Almost there.

Very. very nearly there! Eric started studying law in 1996. As the girls were not much more than babies at the time and I was also at Uni Eric started his course part-time. It was a long plod to graduation but he finally got there and he was awarded his LLB(Hons) at a grand ceremony at Canterbury cathedral in 2001. At this point we had decided to emigrate and so he gave up his place at the College of Law in London and concentrated on moving and getting to grips with NZ’s requirements. He was advised that he needed to go to Uni for another year here, THEN do 6 exams in their core subjects THEN he could do his post grad course, referred to as Professionals. So, off to Uni and 4 new courses, passed, no problem. Then he hit problems. He studied hard but was unable to pass the 6 exams, well 5 of them. What the legal education council failed to tell was A. the 6 exams were over only 2 days, that there was no choice of questions and that they provided no guidance for study, course work etc, just access (which you paid for) to past papers. The exams were also about $330/subject, and B. that Eric could have done 4 of the courses in that year at Uni and bypassed the exam! After 18 months of trying to get through these exams (and seeing lots of other overseas lawyers and law students coming back time after time), he decided to go back to Uni and re-do the courses from scratch (all subjects he had already passed in the UK). And surprise surprise, when he was there he bumped into some of those same people he had been writing the previous exams with him. That’s what he did last year, full time, whilst still working as Matamata’s Animal Control Officer. Thank you to the local council for being so flexible with his hours. It was a year of Eric spending part of his days at Uni and part at work. Of course he passed everything and finally got onto the Professionals course in January. So now Eric has 3 exams this week (one done yesterday and he is fairly happy with that one, well not totally convinced he has failed which is how he usually comes out of an exam!) one today and a viva voce (what I would call a viver) tomorrow. He has lodged his intention to apply for admission to the bar and has got Kit, a Hamilton solicitor/tutor to move his admission. We called in on Kit yesterday to get him to sign a needed form and he pointed Eric to a barrister in Rotorua who is looking for a new staff member. Sitting in Kit’s office with talk of wigs, gowns and possible jobs it all sounded suddenly very real. The adjustment of Eric from perpetual law student to lawyer/barrister is one I am really looking forward to. It has been an incredibly long struggle; lack of earnings, Eric fretting over exams and assignment due dates and the incredible amount of time that he has studied and just missed out on family life has been, at times, very hard on us all. Not least the effort Eric has had to put in to this when his motivation has been rock bottom. He has, in effect, done a law degree twice over now, all but one module. Hopefully now that is at an end and he can start reaping the benefits of his hard work. Don’t worry, I’m not under any illusion that things will be cruisey from here but at least from long hours etc he will hopefully reap rewards. And please God he gets a job soon. If they get the exams marked pronto he could be admitted on 16th June, if not it may be October. Fingers crossed.

The child is sick

She must be. After being foul over the weekend Harriette came home and voluntarily tidied her room. All of it! Desk, dressing table, floor - everything! And she cleared up after supper without being asked AND she's been nice. I wonder if it's a boy. She must be about to ask for something!

The girls are very excited at the moment at the thought of birthdays in England. Not this year, unfortunately, but next year. We thought it would be nice to try and tie our trip in with these so they can celebrate with their UK friends. It is looking quite a strong possibility but obviously it's a long way off and nothing will be definite until nearer the time. This all assuming that the head gasket doesn't go, or some other finicial catastrophe doesn't hit in the meantime!

I have been offered the job I went for in Tauranga. The pay is substantially more but, as I think I mentioned before, this has to be balanced against the inconvenience of travelling to work each day and the cost of petrol etc. I am going to wait until I hear what the new IMAC contract offers us before I make my decision. We have a meeting in Auckland on 1st June. Fingers crossed.

Busy day today. On top of all the above and spending the day not knowing whjat to do, we had a meeting with Harriete's class teacher and the GATE (gifted and talented) programme co-ordinator. They obviously think very highly of her and we had discussions about how to manage her future years at College. She may be moved up a second year or accelerated further in individual subjects. They want to see how this Shakespeare unit pans out first.

I finally got our old laptop repaired and now can catch up on the Archers. Since we arrived here I have had a daily email with the previous nights storyline. I did not want to read my updtaes on this computer as there is 2 months worth on the laptop that I haven't read. I will now enjoy catching up on everything since last October in Ambridge. Bridget have you managed to listen to this yet?! Not whilst you're in Poland I know but when you get back to Blighty.

The glorious weather left us for awhile today, it got blowy and rainy. Not nice.

