata - little does he know.......P1010094.jpg Happy New Year 2009 picture by ssntung


P1010097.jpg Happy New Year 2009 picture by ssntung
Grim determination here....
P1010098.jpg Happy New Year 2009 picture by ssntung
'Just whack' technique!
P1010100.jpg Happy New Year 2009 picture by ssntung
Treading carefully.....
P1010101.jpg Happy New Year 2009 picture by ssntung
Go girl!
P1010102.jpg Happy New Year 2009 picture by ssntung
Where is it?
P1010106.jpg Happy New Year 2009 picture by ssntung
Swinging hard.
P1010108.jpg Happy New Year 2009 picture by ssntung
Woohooo!
P1010109.jpg Happy New Year 2009 picture by ssntung
Behiiiind you!
P1010112.jpg Happy New Year 2009 picture by ssntung
And the winner is........!

The funniest moments where when one of us headed the wrong way - ie into the wall, door or towards one of us - brandishing the branch!  Therefore, in order to help, directions were helpfully shouted out.....
P1010099.jpg Happy New Year 2009 picture by ssntung
"To your right!"
P1010107.jpg Happy New Year 2009 picture by ssntung

I love this one!  Kev was stuck in this corner for aaages....!

Previous to all this chaos and carnage, during the day of New Year's Eve, we visited the Waitakere Ranges and Piha - it was sooo hot and we really regretted not taking our swimmies and boogie boards!  Never mind.  The fush and chups were good and we had a luverly walk, collecting the little purple sea shells that litter the black sand as we strolled along.
P1010093.jpg picture by ssntung


P1010088-2.jpg picture by ssntung

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

x Sue