Tablets and tables

Sorry for the absence. Not had the most thrilling of fortnights. I’ve managed to get bronchitis and have been lying low a bit. Coughing, spluttering and wheezing like and old lady, I have been stuffed with various pills by the Dr and await the day when I can get back running. Feels like it will be a while. I’ve not run for 2.5 weeks 😦

This has though coincided with a huge leap in my economic productivity. I have now officially set-off down the merry path of self-employment. At the moment I am generally researching stuff but I also have a couple of web pages to write and I am even being paid in proper New Zealand dollars and everything. I hope to focus more on public relations, copywriting and strategic work soon but you have to start somewhere. I have also bought a website domain name and will be sorting out my corporate positioning as soon as I stop prevaricating.

So to allow all this work to occur, we have had a bit of a financial splurge. We have built a table for a corner of the sitting room so I can work in the warmth during winter. I also have a very exciting spinny-round executive chair. It is all super.

And on Tuesday nights for the next 5 weeks I am attending an Accountancy for Small Business course at a local college 🙂 It’s a great course and I think it will be jolly useful.

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NZ Mother’s Day

I’m not sure why the day this country arbitrarily chooses to celebrate mothers is different to the same day in the UK.  But it is.  So today was our mothers day and we kicked the whole thing off with presents and cards and pre-breakfast in bed.  Emily and I had bought Josie “The Sound of Music” on DVD.  A bit of a hit it seems!

It’s been so lovely this ear because Emily has genuinely done it all herself and been able to really get excited about it and able to draw and write her own cards etc.

Even Lucy did a lovely card (with the help of Daycare – they know who pays the bill) but they did also include a little bag of truffles for her which was a nice touch!  Well done Kids Biz Torbay!

After pressie it was time for main breakfast – Waffles with Bacon.

We decided to spend a day out visiting somewhere new.  We’d heard a TV programme that the Kaipara Harbour is very beautiful, so we set of in order to find it.  We found it and the end of the line – literally a road that just stops in a little turning circle and that’s as far as you can go on this side of the harbour.

We walked down a very steep slope to Mosquito Bay to see if we could fulfill the promise that we’d get them to a beach.

Luckily we did, but it wasn’t the nicest due to being close to a farm runoff stream.  I’m not sure exactly what is in the water but I wouldn’t have wanted to swim in it even if it had been warmer.

We found a nice cafe at a Macadamia nut orchard on the way back.  A quick refuel of drinks and cake then back to watch The sound of Music (Josie’s present) whilst I make dinner.

Dinner tonight was a recreation of Findus Crispy Pancakes  and I really enjoyed making them almost as much as people enjoyed eating them!

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Twister

Well there’s something you don’t see everyday.  Actually we didn’t even see it this day, but today there was a bit of what I believe is referred to as a ‘weather event’ here in Auckland.  Just a few kms down the road at Albany shopping centre there was a tornado today that damaged roofs, picked up cars and smashed windows.  The harbour bridge was shut for a while whilst the tornado tracked south.  It crossed a main road, knocking a truck and lamposts over.

Thankfully we were all out of harm’s way.  Josie and the girls were at home and apart from heavy rain knew nothing of it.  I was in Takapuna quite a way further south and knew nothing until Josie sent me an SMS.    Sadly one person was killed, most likely from flying debris.  There were also a number of minor injuries.

There are a few amateur videos that have been sent in to news agencies.  Have a look at all the usual local papers:
NZ Herald
Stuff.co.nz
TVNZ

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Oh purrrrlease!

Today is National Alpaca Day here in New Zealand. Not sure I can add anything to that statement really.

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