4 October 1999

Another week, another month, another term - 04/10/99

Well, a new term, the last of the year, for the kids today. Hannah goes back to a larger class than she left with all the newly-turned five year olds arriving.
Caught sod all news during last week. Peter was away for three days so I didn't see many papers.
Safe to assume that East Timor featured, with more troops going over after they finished winding up their tanks and getting corks from wine bars in Ponsonby Road (ammo for their pop-guns). Costing NZ $75million so far, sending the bill to the presidente, I should think.
Electioneering continued, though nothing interesting. Centre-left holds slender lead but Winston seems to be bouncing back. I will not forgive the country if they vote him into a coalition again.
Weather was good, news was mostly the sort of thing they do on a quiet news day.
Far more interesting crap coming down overseas. Earthquake in Taiwan, Mexico, Nuclear disaster in Japan. We are sooo boring in NZ. What I wouldn't give to be able to report a nice eruption, or perhaps a tidal wave. News the other day that we were working on a bomb to create tidal waves during WWII. Canned the project after the war finished but tested it on Whangaparoa peninsular (test it now and government would save heaps in pensions).
In reality, news bulletins were dominated by sport, as they should be.
Netball was all over the telly, with basically a game every day for the Silver Ferns. Lots of whinging from the West Indians, reckoned they were getting picked on, maan. The South Africans lost to England in a close game in the quarter finals, shame. We lost to the Australians by one lousy point, we were up more often than them, very sad.
Rugby World Cup kicked off on Friday night our time, much excitement with Christian Cullen at centre and Jonah back on the wing to start. We played Tonga, and although it was close in the first half, we won about 45-9 or so. Play England this weekend, the big game.
Wellington beat Canterbury in a surprise result, Auckland just beat Taranaki, Waikato did their last Ranfurly Shield defence successfully against Otago. North Harbour just beat Counties, Northland beat Southland. I figure Auckland has a home semi regardless of the last round next week, so should Waikato. North Harbour play Canterbury, the winner will be third place semi-finalist and Wellington at home should beat Otago to clinch fourth.
We won some golds in a bowls world champs in KL (yawn).
Man U pulled one out of the hat mid-week, Andy Cole scored a superb Pele-style goal and they won 2-1 over some loser team in the Euro Champs. They lead their group. Then, last night, they lost their first championship game in 29 or something, a convincing 5-0 loss to Chelsea. Rory was philosophical. He hates Chelsea now, known as the mincers.
First ever game for the Kingz FC, the first ever professional football club in NZ. I was at an Italian Dinner. I don't even like Italian football. They missed a penalty and lost 3-0, better than Man U this weekend so not all bad.
Kids spent the week going to yet more birthday parties. They went to Rainbows end one day, for a party. Diana got soaked on one of the rides, was the highlight for Hannah, I think.
I keep doing my bit preparing to move the office. Chaos at home and work.
The house is getting there slowly. Moved the washing machine and dryer, new basin by the old toilet. Ripped out the wall where the mirror was in the bathroom, which now extends to where the old toilet door was. Not much gib on the walls, yet, pretty drafty. The bath was replaced yesterday, with a new one, pretty hard fiddling work. (Rossco - it is a real pain to have sellotape holding the plastic on that creates a mission to remove, all the stickers are much easier to remove. Also, Rory says it should say pipework or pipes, not piping on the sticker about not lifting). The new bath has jets and stuff, which I think the kids will overuse.
Worked damn hard yesterday on the house and not really ready for this week at all, need a rest and it isn't even 10:00 yet. Cut my first nog, nailed it in. Carried gib and fetched and carried for Symon, whilst burning wood most of the day. Should start coming together in the next fortnight or so. Haven't lost the shower yet, that will be a major pain. Get heaps of wiring work done this week hopefully, in the bathroom (heater, lights, mirror demister, heated towel rail, shaver socket, extractor fan for shower, gear for bath) uses more power than a server room I think.
By the way, we did the daylight saving thing in NZ over the weekend - that was big news too. It must be twenty years since the farmers started bleating about it. They have bitched about the seasons being all wrong for millenia so not much of a surprise.
No news of Thomas over the weekend, although his health improved during the week.
Anyway, everyone be happy, definitely on the downhill route to the end of the year now. Start buying for Christmas.

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