I ran over here today
The 21.09kms mix of rolling hills, flat dockside and Harbour Bridge of this morning’s Auckland Half Marathon took me 2:17 to complete. To put this in context, my new personal best time for the half marathon is a full thirteen minutes slower that it took the Kenyan Paul Tergat to [...]
No.3 took part in her first ever soccer tournament last week in the annual competition between the primary schools of Huapai and Taupaki. The fact that we live in Huapai and stood amongst neighbours cheering for Taupaki school made for tense moments on the touch line. Coming off the bench in the first [...]
Our Sunday mornings are beginning to take on a semblance of normality, or at least what passed for normality before we decided to up stick and moved to the other side of the world. This means that SWMBO and the sprogs head off for church and I take the opportunity to try and get [...]
This picture, taken a few hours back, exemplifies why we came to New Zealand. Halfway through supper, we simply decided to go for a walk on the beach instead of doing chores or watching the television. Thirty minutes later, we were wandering barefoot on the black volcanic sand, watching the sun slide from [...]
This track and the forest beyond has become a regular haunt for me over the last week or so.
Whilst I was running regularly back in London, I have lapsed severely since leaving the UK and have managed just one run each in Los Angeles, Rarotonga and Foxton. As we are now more settled and [...]
One adult, two kids and just three hours to assemble
The Chef’s Salad and the salad chefs
No turkey here
The family and the neighbours lunching
Cap from Maryland, USA: US$40
Daughter’s RipCurl shades: NZ$20
Shirt from Rarotonga, Cook Islands: NZ$35
Chef’s apron from London, UK: £20
Feelings of happiness and contentment: Priceless
Christmas Eve 2004, London, UK
A plastic tree, homemade paper chains and snowflakes, short days with biting winds, some nice neighbours and Chardonnay in the fridge.
Christmas Eve 2005, Kumeu, NZ
A real tree (same fairy on top), homemade paper chains and snowflakes, sunshine in the 20s, bulls for neighbours and Chardonnay on the vine in the distance. [...]
In the last 36 hours, the combined technical clout of NZ’s satellite TV company and national telecoms provider has converted our rural hideaway into a fully connected digital homestead. After nearly four months of expensive cellphone calls and 3G wireless data connections, we now have expensive digital satellite TV and ADSL!
This means is that, when [...]
Unforeseen issues and last minute hold ups notwithstanding, come the
5th of December, I will be taking on a newly-created operations and
strategy role with a regional utility company in based Auckland. It
is a smaller company than my last but the role manages and oversees
three departments: the call centre, the dispute and complaints team
and the network [...]
Standing at the dining room window, watching our two middle kids walk away from the house and off to school, it stuck me how adaptable and trusting all four offspring have been. Whilst one might reasonably expect a child to trust their parents, I am still impressed by how readily ours accepted and absorbed [...]
