Merry Chrustmas and a Happy New Year!

A lot has happened to me since we last spoke…………….

Dudas National Park (one week before Chrussy)
Took a stroll through this lovely scenic area one Sunday afternoon. Stopped at the little beach and son sat under a pohutukawa tree to enjoy the shade and read his book.
Son would not lean on a rock due to a multitude of cobwebs and the little creatures that make them.
Later on I ventured onto the squelchy mud beach to explore.
“What pretty shells” I thought and was about to pick one up when I realised it was moving! They were all moving across the mud – hundreds of pointy shells and the beasts therein, leaving trails behind them. Fascinating.
I was about to venture further when I noticed holes everywhere and something plopping down into them – that’s when I began to realise that I was surrounded and they could be under my feet too.
Panic set in and with shivers down my back, I beat a hasty retreat back to the beach, making farty squelchy noises in my rush.
I was also trying to avoid cutting my feet on the oyster shells that were liberally spread around – not easy you know – especially in a black gypsy skirt!
As I returned to the tree, heart pounding, son was standing there shielding his eyes looking for me – must have been gone a while.
What an intrepid explorer I am!

GMTV
Son and I have been on the telly! We went down to the viaduct on a windy, cold evening and managed to be seen by Kev, daughter, mum, brother and friend! Goodness knows what I looked like, but they saw me.

Kev rang me straight away on my mobile and mum shouted at the telly setting off the dogs a-barking!

Chrussy Day
Got up at a reasonable time and made our way to the North Shore to spend the day with lovely lovely friends.

Arrived just in time to teach the youngest knitting. Peeled a few carrots, played with the most cutest kittens ever, drank a cup of tea and watched Revenge of the Sith. Carved (decimated) the chicken.

Ate a delicious Chrussy dinner fortified by Lindauer Fraise. Things are a little hazy after this.

Sat on the deck (dick – sorry – but still cracks me up that does) for a while with the rest of bottle of wine. Spoke to friend on phone and discussed the Jesus sticks (candy canes – J for Jesus) I was eating at that point in time – fruity ones if memory serves me right.

Returned to house only to find out that the kittens were missing! Searched high and low literally and gave up totally baffled. Eventually the man of the house found them – they were curled up together in a little grey ball inside a dressing gown on one of the beds! Awwwww…….

Altogether, we had a lovely day and thank you very much for your invite and company……(and your telly and DVD player!)

Boxing Day
Got up early in order to be picked up by more lovely friends in order to speed off up north to a surf beach (Langs Beach I think – near Waipu).

On arrival, dick chairs (sorry!) were set up and swimming cossies were thrown on. In we went….

It was a bit chilly at first, but fine once immersed.

The waves weren’t too high – but never mind, we still had fun. Panic set in at one point when one youngster pointed out he’d seen something big in the water. I made a quick head count – noone missing!

A massive white thing bombed into the sea behind us, making a huge splash. A few seconds later, a bird flew out of the water!

Refreshed by our antics in the waves – we sat in the sun to dry and then ventured back to the car for a delicious barbie.
We had just finished and the packing up was done when daughter of friends shouted out that she could see something in the sea. We all looked over to where her finger was pointing and we saw…….DOLPHINS!

One of the most amazing sights I’ve ever seen. They swam so fast – leaping out of the water – how amazingly powerful. Everyone on the beach stopped what they were doing and just watched. It gives me goosebumps remembering! I felt so very privileged.

What a wonderful way to end our day at that lovely beach…..

Thank you.

27th December 2005
I received visitors on this day – both families from Christmas Day and
Boxing Day.

We had a lovely natter over a cup of coffee/tea, whilst the kids ran around, played footie, got stung by a bee and played electric guitar. Later on, family no 2 left for a Christmas money spending trip to the shops.

We went for a walk to the Eastern Beach – such a lovely sunny day – families enjoying the sun and sea.

