Kiwi Traditions

There's something to be said for those long held traditions passed down the generations. For e.g. back yard cricket; especially the variant played with two tennis balls, where the most exuberant "fielder" is a Maltese Yorkshire Terrier cross!

Sam, Danielle, Oscar and me visited the Dickie family of Waverley today. While Danielle and Rebecca played the boys played that most respectable of back yard games.

It was hilarious as Oscar tore round grabbing the ball, occasionally giving it back. Most of the time his efforts necessitated a ball change. The balls grew increasingly soggier as the game went on, at one stage prompting Daniel to say that he thought he could feel rain drops on catching the ball. We concluded it was Oscar's spit! We all had a ball (pun intended).

A great afternoon of fun on a still and very warm autumnal day in April.

Geocaching

We're still enjoying this activity.

Recently we found four out towards Blackhead, Waldronville (a very clever one that Alana solved) and two around the speedway. Two closer to home have evaded us: one down the bottom of the Glen near Avoca Road and the other along the green belt, which we've been to twice,and it quite literally has us stumped!

The kids all love to choose a cache, read the description, the clues & hints, then navigate for us to the site and be the first to find. This earns them the privilege of signing the log book and being able to log the find on the website.

We do it all using the GPS on the iPhone 3GS and it seems to work very well. The Geocaching site we belong to is superb.

Chainhills Road Visit

After today's ride we all, well most if us, headed out to the Park's park. Great food, excellent company, happy noisy kids, awesome chocolate cake, camp fire in the complete shelter of the gulley complete with bench seats and toasted marshmallows and a spectacular view of the southern night sky (thanks Greg) rounded off a fantastic afternoon.

Technology frustration

This week Outlook Express on the lap top decided to retire! This is not the only software to do this. Firefox and Thunderbird have previously ceased to function. Then Windows Wireless Manager on the PC decided now would be a good time to trash the connection. No reason given. In the case of the lap top a highly unintelligible reason is given - a complete non answer. Telecom weren't much more help making suggestions that clearly showed that the person answering had either not read and understood my message or randomly chose an irrelevant stock answer. Of course when I replied seeking further assistance, no response! Typical. How computer phobes or those with little interest ever get on is beyond me. I've now got about 10 pages of Microsoft tech support help, found on Internet to work through to try and sort it out for myself.

Danielle returns home

Danielle has had the last week at Roxburgh Health Camp, she absolutely loved her time there. The swimming - 4 hours in the pool, the fashion show where she got to dress up as a Cheer Leader were favourites. Apparently the food was better this time too.

One very excited, very tired and glad to be home wee girl!

Redwood Ride

A stunning day for us to head off into the hills behind Dunedin. Alan D, Greg P, Dave B, Simon G, Andre C (past Dunedinite now Perth Western Australia) and myself all took to our bikes (borrowed in to cases). Thanks to Paul C and Wendy B for extra bikes - Greg the blue suited you! Awesome riding and thanks to Simon for showing us the Second Weir track that really makes the whole area much more interesting and challenging to ride. The 'post mortem' coffee was good too.Thanks guys!! So, Perth is it next time?