LOCAL NEWS
There's been plenty of rain in southern Coromandel, we drove through some pretty wet places on our way home yesterday.
No election date yet, Labour not looking too flash. There are about three political parties look like they will disappear from the map, which I think would be an excellent result. The election has to be within the next two months, not sure why.
I am beginning to think this will be the tax cut price war election. They are making a massive fuss about how they will cut taxes and yet there are other ways to make households better off that don't cost the government as much (like reducing what they pay for market rents in government housing, which would reduce rents elsewhere and reducing interest rates).
It was confirmed this week that a 26 year old New Zealand woman died in the London bombings.
Continuing to prove that "personality" counts for little (compared to what station you are one) the former dominant force in current affairs, Mr Paul Homes, had less people watching than go to a Warriors game (that's saying something) this week. Meanwhile, TVNZ seem to be losing confidence in the replacement of the mother of our nation (Judy Bailey) as their newsreader.
A policeman was shot at from a passing car on the Northern Motorway.
Air New Zealand has had to cancel 85 flights because of strike action. Won't be good for the share price.
A new theory on the colonisation of the Pacific is that they were trying to run away from a nasty form of Malaria. It is an interesting concept, not sure if it will ever be proven or disproved.
WORLD NEWS
It is pretty impressive that the authorities have figured out who did the London bombings, although it is quite disturbing that they were all England-born. Saturation coverage continues. Some doubt now exists as to whether they were suicide bombers, however some of the reasoning seems to be a bit of a stretch.
The release of the new Potter book shows what happens when the press begin to believe their own publicity. Yes, some people were probably looking forward to it, but not in the sort of numbers that some would suggest.
REAL SPORT
No real sport this week. Not even training. Rory has two water polo trials this coming week and we have soccer this coming Saturday (if the weather improves). Found out that he could have a tournament down in Rotorua at the end of August.
SPORT
The Aussies beat the Poms resoundingly in the third ODI match (or did I mention this last week). I think the Ashes starts this coming weekend.
New Zealander Michael Campbell stayed in the hunt in the British Open golf, but ended up 5th equal with five other players. Tiger won by a good fives shots, his first major for a while.
Argentina knocked Australia out of the Davis Cup in the quarter finals, which was a surprise.
Not sure if there has been any rugby on. The reinvented Kingz, now the Knights (local soccer team) lost their first game 2-0. The Warriors won a game, they need to win every game for about five games to make playoffs.
MY SAD LIFE
The kids were unsupervised quite a lot this week, as Diana had to work because she hadn't worked the week before. One day Diana came home from work about 12:30 to find Rory hadn't yet eaten breakfast and was sitting watching TV in his underpants (don't go there, really). He went to megazone for a whole day. He, and then Hannah, discovered an online game called puzzle pirates. I have an eMac to review and they were both on a computer playing whenever they could. It was pretty geeky, but at least it stopped fights over whose turn it was.
The trip down to Rotorua took a lot longer than we expected. We stopped a couple of times on the way, which broke up the journey and made it interesting. Our first stop was Candyland, a factory in the middle of nowhere (Gordonton) that makes lollies. I have been there once before with Hannah, but Rory and Diana had never been there. The kids really enjoyed it, we picked up a few things. The kids were given a budget of $2, and the lollies were sold by the gram. Rory managed to get exactly 200g (he checked it several times). We then continued on to Ti Rau, where we stopped for toilets, an antique shop, and a toy museum in a castle. Then we pushed on to Rotorua, picking up Ross's computer, filled up with gas, got a late lunch, and finally on to where we were staying. The resort is on the opposite side of the lake from downtown Rotorua, which is nice spot with the lake and a canal on two edges.
We stayed three nights in Rotorua. We almost did lots of things, like zorbing, jetboating, and quad biking. We chose not to because they weren't cheap and they were over very quickly. The zorb trip lasted 30 seconds, which didn't seem worthwhile. We actually did do a few things, too. We explored and multi-layer wooden maze, which took us around an hour to do. We went to the aquatic centre one morning, when it was raining heavily. It has an outdoor 50m pool and we did some lengths in that (very hard, double the normal pool we swim in). It was also pretty cold out of the water, so you could feel the cold on your arms at the top of the stroke then they would warm up in the water. There was also a pretty strong wind, and the splashes from your hands entering the water would hit you in the face when you breathed when you were swimming against the wind. The complex was quite good, much bigger than the one we go to at home, and very reasonably priced. We played quite a lot of tennis at the place we stayed, there was a tennis court near our room. The kids really enjoyed it, and I did too, it's a long time since I have played much tennis. Hannah was really in to it, we played doubles for a while. We met up with some friends on Saturday night and had dinner with them (Matt used to be in Rory's soccer team).
I should have mentioned last week that the choice of high school has been made, and it is the local school that we are in zone for. After all that fuss and bother, we are in exactly the same position as if we had been utterly slack and not bothered looking around. Not sure I am convinced but Rory and Diana are pretty sure. There are lots of kids there that he knows, and it will be easy to get him there (we walk past it when we go for walks, well, when we used to go for walks).
The kids are redecorating their bedrooms this week. Should be interesting.
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