I slaved over a hot telephone and ordered pizza for tea. Once pizzas were consumed (well, mostly – son finished them for breakfast the next day), 2 pies (apricot and apple) were put into oven to be warmed up for pud.

A faint smell of burning alerted son to warn me, to which my reply was:
“I’ve only just put them in!”

Anyway I checked – they were BLACK! Smoke billowed out and the smoke alarm promptly roared (well – at least I know it works now).

Unfortunately, I am unaccustomed to New Zealand ovens and did not realise it was switched onto GRILL…….

Luckily, guest dad scraped the lids of the pies off and we were able to eat the rest. Son said they tasted just like Pop Tarts! Oh well.

These were my first guests to eat a meal in our new home. In my defence, all I can say is that I can cook – honest m’lud.

Other stuff…..
Watched the first series of The Office in one sitting last night – very funny. Loved the stapler in the jelly. (Thank you so much for the telly).

Tuned in the telly to NZ programmes – found 9 channels (NZ only has 5 that I know of!). One of them is a NASA channel – no idea where that one is coming from.

Have seen some beautiful orange butterflies – quite big too!

The water empties from my sink and bath VERY quickly! Is gravity stronger in NZ or something?

Well – that’s it for now.

Byeeeee…..

X Sue

Brass Bands, Sports and Swimming

I have had further new experiences in Auckland, which may eventually lead me to being a JAFA – Just Another Fun loving Aucklander (my interpretation of the F word).

I’m afraid I have a confession to make folks – I love lawn bowls! And no, I do not have a purple rinse or false teeth! There are actually lots of young people playing the sport here (I’m not that young either), which was very good to see when I visited the Pakuranga Bowling Club.

They’ve got 6 greens! and a lovely clubhouse. When I visited, there were matches going on between the under 18’s of Australia and New Zealand. I’ve never seen so many young people playing at once – quite rare in the UK. My bowling club was mainly made up of pensioners and sadly one or two would die each year. Although times are a changing a little and younger members are starting to come through.

I was made to feel very welcome and allowed to use the greens and bowling facilities. Started off quite badly – right in front of the Pakuranga ladies having a roll up (no – not that kind of roll up!) - but managed to redeem myself with a couple of touchers of the Jack by the end.

I also visited the swimming baths near by. It consists of 4 pools that I could see. A learner pool, baby pool, family pool and a pool with swimming lanes. Free to use! Still haven’t taken the opportunity to use yet though!

However, I have had my first sea swim. Son and I ventured to Bucklands Beach. Son read a book whilst I capered and splashed around with the fish. It was lovely. We went at about 4pm and were joined by those finishing work and families etc. It was also fun to watch young lads careering down the grassy hill on their boogie boards.

You will all be very glad to hear that gardeners have been sorted - $20 every two weeks to cut the front, back and side of house. I have since been very busy watching birds gather bits of the grass for their nests in the trees at the corner of the back garden. There is also a very loud dawn chorus here in NZ, which is lovely, but requires a liberal use of earplugs.

Last weekend I had the honour of watching and listening to the Waitakere Brass Band play Christmas music and carols. We all really enjoyed their impressive Christmas medley and sang to our hearts content – my first taste of Chrissy (that’s what they call it) in NZ. (Thanks for the invite).

The conductor was of northern English descent and a very humorous compeer. I had the immense pleasure of sitting just in front of 3 elderly kiwis who very kindly lent me their words when we unfortunately dropped ours under the chair and began to scrabble around in an undignified way (we were on the front row). Various comments from them included:
“He doesn’t sound very Englush does he?”
“What did he say?”
“I can’t understand what he’s saying.”
It seems to work both ways then. We can’t always understand them and they can’t always understand us! But we still get on well.

Apricots are very good at the moment as are nectarines.

I was walking around Fruit World the other day and could hear Chrissy music on the radio whilst pushing my trundle (trolley). I was humming along to Walking In A Winter Wonderland when I suddenly realised that the words were not the same. The person was singing Walking Round In Women’s Underwear! By the time I realised, the song had finished – wonder what the rest of the words were?

