Category: Uncategorized

Daniel took some photos: playdough hot cross buns the potty

I got sun burnt yesterday. No-one else in the family did. Just me. I put sunscreen on in the morning and it was a semi-cloudy day. I had my hat with me and wore it intermittently but it was windy and kept blowing off or in my face. I have considerable sun damage to my…

We went to the Wynyard Quarter today, the new waterfront development in the centre of Auckland. I visited the place a couple of months ago on my own with the kids and was keen to go back with Ben and my camera. I enjoyed this visit considerably more than the first time, partly because Ben…

I took the kids to the museum today. It was raining and there was no way I was going into the underground carpark so we parked a moderate distance away and walked through the rain. The queue at the ticket stall, although small, seemed to take hours and hours and Daniel kept asking me why…

Christchurch was hit by a Mag. 5.5 on Sunday night. It barely made a dent in the news here and wasn’t even mentioned internationally. But it was close to the city and shallow and would have caused damage in other places not previously broken by thousands of earthquakes like Christchurch. It seems that everything that…

It’s Ben’s birthday today and he was able to take the day off work so we all went to the zoo. I have a tendency to feel sorry for animals in zoos because it is just all so contrived and I can’t help but wonder whether the animals would rather be free.  But zoos have…

We went to Muriwai today, a beach 45km west of Auckland with a gannet colony and some fascinating geology. There are approximately 1200 gannets nesting on top of cliffs with vertical faces. A viewing platform has been built directly above for tourists like us to observe the activity. It is all completely free. I like how…

I met some more interesting personalities at Playgroup this week: an Indian nanny who asked me whether I was going to shave Elizabeth’s head one last time before letting it grow. I told her I’ve never shaved her head. That’s all the hair she has ever had. I think there might be a custom in…

Something different about Auckland compared with Christchurch is the mix of people I meet at Elizabeth’s playgroup. I don’t mean ethnically, although it is quite ethnically diverse, I mean in terms of the relationship each person has to the children they bring. In Christchurch at the playgroups I went to, it was mostly mothers, sometimes…

We took the kids to the opening of a toy store today. The advertisement for the event promised bouncing castles, balloons, face painting, performers and a sausage sizzle. Sounds like a great outing for preschoolers and it was. There was also a competition for the best dressed with three prizes awarded and Elizabeth won one!…

What happened to Freud this week? He may have got ill from trauma associated with the dog attack. It may have been the stress associated with the dog attack. Or it may have been something else altogether. Just because something happens after something else (e.g., illness after attack), it doesn’t necessarily imply cause and effect.…

Freud is looking much better today and is home now. Another ultrasound yesterday revealed the likely bleed in his abdomen had got smaller and was improving, and with it are all his symptoms. All the tests he’s had however have shown that Freud has every disease known to man plus a few more, but so…

Freud is not well. He was back with us last night but I’m to return him to a specialist this morning. Aside from having some internal bleeding, he’s also got kidney stones, a tumor above one of his adrenal glands, a heart murmur, a swollen pancreas, slightly elevated blood sugar and dry eye. It’s likely…

Freud is suddenly quite ill. Yesterday when we returned home from Piha I noticed a great deal of panting and a reluctance in him to do anything, even lie down which is something Freud is very good at. When he refused to eat his dinner and vomited all over the place we decided to rush…

We went for a picnic on Piha beach today. We really ought to have checked the weather forecast first though because it rained and rained all day and so we ended up having a picnic at the beach in the car.  Piha is about 30km west of Auckland and is reached after a gorgeous drive…

Recently I’ve noticed that the photos I’ve been taking with my camera have been cloudy. Today we went to Takapuna and I really wanted to get some good shots of Rangitoto. Feeling disappointed with the first few photos, I inspected the camera closely and discovered grubby fingerprints all over the lens! So with a clean…

Daniel: I’m going to be a doctor when I grow up. Are doctors mans?Me: Some doctors are men and some are women. Why do you want to be a doctor?Daniel: Because I’m a man.—————————————————————— Daniel: Why does Christchurch have earthquakes?Me: Because the ground beneath Christchurch woke up and it’s moving and stretching before it settles…

I’ve just flea-bombed the house. So c’mon fleas, bring it on! If we all die from poisoning overnight, at least the fleas are going down with us. Perhaps I should have caught a few and trained them up for a flea circus. Might have helped pay the mortgage on our new home. Zeki’s personality has…

We just bought a house! It’s the one we put the pre-auction offer on. The owner was finally tracked down in America and after a bit of negotiating we came to an agreement. All potential purchasers from the open home last weekend were contacted (the house was only just listed so this was the first…

The fleas are still unwanted house guests here. Zeki has flea allergy dermatitis and it just takes one flea to cause a reaction for him. He’s covered in splotches and has lost a significant amount of fur. He wakes me through the night with incessant scratching. I’ve been bathing him twice weekly, vacuuming every second…