Weather not great, unusually windy and wet. The kids have got three weeks left of school.
LOCAL NEWS
A P-crazed crazy man was on the run from police in Northland. It strikes me that the people that take this stuff are already a bit bonkers to begin with. The latest news is that he was seen in Avondale. He has died his hair red to disguise himself, but given his distinctive facial tattooing I am not sure it will do the trick.
Big hailstones hit Kaiwaka in the north, some as large as grapes.
There was a lot of news about a bust of a marijuana growing facility in a warehouse in Auckland. It was owned by a fashion label know as "Insidious Fix". Then it turned out that there was some weird tunnel to the warehouse from somewhere else (not sure where).
There was a blast in fashionable Paratai Drive when a P-Lab went bad.
A murder-suicide happened in Taupo on the weekend.
A UN envoy came to New Zealand and told us that we need to give Maori more money. I find this sort of thing worrying because it creates resentment all around. They earn less because they don't work or don't get the skills. Some of them do. That means that others can. Not sure how race relations are helped with this.
Air New Zealand were found to be in breach of fair trading rules (or should that be fare trading?). All to do with fine print about petrol surcharges and how small the writing is.
Very confused news this week about All Black Captain Tana Umaga retiring. First he was going to retire, then we had the stories about how his family are pleased and speculation about whether he was pushed. Then, two days later, he's not retiring.
WORLD NEWS
Model and drug charge escapee Michelle Leslie continues to be in news, while poor Schappelle remains in jail in Bali. She returned to Australia and was interviewed by journalists at every step in the journey.
Vietnam is poisoning pigeons to prevent bird flu. Meanwhile it is hard to know how serious this thing really is.
George Best died on Friday, and there was a suitable fuss made. His career was quite short, but he was very good. He retired when he was 26, which is very young.
An Australian (with a very Vietnamese name) is scheduled to be hanged for drug offences in Singapore, now everyone is pleading for clemency. The hangman was named in the furore and has now retired after hanging 850 people in his 50 year career. I did not know they hanged people for chewing gum in Singapore.
The benzine in the water in Chinese city Harbin has also been in the news. Nine million people unable to drink from their taps would be very problematic.
REAL SPORT
Hannah's team played Ponsonby Green again, who they played only two weeks ago. They did okay, but by third quarter Green were starting to get away on them. Loyalty was again divided and when Hannah was on sideline I tended to support Ponsonby. Hannah did well, made one excellent shot at goal which the goalie got to, and did some awesome defence. The team was definitely weaker when she was off.
Rory didn't play for Ponsonby Blue, who after losing 5-6 to Waitak the week before had to play them again without Rory and Henry. They lost 2-12. However, about five of the team stuck around to see Ponsonby Red play. The big final had a very big crowd, including five teachers from Ponsonby, and lots of friends. Rory's contingent was extremely large, with the Bambis (including B2, being named after a vitamin isn't very good is it), Gavin & Yana, Paul, the Grannies, Greta, and of course me and Diana. It was really nice to have the support, guys. Diana was dreaming about water polo on Thursday night, but we weren't getting too worked up about it.
Although Ponsonby Red had not lost to Bruce McLaren 1 during the season, the goal difference was only 1 with a narrow win and draw in their previous two encounters. There was not a lot in it, and they all needed to do their bit to win. Ponsonby got out to an early 2-0 lead in the first quarter but Bruce McLaren scored twice to level at 2-2 by the end of the first. In the second quarter, Red came out firing again and were 4-2 ahead. Third quarter was very hard play, very competitive, nothing conceded in defence, and they were all working hard. No goals scored in the third quarter which was surprising, so was still 4-2 going in to the final quarter, and the blood pressure was okay. Bruce McLaren scored first, 4-3 and the tension was suddenly very high. My voice was starting to fail. Ponsonby Red knuckled under and scored again to open up the lead and then stretched it out to 7-3 with about a minute thirty to go. Joe swapped the starters off to give the other players more game time. Bruce McLaren did get a consolation goal, but it wasn't enough and final score was 7-4. We think Rory got three goals, maybe four. At the prize giving afterward, Ben Pearson from Red got most promising boy and Rory got an MVP award (which he got last year in Div 2, we didn't really expect it this year). They then pushed poor Ms Hooper into the pool, which was very naughty.
Afterwards, most of the team went to Wendy's for a celebrationary coke and burger. They were very happy with themselves, which was not surprising. It got very messy, but they were happy.
When we got home on Friday night, Rory arranged his medals around the trophy (which he somehow ended up with) on his bookshelf as a little water polo shrine. He was a very happy young man.
Despite the excitement of Friday night, Rory still had four more games over the weekend. Three club ones and one Western Springs one. They lost the first two, won the third, lost the fourth. Rory scored twelve goals in the five games. We spent a lot of time going to swimming pools, including our first visit to a very new pool in Manurewa.
SPORT
The All Blacks won 29-10 against Scotland, completing a grand slam which is not a grand slam in my books.
Meanwhile, Australia lost to Wales 22-24 and South Africa lost to France 20-26.
The really big sports news is the Kiwis beating Australia in the League final, and not only beating them but holding them scoreless, winning 24-0.
Black Caps Captain Stephen Fleming has had a benign tumour removed from his jaw line. They play Australia this Saturday without him.
Everton beat Newcastle 1-0, Man Utd beat West Ham 2-1, Arsenal beat Blackburn 3-0, Chelsea won 2-0 over Portsmouth, Liverpool beat Man City 1-0.
The Aussies are playing West Indies in another test and it is pretty even with two days left (I think there are two days, they could run out of time).
MY SAD LIFE
Monday evening we went to play at the Hasbro warehouse with Ben and Matt. We took them through the showroom which had wall to wall toys, then out to the warehouse were there were cartons of toys stacked floor to ceiling. I think they were both a little overwhelmed but Ben certainly seemed to know what was happening.
Penny and the boys went home on Thursday. Ben's birthday was on Sunday, he is now five.
Hannah's interschool athletics was on Thursday. I hung around for two hours before she threw a ball twice and it was all over. Not sure why she didn't do long jump, very strange.
We found out that Rory has been asked to speak at the prize giving at school. There is still some homework that needs doing, and the speech is now on the list.
Hannah had her school disco on Friday night, which made for tricky logistics with water polo. She stayed the night at Hayley's so it was quiet at our house. She danced with eleven different boys, which I think is a fair definition of a full dance card. Funny, she seems quite happy with the idea that it is impolite to say no if someone asks, yet Rory would not take that on board and was quite happy to turn people down even earlier this year.
One thing we have noticed with Rory is that since Greta hit his radar with a vengeance, there have been no outbursts of how "hot" anyone is on the TV or anywhere. It appears the blinkers are well and truly on. He wants to be in her class next year, but Diana and I are not quite as keen for that to happen.
This morning Hannah complained to me that she is swimming "24/7" at the moment. School swimming started last week, but they actually only swam once, and water polo finished on Friday so she only has school swimming this week. Three swims, including one water polo game, does not really constitute "24/87" in my book.
Rory has an orientation night at Western Springs College this Thursday night. He also has interschool athletics on Tuesday. Hannah's dance show practices are starting to gear up.
I changed to the Mozilla Firefox web browser on Friday and I don't know why I didn't do it sooner.
Well, time to do some work, next week you will be hearing from a 41 year old. Ugh.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment