Hello once again!

Well, here I am - another load of time gone and rushing headlong into lots of busy stuff!

My final essay is done for the first year of TESSOL yayyyyy!

Still have reports to write though - booooooooo!

Anyhoo, last weekend was great - it was a bank holiday here last Monday and we made the most of the long weekend by visiting Taupo and its stupendous lake (which took us more than two hours to drive around)!

It's the biggest lake in the Southern Hemisphere apparently.

We left Friday night around 4 and arrived about 8 in the evening. After unloading our stuff into the hotel room, we made for the local pub (an English one incidentally) and partook of a lovely evening meal - yum! Kev was in heaven due to the fact that they had Boddingtons and Tetleys! Guess who drove back!

The next morning was very exciting because of this:


Yep that's us at the front of the boat riding out at top speed towards the Huka Falls!

It was a bit of a chilly morning and I had 5 layers of clothing on! Taupo is much cooler than Auckland.

I'm sat next to Dave the driver - who fell into his seat and slurred his words a lot when he first arrived!

The ride was COOL! We did 360 degree turns, narrowly missed trees and cliff faces and I nearly got a face full of surprised duck as we turned one corner! All I could see were two duck feet and panicking wings before I did what it was and ducked!

The next day was spent in Napier - home of many Art Deco buildings due to a wipe out of original buildings by first an earthquake and then a fire on the 3rd of February 1931 - the earthquake measured 7.8 on the richter scale.

http://www.artdeconapier.com/Art_Deco_Style_Buildings_28.aspx

See the above web site for piccies of some of those Art Deco buildings we saw!

The drive to Napier from Taupo was beautiful - lots of snow topped mountains and waterfalls and rivers. Kev says it was a bit like the scenery in Austria or Northern Germany. I did take lots of piccies - but we have a new computer and I need to reinstall the camera stuff etc - so I will sort it at some point folks!

The temperature was much higher in Napier too! We ate lunch outside in our t-shirts and shades and then spent the afternoon swimming in the outdoor pools trying not to get sunburnt! Lovely!

Well - it's down to earth with a bump right now and work, work, work!

However, we are going back to Taupo on the weekend of the the 17th Nov due to Kev leaving his watch behind by mistake and us having to pick it up and also because it's our 23rd wedding anniversary!

There's so much to see and do there - there's also lots of thermal activity there as in Rotorua - some of the hills we drove past around the lake had steam coming out of them! The Waikato River (where we rode the jet boat) was also very warm in parts too!

Well - just a quick one today - really gotta go now and plan for school - poo!

See ya!

x Sue

Woohoooooooo!

Engerland Engerland Engerland! Engerland Engerland Engerla-and! Engerland Engerland Engerland! Engerla-aand Engerlaand!

Well - now that I've got that off my chest, I'll let you know what I have been mostly up to.

Those of you who know me well also know that my back plays me up from time to time - so I decided (after lots of persuasion from others at work) to go see a chiropractor.

Well - needless to say, he's very good and I am back to normal now - hurray. He's an Ozzie and I don't always hear what he says as he tends to mumble or speak a bit fast - makes me sound thick, but it's true - I am a foreigner in these parts after all!

Last week was very funny - whilst manouvering my back, he asked me to move my 'hid' and I thought he said 'hips' , so (picture this if you will dear readers), I'm busy trying to move myself forwards from the hips and he's busy trying to move my 'hid' and we're both very confused. In fact, I nearly fell off the bed - until finally in complete exasperation he blurts out "what are you doing?".

I squeaked back "trying to move my hips - it's what you told me to do!"

His reply was, "not yer bum - yer HID!"

Bloomin Ozzies!

He got me back on Friday whilst crunching my neck. He had his hands over my ears ready to crunch when I heard him mutter something to me. I asked "what?" and at that very point, I must have suddenly relaxed and CRUNCH - it was done!

"Merry Christmas!" was his triumphant remark.

Yesterday was absolutely lovely weatherwise until the evening where it turned very soggy!

Didn't do any adventures really - just marked books, cleaned, washed clothes and chatted with friends - very nice!

Am up to my eyeballs in the usual school stuff (reports and the like), plus I need to get an essay into uni. As you can see - I am working very hard on this! In fact, I did some colouring in and drawing last night - a warm up you see.....

Well - tata fer noo and GO ENGLAND! for next weekend!