Watch out 'Boy' Racers!

Here are some shots of the kids having fun outside yesterday. Here is the "Gilder's
Grove Gang."






Look out here we come! Acutally it is quite steep!! The options are crash into Wayne and Erica's garage,
veer sharp right and get a nice long run off up Tracey's drive.Final option is to
land up in Fred and Barbara's rock garden.


As you can see from this next shot they made it safely thanks to good ol' fashioned foot brakes!!



This was taken at the Yuldhurst Transport Museum, where Danielle discovered her future career. To be honest I think she'd rather light the fire than put it out!! Notice the Rangiora Fire Truck in the background? A nice touch, I lived there for a couple of years as a kid.

Visitors

This weekend Bob and Margaret (Ann's parents) have come to visit as well as our good friend Hilary. Danielle announced that Grandma and Grandad, "would be pleased to see her!" So self assured!!

Ann is enjoying a rare night out on the town. She was like an excited teenager as she ran up the drive with Hilary as they headed out for a movie and meal with other friends.

Anicent Forest on our door step

We never realised that there was a 300 - 600 year old podocarp forest. Danielle, Samuel and me went on an amazing walk back in time to when Canterbury was mainly Kahikatia swamp forest. This was at Riccarton Bush. Here is the site of the oldest building in Canterbury. It is the house of the Deans who farmed the area back in the
mid 1800's. As far a pioneer cottages go it wasn't bad at all.
We'll have to go back with the camera and get
some photos as it is a stunning bush walk and
the setting of the cottage is amazing as well.

The Avoca Valley Preservation Society ala neighbourhood watch group

We received an invitation to attend the Valley Neighbourhood Watch Group tonight. Needless to say it was delegated to me (by one) to attend this auspicious occassion and to represent us as the newbies on the block!

What a turn out. There must have been 40 people there. Apparently one of the goals is to have a rip roaring street Christmas party (interpret that in the light of the fact that the avereage age was probably about 60+. No offense to family of that age or older!!) It turns out that the City Council will pay for it as well because it is all in the name of community development and safer communities, so long as we have it in October (who knows why?) The long standing residents figured, "hey, why not if they are paying?" So the date is in the calendar. Given ChCh's reputation for party crashing I am not putting the date on here - next thing you know the text messages will be flying and there could be a few gate crashers.

One particular item that came up for discussion was a particular resident's nephew (and his car mad friends) in our street who has lost his licence and fallen foul of the law. She is helping him onto the straight and narrow. Well there was little empathy for her mission I'm sad to say. Actually they are pretty tame but there was no end of discussion on this one. On one hand it was great to see such a strong neighbourhood gathering and people wanting to know their neighbours. I guess what saddened me (but it is also very human and I can understand it) is that strong desire to protect what is and usually that means a rejection (rather than a reaching out to) of those who threaten or challenge what is perceived "to be."

We enjoy the neighbourhood, the welcome we have had and the fact that our kids are so often out playing with neighbourhood friends. The next year here will be interesting in terms of how things unfold.

Living on a high wire!

One of the things we like to do is head on up the Gondola and enjoy the view. When it is free why not? Ann has been up a number of times with the kids and here are a few shots from today of the kids, yes it was a little cold, and a great shot of Lyttelton Harbour.

For those of you who had to wait for these photos and kept coming back to have a look - sorry. Technical problem - did not know what I was doing but brother-in-law Dave came to the rescue and took pitty on his technically challenged relative and gave me a few tips! Thanks for the mock blog Dave it really helped.

Intentions

Sorry still no photos but next week we are off to a kite flying day. After 11 months at the kite repair shop (my fault - lack of follow up and lucky they had not sold it!) I am finally in possession of my Flexi Foil Impulse again and the kids now have a couple of little delta wing (think Hang Glider) kites to fly. Picked these up for a song at the same kite shop.

There is a kite day next week just down the road. Hopefully Sam and Andrew will come and possibly Nick and Theo as well.

I'm looking forward to getting back into flying the Impulse which is a stroppy high performance kite but I do enjoy it!!

Follow those instructions.

Having recently had the experience of assembling a somewhat over spec'd flat pack furniture computer desk, and taking three hours to do it - the instructions were a liability - I braved (along with the much appreciated help of friend Andrew and kids Sam, Alana and Samuel) the assembly of the swing set. This had been generously given to us for use.

So, what did we do but choose one of the coldest and as it turned out dampest Saturdays to do it. All was going well when we broke for lunch. The mainframe was up and so was the swing. After exceptionally delicious soup of Ann's and fantastic coffee from Andrew and Lorraine, a local roast from beans sourced in Thailand at a price that has enabled the growers to stop growing opium, the next phase did not go quite so smoothly. It looked as if we were going to be thwarted at the final hurdle when it came to fitting the seats: big generally does not fit into small, metal into plastic is always a reason for caution and with these two combined with near freezing temperatures we were getting desperate when Andrew made the great Kiwi bloke suggestion of breaking off the offending part of the seat, afterall as far as we could see it was unnecessary and only in the way! What great advice! The seats fitted beautifully. Kids happily tested it out with smiles all round.

Thanks guys for your help and generosity.