To everything there is a season..

Dear All,

Well after several attempts at trying to blog I have finally manaaged to remember how to sign in. It is so long ago that I posted that I do not really know what news is current and what is so yesterday! Anyway I figure that hopefully some material will be of interest to someone out there in the mysterious Blogland.

All is well here in Spur Rd. We have had a crazy mix of weather in the last week but I guess that is par for the course at this time of the year. Ash and I both have very full diaries filled with all sorts of events between now and Christmas. Every day more events seem to be added..so much so that there is a long string of days when there is at least one extra thing on every night. We have 2 full Xmas Dinners on the 9th and 11th, plus a double 21st, and all the Craighead events of the last week. Next week I go to Hamner Springs for a week with the entire 4th form, 3 parents and 6 staff. Hopefully it will be ok.

Ash is busy at TDC and also has quite a few committments with his Presidency role so lots on in the next wee while. Ash is looking good though and he does a fine job looking after our garden and lawns. We purchased about 6 new white poenies last wekend at the rose show. We hope they flourish as well as the coloured ones we planted the first season here. The roses are beautiful this week..a joy to behold.

I was appointed Guidance counsellor/careers advisor at school starting in 2008. I am very excited about a change in direction. I will have 2 teaching classes, a full theory paper to do by distance education, and the job. As soon as I was appointed I was given the opportunity to attend a 3 day Intensive Therapy Training [solution focused] in Auckland. It meant I had a chance to catch up with Jeff and Kate, David and Mary. It was neat to see them all. They are all busy in their respective jobs. Congratulations to Mary on her admission the the Bar.

We are looking forward to catching up with the family on the 16th at Jenni and Pete's. Chris I sent you an email the other day but it bounced back.

I assume we will swap gifts on the 16th at O'C's for those of us who are there!! We will raise our glasses and give a toast to all of you still working and busy so far away. Ash and I are flying to Auckland on Sat 22nd Dec for 5 days. Should be fun. I have been up there twice without him so I will be able to show him around . We will be home at New Year and Ash will go back to work for 2 weeks before we head off for our camping adventure. All seems so far away at this point. I am trying to find out about study leave etc at present.

We saw Mum and Dad recently. They both looked good. Mum seems to have managed the eye operation quite ok. Now for the other one. Well must go as I have a pile of things to do by the end of tomorrow. Most of this afternoon was spent at a meeting on the new "Te Kete" project..so much more to learn. Cheers to everyone. Results are out. I hope they were all favourable. Love Barbara and Ash.

Putting the "Mechanic" in Mechanical Engineer

Hi all,

Its been a rather busy couple of weeks since the last post. I realised just before Patrick headed up a couple of weekends ago that my clutch in my car was slipping. So after he returned to Christchurch after our weekend of checking out the sights and sounds of Tokoroa, I decided to swap the burnt out clutch for a brand new one by myself in an attempt to sae $300. I am happy to say that the car is now back in one piece and still works, despite having almost all of the parts under the bonnet removed. A mid progress photo is included:


Sadly, I found out today that my CV seals are also shot and they would have been easy to replace at the time.....by its no biggy for now, so I'll leave it for the new year. I also headed to Auckland last Wednesday to see the legendary punk band "Bad Religion" play live. They've been around for 27 years and have released 14 albums, so they had a lot of experience and were very entertaining. Stayed on Dave and Jeff's lounge floor that night before heading up to Northland for 3 nights. Got up to Cape Rienga and back. I have also included a photo of the lighthouse at Cape Rienga by sunset:


I sadly won't be down in the South Island on the 16th December for the gathering Jenn, but I will be down the week after for a few weeks, so if anyone makes it up to Christchurch or if we end up heading down at all, it would be great to see who's around.

Have a good weekend all.

