What I did on my holidays - 10/01/00

We all enjoyed the New Year stay at Muriwai. There were eight families. Five of the kids there were survivors from the Pt Chev Kindy Ski Trip, Rory, Jeremy Thompson, Marina, Ariella, and Nicola Mitchell. We got a photo of them together at the water hole. Occurred to me that Hannah and Guy and some of the younger siblings were also present at the ski trip, but too late for the photo. The kids ran around heaps, me and Barry (Marina's Dad) played a fair bit of table tennis (about three games every two hours, roughly). Reckon we must have played 40 games all up, including the trans-millennial game we started before midnight and finished after midnight including the trans-millennial rally. As soon as midnight happened, I raced outside (in the rain) and ran the length of the football field to be the fastest man of the millennium over that distance (officially 100m, unofficially more like 78).
We played a game of soccer on NY Day, Rory scored two goals for our team. Robbed of a hat-trick. Went for a walk in the bush, up to the pine forest, to a Pa which looked like a lump of dirt. Our kids behaved pretty well, not many tears. One kid tried to brain Rory with a Super Soaker 50 (challenged him to a water fight, Rory pulled out two SS100's).
We pulled out the portable and let the kids play Pokemon on it, kept them very quiet. One melt-down from a woos over not getting a turn, he balled for about an hour (needed a bloody good slap if you ask me). Rory was pretty good about sharing it, although needed some encouragement at times. We played cricket, T-ball, got my arse whipped at backgammon.

The big game at the Kingz on Monday. Rory said early in the day he wouldn't be mascot again, changed his tune by the end of the game. Spent an hour with the players, on the field for warm up. Introduced to the captain of the other team, the ref, stood out in the middle for the national anthem. Awesome. Heaps of people there to see him, Allan & Jackie, with Paul and Nicola, Paul's friend Brendan (the offside merchant) and his mum, Nanny, Granny, John, Peter and Jeremy Smith, and us of course. We took photos and video of the occasion, a collectors video will be released shortly, send your orders to me with five pound attached. Even better, the Kingz won 3-1, but Canberra were crap. We had a man sent off with about 25 minutes to go, it was after that when Canberra scored. Rory had his name in the program, and got one signed by the team, which is going to be kept.
We said goodbye to the kids after the game and they went off with Granny and John. The following morning, free of children, we painted the ceiling (we really know how to live, don't we). After that, we did a late breakfast, wandered around Victoria Park, argued about me wanting to buy stuff for the kids, wandered around Takapuna, went for a curry, went home and collapsed.
We both missed the kids heaps for the three nights we were without them. We wanted to do all sorts of things we can't normally do, couldn't think of anything really. Couldn't go into a toy store without someone whinging (I was still there, after all). We got dirty (painted the ceiling in the bathroom). Diana dragged me around some shops (would rather be anywhere than there). It was okay, but glad to have them back. Nice that I miss them, I guess.


In a shocking amount of journalistic honesty, TV3 announced at 6pm on the 4th that there was no news, and a repeat episode of Hogan's Heroes ran in it's place. But seriously, we had a repeat story about Peanuts being retired that we had heard a good week earlier, and other slow news day stuff. No mention of my achievement on the football field, despite emails to all the major news services. Have been to check my picture out on the idg site about four times to see if it is still there.
The Black Caps won the first ODI in Auckland (just, if you ask me) on the second, and the second easily in Taupo on the 4th. The third was pathetic with Windies all out for 159 (should have been less). First two were rain shortened. Cairns smacked a pretty good 70-odd in the first and was 27 not out in the second, dubious loss of wicket in the third. Vettori did some good work with the ball, Fleming finally got over fifty. The WIndies are winded if you ask me. Kind of lost interest a little, now four nil, with yesterday's total reached with loss of two wickets (Astle and Twose scored the runs) by the 36th over. We have batted second in every match so far.

Couple of kids drowned when they were sucked out to sea by a freak wave at a beach near Waitara. Road toll was up to 14, not sure what the final high score was for the holiday period (18). Some youths were taking potshots at motorists and pedestrians in Taupo with an airgun. The bus company is now sending out security guards with the buses in South Auckland. The attack I mentioned a week ago has spawned another four or five.
The first baby of the new millennium had a heart problem, a west-Auckland boy who's parents have signed with Andy Haden as an agent. Bloody hopeful if you ask me. Now, a Tongan baby reckons it was first (Tonga moved to daylight saving time late last year to be one hour ahead of us). Why would anybody care? They seem to think this baby is going to be news for the rest of it's life. Not for me it isn't.

People keep tipping out of wakas, a prison inmate died in Rotorua after 14 were tipped by a 2m wave. Morons for going out in that kind of weather. To my knowledge, Gavin was not involved in any capsized wakas.
A woman doing the samaritan thing got her hand caught when two boats drifted apart and her hand was wrapped in it (duh). Surgeons tried to reattach the hand.
A boatie who ran over a diver was found to be innocent of wrongdoing. The diver came up nowhere near his boat and there was no flag and he was on his own. Too many things can go wrong when diving. Dork.
Another diver was rescued 18km from his boat. What is it with people on holiday? Do they want to die?
One piece of wonderful news, no murder/missing young person from New Year's Eve. We had Ben & Olivia, then Kirsty. At last we can return to normal (this has also made work harder for the news people).
An 18yo died when he ran into a powerpole after a chase with police. Frankly, I can't see why the police should copy any flak over that. If a police car kills some innocent third party whilst chasing a perp then yes, that is not good. But if someone who has been stealing tyres fails to stop, and then kills themselves, saves the justice system from putting them in jail, far as I can tell. I reckon the sentence should double if someone fails to stop within say 60 seconds, and double again for every minute beyond that. Would discourage high speed chases. Should also allow the police to use forward mounted heat-seeking missiles. That would really discourage this behaviour. Another stolen car crashed almost as soon as a police car put on their siren and lights in Wellington on Friday. No fatalities this time.
Some brilliant criminal minds decided to pinch a bottle of bourbon from an East Tamaki Liqour Store. A 5ft woman attacked with a baseball bat as they attacked her husband. They got away but were caught minutes later with the bottle.
News about a chap who had an abscessed tooth and died from that weird disease in Holland, they blamed the hospital (his mother) but it is not nice. Necrophiliac poliomylitis, or polarising mastitis or something.
Stars & Stripes winning in the semi-finals so far, racing cancelled Tuesday. Prada generally crapping out to start with. Broke a mast one day. japs seem to be falling to pieces too. Racing most days, hard to keep up. Not sure when the semi's are finished. Now looks like AmericaOne and Prada may come through. They have raced 6 now, not sure how many are in the semi's (five would have made sense).
The Kingz drew 1-1 after an extra time goal from Carlton. Harry Ngata (who was captain and really nice to Rory the previous game) scored the goal from a corner and a defender's deflection.
Manchester United are out of the world club soccer champs (thought it had already been won in Tokyo) when they lost to Vasco de Gama 3-1 (thought he was an explorer, not a football team).
Aussie lost to Pakistan in a one day match with the banned bowler Shoaib Aktar being allowed to play.
NZ beat Fiji in the seven's final in Uruguay, NZ now leading the points table.
No mention of the mercedes driving actor speedster, but a billionaire drug guy was given name suppression and bail and told to wander around the harbour and have fun. Poor chap.

My friend Tania had a baby girl on Saturday, Alexa, 7lbs 1oz. Steve sounded pretty happy. Was long and painful from what I have heard, although actual labour was about three hours. Visited her at the Cornwall Suite at National Women's yesterday. Very nice. You can pay extra to have a room there. Was where Diana and Rory went the night he was born, they were delivery rooms then.

Big weekend, with a 21st party for my half-sister Sarah. Her parents didn't come. Great amounts of preparation for a couple of days beforehand. Utterly knackered ourselves tidying, weeded the petanque court (hasn't been done for a while), cleaned out the building detritus from the cobbles. Can't say it was a spectacular night, but I think she was happy, not sure her parents are going to do anything for her birthday. We met Scott's parents and one brother. Parents are really nice, they used to live around Pt Chev. Brother was a bit shy, but into computers in a big way. Met some of Scott's friends, nice bunch of guys (not many had women with them).
Rory went off to the speedway that night with Ryan, had a good time, was pretty late by the time he got home. He was home well after everyone had gone (we started at 2pm). Think the party was a success, was certainly not stressful, perhaps not the flashest.
Oh yes, Koos, Sjaan dropped in yesterday with Helen (you didn't tell me her Dad died) with her two kids (they are really cute).
One last thing. I am sooo sick of the M word. Rory keeps saying things like "this is the first time I have had butter on my toast this M, century, decade, year, week, day, hour, minute, second, millisecond, nanosecond, picosecond, etc". All advertising is y2k this, M that. AAAarrrrrggghhh!
Well, that about wraps up the first ten days of the new year. Hope everyone is over their new year activities.