Month: April 2007

A seat with the Prime Minister

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Prime minister Helen Clarke in her usual seat on flight NZ0411.

Helen Clarke, New Zealand’s Labour prime minister, lives in Auckland. The New Zealand parliament is in Wellington. On a Monday she flies from Auckland to New Zealand on the  Air New Zealand flight NZ0411.

My routine also see me flying down to Wellington each Monday on flight NZ0411  and I am usually  allocated a seat in row 2 on the left hand side.

Five minutes after boarding is completed  the Right Honourable Helen Clark takes her seat in row 1 on the right hand side and her minder takes his set in front of me.

While I find it vaguely exciting,  no one else seems to bats an eyelid.

If  I manage to get of the plane before her I am welcomed by half a dozen officials which makes me smile.

Otara Market

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Early morning at Otara market

On the weekend we get up early and  head to Otara, South Auckland where there is a Saturday morning market. We get a bit lost so ask a Maori women for directions. The conversation went something like this:

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First Day at School

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Cari and Ellie in the St Heliers school uniform complete with sun hats

Ellie and Cari started at St Heliers school this week and Meg started across the road from the school in the kindergarten.

St Heliers school is a primary and intermediate school which means pupils attend from Year 1 to Year 8 (5 – 13 years old) before heading to secondary school. We chose the school (which in turn led to our choice of suburb and house) based on the impression left by the awesome headmaster Mr Craig McCartney. What an impressive bloke, clearly in control of the place, displaying incredible empathy with the children and parents and on a mission to deliver excellence.

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Piha Camping Trip

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Lion Rock, Piha

Lion Rock, Piha.

Having said goodbye to Gillian in the morning we embark on our first NZ camping trip in the afternoon. We head to the surf beach and village of Piha with our £9 second-hand 4 man  tent. Piha is the other side of the Waitakere mountain range from Auckland and about an hour drive from St Heliers.

We checked into a very laid-back camp site with only the very basic of conveniences. For someone who is familiar with British beach resorts and camp sites, Piha is a very different. It is stunningly beautiful with very little commercial development. Its famed surf break washes onto volcanic sand which in-turn backs on dunes and  a mountain range covered in native bush.

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Gillian Flies Home

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So far Ruth and children experience of New Zealand has been an exciting holiday. Gillian, Ruth’s mother has been there to help out and the last two weeks have been spend exploring the area mine in with shopping for things that you need when you move into a new house (but on steroids given we’ve arrived with only the cases we brought not he plane).

Things are about to move up a gear as Ruth’s mother Gillian heads back to Wales.

We had a ‘last supper’ in a restaurant in mission bay on Friday evening a ‘last supper’ for Gillian who was flying back the next day.

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Fire Alarm at North Harbour Stadium

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Blue Beard warms up the North Harbour stadium crowd

Blue Beard’s cannon smoke sets-off the North Harbour stadium fire alarm.

A busy week.  Work for me and sorting the house out for Ruth. The weekend saw Ruth, Ellie and I heading to North Harbour stadium on Auckland’s North Shore to watch the Auckland Blues v the Natal Sharks (the Blues play home games at Eden Park and North Harbour stadium).

The atmosphere was better than Eden Park (perhaps because he stadium is much smaller, the game was more competitive and there are lots of South African living on the North Shore ) and the Sharks won with plenty of on-field incident.

The game was not without off-field incident too.

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The Arrival

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L-R Meg (4), Ellie (8) and Cari (7 years old) at Mount Eden, Auckland.

So here we go. The moment of truth, its Friday and my wife (Ruth) and my daughters (Ellie, Cari and Meg) arrive. How will the react to New Zealand? I arrive at the Aukland airport at 08.35 to discover the plane had arrived 30 mins early. The processing time for arrivals is about 45 mins with 15 minutes of me arriving they arrived narrowly avoiding the doomsday scenario of them arriving and me not being there ! Continue reading →