Labour Weekend... and a sad realisation

Oh my god... I only post about my kids and my work. Nothing else exists worthy of a blog. I really have to get a life. Anyway. In keeping with the above here are the kids washing the van and playing in the creek.

Walking Down to Work

 I am a lazy bugger at the best of times but one of the reasons that I can stand walking 45 mins to work every morning is the scenery. I have been taking a few snaps of my walk through the city's greenbelt and here they are...( No idea why the spacing has suddenly gone crazy)

This is the first of the snaps and not the best. This is at the top of Mornington at about 8 am. I normally leave at about 7.45 and have to walk up a reasonably steep incline to get to this position. From here you can look down to the harbour and most of south and central Dunedin. You can see the new stadium pretty well from here.

This is a shot looking back up the hill. The town belt has some pretty well kept  native bush and lots of green space for picnics and the like.

Further on down you can see the peninsular and Sawyer's Bay. The Dunedin port is obscured by the trees at the bottom.

This is at the bottom of the curve into the  city and some more pretty spring leaves.  My phone has a pretty shitty camera so these shots really don't do justice to the scenery.

This is an interesting shot because it shown the different architectural styles cheek by jowl. The city planners don't really have a sense of theme to the city so increasingly there are crappy brick houses in multiple styles popping up next the the classic Edwardian houses.

Looking straight down to the city. You can't see it but the stadium is at the bottom. My school is now about 25 mins away.

Next stop Chile. If you have a good canoe and plenty of time on your hands and a death wish - you could try canoeing to Chile from this beach. Several thousand kilometres of trackless godforsaken frigid ocean. Actually you can sometimes see wandering rouge icebergs from here!

Pretty tree of no particular importance.

Up to Hampden for the Weekend

On Saturday we went up to Hampden to help my mum shift furniture from the top bedrooms to prepare for this week's redecorating. It didn't take that long so we had the chance to go out riding for a couple of hours. I took the camera and recorded some shots of the wonderful Sunday afternoon weather. In the afternoon it all tuned to custard but by the time we arrived back in Dunedin it was bright and sunny again. The girls went swimming in the creek near my mum's house and had a ball. All in all it was a pretty great weekend.

 Here is a shot looking South. To the left there is a fish and chip shop which does a roaring trade with travellers heading through the town.  They cook up locally caught fish and serve hand cut chips. (so much better than the machined versions) The police station is next to it. I am not sure whether the policeman is there all the time but he is a pretty busy chap with responsibility for who knows how many hundred kilometres.

 This is a shot of the local store. The owners are pommies so they are always regarded as Ausländern even though they have been here for 10 years. They are building a new and improved store - the first of which in the town since the 1930s I think. Rather a good shot of my thumb as well.

 Children's play area at the beach (looking South). Our house is about 100kms south.

 Same spot. This time looking inland. New Skate ramp set up by the local Lion's club is where all the cool and edgy Hampden teenagers hang out on Friday nights.

 Looking North this time.  This is a really good fishing area if you have access to a boat. Blue Cod galore and heaps of crayfish. 

 Looking over to Moeraki. Famous for the Moeraki Boulders (concrete versions at this playground.) We biked down here from my mum's house and our bikes are in the distant background.

Two little poppets on the see-saw having a rest before the big climb up the hill to the fish and chip shop.

Walking BACK from Work

I have lost a total of 3 cm around the waste since I started exercising. This is not the greatest feat in human history but I am reasonably happy that anything is actually happening to my waistline. Today I walked down to school and also walked home. This is something of a feat for me and I plan to keep this up as the weather continues to improve.  The routine is going to be alternate days of jogging in the morning and then walking to and from school. I am not sure how the routine will be effected by the planned staff piss-up on Friday night. We normally and up crawling from bar to bar smoking and drinking excessively. It is difficult to imagine telling the staff that I will be a piker simply because I want to get fit.

67 Golds to 3?

Not that I follow sport but I can't believe that Australia has 67 golds to NZ's 3. I thought that our Institute of Sport and all of the government funding was going to pay off. In the end no one looks at the silver or bronze. We are 10th on the medal table. The horror. Those damned Aussies really have their shit together.

Collection Doctor Who Books and Spring Weather

Here are some snaps of my burgeoning collection of Doctor Who books. I have about 130 of the 150 odd novelisation of the "classic series" of Doctors 1 through 7. I am hot on the trail of the others. Strangely it is the final three doctors which are the most difficult to collect.

As usual during the spring in Dunedin the weather decided to turn cold and terrible. In the middle of the afternoon it started to hail and the kids rushed outside to get hailed on as they jumped on the tramp. I rushed to the window for a shot but the camera was set for inside and the shutter speed was too slow. Either way... here are the girls getting pelted with hail.

Jogging Failure...

Up at 6.30 after Mari had disappeared early to meditation class. The forecaster had said that a cold front would be passing over later on in the day with snow down to 200m so I decided to break my running drought of 4 days and go for a run. I managed to go about 1 km before my body gave out. I walk the rest of my circuit. I just couldn't be bothered running. I did 25 sit ups before cramp set in.  All in all a pretty shitty start to Sunday.  On the bright side I have a bid in for the last of my Target Doctor Who collection on Trademe that I have never got around to buying. It would be good to tick one of my childhood ambitions off my list. I used to dream of owning the whole collection. Now it is WITHIN MY GRASP AAARGHGHGHGHG THE HUBRIS!!!!!!!!!!

Saturday and off to work

Every couple of months I get the all to examine for IELTS. This is one of these mornings. Usually there is a rush of students wanting to sit before the next uni semester starts. The most popular time of year is October and November for sitting the tests.  This means that between now and the end of the year it will be all hands to the pumps as far as examiners are concerned. I will be finished by maybe 8 pm tonight and all for less than $150 ...

Fitness Regime

One week into my fitness regime and the net loss to my waistline is...............0







Fuck.

Mari's Job

Mari is going for a job at the Dunedin Hospital in admin somewhere. Interview next week.  It is only part tine but it would be really good if she got it. We wouldn't have to keep selling our children's kidneys.
The kids are back from Nan's house as well. Our quiet little existence has been shattered by inane babble and fights. I just discovered that the children are conjugating their "bring" verb aas follows - Bring Brang Brung.
Oh the SHAME!!

Sunday Viola Lesson

I hate violaI hate violaI hate violaI hate violaI hate violaI hate violaI hate violaI hate violaI hate violaI hate violaI hate violaI hate violaI hate violaI hate violaI hate violaI hate violaI hate violaI hate violaI hate violaI hate violaI hate viola.
My wife forces me to learn viola.....

Day trip to Hampden.

The girls are up in Hampden for the week and we went up to see them at my mum's place today. Beautiful weather and the kids are having a ball. I took some snaps of them off for the first ride of the day. The neighbours graze their horses on my mum's farmlet so in return the girls get lots of free rides! They have met another little girl on holiday from up in Wellington and they have spent a large part of their holiday playing down at a nearby creek and building a "secret" hut. Just like I did one generation previously!