The weather has been bizarre. Don't we always seem to be saying that these days, no matter where we live? Anyway, the current bizarre-ness is a huge amount of rain but very mild temperatures. The whole country seems to be underwater, or at least sodden. We have also had some very prolonged periods of thunder and lightening. I don't think I have ever gone to bed to, and then woken up to, thunder and lightening. Having said all that yesterday was bright sunshine, which meant frost. Only the second one of the year.
My weight is really bothering me. I lost 35kgs when I went to WW's. I did not get life membership as I could not get the last 2kgs off and ended up leaving. As the exercise has dropped off the weight has gone up and I have put on 15kgs. I am really unhappy with this, my clothes don't fit, clothes shopping makes me miserable as I am looking at 16's instead of 12's and I feel blurrrrr, and would like to get on top of things. Problem has been that I have been stupidly busy this last 6 months, even more so than usual, and planning meals and eating properly and exercise just has not happened. Looking at my calenders (work and home) I think there is light at the end of the tunnel so I want to try and get back on track. I am thinking of doing WW's online and have set myself a goal of riding 80km's round Taupo in Nov.
We have been treating ourselves! Eric bought this:
and I bought this:
Harriette was 18 on 3rd July and for her birthday we took her to Melbourne to see Love Never Dies (the sequel to Phantom). Well we took all of us, and I have to say it was a big a treat for me as for her! I guess it just tied in nicely being on in July as I think we would have gone regardless. Anyway.... it was amazing!! Went for 4 days and all fell in love with Melbourne. The Queen Victoria Market is amazing. A bit Covent Garden -ish. We also had tickets for the Tutankhamun exhibition and wanted to fit in another show. Well. The week before we left was madness for me. I was in Auckland (2 hrs north of us) all day on the Wednesday for a study day. Had to meet up with the apartment tenants to check the place in the evening as they were moving (rather unexpectedly) to Melbourne, so got home quite late. Thursday I was in Whakatane and Opotoki teaching (2 and half hours south-east of us) and did not leave Opotoki until about 8pm. Had to be at Auckland airport at 5am the Friday morning!!! When we went to check in we had no visas!!! Now, I knew we needed visa but... our passports had expired earlier in the year so we replaced them. I then found out that to fly to Auz our passports had to be at least 6 months in date. The girls ones expired in 4 months! So, I held up sending our passports to NZ Immigration for our returning residency visas to be transferred until I got the girls passports back. By the time they came back we were running short of time so I had delivered all 4 passports to immigration and they kindly rushed them through. Harriette had to collect them as I was so busy with work. As described, I just was not home to even think about the visas, let alone get them. I knew we needed visas but when I did think about it we did not physically have the passports so I could arrange them. So, here we are, at check-in and no visas!! Luckily they can be arranged online so, a major dash to the other end of the airport to access the internet, arrange visas and dash back to check-in. At least we did not have to hang around for ages waiting for the flight. We virtually went through, got on the plane and took off!!!
For the next boob! We just wandered round on Friday, went to the market and got orientated. (We were in a very nice apartment block btw). Saturday we were off to King Tut. While waiting for the tram I realised no-one had the tickets. I dashed back to the apartment to get them and, on checking the time, realised the tickets were for Friday 2.30pm, not 10.30am Sat!! The long and short of it was we had to pay again!!! I then realised that when we booked (about 6 weeks earlier) we had decided to go on the Friday to give us something to do on the first day and hopefully miss all the families and school kids (not many would go on a school trip Friday pm we reckoned). Bugger!!! At least we were able to get in. Most of the days sessions were fully booked. It was AMAZING, even if the actual mask was not shown (thanks for warning me about that Helen). After King Tut we went to the market and got fish, prawns etc for a nice dinner at the apartment. We knew that we would want to shop for lots of fresh foods as the QVM so decided to get an apartment, rather than a hotel, so we could cook for ourselves. You cannot bring any fresh foods into NZ.
