Friday December 26th- Boxing Day, Not so much a hangover as just a slow day

We were up quite late in view of the previous evenings late night and perhaps a reasonable amount of grape. No sore heads though but we were a little tired.
We spent most of the day relaxing, watching television and reading if we weren’t having a quick five minutes kip on the settee.
The day passed quite uneventfully except that we called our daughter to see how her Christmas food preparation was getting along. This is the first Christmas that we have not been at home and as the children (?) usually come to us it’s time for them to do it themselves. We understand it was a success.

Thursday 25th December- Christmas Day in Taipa Bay

Thank heavens the sun has returned and so the walk along the beach was really nice and warm and we stopped to look at the amount of boats that had gone fishing. There were tents in the back of a motel and also a home made motor home, the place was getting crowded.

We had the water of the Spa tested in Kerikeri on Monday and we had been advised what chemicals to add and when to add them so we followed the instructions and had the opportunity to use the spar pool later in the day.

There was joint preparation of the dinner with the official table laying routine and also preparing the many vegetables required. Robin and Lorraine arrived around four pm and by 4.45 pm as the sun shone down we all went in the spa with a glass of white wine apart from Lorraine who had to drive. The police are very hot at drinking and driving over Christmas time and so it is wise to be careful.

Prior to dinner we opened our presents, we had purchased some goodies at the two dollar store. For Robin we got a London Bobbies hat (in view of his ‘The Bill’ TV connections) and for Lorraine a Tiara and magic wand while Noel and Jennifer had sequined “Bunny ears”.

The starter crudities were accompanied with some Oyster Bay wine whilst sitting on the balcony watching the fishing boats come and go and the kids swimming in the sea. Our leg of pork was excellent and Lorraine had brought a nice strawberry and raspberry Pavlova and also some Christmas pudding ice cream and both were excellent.

Cheese followed though we were all rather full by then and then suddenly it was about 1130 and time of Robin and Lorraine to go home.

In order to relax a little before going to bed we switched on the TV. A ‘Fish called Wanda’ was part the way though and so we watched that and also called our daughter Joanne to wish her a merry Christmas.

A most enjoyable day indeed and let’s hope there are no hangovers in the morning.

Tuesday 23rd December and Wednesday 24th December 2008-Weathers turned

I am combining these two days as quite frankly we did not do much. The usual walking routine and then the weather turned really nasty after a beautiful day on Monday in Kerikeri.
On Tuesday evening a boat detached itself from moorings and beached . Noel was looking up salvage rights when the Harbour Master turned up to sort out the problem. That just shows how strong the wind was.
On Wednesday morning we collected our leg of pork for Christmas day and then headed back home as the rain appeared to be coming again.
Mid afternoon we went for our walk but part the way through it started to rain quite heavily but conveniently we were close to the Taipa Bay Resort and so we went for a cup of tea and a cake to tide us over.
An early night tonight so as to be able to enjoy Christmas day to the full and let’s hope the weather is good to us.

Monday 22nd December- Shopping in Kerikeri

It was a beautiful summer’s day and quite warm as we drove on the un-crowded roads to Kerikeri for some last minute Christmas shopping. Noel was also trying to sort out his damaged camera memory card. He has been unable to transfer some pictures onto the PC and he has been looking for a cable to allow him to transfer direct from the camera but with no success in obtaining the correct size cable. We will just keep on trying.

Robin joined us for the trip and we went to the Spa pool shop where they tested the water from the Spa which Brian and Sheila have. Sheila had left us with the instructions but as we have never had a spa we decided to get some expert advice. We have been given instructions on what to add in the way of chemicals to make it fully safe to use.

Lunch was in a nice little café with good food and then on to New World Supermarket to stock up for the next few days. Why do we always panic and think that we have to stock the larder at Christmas, we never bother at any other time of year and we know we will not starve. Then on to the locally world famous chocolate factory called ‘Makana’ where Jennifer pondered over what to purchase like a child in a sweet shop.

A sort of teriyaki chicken and rice tonight which slid down well with a nice glass of red wine which needed to be tested just in case it was off..

