First Week of February

This is a significant week for the population of the country and has a day with special significance for Auckland.

Firstly, it is a week when parents across the nation shout our ‘Hooray, their going back’. Schools begin to open after the long summer holiday. For our family this means the start of the new school year on Wednesday.

Secondly, in Auckland, the return to school is delayed by one day as the people of Auckland celebrate ‘Auckland Day’. For us this meant a family trip to Mission Bay market. This is an event when craft traders set up their stalls on the grass at Mission Bay. We woke to pouring rain, but by 10.00 am the grass at the event was bone dry and trade went on in earnest. There was a great range of high quality goods. Irene and I had a good conversation with an artist who inspired us. We all had lunch at the ‘Mission Bay Café’. 

In the afternoon I continued my building of the ‘Millennium Falcon’.

On Tuesday we had a car and made a one hour journey to the Hunua Falls. This is on the edge of the Hunua Reserve which is a large area of forested hills and reservoirs. I made sure not only to sun-up, but also to put on insect repellent. We arrived at a good car park with toilet and could, immediately hear the sound of the rushing water. There was much photographing as we approached closer to the rushing water. We were pleased that we had arrived early as a group of young people arrived as we were leaving. Their goal was frolic about in the icy cold mountain water. We did a brief walk up to a lookout. At place on that walk the sound of the cicadas was almost deafening. They are small bugs, but they make a loud noise.

Next we thought that we would try to find the Wairoa reservoir. This meant driving out of the reserve and around it to go back in. Our journey meant going through the village of Hunua. (Hunua is a small settlement in the rural outskirts of south Auckland, New Zealand. The Hunua Statistical area, which covers a much larger area than the settlement, had a population of 4242 people.) We found two trading places. First was the garage and second was a building which housed the booze shop, the general store, the fish and chip shop and the Indian restaurant. The owner of the property seemed to be Sikh. At his shop we indulged in nice cold drink.

The Wairoa reservoir was less-tourist friendly. There was no car park close by so we parked on the grass outside the gates. From here it was a five minute walk to the toilet. There were many walks around for the fit, but we chose to keep to the road way up to the dam. Reservoirs are special places and this was no exception. However, unlike the ones we know in the UK this was very peaceful and we were the only people there.

From there we headed to Maraetai. I remembered this as a beautiful seaside resort and it did not disappoint. We pulled up at the first café and we were served by a young lady who was recent arrival from the Liverpool area. After 6 months people are ribbing her about her accent. The beach is shelly and the sea is calm and beautifully clear.

I was just puzzling as to why we had a car on Tuesday and Wednesday. Irene reminded me that Sally was at home. On each day she was at home having planning meetings with her team.

On Wednesday the girls began their new school year. They went off happily. 

It was not possible for us to go off too far today so we headed for Cockle Bay. I had thought that it would be something like Maraetai. It was calm. However, it was more like Morecombe Bay, but we were not allowed to collect live cockles. Apart from a toilet and seats there were no other facilities. Shells were abundant on the beach. It was interesting to see mums and toddlers in the park now that the older children were not around. Next we drove off to Howick Beach. Again this had no resources and fewer cockles.

On the way back we stopped at Pakuranga shopping centre. I can’t remember what for, but we had refreshments at ‘Muffin Break’. Next we stopped at ‘New World’ for shopping and finally at the Pharmacy in St Heliers for medicines.

We took Emily to school on Wednesday morning and they were mainly at home apart from going to do some shopping at St Heliers. It was not so pleasant near the beach so we had coffee in the arcade. It was a bit special. 

We visited ‘Take Note’ which is my favourite shop. It is a book shop and stationer. We had already spotted trouble ahead for the post office here. A notice in ‘Take Note’ confirmed that a post office counter was going to be put inside. We also saw on the notice an appeal that the staff should not be abused. Next we met two ladies near the library with their ‘Keep the Post Office’ petition. I commented on the notice in ‘Take Note’. They were incensed about the fact that the staff was being abused. NZ is now going the same way as the UK with their post office services.

It was a wet day on Friday. We did try to go for a walk. Finally we decided to add some distance to our walk to collect the girls. Irene did have umbrellas. At first the rain was light and dried as soon as it fell. But at 3.00 pm precisely the heavens opened. Fortunately Sally came home early and spotted us and we piled into the car.

Saturday began with rain but we were able to walk down to St Heliers. Here we had coffee and pie at the bakers.

There was a decision to go to MOTAT on Sunday. Emily decided not to and stated behind. So Sally, Mum, Zoe and I went. This weekend is Waitangi weekend and the road off to the zoo and MOTAT was busy. There was a vintage car swap meet next to MOTAT but we managed to park in the last space.