Have had letters for other people sent to me (as a new tenant). Very dutifully, I wrote RETURN TO SENDER on them and very dutifully, they were delivered right back. I have since put a big circle around the words and reposted them. So far, so good, not a single one returned.

Had another girls’ night out - Howick/Botany group this time – more new friends. Two of which I had met earlier via UK2NZ and the rest never met before. I had an interesting evening watching a man wear a Santa hat in a variety of imaginative ways. Later on, after one or two glasses of wine, we very earnestly discussed problems puzzling Kiwis:

Why do Brits have washing-up bowls in their kitchen sinks?
Why do Brits call raincoats kagoules?

And with those extremely puzzling questions, I shall now exit.

Tara!

x Sue

What I've Been Up To........

What I’ve been up to……

Watching the Santa Parade in Auckland.
It was really good – lovely to see all the families out together. It began with a very quick downpour of rain followed by a smidgen of hail. The sun then came out and all was well! Rosita led the parade and Father Christmas finished it off. I loved the bagpipes. The Asian reps were good too – there was a Lion Dance and a Chinese Dragon. Mary on the donkey being lead by Joseph was touching. It took 1 ½ hours for the whole parade to pass by me.

Moving in to our rental and cleaning using lots of the wonder cleaner BAM!

I now have electricity, a phone no and broadband - as well as two beds, a table and chairs and a rented washing machine until stuff arrives from the UK. I also have very nice friends who have lent me a sleeping bag and duvet (thank you VERY much).

The sofa bed was fun to make – it came in an interesting and wide variety of metal bars, springs and screws. The pictures on the A5 piece of paper were teeny and all instructions were in Chinese! Hubby in UK thinks that’s hilarious as he is of course fluent and I am not! Not as if I can read it to him over the phone either. Poor son had to help me make it and him just getting off the plane that day from the UK: “welcome to New Zealand son – now make your bed!”
On top of it all, it was quite hot – so we were soaked once the bed was completed. Funny thing is – we still have 2 springs left over! Oh well….

Hallelujah – my IRD number has now come through too.

The weather is hotting up now – long sunny days, lasting until 9pm ish. It’s boiling today.

Exploring West Coast.

Took son to Karekare beach yesterday – fantastic white horse waves there and a bit of a helter skelter steep drive down to the beach! Am feeling a little bit pink from the sun today. Next time, I will swim with a boogie board – wish I’d taken one yesterday, but I still enjoyed jumping over the waves and getting bottom of ¾ length trousers soaked. Total number of people seen on the beach during the 3 hours there = 5!

By the way – son is after a skim board (circular board that you throw onto shallow water – as it skims away from you, you jump onto it and try to ride it without breaking your neck) – anyone seen one?

Investigating local shopping centres.

Have now intrepidly explored Botany, Highlands, Pakuranga and Manukau City shopping Centres. All have many of the same shops in common, as well as libraries that I can now use. Also found the UK food shop in Pakuranga. It was good to see what was on offer, but to be honest I’m not really missing UK food – lots of the same or other alternatives here. However, will probably buy suet in the cooler weather when making a lovely beef stew. Son bought two Dime Bars.

Listening to talk radio in car.

The ads are fun:
“Buy Bug Off and get those bugs to bugger off! Use the Dirty Harry Dispenser Gun.”
There’s also a “Miss Muffet Gun” to get rid of those nasty spiders.

Collecting further NZ info:

Flip flops are called jandals or thongs (sign in Australian hotel had us in fits a few years ago – NO THONGS TO BE WORN IN THE FOYER!)
When anyone asks “how are you?” - your reply must always be “good”.

Well – must go and sort out a gardener to cut our grass – it’s eager to please and growing quite well right now. There are also some very exotic looking flowers in places – not a clue what they are!

G’DAY – Sue signing off.

x Sue