The air took on a bluish haze around 1030 pm when Noel took swords against the famous Lloyds Bank with regard to them cutting us off from our internet account again because we were overseas. Twenty minutes on the phone, speak to three people and finally resolved. I think Lloyds could be losing a customer after almost 46 years. (I am now looking at a Nigerian Bank being run by slave labour from a small mud hut just outside of Lagos). They have a good reputation, in fact similar to that of Lloyds we understand.)

After that aggravation we sat up in bed for a bit and read our books in order to calm down.

Sunday 21st December- An easy day at the office

A quiet day really, the weather was nice and we went for a walk down to Cable Bay and bought an ice cream and then headed back for a read.
The beach was quite empty considering it’s the height of summer and the kids are off school. Watched TV in the evening and there was an interesting Spanish film ,called ‘The Method’ on the interview process which most Human Resource departments should watch. It was about a guy who goes for an interview. There are about eight candidates and they are in a locked room to fight it out, verbally speaking, which of them should have the job. Very well written indeed and lots of nice twist and turns.
There was a most beautiful sunset this evening and so Noel has taken many photographs, mostly now on the Phanfare site, for those who wish to see more.

Saturday 20th December - A bit of planning

A nice morning and had little planned for the day except for our normal walk.

Over the past week we have been reviewing our travel plans and particularly our view that perhaps we should break our journey in Hong Kong on the way back to London. Earlier in the week we had spoken to Air New Zealand and the lady kindly informed us that a change of flight would only be an administration fee of NZ 50.00 (around £15.00 per ticket) and so we contacted a friend in Hong Kong to see if they could put us up for a couple of nights to which they agreed immediately. We had requested Air NZ to look at changing our tickets but when we spoke to them to finally confirm the change of flights etc it all went very wrong.

It wasn’t only the NZ 50.00 per ticket we would have to pay but also another £ 150.00 per ticket plus Hong Kong Airport taxes and because we would end up travelling on a different day of the week than we originally planned then a new fare structure would apply and that was likely to be several thousands per person. So we have given up the idea to change our flights and will travel back as planned on the through flight and land at Heathrow at 1400 hrs on 10 March. The same evening Jennifer is going to ballet providing she can still stand.

In the meantime we have booked our flights back from Kaitaia to Auckland on a twin propeller aircraft; it takes 45 minutes as against five hours to drive and will give us time to count our fingers before the London flight departs on its way via Hong Kong. It’s a bit strange on this ticket thing, we actually go to Hong Kong and we have to get off the aircraft by law, but if we want to get off and stay a bit longer we get screwed for extra money.

We are also planning our trip to the South island and will have about five weeks from leaving here and returning to see Brian and Sheila before we depart to UK.

Out of nowhere, late this afternoon, the sky went dark and we had some heavy rain where did that come from.

We have noticed from the News headlines this morning that the Chairman of the Allied Irish Bank and some of his colleagues were using the bank for their own purposes over the past seven years as a piggybank to the tune of 150 million Euros. It makes you wonder about the quality of government control, the Bank Auditors and bank staff in general; surely someone knew this was going on and this is on top of the Bernie (Madoff with the money affair) hedge fund guy in USA.

I find this very irritating as the people who have to cover these losses are the general public through taxation. I strongly recommend the return of the death penalty for this type of event as it ruins so many peoples lives. And why are people and Banks so stupid enough to put money in a hedge fund which was showing massive profits of 125 % you know Christmas does not come every day. One wise investment banker said, we looked at investing in it, but it seemed too good to be true.

In view of the above it makes you wonder what is going on. Tonight I tried to transfer £1500.00 from my Lloyds Internet account to my current account and it was blocked because their system recognised that the pc I.P address was not UK. This is not the first time this has happened. They waste millions and then stop me transferring a pittance within accounts- idiots.

Down here in NZ, somebody ripped off a local council for NZ$ 16 million for computer services. They were charging for a program that really did not exist and kept on putting in invoices which the council paid. Needless to say the invoices were approved by the Council chief who just so happened to be co director of the computer company providing the services.