Losing One's Marbles

Age is slowly creeeping up on me, well actually I wouldn't mind if it was slowly but it seems to be accelerating ever faster these days! (doesn't accelerate mean to go even faster?) Anyway.... I lay in bed the other night and said to Eric in despair, "I am really worried. I am going blind, deaf and losing my memory". To which Eric replied in true sympathetic tones, "Well at least you won't remember you're going blind and deaf". I knew I shouldn't have married a younger man, how can he possibly sympathise with my approaching 50th when he has only just hit 40??!!!!

A teacher comment on Harriette's English homework recently (they had an assignment on protest poetry) "A powerful, relevant and vivid collection of ideas, imagery and personal comments. This was griping, intersting and insightful Harriette - and overall, an absolute credit to you! I look forward to reading your published work one day. Excellent work". If only she could apply herself so diligently to washing up and keeping her room even vaguely tidy!!!!

Went to Thames yesterday to teach on a vaccinator update from 5- 9pm. All went well. I passed through Paeroa to get there but didn't stop in on Mom and Daddy as I had a nurse with me and we were a bit pushed for time.

The sun has come out. We have had 3 bitter cold days and our first frost of the year. I had to pick the aubergenes, peppers and last of the courgettes from the veg plot this morning. But yesterday and today we have been back up to 16 degrees, gloriuos sunshine and bright blue skies. I am taking it easy today as I worked 12 hours yesterday and have read a bit and weed sprayed the drive in preparation for Eric doing something about grading it when he finished his course. 5 and a half days left!!!!! The boys had disappeared down to the tree in the back paddock and were reluctant to come back this morning so I wandered down to check they didn't have a dead sheep there, only to be waved Hello to by Shirley and Ian who were feeding out next door. All rather embarrassing as it was about 9.30am and I was in my gummies and dressing gown!! Don't know what had got their attention there as there was nothibng dead that I could see. As I walked by the gate by the pond the cows came hurtling down the hill obviously thinking I was going to open it and let them in the next paddock. On actually looking at the grass I realised they must be hungry and decided to move them into the front paddock. Managerial decision making on my part! Hope the boss doesn't mind when he gets in. Whenever I do such a thing it is usually wrong as Eric has hatched some new scheme for paddock rotation or there was some good reason why he half starving the beasts!!!

Oh well I guess I had better go and do some work.

Netball On Golden Pond?

OK OK!!! Please note this is the second blog in a month, actually the second in a week. Well with temperatures outside down to 5 degrees C (and not much warmer indoors!) I am getting into 'curled up on the sofa' mode so blog entries may improve in frequency. No promises though.

Had an eventful morning at netball on Saturday. Harriette and Alice, as I mentioned before, were playing each other. Well I can say that Alice's team did score a goal. At 15 - 1 Leah in Harriette's team fell badly. As she sent down it became obvious it wasn't a routine fall when she screamed out in pain. I always try to hold back a bit in these situations waiting to see if a proper first aider responds but when no one went near her I went to help. She had a dislocated knee. We had to wait while the ambulance crew dealt with a rugby injury before coming to us but eventually she was sorted and taken to the little hospital here in Matamata for an X-Ray. Needless to say the game did not resume but I think it will be clear who won. Leah's netball season looks to be over though as she has 6 weeks of physio ahead of her.

After that we had a routine Saturday shopping and other boring stuff. I found a cheap DVD of On Golden Pond in the Warehouse, which I bought and we watched with pizzas in the evening. This movie is one I watched over and over again in the mid 1980's while working in Respiratory ICU when I was working at Johanessburg Hospital. I love it. Definately one for you Robyn!

Sunday H and A cooked supper for us all at Mom and Daddy's. It was Mother's Day here and so I was excused from the kitchen! It was hosing down when Mom and Daddy drove back from the airport and I think they had quite a hairy journey home and certainly appreciated the house being warm and welcoming. They had a good trip to Auz.

Yesterday was taken up with a crisis with a friend not to be gone into on blog. It just made me appreciate, once again, how lucky we are. I have 2 OK kids and a wonderful husband. We have our ups and downs but basically all love each other passionately and we all know that and will always be there for each other. With that we can weather any storm. It's when that fall apart that life reaches the depths of despair.

And so winter begins!

Another dull day (as in weather) finds me tucked up in bed on a Saturday morning typing blog. Actually it has stopped raining (it feels like it’s rained all week), but is very foggy and cold. Temperatures dropped 2 days ago and it the predicted top temp today is 15o C!!!! We have been enjoying autumnal temps in the low 20’s so this is a bit of a shock.

