My grip on local affairs has not been very good this week, and I apologise for that.
Weather has been good.
LOCAL NEWS
Interest rates ratcheted up another quarter of a percent. Mortgages are not as cheap as they were and people with large ones must be feeling squeezed.
The mayoral race continues. Poor old Christine Fletcher has had her theme of "No Spin" changed to "No Spine" on signs all over Auckland. It's quite funny, because she is a bit wimpy, so the change is quite apt.
A mother, father, and baby died in a car crash. The baby was sitting unrestrained on the knee of the mother in the front seat. The lesson is if you are driving with a baby like that, consider staying on your side of the road. They killed someone in the car they hit, too.
The boss of a waste trucking company says Auckland should move the port out of the city to alleviate traffic. It's probably not a bad point, but it isn't just trucks that are a problem. It's the whining from everyone who commutes from one end of the city to the other.
New Zealand Idol runner up Michael Thingy released a song that was labelled an original, but it turned out it had even been nominated for a grammy when released by the band that wrote it a couple of years ago. Much egg on face.
A report on levels of dioxin in residents living near a former 2,4,5T plant in New Plymouth showed their levels to be three times that of normal. The plant ceased manufacture a good ten to fifteen years ago so the levels should have reduced in that time. Residents were not happy, to say the least.
WORLD NEWS
The bombing outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta was big news. Technically, it is an attack on Australia, but it was outside the embassy grounds. There was one heck of a lot of broken glass.
REAL SPORT
Rory's team suffered from some bad planning and lost their game 3-7 on Friday night against the top of the table team. I think the mistake was that they didn't put the A team out in the first quarter and so they were playing catch-up for the rest of the game. Rory was in goal in first quarter, and off for second. It was 0-5 by then. We scored twice in the third (including one by Rory) and once in fourth but wasn't enough. In the third quarter we had the strongest team out there, and it showed. We know better for next time.
Soccer prize giving was on the same time as the water polo (or so I thought). It ended sooner than expected so I got to see the whole game, didn't think I would.
SPORT
Liverpool won 3-0 over West Bromich, Arsenal 3-0 over Fulham, Chelsea drew 0-0 with Aston Villa, and Man Utd drew 2-2 with sodding Bolton.
Auckland teenager Marina Erakovic won the junior female doubles at the US Open, first time in a long time that any New Zealander has won anything, and a first for New Zealand woman.
In NPC rugby, North Harbour beat Southland 35-16, Bay of Plenty beat Otago 44-16, Waikato beat Northland 41-21, Wellington beat Auckland 27-21, and the big news was Taranaki 30-23 over Canterbury for the first time in 26 years. Taranaki are top of the table with five wins from five, they only need one more to be sure to be in the semi-finals (one assumes none of the players live near the dioxin plant). Auckland are almost definitely not in the semis, as they have four matches left and only one win. Northland haven't won a game, and are the only team to lose to Auckland. The three "land" teams are still on the bottom.
England beat Poland 2-1, Wales had a 2-2 with Northern Ireland in World Cup 2006 qualifying.
MY SAD LIFE
Have had a very busy week (probably equivalent of a typical week for Penny or Goodins). I didn't enjoy myself. Barbara is still in hospital, although not really sick just having trouble sorting pain relief out. We have hired a contract accountant to cover for her so I can do other stuff next week. I did the equivalent of two weeks work in one week, that is a lot.
Rory had a school dance on Thursday night, I think that contributed to everyone in the water polo team being less than their best on Friday night, to be honest.
Much excitement this week in build-up to Hannah's party, which was on Saturday. It was a Fear Factor birthday party for 13 girls. I spent the morning making vomit and preparing everything, with loads of help from Rory while Diana prepared food with Nanny and Hannah. There was races for flags, putting face in water then flour to bob for lollies, then crawling through vomit minefield with part of an onion in your mouth. Nobody cried, nobody spewed. Hannah went first on the lolly bobbing, and after she did it I wondered if anyone else would, but they did, then I did. They all did really well, but it was chaos.
Then we had to carry washing machine outside to fix jam in impeller, and get up on roof to rescue a howler (with help from Gavin on both counts). No washing machine was disastrous having just used every face cloth and half the towels to scrape flour and water paste off 14 faces.
Granny returned from Australia this week. She came around yesterday and Hannah had a party with new clothing from Penny (thanks). Hannah walked past a mirror and she was stuck for hours.
We saw the Goodins briefly yesterday (except Thomas). They are off to tincan or ping pong or bintan or somewhere then Kuala Lumpur to visit Barry at the end of this week. We saw the photo of Tommys soccer team, they are so little, you forget so quickly.
Hannah turns ten tomorrow.
Rory organised for some friends from school to come over to watch a movie. It was the first time he has ever organised anything. I can't believe we agreed to it after just having had the party the night before, but it went okay.
If you want a GMAIL address, let me know. I have some spare invites.
THE TRIP
The next email will be from somewhere else, probably San Francisco. I will use my gmail address, so if you get something from robo42 at gmail.com it's from me, okay?
Planning is proceeding slowly. We did a dry run on suitcase with clothing yesterday, which was interesting. Should have tons of room and won't need extra cases. Coming home might be a little different.
Hopefully you will hear from me within a week
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