Get of your hobby horse Noel.

Anyway back to reality. This evening Jennifer cooked snapper fried in olive oil and drizzled with Soya sauce. Together with a light salad

it was a lovely meal. Last night Noel cooked the T-Bone steaks on the griddle with a pan full off onions, mushrooms and tomatoes and together with some lettuce also made for a good meal.

The local paper arrived today and the adverts are unlike the local paper in Weybridge which has bicycles, cars, old furniture and personal services by a nice lady who comes to your house.

Here, we have fishing equipment, boats, car repairs and livestock. Animals can be cheap and one advert was selling piglets at NZ50.00 per animal (around fourteen pounds in real money). So, we have purchased 50 of these darling little piglets as Christmas gift for our friends. They should arrive by boat just in time for New Years Eve.

See you tomorrow

Friday 19th December- Let’s sort the camera out

We were awakened by the telephone this morning at about 0830. Who is this we though as we have recently received a number of calls for Brian and Sheila.
This call was from our son Michael. What a shock. If you have children and grown up son’s you are no doubt aware that they often disappear off the face of the earth for weeks and don’t respond to emails and suddenly they appear when you least expect it to happen. Anyway we were very glad to hear from him.
The TV morning breakfast show is quite good and the male host is often unable to control his laughter and ends up unable to talk. This can be quite amusing. This morning he read out a text message which said pretty much the following.
It would appear to be the anniversary of Bill Clinton’s impeachment today and it would appear that what he really said to Monica was

'Sack the cook and hold my calls'

an easy misunderstanding I think considering his drawl.
Needless to say the host was unable to talk for the next ten minutes. Being 0840 in the morning I guess some parents had some difficult questions to answer.
A little shopping in Coopers Beach followed our usual walk and then we headed of to Kaitaia to resolve the camera card problems. Noel has got some photos from the Gum diggers and others which for some reason cannot be read to the computor. We did not resolve the problem but have bought a new camera memory card and reader and so henceforth there should be no problems, we hope.
We also spent a few minutes buying some mini Christmas presents to go under the tree.
Lunch was a great Ham and Cheese ‘toastie’ sandwich for Noel and something healthier for Jennifer. Of course there was the obligatory ice cream cone on the way back through Awanui before getting back and sorting out dinner.
Noel, with his usual prowess (Oh yes!!) cooked up two T-bone steaks that even Jaimie would have proud off with onions, tomatoes and mushroom and dumped on a salad. Sheer bloody genius.
It was a beautiful evening with the sun setting over the hills.
No more photographs of sunsets please Noel. And thence an evening of stimulating TV we hope.

Thursday 18th December- Gumdiggers Park & the Gala Opening of the Swamp Palace Cinema

The sun was shining and so we went to Gumdiggers Park. It’s about 10 minutes from Awanui and quite close to the Kauri Museum which is handy as the Gum diggers worked the Kauri Trees for gum.

It was quite an interesting trip, you can walk around the old area where they used to dig the gum which was then mostly transported to USA and UK for the production of high quality varnish. It must have been a very tough life as the diggers lived in poor homemade tents made from jute sacking, then spent the day in water up to their thighs digging down 20 or so feet to get to the gum.

Once you found the gum under the tree you dug down and did not tell anybody else in case they came along and dug beside you. To stop their legs and feet getting too wet they had invented a long leather boot similar to a Wellington Boot, and eventually when rubber became available they had boots in rubber which were called of course, gum boots.

It was at this point that I found there was a problem with the card I was using in the camera and so for the moment there are not photographs available. I hope to resolve this soon.(NOW RESOLVED) Anyway for more information please see

http://www.gumdiggerspark.co.nz/

There was a quick diversion on the way back to the house to see a freshwater lake however it was not that attractive for photos but it is popular with the locals for swimming.

In the evening we went to the Gala opening night of the famous Swamp Palace Cinema in Oruru (near Taipa), it’s part badminton court, come village hall etc etc, you get the picture.

There was a huge crowd of about ten people who dutifully waited outside the building until the doors opened watched by the cows in the field across the road. With the occasional moo they realised that this film was not for them.

