Juggling dates and balls

It's hard to believe, but tomorrow it will be six months since we arrived in New Zealand. As usual with these things, it seems just like yesterday in one respect, but a long time ago in other ways. All in all, it's been a very positive and refreshing time that has brought us closer together as a family. We've had new experiences, met new people and faced new challenges.

The boys go back to school this week after nearly seven weeks off. It will be a shock to the system! Matthew starts at intermediate (Y7 & Y8), while for the first time Josh is facing up to not having his big brother at the same school. It's going to be interesting to see how they settle in the coming weeks and we'd value your prayers for both of them.

The week after returning from New Wine was tricky. Bad weather, post-holiday blues and news of illness back in the UK combined to leaving us all feeling a bit low. But a good weekend revived spirits and the weather has even decided to cheer up as well.



Christchuch seems to have a never ending cycle of festivals and events, but this week's diary seems to have been particularly busy. There's been the week long Buskers' Festival, with shows throughout the day and evening and various venues around town. The boys did a juggling workshop last Sunday and then spent Thursday in town with Ali taking in a great range of acts. One act was by a group that had instructed at the juggling workshop. They recognised the boys and decided to co-opt Matthew into their routine!


With glorious weather this weekend, Matthew's been able to celebrate his first 'summer' birthday. But when was his birthday? He was born at 11pm in the UK, which would have been 12 noon on the following day in NZ. So was his birthday on the 29th or 30th? Whichever, we celebrated with trips to the beach. We were pounded by the surf at Taylor's Mistake yesterday, then headed to New Brighton for the kite festival today.


Sandwiched in between was a trip to a football match last night. Yes, football as in 'soccer'... with a round ball! New Zealand has one professional side who play in the Aussie league. The Phoenix are based in Wellington, but played their 'home' fixture against Adelaide Utd here in Christchurch at the newly refurbished AMI Stadium due to a concert being staged at the 'cake tin' in Wellington. In this hotbed of partisan rugby union, the Christchurch public turned up in great numbers and a noisy crowd (yes, those really are people with yellow buckets on their head in the picture) of over 19,000 cheered on the Phoenix to a 1-0 victory.

I played by first round of southern hemispere golf on Friday. Sorting out my clubs, I found a number of items that I hadn't seen since we packed off the container in June. Would you believe that I'd decided the safest place to transport lengths of model railway track was in a golf bag? More worryingly, I found a compass whistle and survival bag in one pocket. That must say something about the standard of my golf! I will leave you with that thought. Bye.

The tent is drying!

It's been brought to my attention that it's three weeks since I last updated the blog. Apologies to the Facebook generation, but I've been busy in a 'holiday' kind of way so there haven't been any updates.

As you can probably guess from the title, we've just got back from camping and the weather didn't behave itself! We spent four days just outside Hanmer Springs at New Wine NZ a Christian conference/festival. We'd been to New Wine UK in 2008 and all thoroughly enjoyed (and were challenged by) the teaching, worship and seminars so thought we'd give the Kiwi version a go. Hanmer was on a much smaller scale (450 as a opposed to 5000+ attending) but we are glad we went and the boys have come back buzzing having made new friends and explored our faith at their own pace and level.


As with any conference, Ali and I got more out of some sessions than others and preferred some speakers to others. For me, I particular learnt a lot from the main speaker David Parker of Desert Vineyard church in Los Angeles County.

Despite the weather being a bit grey, damp and... well, how can I put this... English, Hanmer was a great place to stay. We spent Thursday afternoon in the hot pools (the hottest and smelliest being a sulphurous 41oC), unexpectedly bumping into some Australian friends from Christchurch. Ali had a minor panic when she realised the sulphur had tarnished all her silver necklaces to a dark grey colour. It's obviously a common occurrance as the girls on the Reception desk produced a tin of 'silvo' and restored them to their original colour!

On Friday morning, I took my bike for a 25km trip over Jollies Pass and down to the Clarence River, then back over Jack's Pass to Hanmer Springs. I freely admit to having to walk part of the way up Jollies Pass, which tops out at 800m. But the scenery and isolation were stunning as I bounced along dirt roads, through fords and back down the bone jarring descent from Jack's Pass (photo below is from the summit of the pass).
On a personal note, going for the cycle ride gave me a chance to draw a line under an interesting three and a half years. In June 2006, I had a great weekend doing the English Coast to Coast cycle with a friend Steve and a group from his Round Table Club. It was the last time I'd done a challenging ride and I'd thoroughly enjoyed it and the camaraderie.

But that weekend marked the start of a period of big changes for relationships with family and friends and at work. I'll spare you the details but could I have seen these things coming and could... should I have acted before? I'll probably never know the answers, but it was the culmination of these things in 2008 that led us to re-evaluate what we should be doing with our lives and make the decision to come to New Zealand.

New Wine NZ and getting on my bike over Jollies Pass has allowed me to draw a line under this period and move on without regret or bitterness. Though I deeply miss seeing many of you, moving to New Zealand has been fantastic. I just love the country. So that's the heavy stuff over with. Let's get back to the usual 'wish you were here' kind of stuff...

I'd enjoyed going over to the Clarence River so much that I persuaded Ali and the boys to throw a picnic in the car and retrace my tyre tracks. As you'll see below, Ali doesn't hold back when behind the wheel.



It had been a mixture of work and play between Christmas and New Wine. I was at work fromthe 5th-8th Jan, but before that we'd alternated between days at home and days away to the zoo, Okains Bay and Glentui. The picture below is of cloud 'dolphins' at Okains Bay.

At the zoo, I particularly liked the kea enclosure where we could get up close to New Zealand's cheeky alpine (they use their peak as an ice axe!) parrots. Here one 'man-handles' a log.



Last weekend, we had to put up with the minor inconvenience of temporary road closures as the National Road Race Cycling Championships were staged in our part of Christchurch. Below, Ali and the boys look on as the elite women's race streams past the house on their first lap. We are well used to cyclists passing the house as every mornin, evening and weekend hundreds of road and mountain bikers pass on there circuits of the 'Long Bays' (around Lyttleton Harbour and over Gebbies & Sumner passes) or heading up onto the Port Hills.


Just when I need a lie-in after four nights in a tent it's back to work tomorrow. And finally... I'm not a bit jealous of all the snow that there's been in the UK. OK, I lied and I am jealous. Take care and God Bless.