LOCAL NEWS
It was a white Boxing Day in Upper Hutt, one person reckoned the hail was knee-deep. That's a heck of a lot of hail.
We seemed to have more drownings that road fatalities, meanwhile people seemed to get more carried away overseas (see below).
Four men tried to drown themselves in an over full IRB with a 2hp motor that conked out as the Waikato river was pushing them towards the bar. They had no life jackets or anything. One of their rescuers thought they were the stupidest people he'd seen in 30 years of rescuing. They were so embarrassed they failed to collect their sick boat, although it was probably stolen.
A clever 25 year old woman climbed a 1.8 metre fence, jumped in a covered swimming pool, and drowned herself. I think that makes the seventh drowning since Christmas Day. The road toll is slightly ahead at eight. Could be an interesting contest.
The New Years honours have been handed out. They are dull as ever, and all the sort of people you'd think had already got one. It seems that you get one if you were a politician or have been in the public eye for some other reason. Stupid concept.
A security review has revealed that Helen Clark's house has been tagged while under observation from the secret service and burglars hid on her section when being chased after being caught in the act. Good stuff.
Novovirus has hit 30 scouts at a jamboree in Christchurch. That would be a lot of fun. Camping AND rampaging disease. Wouldn't want to be on latrine duty there. Meanwhile, Legionella has been detected at a couple of Auckland buildings.
WORLD NEWS
A beach cricket game in Perth got pretty serious when someone murdered another player.
In Seattle, Washington, someone went postal and took out six people. Well, technically, one of the victims was a postal worker so the murderer went for A postal and took out a few others on the way.
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto on Friday could spell chaos in Pakistan. It gave us plenty of news for a few days.
SPORT
Well, the Black Caps won the first ODI against Bangladesh and then did so again in the second, although Duckworth Lewis got involved I don't think it really changed the result. Last game today.
Meanwhile, the boxing day test in Melbourne was over in four days and the Aussies showed that they are the best and 2nd is daylight. India didn't stand a chance. It has to be pretty boring for Australians if they know they are going to win (15 in a row now).
Chelsea had a 4-4 draw with Villa on Boxing Day, three players were red-carded, Chelsea won 2-1 on red cards. Man Utd beat Sunderland 4-0, Wigan beat Newcastle 1-0, Spurs beat Fulham 5-1 and Liverpool scraped home 2-1 over Derby. Arsenal had a 0-0 draw with Portsmouth (think it was Portsmouth).
Over the weekend, Spurs continued their high scoring theme with a whopping 6-4 win over Reading. Man Utd shocked everyone (who cared) by losing 1-2 to West Ham, after being 1-0 up, Chelsea beat Newcastle 2-1, and Arsenal beat Everton 4-1 in a game with ten men on each side.
MY SAD LIFE
Christmas passed pretty quietly around our place. In fact the whole week has been pretty quiet. Rory disappeared to Coromandel with Maddie on Thursday. Diana sent him a text saying "you having fun? You eaten all their food yet? Been on a blo-cart? Missing us?". The reply was "Yes. No. No. Naaah." Such eloquence. I am sure food is lasting longer around here. There was discussion of him sleeping in tent with Maddie. I am pretty surprised her parents allowed it but realistically I am not sure I would want to share a room with him, and he's my son.
Hannah and I have been swimming pretty regularly, went four times this week. In the heat it is quite nice to cool off, and it has been quite hot.
We have managed to see some people this week, like the Bambis, Goodins, and Coshs. In between we've been doing a few jobs around the house, nothing very inspirational. Diana and I did manage a walk around the Western Springs lake on Thursday. Diana has been trying to fumigate Rory's room so that it doesn't reek like teenage boys armpits. I am not sure that is remotely feasible.
One thing that wasn't humdrum was that we did go explore a large Russian sailing ship Pallada that was in port, it was big (holds passengers and crew of about 180). There wasn't much info about, other than some about the Pacific Fishery in Cyrillic (so, pictures, basically). The Soren Larson was parked next to it and completely dwarfed by it.
Diana and Hannah went to a movie, while I went to the main city library. The Monty Python sketch comes to mind. They have rearranged things and now the novels take up a tiny amount of space and it feels like they have done little more than squeeze them in, afterthought style, after they made room for the teens, kids, computer games, dvds, magazines, and display of native nose rings from upper Gambia. "Funny, you've got a lot of books here"………….
Diana did buy a couch on Boxing Day, two actually, but they are both the same. They arrive later this week. All part of the vicious circle of death that was started by getting the new table, because nothing matches. The next item needing replacing in the coffee table.
Hannah bought a bikini this week, which is a bit of a difference from what she wears swimming at the pool (two pairs of togs, it's a polo thing, her and Rory both feel undressed if they wear only one, even for training or just swimming). She is cleaning the cars in it as I write this.
We leave for a holiday on Friday, I am hoping I can get connect to outside world to send next Monday's edition. I may have got around to New Year's resolutions by then.
Haven't heard from Jono yet, where are you, you bugger? Come see the new couches (they are now arriving today).
Paul's still in Singapore, and very quiet.
No comments:
Post a Comment