An family friend and former scout leader Emma came through NZ for the hockey (masters) world champ, lovely to catch up for an evening. My friend Tim very kindly used his l33t soldering skillz to fixup Anna’s clock which changes colour for night/mornings (a crucial piece of parenting kit for us). Ice-pops have been made as the weather is heating up.

We had Sinterklaas come visit NZ which was very special for Anna. They really take it seriously, with 20 minute news segments for about 3 weeks prior to when he arrives. We went off to the Dutch society here for the funfair day. Dutch games, food etc. Nice time (hot!)

And then all so soon it was the end of the school year and time for the summer holidays (until early Feb!!). Anna won a “core skills” award… I think for being a general all-rounder.. fits the bill I think.. She fortunately appears to have inherited (or absorbed) Maaike’s way of dealing with people & situations, a skill which will be extremely useful I suspect!

With the days getting longer it was time for a trip to Orton Bradley. Not too far from ChCh and while the nicer separated camping area isn’t open until January, it’s still a nice place to get away to. Maaike biked out on the Saturday and I biked back from ChCh on the Monday (it was a public holiday). Actually, that’s one of the nice things about being an employee again – it forces me to take public holidays (I’d generally just skipped them in my previous contracting role).

I took Anna along to a beach cleanup with Sustainable Coastlines and we spent an hour or so collecting trash along the coast and then free ice-creams. Bargain.

On a more political note, we have a right-leaning government in power, and they’re trying to skip around the treaty of waitangi and basically trying to go “we’re all equal now”.. completely ignoring the century+ of inequity in NZ. There has been widespread peaceful protests which I was very happy to attend. I really hope with all the inflation and widespread economic downturn that NZ doesn’t move too far to the right and ACT get voted into oblivion at the next election. One can but hope (and vote)

And the absolutely wonderful protest in parliament.

The rest of October disappeared in a blur.  Had a nice time at clip & climb.  Anna still saving up getting to the top of each new climb, as when she does she gets an ice-cream, so, if she has already “earned” an ice-cream in a session she’ll get close to the top and then just come off.  Sneaky.

Went to the local performing arts.  It was probably the best performance we’ve been to yet, because they did a really really good job of getting the kids involved.  It was all improv, and they asked the kids for information – like “what’s the magical animal” etc.. and lots of “let us know when the baddies are coming” etc… half way to pantomime.  Very good.

And then Anna’s first real Halloween.  She had a great time.  Next time I think she’d like to make her own costume (a scarier one).  We’ll see.  Still seems really wrong to be doing it in daylight.

Also Anna has been practicing for an upcoming Kapa Haka.  Here you can see her and her friends practicing their pūkanas.  Very fierce.  Do Not Mess.

p.s. you need to be logged in to see the pics :)

I follow someone on Mastodon who alerted me to the Aurora being active.  Last time it was amazing and we were at a quiz night and basically missed it all, so, this time I decided to head out to birdlings flat to get some pictures.

To the naked eye it looked like … weird gray clouds which were going vertically?… but.. to the camera with a longer exposure it all just pops out.

The funniest thing though:  I got there, setup my tripod and excitedly took a picture.  Nothing, just black.  Tried again, nothing.  Figured out it was probably because I hardly ever use M (Manual) mode, tried again, nothing.  Looked around, saw people were getting amazing photos and got really sad that I wasn’t seeing anything.

Then I realised I still had the lens cap on…. :D

We had a lovely week up in Raglan visiting Val & Dom.  They very kindly lent us the use of their “cabin” that they built on their section.  Really lovely spot just surrounded by native bush, really lovely place to chill out for a week of the school holidays.

Anna had an incredible time with Val continuing to just pamper the heck out of her!  We also put Anna into a day of the school holiday programme, which she really enjoyed.

Walks were walked, games were played, avocado with truffle salt and toast and olive oil was eaten… it was a really lovely time.