We have had a hectic week due to Alice’s school production. Sunday was the last rehearsal which they ran from 6-9pm (couldn’t see the point of that, just added a late night to their hectic week), followed by 4 actual shows. The production was written by a professional actor from Canada, partner of the schools art teacher. It was called Lil Bo and was about a girl who had been washed overboard in a storm, adopted by a hermit and at the age of 13 finds out the truth about her past and goes in search of her parents. She is accompanied by her best friend – a talking sheep! It was amusing and they did a good job of catering for humour across the age range. Not as good as the previous production 2 years ago though. Alice played the head of the government, a group of 3 who were in pursuit of Lil Bo and took off The Men in Black, dark suits, dark glasses and hopeless. I was very proud of her!!

Alice is in the front.


Alice in suit, mid stage.

At least she only had her hair in a bun heavily lacquered. Katherine had hers severely backcombed and sprayed, to stick out 6 inches from her head all round (she played an island native). It took Robyn ages and a huge amount of hair conditioner each evening to get it out and as a result Kath got to bed even later than Alice. We left Alice to sleep in a bit each morning and Eric took her to school which meant leaving at 8.30 rather than 7.45. By Thursday it was almost impossible to wake her so I let her sleep in on Friday and took her to school at 11am. I think almost all the other parents did the same thing. 2 trips into Matamata every evening was a bit of a pain but she enjoyed the experience so it was worth it.

On top of this Harriette was in a debating session at Dio, a school in Hamilton. One of her schools teachers heads the debating forum and Harriette was dragged into a showcase debate for the first session. I think the idea was, they would debate badly having had no experience before and only 3 days notice, against an older team from Dio who had been debating for 3 years. As it was, Hugo put on a very dramatic performance for Matamata College, swung all the boys and the vote was very close! The moot was ‘Women in history were braver than men’ Harriette, Hugo and Bridget on the negative or opposing team. I felt so sorry for them. The debate took place in an auditorium style lecture theatre and Harriette was terrified when she saw it. She performed admirably though and I was very proud of her. I was talking to some teachers from other schools afterwards and they were amazed that she had never debated before.

While I’m blowing the girls trumpets Harriette has had a good week generally. She was called out of class the other day to see a teacher who asked her if she wanted to join a Yr 13 class to study Shakespeare next term. (Yr 13 are 17 yr olds, Harriette’s 12!!!). Apparently Harriette had been complaining to her English teacher that they weren’t doing any Shakespeare. They must have had conversations in the staff room and Michelle Liddle said she had a class she thought Harriette would fit in to (Michelle is the teacher who leads the debating). She will have 4 sessions a week for 4 weeks next term. They have never done this before at College and need to think through whether to include her in the assessment process so she gets NCEA credits etc. She is looking forwarded to it and the school are confident she will keep up so I am really looking forward to seeing how she goes. If it doesn’t work out then so be it. This same teacher, Sue, also asked Harriette if she wanted to enter a national ‘Future Problem Solving’ scenario writing competition. A Yr 13 student from her school won the NZ finals this year and should be heading off to the States to compete internationally but I think has not been able raise the funds. This is the same competition that a team from Alice’s school have won the team problem solving bit of and are also off to the States for. Matamata obviously produces great problem solvers!!

Monday evening I have a meeting in Hamilton with school nurses, Tuesday Hamilton again for Harriette’s debating, Wednesday we watched the show and Thursday we just had the ferrying of Alice in and out for the productrion. Last night it was such a pleasure not to go anywhere, we just stayed in, read and played cards – peace!!!

Mom and Daddy return from Auz on Sunday, which is Mother’s Day here. We are going to drive up to Paerora, get the fire lit and cook supper for when they get home. It was Daddy’s birthday while they were away and I did not get his pressie to him before they left so will give him that tomorrow. Today we just have Saturday netball and some shopping. The netball season started last week. The first Saturday they play 6 or 7 short matches to work out the gradings. Either Harriette’s team did badly, or Alice’s did well (neither of which I would agree with) but for some reason they are playing each other today. Great for us as we only have to be on the side lines for one game. Poor Alice is in a ‘not very good’ team and I think she is probably the best player. Not much of a challenge for her. As it is her first year at a new school I don’t know most of the other girls in her team. Harriette has a nice bunch of girls in her team and a very ‘cool’ coach, a senior College student. For the first year I think neither H and A are playing in the same team as Sarah or Katherine. This is probably why the temperatures have taken a dive, we now have to spend Saturdays on the sidelines!!!!!

R+R came for a coffee yesterday afternoon. They flew to Auz this morning for their holiday now the cows have dried off (stopped milking prior to calving). Jill, Robyn’s sister, lives there with her family and they are going to stay with them, and have a few days on the Gold Coast (lots of theme parks, a bit like Disneyland I think). Jill will be celebrating her big 40. I thought they were going for a week but H and E tell me it is only for a week.

Must get up and brave the cold now. Brrrrrr!