Twilight

Twilight tonight :)

Global Cooling

This was yesterday about 30 minutes drive away from RR.

Rancho Relaxo is Launched!

No, I don't like the name but Tom, Elliot and Hannah say there's no going back; that's what they've named it and that's what it's staying! If anyone feels inclined to suggest an alternative please get your suggestions to me ASAP before the mailman fixes on RR.

Interesting weekend so far; Thursday was suposed to be 'get the keys day' but, surprise, the bank weren't ready to transfer the money! They haven't been too impressive throughout the whole saga. I came across the hill anyway and plonked myself in situ (I know where the keys are hidden). I rolled myself in a duvet and slept on the floor. The house speaks to itself (its basically a log cabin) but not too often and certainly not spookily. The birds and bunnies are cute and the sunrise was spectacular but the bugs are BIG (that's a one dollar coin for comparison).

I have a furniture van booked for tomorrow to move all the stuff out of the storage container. I have been in rented acommodation for the past 13 years (!) and some of the stuff hasn't been unpacked since I moved it from Canada in 2001. In anticipation of the furniture move I went through to the container today to move a whole load of pictures, however, Rabbie Burns had it right once again. The padlock was really stiff and I broke the key off in the lock. No way could I get it out so I had no option but to try to break in. I tried the simple approach - bought some hacksaw blades and a pair of pliars but the lock laughed at them. Next I bought an 18" pair of bolt cutters; no joy there either and the tip broke so they will be going back for a refund tomorrow. Fortunately just across the road from the containers is Magoo's Street Rods and Lloyd loaned me a thing with a carbon fibre circular blade. Away I went and sawed away. Amazing; the thing cut through the stainless steel creating a strange burning smell and then the blade exploded! Lucky I was wearing glasses and I hastily checked in the car mirror to see if I was in danger of succumbing to death by a thousand cuts. Nothing; quite disappointing, really.

Lloyd came up with a replacement blade and it did the trick; pictures transfered and are now on the walls.

Next I sussed out some fridges but didn't find one at the right price and size so went in search of a coffee maker. Woolworths had a Prima PMCM202 which looked interesting but it had no price on it. The customer service desk scanned it and announced $99.99. Well, you have to have good coffee don't you? I troddled (favourite word) off to the check out and the young lad scanned it. '$40' he announced. As I was paying by EFTPOS (Canadians read Interac) and New Zealand has abolished small demonination coins, it actually cost me $39.98 so, all in all, a bargain.

The entrance is looking good; you are welcomed by a pair of affectionate horses, a portrait of, and The Fever Van, by L S Lowry and the Rodin sculpure of Danaid - that doesn't show on the photo because its on the floor waiting to be elevated to the rosewood table when I rescue it from storage. Then on the wall opposite is a Fiji native axe and another Fiji implement which has two uses; you use the top end to crack someone's scull then use the pointy bits to eat their brains :)

Prediction for Scotland v All Blacks; 7-42. TV3 just had an interview with Scotland's oldest surviving international and the interviewer made the point that, at 101 years of age, the old guy is only two years younger than Scotland's losing streak against the AB's!!

Last morning

I flew back to NZ on Sunday, upgraded to Business Class courtesy of Pitila - 'Clive! You are going to change your t-shirt before you check in aren't you?'.

The morning was spent building tents and 'spitting' a pig ready for a fund-raiser that afternoon. Unfortunately I missed eating the pig but I'm sure it made a great contribution to the proceedings.

As Chris and I were leaving for the airport we came across Gordon (12) driving his mother's Ute down the road!

And I found the lost pictures; the synchronisation of the files with the back-up server hadn't 'clocked' them so, as far as it was concerned, they didn't exist!

... and ...

Thursday evening was another excuse for a party as Ally was going back to NZ the following morning. I got a spectacular t-shirt.

The girl doing breaststroke (photo taken using flash) had done 14-15-15-16 strokes the previous weekend at the nationals. This night I got her down to 5 for a push 25 so I count that as a win!

... and even more

Thursday morning was the Nadi special needs course. As usual we were terrific!

But Wait; There's More

Thursday saw us back in Nadi to run another set of courses but first there was morning training for the Mako kidz. Two of the girls, Elly and Emily, have very long hair and were playing around. I like these photos a lot. They're slightly photoshopped but not much.

Then there was the extremely hard job of coaching!

Even More Fiji

On the Wednesday Ally (SNZ Nat Ed Mgr) and I flew from Nadi to Suva to run a coach certification course for special needs swimmers. In the morning we had hearing impaired swimmers and in the afternoon some partially sighted swimmers. The hearing impaired kids included one with half a leg also but he was totally agile and had to be told off for 'running on the poolside'! We had a big rainfall while these kids were in the pool but it was warm rain so it didn't matter and, in any case, you only feel wet when you're out of the water! Not that I was in the water; I was the official photographer.

The visually impaired kids were great. The girl with Sideshow Bob hair was about 6'3" tall and a stick insect while the guy covered in freckles was albino. No doubt he will have major skin cancer problems later but he was a happy chappie that day.

More Fiji

Last Tuesday we went sailing. Eleven of us on a relatively small boat. This picture is taken after we'd stopped off at one of the islands for a beer or three. No lights and pitch darkness to cross Nadi bay; very interesting :)



The picture of the grinning kid is Gordon, the youngest son of Chris and Pitila who I stayed with. Chris is a pilot with Air Pacific and it's his boat we used.




Then we were back to the house for some well-earned beers :)

Clive is Alive!

I am a total slacker at the moment and haven't posted for weeks. I spent the last ten days in Fiji working as a volunteer with the Mako Club so we'll start with that and go in picture day order. There may be a gap on one of the days as I inadvertently 'moved' a hundred or so instead of 'copying' and am now waiting for a disk to arrive from Fiji with the moved pictures on. Silly me.

The first weekend was spent in Suva at the national championships. It's a three hour drive and follows the usual interesting country drives - cows wandering across the road, drivers falling asleep when coming towards you, just normal stuff. I placed myself under a tent at the meet but my legs still got totally fried from the sun reflecting off the water!

They run all events as timed finals with all ages and both genders combined so each event ranged from little 5 year old girls to big, hairy, 50+ year old men! One club didn't like that fact that the event order had been changed after the entries were submitted and decided to boycott the first evening by sitting in their van in the carpark.

The lane ropes were somewhat slack and looked as it they'd been chewed by a tractor. The timekeepers were local student volunteers who I don't think had timed before; one lane had a five second difference between two watches!!

Evenings were excellent with party-time being the order of the day and with the Nadi (pronounced Nandi) Mako Club parents leading the way :)

The drive back to Nadi on the Sunday took rather longer as we stopped off for three hours for lunch at one of the swimmers' grandparents place; all very civilised and happy.