LOCAL NEWS
Being this time of the year, we got the usual pap about most popular baby names and other fluff. The papers became thin and more than usually tedious.
In keeping with this tradition, the ACC kept giving us cheerful statistics, like "street bashings cost $2.8m" and "ambidextrous paraplegic lesbians have a high propensity for paper cuts'.
Some 15yo kid was rescued from under a waterfall, sounded like he was very lucky last week. Turned out he wasn't so lucky and he died in hospital. His foot got wedged in rocks.
We had a bit of an air safety fuss when one of those floating "air sharks" was seen by an Air New Zealand flight over Christchurch, then someone saw one in Hamilton. Sightings continued around the country and someone advertised one in the lost pets section on trademe.
The biggest thing this week was when a hot air balloon crashed near Carterton, and 11 people died. Who knew they carried 11 people? It clipped a power line and was more conductive that the cable, I suppose. The biggest air fatality since Erebus, and perfect timing to give the media something to talk about during the quiet season.
The troubles at Auckland ports seem to be continuing to lose it customers, with Fonterra pulling out this week.
There was whales stranded in Nelson, as well as tourists.
There was a nasty accident when a guy was gutted by an anchor in a boat race.
A DOC worker on remote Raoul Island was suspended, they figure he was washed off the rocks where he was likely to have
They reckon buying organic/fairtrade/etc costs 25% more, I am surprised it's only 25% to be honest.
A man got crushed when the 40m tall tree he was trying to murder managed to get him in the process.
That bloody ship Rena finally split in two. Nobody seemed sure what that meant but I am guessing the salvage approach changes now.
A man mowing a large lawn drove his burning tractor into lake Te Anau to put it out. No mention was made of any pollution issues about doing this. The grass is pretty dry, it seems.
A preserved snake was found on a Christchurch street. Funny how such things make the news here. It was very, very dead.
We had a story about a large crayfish, 9.8kg, that was caught by an eight year old. By the time they told anyone about it, it had long since been eaten. It was reminiscent of the end of the Dodo and other extinction events. Experts thought it may have been more than 50 years old. Good thing they killed it, at least it was delicious.
WORLD NEWS
A man was arrested for lighting 55 fires in LA. Perhaps he was a tad cold.
There is a new theory that hurricanes and typhoons may help initiate earthquakes. This is interesting,
There was a little bit of fuss over a body being found on the Queen's estate, or should I say one of them. Kind of funny, really.
Apparently two Australians are arrested overseas every day overseas. They must be racking up a lot of fines, those two.
Stephen Hawking is 70 (that's not a bad run) but he wasn't in good enough shape to attend a party.
Meanwhile, apparently more importantly, Kate Middleton is 30. I think Betty White's birthday next week is far more interesting. Maybe that David Bowie is now 65 is of interest, also.
Some guy lost 90kg very quickly when surgeons removed a tumour. Yep, a 90kg tumour. Perhaps he didn't notice it when it was only 50kg. Was he eating for two?
Been a lot of news about some dodgy French-made breast implants.
I had never heard of the "Pizza Principle", but apparently the price of a slice of pizza and a ride on the subway in New York have been the same for 50 years. Not sure if the size of the pizza slice has changed, sounds a little like the Big Mac Parity thing. Anyway, the subway price has just gone up to $2.50 so pizza is expected to increase also. Bit self-fulfilling now, I suspect.
SPORT
Swansea City upset Villa 2-0, Chelsea squeaked past Wolves 2-1 thanks to Frank Lampard, and Fulham upset Arsenal 2-1 late on last weekend.
Man Utd beat Man City 3-2 in an FA Cup match, which is odd because I could have sworn Man Utd was out of the FA Cup already. Sunderland and Chelsea also won, with the upset being Sheffield Wednesday squeaking past West Ham.
The Aussies thumped India by an innings in the New Year's test.
MY SAD LIFE
We basically farted about achieving very little until Tuesday when we left for Parua Bay, near Whangarei Heads. We were in a little old cottage, constructed of similar materials to the place we had in King Street, same ceilings, same cladding. The facilities were good, although the shower was less than grunty. We were in a small valley with a pond next to us and a sheltered private beach we shared with one other house, the owners of the place we stayed. They were pretty low profile. There were tons of birds, mainly ducks, wood pigeons, tuis, pukekos. The kids saw a kiwi as they came down the drive, which was pretty cool, we've never seen one in the wild.
We brought Eva up in my car, the kids (including Maddy) came up later in the day in the Falcon. Eva was pretty happy when she got down to the beach, but we had to keen an eye on her, I didn't want her attacking birds or anything. The first day we just settled in and fooled around a little at the beach, the kids arrived about 9pm, very animated and excited because of the kiwi.
On Wednesday, didn't do a lot more than that, although the kids went off to explore downtown Whangarei in the afternoon.
On Thursday, Diana and I did a bit of a walk out around Busby Point and Smugglers Bay, saw cows, an old gun emplacement, quite a few birds. Hannah hit Rory in the head with the kayak and he looked like a wounded prize fighter with a small cut over his right eye, Hannah said it was payback for the one he gave her when she was about three with a tennis racket. We had dinner at the Parua Tavern down by the water, it was pretty reasonable pub food.
Friday, Hannah and I went off kayaking and did a 5km loop of the bay area, to the pub and around some rocks populated by seagulls and oystercatchers.
Late Friday afternoon, the kids decided to head home, rather than get up early Saturday morning. The weather turned pretty ugly on Saturday and we decided to head home in the afternoon, rather than stay another night and face possibly more traffic the next day.
Some photos of it are here:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.342923262404318.96645.100000599405805&type=1&l=30bd7715d4
On Sunday, we managed to see Gavin, then Jono, Anna, and the brats before they headed home to Sydney. It felt busy.
Hannah has just finished watching Firefly and the Serenity movie. Her path to geekdom continues. Not sure that there is any turning back.
It's Bambi's birthday this Wednesday. Oh crap, that means it is Sarah's birthday on Thursday.
Hannah is off to Matarangi for a couple of days, in Coromandel. Mum is off to New Plymouth today to visit family.
Next week is likely to be the week that Hannah gets her results for NCEA level 2. That could be a tense few days, although you get results online first so the mailman isn't that relevant any more.
Well, that just about sums it up for the first full week of 2012. You are now legally allowed to bash people that say "Happy New Year" to you.
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