Back in Auckland

Firstly, apologies for the old blog from 2008, which suddenly made its appearance.


We start again in Auckland. It is Zoe's last day of the Summer holiday. She has opted to make another visit to Rainbows End. This time it is with her dad and Irene. I am left 'holding the baby'. In this case it is a delightful four year old.


She has been dropped off at Kindergarten and my first task will be to collect her at 11.45. I now have a couple of hours which I use to, empty the dishwasher, do a general clear up and complete the Rotorua blog.


I am now steeling myself up to start the child minding bit. I leave at 11.30 and arrive four minutes later; in time to hang about round the kindergarten with parents and other child minders. I get confused as I have to sign out for Emily. She has already been signed for. I look again; another Emily has already been collected. The door open. I say 'Now for the scary bit'. A lady next to me says that she will help me if I help her as it is her first time. With Emily collected we walk home. The lady introduces me to her husband. It turns out that the are also UK grandparents, staying for some time.


Back home we have a bit of lunch together and she is happy to watch tv and potter while I work on my old negatives.


The trio arrive back having had a great time. Zoe has again been on the log flume. The three had a round of golf and now Emily chooses to have a dressing up time.

This is followed by a pool time. I am reluctantly persuaded to join in. The games seem to centre around me and consist of find the treasure with Zoe, drag Emily around the pool and aim a ring to land around granddad's neck.

The evening consists of getting Zoe's things ready for school. There is a huge amount of stuff to take. It is hard to calculate the cost of the stuff they have to take which includes pencils to make a class set, board markers and personal stationary. They also need to take $75 for trips and swimming. A further 'voluntary' contribution of $400 will be requested later. No one seems to mind as in poorer areas the state provide more funding.


We watch up the latest images on the big screen and then time for bed.

Week 2

Monday
Sally, Zoe and me went to a theme park called 'Rainbows End'. It is billed as New Zealand premier theme park. This is perhaps because it is New Zealand's only theme park. By most standards it is relatively small. Sally was not sure that Emily would be big enough and so she stayed home with Grandma.

 Although the sun shone the breeze had quite a chill feel and at times I thought that that I should have bought something to put over my sleeveless shirt.

Zoe was happy just going round and round on the old fashioned round-a-bout. She also enjoyed going up and down the mini-drop ride. The main attraction seemed to be the log flume which she happily queued up for twice.

After four hours which ended up with a mini-golf round.
On the way back we stopped off to have a new tyre and buy some fruit.


Emily had had a peaceful day which consisted mainly of playing with her Barby dolls.


Rainbows End was enjoyable and I am sure it won''t be long before the girls visit it together.


Back home the girls had a pool time.


During the evening we finalised the accommodation for the three days that Irene and I would spend on our own exploration of a section of south island once we had spent three days with the family in the Dunedon area. Our car hire is yet to be finalised.


We looked at today's images on the TV and watched a Bond movie before bed.


Tuesday
This was booked as a day to take the main car in for a front brake service. This meant Sally taking Ian to work and bringing the smaller car back. The girls sat quite still, eating breakfast for the nearly 2 hours that Sally was away.


After this Sally went with the girls to play at the beach side play area with Zoe's friend, Jade.

Shops at St Helier

Zoe on the Rocks

Emily Likes the Sea

Grandma and me walked down later on. Now that we know the route it only took us 15 minutes. We arrived in time for me to walk along the rocks with Zoe and bring mummy and Emily back. Once back Zoe went into the pool. I just dipped my feet in as the water temperature was only 25 degs.


Sally had a meeting to which we took Zoe while Emily watched a film.


The next trip was to take the girls to the hairdresser.Getting Emily ready by brushing her hair was somewhat painful, but the actual process was very calm.


Car hire for South Island trip is finalised.