We apologise for the lack of service over the last couple of weeks. Our web host in the US had a “hardware issue” which has meant that we’ve had no blog or email. Not good!! Not only have they been very unreliable, but their backup and restore strategy obviously doesn’t exist as they’ve lost all of my blog and my email!! If anyone out there is ever looking at setting up a website …. Don’t use DST Internet! (Bobby can give you more technical details if you require …) You don’t realise how much you rely on computers until they are not there ….
Our new web host is in Cambusbarron near Stirling so performance should be better at your end …. Thank you to Kenny for helping us to set up again so quickly!
I am having a backup/restore issue on one of my projects at work at the moment .. So I should have thought of the implications of assuming that DST would backup and restore if anything happened. Unfortunately, I didn’t so have had to rebuild the blog from Google cache. There are some posts missing so if you ever read through the older stuff then it’s a bit disjointed but still …… Google rocks! Have also worked out how to add photos to blog entries so will be adding some photos around the blog ….
On the subject of photos .. I’ve added a link to the Family Flickr site on the Blogroll at the side so you can go there rather than me adding links to each set. There are some new photos in there so please go have a look.
If anyone has been sending me emails while we’ve been off air then please send again as I’ve lost a lot of email addresses because of this. That’ll teach me to write stuff down!
So what’s been happening?
I now finally have closure with CVG … I’ve been having a long debate with them over how much maternity pay I was due to pay back. Without going into details, it’s resolved now and the money has been paid back.
Kyle and Regan now both have bad colds and Regan has been off nursery again with it (she was sent home the other day with a temperature of 40 degrees which was a bit scary). It’s all these new kiwi bugs! They don’t have any immunity built up to the new bugs so are catching everything going … It makes it hard work but we’re hoping that once the better weather comes along that we’ll all feel a bit healthier. I actually think (and some kiwis will agree … others deny it) that this lack of heating situation in the houses makes everyone more susceptible to illness. We will definitely be buying some heat pumps in our new house to make sure that next winter is much more comfortable.
Kyle has learned a Maori song at pre-school and his teacher says he knows all the words and sings it at the top of his voice! I have no idea what it’s about … but must make an effort to find out. He loves singing and teaches me all his songs in the car on way home at night. They sing a little song to the tune of London Bridge which teaches them a new letter each week. He started pre-school near the end of the alphabet so we’ve now gone back to A .. so he’s off to nursery this week with an apple, Alfie the Excavator, Arthur the steam train and Iron ‘Arry the Diesel. He loves show and tell on Fridays and each morning gets up and asks “Is it Show and Tell yet??” and then gets all depressed when it’s not. His letters are coming on great though and he takes great delight pointing out the letters he knows whenever he sees them. He’s even got to the stage of saying .. “Look mum, it’s C for Caylen” etc.
We were in the hairdressers last weekend and Bobby and Kyle were over getting their hair cut while I was getting my treatment … the two women at either side of me at the basins were discussing that really cute little boy over there and kept telling each other how lovely he was! Since Kyle was the only little boy in the place I guess they must have been talking about him … I don’t know whether it’s the accent, the eyes or the hair but they all seem to love him down here and Regan is getting pretty much the same attention so it must be one or both of the latter two.
Regan now has tooth no 3! We’re trying to lumpify (I know it’s not a word) her food but she’s not for it. The mouth either stays firmly shut when she realises or she does a Quincy and eats the rest and then spits out the lumps at the end. Quincy (the family dog from a while back) had a great trick whenever we were trying to feed him pills from the vet … we’d hide them in his food and he’d wolf the food down and then spit this tiny little pill out after he was done. Now anyone who has seen him eat will testify to this being quite a trick …
It was a year on the 22nd since my mum died … I can’t believe it’s that long! Seems like yesterday …. As expected, I had a bad week.
I spend so much time on the motorway going to and from work that I now have a “Motorway Observations Section” ..
- the cars are a lot more colourful down here. Holdens and Fords especially. In the UK, all cars are boring colours even the red and blue ones these days have a grey tinge to them … The brave in the UK buy yellow cars but there isn’t really much other choice (other than maybe the new Ford ST which is a rather fetching shade of orange). I think it’s a resale value thing in the UK - Mitsubishi brought out a Reims Blue version of the Evo6 and they had a resale issue because it was one of those colours you either like or dislike so it kinda halved the 2nd hand buyer market. When the mid purple Evo8 came out they said it would have the same problem .. didn’t stop us buying one or George later on and I don’t think it actually happened with that one. Down here, cars last so much longer that resale is not so much of a big thing as people keep their cars for a lot longer (no salt on roads means no rust on cars!). There are some great colours available … especially if you buy a Holden. I was followed all the way up the road the other day by a really bright turquoise Monaro … very nice! Maybe I should have one of those rather than the Skyline????
