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