The owner made an interesting and funny introduction to the film and you could tell he did not think much of the film. The film employed Keanu Reeves and also starred John Cleese as a famous Nobel Prize winning doctor

The film being shown was the new “The Day the World Stood still”. It is a poor remake of the original film made in 1951. Jennifer thought it was the original 1951 film and said didn’t Keanu Reeves look quite old then? No comment.

Anyway almost two hours later we left the cinema which in itself is quite a place. It has about three rows of cinema type seats of 1960’s era and no doubt purchased in a second hand store and generally quite uncomfortable but still fun to be there.

We headed home and flicked through the TV channels to see what was on. No SKY here with full details and timing, its what you can find when it’s on. Anyway we spent an enjoyable forty five minutes on the National Geographic Channel watching a Lockheed Tristar crash in the Miami Everglades and the investigation afterwards to see why it happened. As usual it was pilot error or more likely crew error.

Wednesday 17th December- It’s cold in here

Noel took the Previa for them to have a look at why the air-con was not working. As usual it did not take long when they figured out that the switch in the car which controls the temperature was stuck on warm.
So they played with it for a few minutes until it started working again and then added a bit more gas.
On the way back to the house Noel put the air-con on, it was on for about 20 minutes and by the time Noel got home there were icicles on his nose and he was beginning to go in to hyperthermia. Anyway now it works.
The rest of the day was reasonably quiet and we both read books for a while.

Tuesday 16th December- A busy day in downtown Kaitaia

An early start was required as the car was due at the glass repair company by latest 0900 hrs and as it would take four to five hours to complete we knew we would have a day in town.

However after arriving in town we dropped off the car and headed for that morning breakfast at a little café we like. The scrambled eggs and bacon were really good and set us up for the day.

We did some shopping for various bits and pieces and also checked out hire car costs from a car dealer in Kaitaia who rents out his stock to assist his income levels. The prices are very competitive indeed whilst the cars are not quite new.

The glass was finished around 2 pm and we took the car for its MOT equivalent and received the certificate, thank heavens, and finished our food shopping and went home. Robin accompanied us for the day and it was a good day out for him and he is great company anyway. He has many stories from his TV days and he knew Frankie Howard and Benny Hill quite well. He was also a great follower of Tommy Cooper and when we were looking at some camouflage clothing in one shop, he said that he had bought some camouflage trousers once and then took them home and then could not find them anymore.

The weather has been a bit strange in the last couple of days and not as expected, it’s not cold but a little windy and some rain but they say it will pass.

We had lunch in the same café as breakfast and Jennifer tried the chilli beef nachos which were very good and so an evening dinner was all but forgotten as we were both full.

The dead body pulled from the sea appears to be someone who went mussel picking, not a local we understand, and fell off the rocks in to the sea and could not swim, it’s happened before apparently.

It was another late night watching Life on Mars, shame it’s on so late but it’s an excellent series with some great dialogue. Then I chased up Furniture Village in Staines. We waited three months for the sofas to be delivered and then when they arrived in early November one was not correct, It’s now mid December and still no positive answer and so the pressure is now on them to get it sorted or money back please. Just hope they don’t go bankrupt in the meantime like MFI and Woolworths.

Monday 15th December 2008- Kauri Kingdom-Awanui

It was a little damp when we left home this morning intent on visiting the ‘Gumdiggers Exhibition’ and also Kauri Kingdom. When we arrived at the Gumdiggers the heavens opened and it poured with rain and so a walk through a forest in the rain (we had no rain gear) was not considered an option and so we decided to leave it for a better day.

On the other hand, The Kauri Kingdom is all undercover and complete with café and all mod cons, including toilets, see the sign.

Kauri Trees are reputed to be up to 45000 years old and have retained their condition by being submerged in swamp lands. They have to be located and then dug up and some of them are very heavy indeed. One tree was so large that it has been carved to form the staircase from the ground floor up to the first floor in the centre of the relatively new building, see photo.

They have a wide choice of products made from the Kauri Trees and also some more rubbish products no doubt made in China.

