Nick opens the champagne

anubis vs juice man

Been a while - Australia, London update,

It's been a while since I have hit any of my blogs - so not sure where to start on the updates for the family one. Probably should start with Tash leaving for London on 2 March. She managed multiple send offs including this one on Saturday night which is a combined celebration for her Granny's birthday and her leaving.

She left just as she was beginning to achieve fame for her graffiti knitting which has now become international with her first tagging in Dublin.

Then a couple of weeks ago Nick and I headed off to Sydney for a long weekend. We had barely got there when David and Lauren took us off to the Hunter Valley for wine trailling (and buying!). It was a great relaxing weekend to celebrate my birthday.

Since then Natasha has got a job and is moving into a new place to live - she was heading off to Brighton this weekend (wonder if she'll remember the Pavilion from when she was 20 months old!) so it looks like she is settled in for a reasonable length OE this time around.

Jon's Tryathalon

It was a beautiful day for the Weetbix Tryathalon and while a bit of waiting around to get started was involved Jon did really well (particularly in completing the bike leg seeing the lack of training he had) He still had some energy to bounce around afterwards and was buzzed to get autographs on his shirt from Conrad Smith and Piri Weepu as well as Weetbix guy and one of the Evers Swindell twins on his swim cap.

Shrove Tuesday

Its a reasonably rare event for everyone to sit around our bench and eat together (although more common than eating at the table!) And I was a touch late with the camera but this was our pancake dinner for Shrove Tuesday.

Jon's nose was a bit out of joint because it was his turn to cook and he wanted to make tacos or nachos. So I ended up suggesting I'd swap with him. I wasn't quite quick enough to suggest that he start practising for Lent early and be cheerful about not getting his way!

I managed to cook all the pancakes without burning any or setting off the fire alarms!

Lucy's farewell concert

Not quite sure how it happened but we forgot the first day of school photo!!! So these will have to do instead. Lucy has worked for me at the Ministry for the last couple of years during the university holidays and has now been accepted for Music Performance in Flute Honours at the Australian National University in Canberra. It is an indication of Jon's affection for Lucy who has done all sorts for him over the past few years that he sat patiently through a 45 minute flute recital. He was inspired enough to ask if he could have piano lessons!

Arthurs Pass

It was a bit of a shock to the system to realise that the last time I had gone looking for the strawberries at Arthur's Pass Jon was only a year old and Toby was ten. Now Jon is ten! The strawberries were still there although very few were ripe - cant have been as much sun before Chirstmas as the plants themselves had spread. They are still right at the back against the bush and, fortunately, mainly behind the Catholic Tramping Club hut, given the rapid encroachment of the concept of private property in Arthur's Pass township.

Jonathan told us a couple of nights back that he is now officially a "tween" which may account for his sudden allergy to having his photo taken. Despite that he is still into hunting for the tiny fish if the stream behind the school. We met the guy from Mountain House today while we were up that way and he loaned Jon a special fish trap which he has just gone off to check on. I'll add photos to this post later once I have got the re-sized ones off the other laptop.

The weather has been reasonably typical - sunny and windy with cloudy patches most days although today (Tuesday) it has slipped to overcast with intermittent light showers