Matt

steamin along

Whew I thought the blog had died. Life is steaming along here. Managed to get out a frock and front up to cup day massively entertaining day out. Also saw crowded house with supergroove(awesome).
froze our way through Southern Amp but saw some good ol nz acts Atlas,Veils,opshop,Black Seeds,Shihad and of course 4manbob.
Went to Full Monty(stage show) was fun matts mate luke was musical director, and half the band were familiar.
on thurs nite went to brilliant show by the jazz school,cabaret style with tutors and pupils all kind of styles.
work is frantic and life is flying by. I went to training course for ushers at the court theatre. Hopefully will start in next few weeks. then i will have to go to most of the shows there.
Great to hear the cataract op went well for you mum. will look forward to catching up on 16th.
Congrats on job cam . cheers chris

hey. just thought id add a quick post. this time next week my degree will be finished, i had a three hour theory exam today, which wasnt fun in the slightest haha, so now im just working towards my practical exam next tues night. not a whole lot more to say, played at southern amp on sat night (kind of like chchs answer to big day out but nowhere near as big) that was quite fun but the singers car got broken into that night and heaps of stuff got stolen, nothing of mine but everyone else in the band got stuff stolen, so that sucks. hope everyones doing good?
sweet, have a nice day
victoria

Jingle Bells

Hi everyone, from Jen,
Yarghh sorry so long without posting,but like Jeff and Dave and especially Matt,we have been scooting around and have managed to catch up with many of the W.offspring which has been great.
It has been really good to see Jeff Dave Matt Hannah Cam Emma and hear everyones news,lots of interesting plans for the near,( and not so near),future.Wow Jeff and Kate your honeymoon is going to be an amazing experience.Al Dente was a good choice Dave,lovely meal and company, hopefully the waitess has got over Petes enquiry about the pinot.
Pete and I have had the first whole weekend at home by ourselves for ages,as the winter is a busy time and then there is the catching up on everything postskiseason.
It was good to hear about Chris's wonderful trip away,and congrats to Barb on the new job,it will be an exciting new challenge.
Cams 3 month contract at Clicksuite is up soon and he has been offered a permanent position which is great.Nick is feverishly finishing his year,and due home at the end of this coming week.
Liv has finished and is happily installed in Wanaka,we will catch up with her in 2 weeks.
Mum,(GMa), has the first of her cataract ops tomorrow morning,it should really improve her vision, although she said it hasnt been a problem,so she will have some downtime coming up while she convalesces.
Now back to my title,anyone in Timmos on December 16th is invited to ours for a wee xmas get together, we would love to see anyone who is able to come.We are doing this early as Barbs and Ash are off to Auck, and we are thinking of having Xmas day in Wanaka with Liv,Cam and Emma will be down as well.
Take care all,
ps I agree with Matt, we will rock you was great!

Early November

Hey Blogosphere, Jeff is here...

I, like matt, have decided to update y'all with a sporadic blog post. I haven't got heaps of news but i guess that's not really the point. The last weekend gone we went to "We Will Rock You" which was excellent and a p party in hamilton which was good also. We tried to picnic in the rain sunday but alas. Earlier in the weekend davie and I caught up with jen and pete which was nice. Few beers and some nice italian food on the viaduct.

Previous to that we caught up to matt, went to a "round the world" party, spent labour weekend at waiheke and visited hamilton a fair bit. So lots of little stuff on at the moment you could say...

Work is alright. My days are spent computing away feverishly which can be tiring but is enjoyable for the moment. Fonterra seems to be waiting for the big capital structure announcemnet on the 15th of november so we'll see what happens.

Flat is still holding together. We have decided to stretch out our tenancy til mid-november with kate staying here too. It'll be good to save the odd dollar to spend in far off places. Speaking of which, it is pretty certain we are going to honeymoon in Africa. Exciting stuff. We are planning a tour from joburg up through to nairobi and visiting 5-6 countries on the way.

Wedding plans are good. The invites have been ordered and should be here next week. The photographer etc are all booked and so now we just have to deal with a few details (shall we say).

Post some more news Fenj, Ash, Barb, Olivia...

jeff

Break the Silence

Hi Guys,

Well, there has been very little reporting on here in recent times, so I thought I'd give a bi o an update. In the last 3 weeks I have managed to visit NZ's 3 main centres and actually caught up with a lot of you on my travels. I went to Wellington on Labour weekend and caught up with Cameron and Emma, then the next week went to Auckland to watch "We Will Rock You" (brilliant by the way, i recommend it to everyone) and caught up with Dave and Jeff and even saw Jenn and Pete at Sylvia park. And weekend just been I was in Chch to watch Crowded House and catch up with my family. So yeah, apart from that, jsut working and that. It would be great to hear what people are doing, even if it's just a couple of lines.

Keep it real!

Matt