For a change we went into ‘Western Springs’ park. There were a lot of water birds. Zoe climbed a tree. Irene spotted Puketo chicks. We had never seen these before.

 Zoe enjoyed trying out the experiments. 

We had lunch in the café. The building that housed it was built towards the end of the 19^th century. At the beginning of the next century it was moved and in 1975 it was moved to the place it now stands. It is not a little building. We visited the model railway.

When we went for the horse and carriage ride it was resting for lunch. We went to the historic village and had a chat with the lady sitting knitting outside the house. Then went to the blacksmith and I recognised him and he is the same fun character as he was two years ago.

 On the way back we went back into the park. This time we were armed with bird food and soon attracted a good sized flock. The visited ended as Zoe got stuck in the tree and sustained some painfully injury. Sally got her home and she was fine by morning.

Fifth Week

This week was always going to be a 'quiet' one. But as I write, on Friday afternoon, there is some noise, as both girls have 'play dates'.

The first day was very quiet. We had a short walk and sat and read.

On Tuesday we went off for a longer walk. This took us through the streets to Churchill Park. We entered by a way we had not used before. Along the start of the path were some beautifully kept houses and one had a very strange garden ornament. It was a very hot day and we struggled up a steep path to the open part of the area. I saw the stump of a large tree. It was flat and it looked like a good place to sit. Before Irene arrived I found sticky toffee-like stuff on my book and thought that it must have come from the sweets in my bag. Irene sat down and we discovered that the sticky stuff was sap. Irene is now looking for a method of rescuing our clothes.

Mr Bunny with mobile phone
and sneakers

Grey Heron - also found by the seashore

We had a chat with a retired individual before deciding that it was too hot. We really did struggle to walk back home.

The evening was very different. Our friends, Stefan and Debbie collected us from the house and took us down to Mission Bay for dinner in a restaurant called 'Masala'. It was an Indian restaurant. I was surprised how busy it was for a weekday evening. I think we all ordered chicken tikka masala. It was delicious. This we washed down with Bunderburg ginger beer. Stefan generously paid for this part of the meal which was at the Tuesday special price of $10 (£5). I paid for the chocolate cake. This came on a long, white porcelain dish. The cake and cream were at one end and the remainder of the plate was decorated by a trail of red and chocolate sauce. Which was also delicious.

Sally invited us all to come back to the house for coffee. And this was an enjoyable way to end the evening.

We are very concerned for Stefan. He has been unemployed since August. However, he is planning to take his 'Noah's Ark' presentation into Ponsonby on Saturday. There is a Europe festival (Gay Pride Festival) in the park there.

Wednesday was completely unplanned. Emily had woken up with a pain in her leg. Ian wisely decided that if I went with them in the car I could bring it back so that if the school called we could go up to collect her. On the way back the text alert sounded and so, thinking that it might be a message about Emily, I pulled over. It was just a text from Vodophone. Annoying.

While we had the car we thought that it would be a good opportunity to do some local shopping. I bought more shoes and some gifts at the Warehouse before going to Pak 'n Save for some of our weekly shopping.

As it turned out, Emily was fine and there has been no recurrence of the pain.

The weather forecast continued to show it would be fine so we set off to walk to Bastion Point. I wanted to carry flip-flops to go in the sea and I also had a book and my usual camera bits. I borrowed a back pack from Sally.

We set off, cutting across Vellenoweth Green to the trees which Irene now knows to be Moreton Bay Figs. These are of Australian origin and so do not appear in books naming NZ trees.

A private monorail (A photo for doubters)

The tide was well in and we were able to cut across Kohimaramah Beach, eventually arriving at Mission Bay. It was time for morning coffee which we had at Bar Comida. The blueberry muffins were very different from what is usually served. They had a more level top and were moist and fluffy. They were served warm with butter.

I paid. This is the place were the trouble starts. A senior moment was on its way. I walked out of the cafe putting the change and receipt into my wallet as I walked.

Across the bay it looked like serious rain and we felt a few spots. We saw a sign pointing to an art exhibition. Nothing came of it. We crossed back to the flight of steps which would take us to the top of the cliff and on to the Michael Joseph Savage Memorial Park. You may remember from a previous blog that MJS was NZs first labour prime minister. We read more about him on the plaques and it would seem that he was instrumental in securing Bastion Point for the Maoris. I shall return to this.

