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.

Zoo

I wondered if we would get to the zoo. On Sunday we did. Mum and I drove off and parked. Sally and the girls set off to collect Zoe's friend and Ian who had been to a stag night and needed to be collected from a city hotel.

We went off around the zoo with Emily while Ian, Sally and the other two girls went off to see the baby giraffe.


Emily was not too bothered about the animals and the loud shouting of the apes put her off even more. Quite a few children burst into tears when the ape shouted out next to them.

Emily had a great time on the large slide and on the balancing equipment near the monkey cages. 

 At lunch time we all met up at the 'Darwin' cafe. After lunch the Clark family and friends set off home and Irene and I stayed to see a few more of the animals.

Meercat

Tired Baby

Bengal Tiger

Adult and Baby

The adults know where
 their lunch comes from

Blue Penguins

On the way home Irene and I sat by the beach with our favourite ice-cream from Kohimarama shop.

St Heliers Festival Day

After the chill of last evening we woke to a warm, blue-sky day.

Looking down on to the
main festival street

Main Stage

After breakfast we all set off to St Heliers Bay. The festival was being held in the part of the town known as the village. The main shopping street and a side road was blocked off. Local organisations, especially the schools, had set up stalls and a large stage had been erected with its back to the sea. In the middle of the main street an area had been barricaded off for children to do pavement art. In the other street was a large inflatable and a rock climbing wall. On the sea front were more stalls and small tractor hauled train.

Pavement Art

While we waited for the St Heliers School choir to perform we walked along to see our friends at their Noah's Ark stand.

We sat on chairs put out in rows on the street to see Zoe perform as part of the school choir at 11 o'clock.

Great Timing

We think that the choir performed spectacularly well. They were loud, clear and on pitch.

From this we went around to the climbing wall. Both girls tackled it, but Zoe succeeded in two full climbs; as we knew that she would. (See earlier blog.)

Emily's First Attempt

Zoe Reaching the Top

Next came the inflatable train tunnel. Emily was satisfied with one pass through.

As Emily was tired we headed for the beach. The site of the sand and sea quickly refreshed her as did the food that we purchased at the bakery; together with 'coffee-to-go'.

A Typical Kiwi Bakery

After our lunch we walked along the front looking for the tractor-train. The driver spent a long time talking to the children, finishing with an instruction to hold on tight. Emily did this with a determination which probably shocked the little girl that she was next to. Grandma followed in their wake.

Emily Holding Tight

While this activity was going on I introduced Sally to Debbie and spent some time observing people coming and going from the Ark stall. Among the visitors was Simon O' Connor, Member of Parliament for Tamaki. He was happy for me to take his photograph and I left while he was talking to Stefan.

A Kiwi MP

I caught up with the girls at the play park and left to walk back and collect the car to take a certain tired young lady home.

The next excitement of the day was the discovery that two monarch butterflies had hatched out from their cocoons which Zoe had collected some days earlier. Zoe proudly carried them to the back of the house where we watched the drying out process for some time before the next event of the day.

Sally had discovered that the pool was not heating properly because the inlet nozzle was not facing outwards. She was able to move it, but it swung back again. She was obliged to get into the somewhat cold water to see what was happening and discovered that the part was broken. However, a few pieces of plastic straws held in in place (and still do at the time of writing). The pool was then able to heat up and the two girls enjoyed a swim. We think that Emily can now just about reach the bottom. This shows how much she has grown since we arrived in January.

The monarch butterflies triggered another event and that was the need to provide food for them. Mum found out they had been living on a swan plant and so I drove her and Zoe out to the garden centre. There we found that it was the wrong season for planting swan plants, but we did purchase a trowel, a weeding fork and a spade before returning for mum to do some  digging.