No surfing again this weekend, Judd (surf instructor) said that it'd be too cold and miserable weather and he wasn't wrong. It's been freezing cold and wet all weekend. It's still been a good weekend though, despite the weather.

Yesterday we went into town and watched the movie "Candy". It was really good, if a little depressing. It's about two people who are in love, one of them's a junkie and soon the other one is too. It then follows their lives as they go downhill at a pretty alarming rate.

Then it was off the Rugby! The All Blacks vs the Irish. We took lots of clothes and wet weather gear because it looked like it was going to rain and it didn't let us down. We sat in the terraces while the rain came squirting down, watching the game which was very stop 'n' start because of the...

My new contract is going well! It was quite daunting on the first day (well, the second day but Monday didn't really count) but I'm settling into what I've got to do and how to go about doing it. It's really good to be back in an office environment with people to talk to and a working coffee machine.

Nothing else to tell you, I have to get ready to go to work!

Tim

First day of new contract. Taking Sarah to work and the radio in the car goes silent. 2 seconds later, all the traffic lights in the city turn off.

Power to most of Auckland is out!

Here i am in Ericsson, no power at all. Typing this on my mobile. What a great start!!

Tim

Updated!

Finally everything slowly seems to be back to normal, at 4pm! I got sent home at about 11am when it was becoming obvious that the power wasn't coming on any time soon. Here's the story about what happened.

Power didn't come on back at home until about 1:30pm or so, but then the Internet was very flaky, sometimes working for a minute or two then dying totally.

It was crazy driving around Auckland with no traffic lights, when I went to pick up Sarah (she couldn't do much work either) I had to wait...

SPCA yesterday was really good, they've introduced a new policy where instead of just taking the dogs out for a 5-10 minute run around the grass area, we now get to spend 45minutes to an hour with each dog. It means that we don't walk as many, but the idea is that the morning people will have walked half of them so we'll walk the other half. The dogs obviously enjoy it a lot more, after 10 minutes usually they're just starting to enjoy themselves and then they're back in their cage. Now they get to have a good run then a rest and a pat etc. They're also much calmer for it, there was a lot less noise in the dog area yesterday.
The only problem to come of it is the grumpy old cow (not the SPCA worker, this cow is another volunteer) who only comes to the...

We got up bright and early (6:30) this morning because we were meant to be going for our second surfing lesson, but our instructor rang about 10 past 7 and told us that he's calling it off this weekend because of how bad the weather is again. The conditions weren't that great last weekend and it'd suck to have to spend another day in the surf just fighting to catch a tiny little wave. Hopefully next weekend it'll be a lot better.

At least it means I can go out to the SPCA today, I didn't go last time either so I was feeling pretty guilty for not going this time around. The weather seems to have cleared up a bit too, so hopefully I won't get pissed on as I walk the doggies.

Sarah's very happy with her new laptop and I'm not surprised, it really is a fantastic...

Here's wishing you a happy end-of-the-world Satan day! All hail the overlord! 6/6/6! We're going down in flames! Yea!

Tim

As Sarah's already posted, surfing yesterday was a lot of fun! We had a really great time, we were so tired at the end of it though. That was nothing compared to this morning though, every muscle ached! It was impossible to get out of bed.
We had a nice afternoon, not counting the aches and pains. We went to Mission bay and enjoyed the last little bit of sun and warmth that Auckland has to offer. Sarah then took her new notebook (which is really amazing) over to a friends place to get all the good software on it.

That's all!

Tim

I went to check on the hedgehog just before I went to bed last night, and poor hedgehog wasn't with us anymore. I'm not sure what happened to him/her, though she had been balled up all night which was kind of odd. So I buried poor hedgehog last night. I think maybe it hadn't been well, it wasn't putting on weight though it still seemed to be eating.

RIP Pigpog!

If I ever was to find another little orphaned hedgehog (or other animal) I think I will just let nature take its course.

Hello all,

Tim has been quite slack of late, and we've had some complaints, so I thought I better write one while he's out buying our tea.

Note: After being laughed at repeatedly for the way I say things on the telephone (thanks Sallee) I have decided to define some of the terms used in my update, just in case.

We are having takeaways tonight, but it's well deserved as we spent the day at Piha learning to surf. A few weeks ago we talked about going to Thailand for a holiday, but we changed our minds to save money and because we weren't sure what was happening with Tim's new contract. Our new plan was to take a couple of surf school trips, much cheaper and something I've always wanted to do.

I was quite nervous that we'd get some cowabunga*, but Judd and his girlfriend picked us up...

I'm too lazy to write a proper update. On Sunday though we went up to the Waitakere mountain ranges to this really nice cafe called Elevation. From Elevation you get a really nice view back over Auckland, though Sunday was a pretty dull and cloudy day. Then we did a bit of exploring and went to checkout Piha beach, we've both heard lots about it (It's Auckland's really well known surf beach) but had never been. here's the photos for you to have a look at.

Oscar went back to the vet today, we've given up trying to get him to eat his pellets by himself. The vet is going to keep him for 7-10 days and convert him so that he will eat his pellets. When they're out of the comfort of their usual surroundings they don't put up much of a fight.

I'll write more when I can...