The gardens are beautiful and the views spectacular. I also enjoyed watching a professional photographer strutting about with a young couple and their children. It was hard to know what the occasion was. As always there were the swarms of Chinese people. Along the drive to the monument there were two long strips looking like newspapers. The text was mostly in Chinese and the English told us that it was all about denouncing the Chinese leadership and encouraging people not to become party members.

I wanted to see if I could find the Maori memorial which I mentioned in a previous blog. We were the only visitors prepared to make the upward trek. As we did so we noticed what seemed to be a group of school children being spoken to as they stood around a Maori Marae, which we had not known about before. 

To the left was the memorial. We made our way across. It was here that the senior moment began to move up a gear. I patted my pocket to find that my wallet had gone. The main issue was that the wallet held my credit and debit cards. Irene said that she saw me put the wallet in my pocket.

We retraced our steps to the MJS memorial and searched everywhere, including the litter bins. There were a lot of people around and we concluded that someone must have picked it up by now. We made our way down to Mission Bay and the Community Police Office. A kindly man took our details. He asked us which part of the UK we had come from. He told us that he was from Surrey. I asked him how long ago. He said that it was 50 years ago when he came here on holiday, but he had got a job married and now had seven grandchildren. I told him that he was really a Kiwi. You don't have conversations with wonderful people like this unless things go wrong. He then told me that a short time ago someone had stolen his wife's purse and had immediately used the card to get phone credit.

We said our good byes and went off at speed. The distance on the flat seemed endless, but there was no let up on the steep hill. Back in the house I switched on the computer with the intention of finding a number to ring and report a missing credit card. While I waited I decided to check the bag. There was the wallet. I rushed outside to wave it to Irene who was still some way off. How it got into the bag is still a mystery. Who had the senior moment?

This is a complex day for Sally who has one girl to get to Pippins and another to Netball with quite an overlap. My role to go with her, drop Emily off at Pippins and go with Zoe to netball in order to stay with her until she returned.

You might be bigger and older but I'm
not afraid of you.

It was quite windy, with a threat of rain like last week. And, as last week, the opposing team were much older. A cry from someone in St Heliers team was that the opponents have got boys and boobs.

Zoe made a commendable performance. She focussed all the time and did some good interceptions and throws. However, once the scorers and broken free they were unstoppable. St Heliers did score this time. Suddenly they broke free, found the space and scored a goal.

Sally returned just before the end and we went home via McDonalds, where apart from kid's meals we ordered portions of 'The Return of the New Zealand Legend'. This meant 'Georgie Pie'. It is a steak mince and cheese pie. Apparently McDonalds bought out this pie company when then came to New Zealand. People here can remember them being $1 (50p) a pie.

On Friday the hot weather returned with a vengeance and threatened to be in the high twenties by the afternoon. We planned our walk for the morning to go to the seats at Glover Park. One of the seats was in the shade and so we headed for this. Irene complained that she was too cold so we moved to the third one; giving the centre, rocky one a miss.

After some photography and reading for an hour we moved off. We went down to the park and up to the other part of the cliffs. The path from Glover Park cliffs to there must have fallen into the sea some time before.

At the corner of Cliff Road is an area with Maori monuments and a short pier which gives good views, especially of the nudist beach on Ladies Bay. All we could see was seemed to be a man sunning his rear end. Despite having my telephoto lens I showed the right courtesy of not taking a photograph.

We carried on walking down to St Heliers, across to the post office and up to the house.

St Heliers Beach

Hybiscus in a lovely colour

 The afternoon was peaceful, then play dates happened. For most part I kept out of the way until just about the end.

Often things just happen. On Saturday Ian and Zoe went off for a round of golf. After lunch Sally, Irene and I set off to do some shopping in a place called Albany while Ian had charge of the girls.

Albany is over the bridge on North Shore. To the west there was, what could only be described as 'angry clouds'. They were moving our way. Not only was it is was also very humid. From time to time there was precipitation. (It is hard to describe the warm, fine mist in any other way.) The forecasted thunder never came our way.

Since we last went, the shopping area of Albany has developed appreciatively. 

I had the task of shopping for some kitchen appliances but despite walking a great distance I was unsuccessful. At one point I was convinced that the sky was going to open. Just before re-entering the mall I thought that I would try an electrical store. It was one of those places where there are more staff than customers. I had a good conversation with a man who was about a year younger than me. He told me that he was working for one thing. He showed me on his phone. It was a very large cabin cruiser on which he had spent $60,000 last year.

Back in the mall I waited for the ladies to return from their shopping. Before leaving we had coffee at 'The Muffin Break'. Sadly they had no muffins.