- which brings me nicely on to observation no 2 … Holdens are much nicer than Fords down here. Now anyone who has ever had a Vauxhall/Ford conversation with me in the UK will know that this is a major statement coming from me … (George definitely thinks I’ve completely lost my mind now!). But it’s true …
- I love this “undertaking on the motorway is fine” rule especially in traffic.
- there are lots of modified cars down here (and I mean really modified not just spoilers, wheels etc). It’s because it’s not compulsory to have car insurance so young guys (and girls) can go out and buy an older performance car and do whatever they like to it with no insurance issues. They have a major issue with young guys killing themselves by wrapping themselves around trees though so the police tend to stop anyone with a performance car which is one of the reasons we went boring when we bought our cars. I spoke to the girl who makes up the bills in the nursery who has an older Evo and asked her about it. She said that she’s never been stopped but nearly every time her partner drives her car, he gets stopped. In case Simon from CVG ever reads this, there are lots of modified GT Turbos down here so parts for them are reasonably cheap. Anyway, the reason that you don’t need car insurance down here is that the government run a Accident Compensation scheme which basically pays out compensation to people who are in car accidents, work accidents etc. It means that suing another driver or company is not allowed (which is a good thing when you look at the States and what’s starting to happen in the UK).
- Lads appear to like bling wheels down here. Some of the wheels are just wrong and shouldn’t be allowed on any car never mind the sporty cars they are putting them on. What are they on????
- Non-car observations … the city looks different every day when you come under the Esmond Rd interchange (Bobby calls it the picture frame bridge). It’s a shame that there is nowhere to actually take pictures of that view as it’s fascinating how different it can look day to day.
There is a Crowded house song called Four Seasons in One Day and it’s true … the weather in Auckland is ever changing. Scotland has something similar but on a much slower scale .. it can be nice in the morning and then stormy in the afternoon … Auckland gets that in the space of 10 minutes … then 10 minutes later it’s sunny again! There are lots of rainbows …. they should have called it the land of the long rainbows rather than the land of the long white clouds. I had a Nokia trainer in last week for one of my projects who came from the States … he was amazed that weather could change as much as it does here! He also said that it was the first time he’d ever seen a full rainbow.
Work is going okay (although I’ve obviously had to take more time off), I’ve now picked up a few HR projects aswell as the network performance tools and service management package. It’s really good experience with all these different applications, dealing with different areas of the business etc. I’ll be honest, I still find some things challenging as there are still times when I have no idea who to contact about things and spend ages going round in circles trying to find out as well as being expected to do things that in my opinion are not the responsibility of a PM, but I guess it’s about adapting. Bobby is having similar issues where he is so it’s definitely just a change of environment type thing that we’re going to have to get used to.
I had an interview last week for the permanent job (different department, slight career progression as it’s moving into programme management as well as management of large, complex projects). Interview went well and have a second interview next week with the Department Manager. Not sure how many people are getting through to second interview stage … will have to wait and see.
One thing that the kiwis don’t have that I think is a huge gap is baby biscuits! I don’t know whether they think they are too unhealthy or what but they just don’t have them. Regan has her dinner before Bobby even gets home so I wanted something to give her while we were eating so she could sit up beside us … Did a search on google.co.nz and it came up with one hit for Farleys Rusks. It was an English food shop in Onehunga (south Auckland) so we went there last weekend. Ended up buying the rusks, some Heinz tomato soup (Kyle doesn’t like NZ tomato soup!) and then very sadly, also bought some Irn Bru and Tunnocks Caramel Wafers! It’s amazing what you’ll buy when you are at the other side of the world! We have an english shop in Browns Bay as well and buy Robinsons juice there and have also asked them to get some jars of pesto as the pesto you get in the supermarkets is not up to Kyle’s high standards and from the boy who would eat pasta pesto every night if allowed that’s not good.
We’ve decided that we need to get out and see more of New Zealand at weekends so last weekend we headed off to Murawai Beach on the West Coast. The sea is a lot stronger over there and the sand was black so a bit different to the East. Some photos loaded on Flickr.
We’ve also booked a house in the Coromandel Peninsula for weekend of 8th and 9th of September. The sister of one of Bobby’s workmates has a 3 bedroom house there that she rents out so we’re going to go there. There is some interesting stuff round there eg Hot Water Beach, Driving Creek Railway for Kyle and Cathedral Cove to name but a few. I’m quite looking forward to it. I’m sure photos will follow ….
Future trips/outings … have booked the Thomas stage show for October which I’m sure Kyle will love and we’re also thinking of going to the NZ stage of the Aussie V8 Supercars in Hamilton next year. Have to decide whether the children will sit still long enough to enjoy it ……
