Like sand through the hourglass...

I put my footprint on top of each of the kids' footprints on Sunday at the beach. They were each delighted to see how much bigger their foot was than mine. Trey's nearing 13 now, so it's no surprise that his foot is bigger than his mom's, but Laurel just turned 10 for God's sake! She's a little girl! She's got me beat by a tiny bit and I'm just guessing that's not the end of it. 

I remember when I was just about Laurel's age, my best friend Dina in Allentown, Pennsylvania had an Aunt Betty who wore those fantastic high-heeled Candies slides (like Olivia Newton-John wore in Grease!) and I LOVED trying them on -- size 5, the first real adult size. I was so darned excited about all of this and my mother was just thrilled to have a gangly ten-year-old that wanted to dress like a prostitute...

This has nothing to do with New Zealand. Sorry. :-)

Corogate Café, Miranda Shorebird Center, landslides, big grey pebbles

Kia Ora! 
Monday afternoon here, almost time for me to walk over and get the kids from school, but I think I have time for a quick post. I still have a few from last weekend's wanderings, which included a drive down to Miranda, about an hour south of here, to visit the Miranda Shorebird Center, known for its unique shoreline that provides a mud feast of goodies for migrating birds. We read about this and it sounded really interesting, so we figured a walk on a beach anywhere would be a good thing; let's go! 

 

After a wrong turn we ended up at this strange little outpost surrounded by nothing. There, at the Corogate Café, we had fish and chips and large sausages served by a friendly British woman on china plates on a picnic table. I really need to start taking photos of these people that we meet. I don't know what comes over me, but I always talk to someone forever and then leave and think, oh for God's sake, why didn't I take a photo of her??? I am going to work on this. 

Found our way back through the town of Miranda, all of 5 buildings, some sheep, and a tractor, and finally found this bird place. By this time we had realized that Trey wasn't fully recovered from the flu sort of bug that he'd had the previous week, but it was nice out and the walk was flat and looked fairly short, and so off we went. Fresh air's always good for you, right? 

We just kept walking and walking, through mud, past cows, over electric fences, under electric fences (one looked like a rope and Dennis ended up shocked and flat on the ground), around more mud and through water. The whole way, we could tell the beach was right there, but we couldn't see it. We just knew that eventually we'd be rewarded with an entry point to the hidden magical beach and swarms and schools of every exotic bird in the world! It would be magnificent! We could just feel it...

After half an hour, we came upon this (you may need to squint). It was locked. We were supposed to be able to sit in it and hide so that the unsuspecting birds would land and hang out and eat and smoke and drink while we spied on them. The whole way there and back we saw 3 birds, and one was dead. Poor Trey nearly joined him as he trudged along, ever slower, behind us. It wasn't the best outing. 

It was quite beautiful there though, not counting the dead bird. And I'm sure if that little tiny shack had been unlocked it would've been tons of fun for all four of us to sit in there silently for hours and hours. Whose idea was this??

AND!!! We did get to see some number 8 fencing wire. No. 8 wire is a term that's used to refer to the Kiwi ingenuity that abounds here. It's a small isolated country and sometimes they just have to make do. Apparently they can fix or make nearly anything with a bit of No. 8 wire. Here it is!

And the reward for all that fruitless walking did come, by the way. We took a back road home for a change of scenery. We're getting a bit tired of Routes 1 and 2. Not only was it much more interesting what with all the landslides and all, but we also happened upon the coolest beach made up of big round grey rocks. And of course a few rainbows, blah blah blah, you're probably getting sick of those... 

A hui ho, until we meet again...

Shouldn't we already know who won?

Woke up this morning and couldn't find anyone. Gates were closed, shoes were in place, keys were here, and there was a mysterious aroma of bacon, but no one in the kitchen. Finally found my boys outside in their Gator attire having a tailgate party in the garage with kebabs, bacon, and pancakes on the barbie and the Gator game on Slingbox on Dennis's laptop. It's Saturday night back home and we miss American football (well, Laurel really doesn't). Seeing as the nearest Univ. of Florida club is in Taiwan, we'll have to do the best we can here in Auckland. Sending some love to the Gators and Tarblooders this morning (last night)!