We had bought Harriette a digital SLR which we gave her on Wednesday before we left so a) we did not have to take all the packaging with us and b)she could work out how it worked before we left. On her birthday she wanted to go to Melbourne Aquarium to use it. We went to a lovely cafe in one of the arcades (lanes full of cafes and shops in between some of the main streets) for breakfast then to the aquarium. Had a rest in the afternoon then went to the theatre in the evening. Love Never Dies was awesome. I expected it to be good but it exceeded even my expectations. I am definitely going to see it again (in London or Auckland)!! We struggled a bit to find a restaurant for dinner after the performance but had been recommended one a few blocks up from the theatre, Cumulus Inc. We could not booked but arrived and had to wait about 20 mins for a table. We were not offered drinks and it was very noisy but.. it turned out to be a great place. A very different eating experience. You order a variety of dishes from the, very different, menu and the chef decides what order you get them. They come out 1 at a time and initially I thought they were very small but when we left I had had ample (needless to say Eric could have eaten more). It was quite pricey but definitely a memorable meal for an 18th. It also quieten down quite quickly after we sat down which was good. I probably would not go back as I am sure Melbourne has lots of other restaurants to try but I'd definitely recommend it (not for Richard though!! :-))
What else has been going on? Harriette has been back from Uni for 3 weeks. It has been very stressful as she does not seem very motivated to get herself a job and sits around doing not a lot. We sat down with her and worked out how much money she needs to survive next year. We refuse to give her anymore than she gets this year. She seems to think that a job is just going to land in her lap in November!! Having said that she did work for a week at Eric's law firm as they had a 1-off filing job that needed doing. If anything like that comes up again though Alice will probably get it. Much as I hate to say it, and I do love Harriette dearly, it was a relief when she went back. I found her stay very stressful. God, what a horrible thing to say!!
The Tanner's have Sky!!!!!! I know I know. We just wanted it for the Rugby World Cup but,of course, we had to sign up for a year. We have been on the slippery slope. The TV has been in the house more than the cottage lately (so we can watch DVD's - I have become addicted to Bones) and now we have Sky. The question is, will we give it up in a years time??? Watch this space
Oh, and I mentioned our tenants had moved. They were planning to stay until Jan 2012 but Paul was offered a job in Melbourne which he decided to take. In the fortnight before we left to Melbourne I was also trying to sort out new tenants. We put an ad on Trade Me and got so many replies I could not keep up. I could not deal with it before we left so just left it. On the Tuesday after we got back I got a call from an Irish girl who had just arrived in NZ to study for her PHD. She was desperate for a place and was very keen so Harriette and Eric drove up that evening to show her around. She took it there and then as Eric had the paperwork with him and she move in the next day. Hopefully she'll stay until Feb.
Oh, and I didn't mention. I was only back from Melbourne for 1 day when I went to Wellington for 4 days. I drove a minivan of school kids down for Alice's history class. I managed to get to the theatre twice while there (went to the BATS theatre to see 'Hamlet Dies in the End' , the story of a group of people coming together for a Shakespeare workshop, and 'Escholioa and Temptation', a 2 act performance that utilises clown performance skills - very different) and had quite a good trip. The history teacher is a great guy, looks the same age as his pupils and the kids love him but he is not very good at communicating which I found a bit frustrating. The weather was shocking and we drove there and back in horrendous rain and wind. Alice did not come back with us but flew up to New Plymouth on the Sat am to catch up with the Waikato Youth Symphonic Band who were competing in the NZCBA National Festival (they got Gold again). She has also been very busy as the weekend before Melbourne she had her school ball. Actually, she did not go as her school ball was the same night as Kent's and as he is in his last year she went to the Hamilton Boys one. Kat got dressed for the Matamata ball so we could have photos of them together:
Well it's 10am and Eric will be in for breakfast soon, he's gone out to sort out a broken trough, so I guess I ought to get up. Still really foggy out.