We did not buy anything except lunch and then headed back to the house for a quiet afternoon.

Later in the afternoon the wind and rain increased significantly and at one time we thought it might start blowing the balcony chairs around. We watched a rubbish American film called ‘Wild Hogs’ about a group of late middle age guys who have no excitement in their lives and they decide to hit the road west from Cincinnati to California on they Harley’s We have seen better films but that was the best on offer for today. NZ television is a mixture of Australian Channels and the usual CNN, BBC News channels and even Doubtless Bay local channel which is very amateur but quite interesting. There are a lot of adverts on NZ TV which can be frustrating and particularly so on the Discovery Channel which we have now stopped watching.

On an earlier Blog I mentioned that we had seen some young lads driving a car which worried us, however it would appear that kids of 14 are allowed to drive on private roads and kids of 15 on public roads but they are not allowed to carry passengers. We are not sure if we like this process

Tomorrow we take the car back to Kaitia for it's new windscreen to be fitted and then it will pass the WOF test.

Sunday 14th December 2008- A full English breakfast…again!

Noel was hungry and so embarked on preparation for a full English breakfast which took a little while to prepare but was really excellent if not filling.
We had decided to take a drive out to a place called Fern Flats, where there were certainly lots of tree ferns but no flats that we could find. The ferns and trees were growing about 30 feet high and it was like driving through a tunnel, a very long tunnel on what they call white roads, which means they are gravel roads or almost finished type roads. The views were seen occasionally through the trees and so after about an hour and a half we headed back home via Mangonui which was bustling with about twenty or so cars.
During our drive we saw this caravan with a solar panel in somebody's garden and they also had a different one further back but mostly hidden from view.
A fast walk was therefore called for to work off what we had eaten in the morning but also to get some exercise. It was a bit windy this afternoon but it was still a pleasant walk and we hurried home to get the evening dinner started.
Mid afternoon Robin arrived in his ‘Italian Job’ car a Lancia and he stayed for a cup of tea but could not get the car up the steep driveway and it needed about seven attempts with even greater amounts of revs and noise and significant wheel spinning as he shot up the drive and out in to the centre of the road about three feet in the air. Just like a Disney cartoon.
The rest of the evening with Valda was very nice indeed and she left about nine thirty and we watched a strange Czech film on the World Cinema channel. Anyway by 1130 pm we’d had enough of it and went to bed.

Saturday 13th December 2008- Not much really

An easy morning with a little bit of shopping as Valda is coming for dinner tomorrow night and so there is a little preparation to be carried out for the evening.

The walk was really lovely and we watched the kite surfing, which is using a large kite to pull a person on a surf board. This looks like a hard thing to do and there were quite a few people falling off. It’s a pity I did not have my camera to record the events for posterity or at least the blog.

The afternoon passed sweetly enough and a woolly old brown Alsatian type dog turned up out of the blue and sat down on the balcony like he owned it. We subsequently understood that this is the dog called Griz that Brian has sort of taken over as its own home life is poor. Apparently there are family problems where he lives and everybody ignores the dog. It would appear that Brian felt sorry for this animal and has bathed it, taken it to the vet for jabs and even fed and walked it. It looks as if whilst he is away perhaps the owners are not caring again- what a shame.

No news on the body pulled from the sea yet and so we will wait for the gossip to reach us.

In the afternoon we spent some time considering our options for our return to UK. At the moment we are booked on a through flight with a technical stop in Hong Kong. It is like this as it was difficult to fully plan six months in advance how we will feel. Anyway we have found that the flight to Hong Kong leaves Auckland at 2355 (quite late) and arrives in Hong Kong at 0615 (bloody early) it then leaves Hong Kong at 0715 for London. So if we are to stop in Hong Kong it’s a very early arrival and an even earlier wake up call unless we stay near the Airport.

We have also looked at routing via Los Angeles and also San Francisco but immigration in USA is a pain in both LAX and San Francisco as they are looking for illegal immigrants, drugs and so on. So we are probably going to stick with Hong Kong for a three night layover and just get used to the timing.