Snow continues, the shortest day of the year has passed, but things are still pretty cold.
LOCAL NEWS
An otter escaped from the zoo. There were otter spottings all over the harbour. Most were dead possums floating in the water. Last spotted on Rangitoto, via Devonport.
A bank manager tried to rob his own bank in Wellsford. He was confused and foiled it himself, I think. Whole thing sounds sordid and sad, should be in women's magazines for months.
The molesterer who tried to pick up two Western Springs girls has been arrested.
The man responsible for a fairly nasty sexual attack in Pukekohe has been arrested.
There were a couple of nasty car accidents over the weekend with multiple fatalities. One took out three members of the same family and
The drama of the two dead twins continues. The family, although incompetent when it comes to caring for their family, seem suddenly organised enough to cooperate with each other in their efforts to defeat the police investigation. It isn't right. Battering twin babies then hiding who did it is very, very wrong. At least a few people are talking about the fact that it happens more in Maori families. Not that it will ever change anything. Some are muddying the issue with smacking discussion, but smacking doesn't really cover a severe beating to the head to induce brain death, twice (so hardly accidental, really).
Former Miss Universe (1984, I think) Lorraine Downes won the "Dancing with the Stars" final. Meanwhile, I think a good idea for a reality show would involve us all voting off the worst MP once a week. Over the three year term, we will get down to the right number of MPs by the end of week 120. That would give us 36 weeks of sensible government (during which they can campaign for the next election).
WORLD NEWS
We’ve been saturated in coverage from Australia about the bloody Nicole Kidman wedding. I suppose because she is marrying a New Zealander, but why should anyone really care? These "personalities" get married half a dozen times so why is it such a big thing?
I think I am about ready to include a sentence here every week that reads:
Bombs went off, a ferry sank, a roof collapsed, there was an earthquake.
REAL SPORT
Hannah's first game was for the Marlins, the Ponsonby 2 team. They were playing a team that wasn't likely to provide too much resistance, and it didn't. Hannah scored once, I think, maybe more. Final score 9-2.
The second game, for the Sharks, was against the team that is clearly the best in the league. The Sharks have too many players that don't play like a team, and it showed. They were down about 0-9 at half time. Finally they got their act together in the second half and we got the idea about marking across to them. There were no goals in the third quarter and then in the final quarter there would a couple. Final score 1-10. Hannah (no bias here, at all) defended very well, shutting down one player and making it tougher for the other team to score, we just need more like Hannah.
One girl, from the 4th team, ended up playing in all four Ponsonby games, which was pretty impressive. Bet she slept well on Friday night.
I was kind of hoping the weather might cancel soccer for Hannah on Saturday, we were playing Three Kings, a team that beat us 0-2 in grading (and we were very lucky to get away with 2, it should have been more). It wasn't cancelled, although the boys were cancelled again (girls soccer was almost the only soccer on). We were playing at home this time, the weather on the day was very good, chilly but clear skies at Cox's Bay, right on the water. I won't bore you with all the detail, by half time it was still 0-0, with our girls spending more time in their half than they did in ours, and more than we did in the entire last game against them. In the second half, Three Kings came out a lot more interested and gave us some worries, we were defending a lot more. However, Hannah was starting to pop the ball nicely through for Georgia, and finally Georgia managed to get away from a line of four defenders a smack the ball into the back of the net. The noise from the sideline was very loud. Then, all they had to do was keep Three Kings out for fifteen minutes or so, which they did, and they had a couple more cracks themselves. Final score 1-0 win, which I would never have predicted. I knew they were playing better, but this was the biggest result of the season for them. Three Kings were top of the table after round 1 with an 8-2 win, and they knocked them off their perch. I think this was about the second time one of my kids have been in a team that beat Three Kings in about 11 seasons of soccer.
Hannah offered to help the 15th Grade 2nd Div Girls, she got to go on, finally, then the ref called full time. She was kind of disappointed, she would have done all right, despite being about four years younger than most of them.
Rory played on Sunday night, against Liston College. The Liston team were pretty good, got an early lead, was about 10-2 at one point but Springs got their act together a little and came back to 10-5. Rory scored first two goals.
SPORT
This section should be retired at the moment. Only sport I see is real or World Cup.
The All Blacks played the Argies the same day Argentina went into extra time against Mexico before the won 2-1. Germany rolled Sweden 2-0. England beat Ecuador this morning 1-0, and Portugal are playing Netherlands as I write this, 1-0 ahead but one man down. Oh, and the All Blacks won (see what I mean, nobody cares).
The Warriors had another win, three in a row now, they need about eight in a row to stand a chance of making final eight.
MY SAD LIFE
Interesting development. Hannah is now receiving this email. Not sure what this means. I guess I have to be nice about her (just kidding). And I have to mention her (for a change). Welcome, Pookey.
Then, Rory read the bit above over my shoulder and now he is getting it too. I can't say anything bitchy about anyone any more, it's just not fair.
This weekend was the last weekend of free texting on Vodafone, something that the kids have abused considerably. We are looking forward to the end of it.
Jono's Dad has had a building named after him. Jono says it is f?@king big (his words, not mine). Steph said they went to the ceremony, she also said they are coming to Sydney for a holiday. Better start tidying the flat, Jono.
Goodins are off it KL and other exotic locations for two weeks.
Rory is now a model for a company that sells water polo equipment. Well, he is in a photo that I took that they are going to use on their website.
We didn't really get much of a chance to celebrate Diana's birthday. They made a fuss of her at work, though, and we went out to lunch. We spent about four hours at the pool in the evening.
Diana and I went to an Indian Muslim wedding on Saturday night. You all know I hate weddings but it was interesting. It was the wedding of Sophia, a young woman who works for Stanley, she has been there about four years (I suppose it was the wedding of Rashid, too, but I don't know him). I get on quite well with her, she seems very young (maybe because I am so old). The union was arranged, which is still pretty common. The dowry was $100 cash and $4700 in jewellery (which was mentioned about four times in the ceremony). The cleric explained a few things for the white folks (in a packed hall, about 300 people) which was good. He said that the Qur'an (you have no idea how many ways that is spelled) requires three things to be done quickly - prayer, marrying when of marriageable age, and interring the dead.
While we were at the wedding, Hannah made herself spaghetti Bolognese, with 500g of mince. She ate almost all of it herself, in three goes. Diana said it was enough to feed the whole family (normally). I guess she had worked hard at soccer, but still….
Also, while we were out, the kids again watched the video on the PVR of them taken in 1997. It is terrible but does contain some good bits. It specifically mentions us seeing water polo and Rory thinking it was pretty cool (he was about four or five at the time).
Diana got a new coffee machine on Saturday, I blame Paul. First load tasted awful (all chemically). So did the second and third lot.
Shyn replied to last week's email and said that the Chinese believe bad luck is often followed by good luck. I sincerely hope she is right.
I am still basically watching a World Cup game every morning before starting to do anything useful. The kids watch it too, and do seem genuinely interested.
Hey Heidi, what does KNVB stand for?
Spent most of Sunday at home, which was really nice. No swimming or polo until 5:30pm. So we did homework. Rory had to build a model of a character from a fantasy novel, and decided to the Luggage from the Discworld series. We built it out of balsa wood and trimmed it with gold-painted styrene patterned with fancy scissors. In between all that I did a few jobs around the house and we ran a variety of fluids through the new coffee machine. Rory also had to make a maths game (how incredibly dull).
Well, that'll do for now. I have something kind of exciting and sad to come in about two Mondays from now.
Rob
PS Still 1-0 to Portugal with 23 minutes left, getting very heated, yellow cards everywhere.
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