The end of the golden weather - 03/05/04

Well, the rain has arrived, with a vengeance. It has been virtually dry the last two months and on Friday that all changed.

LOCAL NEWS

There was flooding in West Auckland (Henderson Valley) on Saturday night. It was pretty wet.

I am not mentioning the certain sheep that was given a haircut on live television both here and in various other places around the world where it was a slow news day. I can't believe the other channel tried to get in to film it. Heidi said it was on in Holland. Couldn't they cover something important? It's now off to meet Helen Clark - and not as a casserole (shame).

Richard Prebble, leader of the Act party and intermittent MP since 1975, stepped down this week. His claim to fame was waking up Rory as a baby outside our house in an election campaign whilst he was still with Labour. For that reason, we didn't vote for him and he lost. Not sure that it taught him a lesson. He was known as "mad dog" for a while.

Some git who posed as an adviser for the "Antiques Roadshow" program in the UK has been arrested for fraud locally.

Minister Tariana Turia resigned from the Labour Party and was sacked as Minister due to her issue with the foreshore legislation. Must have been hard to give up all the perks for something you believe in. Shenanigans this week avoiding the press were bizarre, she arrived at Parliament one day lying on the back seat of the PMs security car (maybe someone had left pizza in there, I don't know).

A Tauranga man was jailed for posing as a Saudi national to sit a pilot's exam.

The woman found guilty of attempted murder (why attempted murder, her mother died, isn't that just murder?) has been sentenced to 15 months in prison. She has so far refused home detention as an option.

Local celeb (she lives quite near by, although I have never seen her or Stacey Jones) Lana Coc-Croft has been in the news regularly, something about her being sick. She was brought back from Fiji from some celebrity treasure island thing and is in critical care in hospital. They don't seem to know what it is.

WORLD NEWS

Photos of US soldiers beating up prisoners have done nothing for their image in Iraq.

I really haven't been aware of overseas things lately, not sure why.

REAL SPORT

The rain made play uncertain and then cold and horrible. Despite that, the girls got out there and got warmed up, looking nowhere near as professional as the other team who were going through some drills and looked like marines. As the game started, it became clear that the other team wasn't quite what they appeared. They had their moments but just weren't well organised (neither were we, at times). We scored first, and then the other team equalised. In the second half we scored twice, then the other team scored a second and they could see an equaliser on the way. They hit us pretty hard, or more accurately we just didn't seem to get the ball away from our goal. The last 14 minutes felt like a wet week. We held on, to win 3-2. An awesome result after the drubbing last week and the girls are now two wins from three matches. Hannah didn't score, but she worked hard, did one awesome kick of the ball in the air sideways. After the game, they were buzzing and went on the playground and made huge splashes at the bottom of the three slides where there were large pools of water. They were already soaked, so they were let loose and they had a lot of fun. Neither of the other 11th grade girls teams have had a win yet, so we are are doing very well.

Rory's team were playing a team that lost to a team they had beaten, so they should have won comfortably. They all struggled in the conditions but they won 4-3 in the end. They are top of their table with three from three, but still no clean sheet for the goalie. Again, I didn't get to see it because the games were at the same time, hoping for the coordinator to juggle something for me so I can this weekend, at the moment they are both home games at 11, but a wangle might be possible.

The boys Div 3 and 4 teams also had their first wins of the season, which was great. Just need the Div 2 team to get one now.

I reckon I must have had/made fifty phone calls about soccer on Saturday.

SPORT

The Chiefs beat the Bulls narrowly in Hamilton to increase their chances of being in the semi-finals. The Blues came from behind to get five points from the Sharks in South Africa. The Crusaders came from an 8-9 deficit at half time and only 14 men (one was red carded for a gentle headbutt) to win 24-9 (which is pretty impressive, playing one short for 50 minutes). Then the Highlanders did the same thing and beat the Waratahs 29-28 with a man sent off for punching. The Hurricanes lost to the Brumbies.

Only a handful of games left in the season now. Man Utd lost to Blackburn 0-1, but Man City beat Newcastle 1-0. Wolverhampton beat Everton 2-1 as well, putting big pressure on Leeds. Roll on the FA Cup final on May 22nd. Liverpool won 2-0 over 'borough. The Arse remain unbeaten with a 0-0 draw with lowly Birmingham, and Leeds have stumbled yet again, losing 1-4 to Bolton after Viduka scored then got a red card (without Viduka they are crap). Leeds are now second to last on the table, behind the Wolves on goal difference. They are going down, baby.

There was V8 supercar racing at Pukekohe but races were cancelled due to rain on Saturday. Murphy came second on Sunday, not sure what in.

The Warriors had their first home win of the season. The Storm must be crap.

MY SAD LIFE

No majors with the cats this week, Pandora got her stitches out. Her ID tag broke, and she is now in stealth mode because her bell as fallen off, too. They have not enjoyed going outside in the rain, they come out with me when I go to my office at about 6 to 6:30am, it has become a ritual for them.

Rory was very bouncy on return from school on Monday this week. He has since calmed down. Hannah announced she has a new best friend when she came home from school on day (a new girl in the class) but haven't heard about her since.

Gavin is continuing to go everywhere with a thumb in the air. You just don't realise how hard it is until you see him doing shoelaces with one and a half hands and battling to eat dinner (carefully selected to be edible without a knife). He still has most of his sense of humour.

Ben the bump is nearly due to stop being a bump. I am sure Roger will let us know when the bump escapes. Enjoy your last days of freedom guys, it's never going to be the same again. Knowing previous history with Ben and Caitlin, this Ben will be born later today.

Heidi and Ad are off to Mallorca (I reckon that place has more spellings than hummus). Ad spent time recently dressed as a bottle of something in a play. I am worried about him.

Jono, you alive or what?

Diana and I took the man with the funny thumb to go see Kill Bill 2 on Friday night. It has some slow patches but is quite good, clever as well.

Did another radio spot yesterday, went fine. Am becoming a seasoned campaigner. It's not nice thinking about all those people out their listening with their gear off, though, so I don't do that any more. Ross & Kath listened to it a bit and said it bored Catie.

Tried to set up a new PC for the Goodins yesterday and it got a really nasty virus/worm called Sasser, it's out there and very aggressive. Gavin got it twice in the afternoon as well. The Goodins have their new 41" flat wide screen mounted on the wall in the kitchen, long story but they got it with purchase points for about 10% of the points that it should have cost. It's pretty cool.

This week, aliens invaded Rory and he decided he wanted to cook something. His parents were both very concerned. It was a chocolate slice thing, which he then managed to scrap with Hannah over how much she got. She got revenge later in the week with some chocolate fudge that used about half a year's supply of icing sugar.

The outdoor furniture we got about a week ago needed to get wet a few times for the natural oils to come out, etc. I reckon that's why it's rained so much.

I'M SORRY, I'LL WRITE THAT AGAIN

I forgot some things that happened last week.

Gavin went back to the surgeon and they reckon he could be off work for another 60 days. He wasn't too happy about that.

His cat needed the vet too, after she got some cuts on her neck which were abscesses from previous action in battle.

We went to the Bambi Baby Birthday last Saturday, Sasha is now one year old.

The kids and Diana went shooting with Bambi, at the Youthtown range. Diana had a go with a pistol and enjoyed herself a little too much, I fear. Hannah stuck to the rifle, don't remember if Rory used the pistol. Would have been fun to go.

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Don’t forget tomorrow, May the 4th be with you.