Sally drove us home where we changed and then were taken down to St Heliers for a meal. This we had in the Thai restaurant overlooking the bay. It was a delicious meal but the hotness labelling was a tad lower than what we have in the UK. Medium means medium hot.

Following the meal we went along for ice-creams. Having tasted two flavours I went for the honeycomb. We sat on a bench looking over a dramatic sky.

The evening temperature did not lower. At about 8 o'clock I went out of the air-conditioned house into oven-like heat.

By Sunday morning it was cooler and it passed quickly. I went off with Ian for some stuff. He took me into Bunnings. As I have said before, NZ DIY stores off a much vaster range of products than any UK stores. The area that Ian looks after has around 10,000 products. In the afternoon all the family had a party to attend. Irene and I went off to Sylvia Park where I was able to find the things that I could not find yesterday.

In the middle of next week Irene and I are booked to fly and spend a week touring the Canterbury area, starting and finishing at Christchurch.

The Last Week of Term

This week really is a first. At the end of Thursday we shall have witnessed and in a small way been part of a New Zealand school term 1.

Monday 2^nd

Sally went off on early flight to Wellington for the day.

Plasterer in for the morning. His wife came to help him.

To Christine’s with Emily.

To the library.

To Blue Turtle for coffee and play.

Tea and occupy the girls. Played  ludo.

Ian  late.

Sally followed.

Tuesday 3^rd

I went off in search of Easter eggs. The main supermarket only had a few at the end of some of the aisles. There were even less in the St Heliers. I don’t think Easter means so much here as it does in the UK. We shall see.

Collected Emily in the car due to threat of rain.

Said good bye to the plasterer.

Ordered fish and chips to collect from St Heliers on the way back from dancing.

Wednesday 4^th

Had a good chat with Joni on Skype.

Went to Sylvia Park to buy Easter Bunnies and anti-dandruff shampoo.

Took Emily to Christine’s lesson.

Builder installed underfloor heating.

Went with Sally to Zoe’s Brownie enrolment.

Underfloor heating

Emily in our bed

Poi Swinging

Becoming a Brownie

Thursday 5^th

Last day of term. 
Ian had an early start to get tiles. Sally and mum got girls to school. Ian arrived with tiles at 9.00. Tiler arrived at 9.30 then disappeared for a while and came back to do sealant.

Mum and I went off to Mission Bay to buy hats. We didn't find any so we went up to East Ridge shopping centre. We bought nothing, but we had coffee and chocolate cake. We could not find what we wanted in St Heliers, but we did buy a loaf of tasty bread.

We had a round about journey home but we had a good view of the city.

I put my painting on the wall of our room then we went to collect Emily. Sally met us and bought the Kindy guinea pigs back to stay here for half of the holiday.

Spice

Honey

After lunch we took Emily to the last Gymbaroo of the term.
On the way home we stopped off for Emily to have an ice-pop and a play at Maddils Farm Reserve (Park).

Friday 6^th

^{Today is a bank holiday. In most parts of the country most shops are closed.
The first event of the day was the emergence of another monarch butterfly from Zoe's tank.}

^{Ian, Emily and me set off for Glenbrook Vintage Railway. It was an operating day and we were able to ride on a steam train for a few miles down the track. Emily loved it and was quite surprised when we found 'Thomas' in the engine shed.}

^{At lunch time Ian took us to a cafe that had been converted from an old library. Strangely it was originally a Carnegie library as was the old Stapleford library (research needed).}


I think that the fare partaken might shock UK diners. With my pancake there was banana cooked in its own skin, blueberry ice-cream, syrup poured on and bacon sandwiched in. Delicious.


Emily had a great time playing on the bouncy castle when she was not eating.

Back home Mummy, Grandma and Zoe had been doing a variety of things like watching a monarch butterfly hatch, taking the two creatures to their food plant, playing with the guinea pigs and making Easter nest on cupcakes, hot cross buns and painting eggs.

<sup>Before Emily could settle down to paint her eggs a praying mantis had to be evicted from the house to where it settled on the pool fencing


Irene and I walked down to the beach and spent an hour sitting in the sun reading.


A bad day had been forecast, but I am sure that the holiday makers had a  good time under a blue sky.


On our travels today it was obvious from the great Auckland exodus that the holiday had begun. The motorway was solid for miles leaving the city.</sup>

Saturday 7^th

A very quiet day.


Ian went out shopping. He came back and went out shoe shopping with Sally and the girls.


I started on the new painting in the morning.


Sally and mum went out shopping for curtains in the afternoon. Ian, the girls and I had a quiet afternoon.