 

Almost straight through to the other side

As of today, we've lived here for 8 weeks and we still look at each other fairly often and say something to the effect of, "Can you believe we live in New Zealand on the whole other side of the world??" It's a very strange realization, even now. So tonight Dennis figured out where on earth would be exactly as far away as we could get from Cleveland, Ohio. And this is it, right on that little red star. So technically we could be farther away from home, but not a whole heck of a lot, really. 


This would be called the antipodal point, if you really want to know. The diametrically opposite point on a sphere. Dennis (who seems to be angling to take over here if I'm not careful -- first Zumba and now antipodes) told me this. I had no idea.

Good night from the other side of the planet, where warm air comes from the north and cold air comes from the south and we're just starting spring and we're going to bed and you're waking up this morning! 

xoxo, K.

At least we don't all share one bed

I just hung up the phone with a woman who owns a bed and breakfast in Whakatane. We talked about dates and other things and then I said, "OK, great, thanks a lot!" And she said, "Righty-o!"

Righty-o! She said that, for real. 

Yesterday the optician's office called and asked if Dennis could please stop in to collect his spectacles. "Of course," I said. "Lovely!" they said, and hung up. 

A couple of weeks ago, after I chaperoned a field trip to the Pak 'n Save grocery store, one of the children (a 12 year old boy, no less) wrote a thank you letter that contained such phrases as "The morning was very educational as I learnt many things about dietary fibre." And then, "Once again I wish to show my appreciation of your helping us out on this wonderfully educational trip." One of the girls told me, "I had heaps of fun at the supermarket!"

I feel as though we live in that little village where Charlie bought the chocolate bars from that candy shop on the cobblestone street...

Stranded

Hello from stormy New Zealand, friends. How's everybody doing? I am at home today with two kids recovering from what I'm going to call the Glendowie Flu. It's a mean one, and I'm guessing that the germs here are just different enough from what we've had at home that we are simply defenseless against them. And besides the two restless, crabby children, New Zealand in its entirety is being battered as I type by a "massive storm the size of Australia" which is blowing up from the Antarctic Shelf. My lord, really, where are we?? So we sit, bundled up in blankets, reading our books and writing our blog posts, coughing and sneezing and bitching just a little bit. And so far, I've led you all to believe that we're in our own little paradise here, haven't I? It's not always as lovely as those rainbow shots, that's for sure.

Last weekend was a rainy grey mess, too, and so we sort of wandered about with no real purpose in mind, until Eagle-Eye Trey (we really call him that -- he always spots the coolest things) spied these boats out on the mud flats. Four messy shoes and ankles later, we had these kinda neat shots. 

Train station, fish market, farmers market

Kia Ora, everyone! Hope you all are well and are enjoying some beginnings of fall. We're headed into spring here, we hope, and have been out and about and getting lots of fresh air ... and fresh food. Two things that are always good. A couple weekends ago we spent a day downtown at the Britomart station and the farmers' market that they have there each Saturday. Walked over through the marinas and to the fish market as well. Had an excellent dinner that night. 

Britomart is Auckland's central hub of all of the local and national trains and also the buses. It's a super cool building plus I am always drawn to transportation centers. Airports, train stations, lines of taxis -- they just always energize me. People coming and going to and from all different places. I love that!

If you look into these things outside, you can see all the way down to the trains. Pretty cool.

This doesn't fit into any of the proper categories of this post, but it goes along with the transportation theme. The Northern Steamship Co. was one of Auckland's founding businesses. 

 The farmers market is just outside the Britomart station and we bought lots of good stuff from local producers, including a ginger syrup that you warm and pour on ice cream. And truly the best bleu cheese that I've ever had the pleasure of tasting. This is another thing that I love: people who are willing to put forth the effort to do something they believe in.

I'm sure the fish market needs no explanation, except that it was interesting to see the different kinds of fish that we've never heard of before. And fyi, NZ is known for its green lipped mussels. They're huge. Dennis loves them but I'm not sure.