Wellington 11/02
We're in Wellington for work/play and the Webstock conference for a week. What a stupidly gorgeous city.
House 07/02
Still busy as hell, everything still very crazy but much less so. We have finally moved into our flat. Elise is proudly sleeping in a big girls bed and we feel we have crested the homeless crazy hump although the signs of downwards momentum are very faint. Mainly because our furniture from London has been stuck in ports and/or customs for weeks so we are living like squatters in our own house eating all our meals on a picnic table outside and sitting on garden chairs and mattresses. At least it's warm I geuss and at least we had a nice bed in storage at Kiri's, which is a big win. Sarah and Dad both had birthdays this week, so happy birthdays to them!
Baboonery 25/01
Wasabi 15/01
A little bit more.
Fish 13/01
Sami makes her position clear on the whole are fish food or friends issue.
Christmas, 40, Happy New Year and that sort of thing 12/01
This blog is neglected (I have a backlog of photos from London, Melbourne and now here in Auckland I need to put up at some stage) and will be until we move into (and then settle into) our new flat later this month. But for the record ... Christmas at Taupo was ace with a bit of Mountain Biking and running on my part and leisuring on Sarah's, I turned 40 (a landmark birthday I completely failed to celebrate to the extent it probably deserved although being with Family was great) and 2011 ticked over to 2012 with everyone in my family being in bed.
We are all good. I'm working my arse off and have mixed feelings about being back. I love it when the sun is out, and I definitely love being warm all the time but most of the time we have been back it has just rained for days on end. Not everyday, but most days for sure. We are surviving on the patience and generosity of family and friends, we dossed at Kiri's who very graciously let me unleash my large chaotic family on her perfect little one (for now ...) and now we are staying at Nicole and Alan's while they are on holiday. The girls are doing amazingly but all the moving around (we have been homeless for two months now) has definitely taken a toll on Elise and to be honest she has struggled at times. Mostly though she is her happy noisy self and recently told Sarah she loved her and today told me she missed me when I came home from work, which warmed up a tired and grumpy old man. I miss London but I expected that at this settling stage and I have a coffee every morning on the waterfront looking at the tankers and cargo ships and only ever wear a jacket when I go inside to my stupidly over air conditioned office so I can't complain really. Although I often do.
This is where I have that (excellent) coffee. That time of the morning the docks are mostly deserted too, which I like.
And during that coffee I look out at this:
So imagine the two photos above, and you more or less have it. As long as you add torrential rain.
More seriously than the Blog being neglected, our friends both in London and here in Auckland are neglected as life is just moving too fast for us to keep up with at the moment. But we haven't forgotten you and as soon as the dust settles we sill slowly and steadily start rebuilding our network of people we aren't related to but feel like we are.
Also, this blog was hacked, which is why the photo page only goes to 2010, it's all un-hacked now and I'll restore the photo stage to it's former ungainly bulk at some stage. In the mean time, Marmite Pizza anyone?