Here we are again, time to update the blog. What is time? How can a day go slowly for one person and quickly for the next? Since we got out here the days have been flying past, barely giving us time to think. My sleep patterns seem to have resumed to their normal up all night scenarios. I am planning to avoid bed perhaps tonight or tomorrow night to see if I can’t get the pattern to alter and allow me a more normal routine.
Night Photography
Anyways, what have we been up to this week? I have been trying my hand at night time photography again. Aidan and I went for a hurl last Friday night and took a few pics. I will really need to go out some night myself so I have more time and less distractions though.
Road Trip
On Saturday we went for a 252km round trip to Whangamata. Some brilliant scenery and amazing winding roads although there is not an abundance of places to stop and take piccies.
We travelled up the east coast and then drove over towards Thames for the return journey.
Aidan picked up an uninvited guest on route to Whangamata. A bee landed on his upper arm causing him to freeze. I have never seen him stand so still or quiet in my life!
The bee decided not to hang around for long though, leaving Aidan to resume his normal noisy, active life. I did manage to get him to stand still long enough for the photo below.
Upon arrival at Whangamata we stopped off briefly at the beach for yet another nice view.
On the way back we stopped off at the Karangahake Gorge for a quick look.
We are planning to go back there to spend a bit more time and explore the old railway tunnels and things. Aidan didn’t seem to sure about the suspension bridges we had to walk over after he read the sign - “No more than 10 persons at any one time”. In an attempt to reassure him I bounced up and down which resulted in having the opposite effect.
After that we took a detour through Omokoroa (so the trip would have been more than the 252km’s I mentioned earlier). On reaching the end of the road we discovered the Omokoroa Boating Club which has a very familiar looking logo!
So that was Saturday.
Rumble…BOOM!
The start of the week brought some brilliant thunder & lightning. I awoke to the sound of the thunder at about 0400. It can take a lot to wake me normally! Amazingly enough Tania and Aidan appeared to sleep through it. I have never heard thunder rumble on for so long. It was powerful enough to shake the house and the local paper reported peoples windows being shattered. The following night we got another couple of rumbles but nothing quite as dramatic as the previous night. Over 10,000 strikes were recorded over NZ with about 180 here in the Bay of Plenty. It managed to knock out the power to about 8500 homes although we weren’t affected.
There were more power-cuts in Mount Maunganui later in the week due to “high winds” ahem. Please take that with a pinch of salt as the highest gusts recorded at the Airport were 70km/h or 38knots or 43.5mph. Yep, you read that right, 2400 homes had their power disrupted due to a 38knot wind!
Catalogue of canine catastrophies
In other news it looks like dogs are having a hard time out here. My last update informed you of the barbecued pooch. Since then a man has shot his dog over a dispute with Whangarei District Council. The man attempted to register his dog with the council three times but refused to supply his date of birth as he regarded it an invasion of privacy. When the council didn’t back down, he shot his dog, stuffed it in an empty dog biscuit bag and dropped it off at the council HQ. Man’s best friend?
Grumpy Old Git rant
My rant this week is all down to Facebook. I currently get emailed any updates and as they were mounting again I thought I had better log in and clear out all the shite. For those of you that don’t know, Facebook has a number of ‘Apps’ that people can invite you to take part in. These range from one or two useful ones to a billion or two that are a complete waste of time. As I hadn’t logged in for 4 or 5 weeks I had over 100 of these invites and suggestions and suchlike. I do not care to be kidnapped by anybody nor do I want to join their vampire club. Thank you for your offer of a virtual drink but what exactly am I supposed to do with it? Virtually drink it and get virtually drunk. Perhaps I should stop by the hospital after partaking in so many virtual drinks and ask them politely if they will virtually pump my stomach.
The thing that got my blood pressure to rise enough to make me rant about this subject was when I got an invite to, “When will you get pregnant?”. Now excuse me but I can’t see that happening anytime in the near future can you?
I am seriously considering registering www.facebookwithoutalltheshite.com and campaigning for Facebook to have a simple button, like a light switch, that lets you turn off all the crap and use the website for what was originally intended and what it could be very good at. Keeping in touch with colleagues and friends. So please support FWATS today by not sending me shite!
Fizzy Eggs & Pickled Bru
Irn Bru and Pickled Eggs don’t exist. At least they don’t here. I have still been fruitless in my search for pickled eggs on these shores. They just don’t seem to sell them. It is for this reason that I have taken it upon myself to attempt my very own pickled eggs. Stay tuned to find for the next update to find out how “Pooks’ Pickled Eggs” turned out!
Three Month Holiday
I guess that this is us now officially at our 3 month mark. That means that I have now been unemployed for 1/4 of the year. I had an interview earlier in the week which turned out to be a little strange. As soon as I arrived at the hotel where the interviews were being held, alarm bells started ringing in my head. Nevertheless I went through with the interview and the interviewer commented on how he could see that I was a smart person. Well, Rod, yes I am. I was smart enough to go home and do a little digging on the company. Every report I read said to run, run as far as you can. The whole employment is basically a Multi Level Marketing/Pyramid Scheme where you end up earning nothing and working every hour of the day for it. Normally I wouldn’t mention company names on here but in this case I am going to make an exception. Purely down to the fact that they are the most ethically repulsive company I have come across. So to anybody considering Combined Insurance as a future employer, I suggest you do a little googling first.
Smish, smash he was making a dash
That pretty much rounds up my news for this week. Nothing much else to report apart from the usual breakages that occur. Aidan managed to shove Eggy (my egg cup) off a teetering precipice the other night, murdering him in the process. I do have another, matching, egg cup. Eggy 2. Nobody seems to care that Eggy 2 will now be quite lonely in the dark cupboard all by himself though. Tania smashed another Pyrex dish (Un-named) tonight, I am beginning to think that it is a ploy to make room for all the crap that is being shipped out.
That is all for now, I am off to perfect my recipe for Pickled Eggs. Tata.
5 comments:
God that was quick Sara!
Who, me?
I didn't do anything...
Nice to read your update and finally hear what you've all been doing for the past couple of weeks :-)
I gather the boxes still haven't arrived? Are you sure they're not still in Shetland?
Lol, that insurance company sounds like Mannheim here. Same schemes. Stay away from Herbalife too :D
You or another Belgian visitor looked at the Blog almost the instant I posted it. Now as they didn't get here via search string, they must have already known the address. That coupled with the fact the same IP has visited the site several times I am guessing it was you. Can't think of many other visitors from Belgium chancing by it so readily! :)
No boxes here yet. They are supposed to be in Auckland but we don't know if anybody has actually opened the container to see if they were loaded yet!
Thanks for the advice, between companies that are shit to work for and companies that don't want to employ me I am running out of choices!!
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