Back to School, The Waves, Danniverke Party, Parkruns, Watermelons

So winding back to the 22nd Feb (Happy Birthday Dad!) - We took the Dog to the Vet to get his shots updated, well Beth and I took him, Theo didn't want to come.  Beth accidentally banged her head really badly getting out of the car on the car door, poor thing, but the excitement of taking Biscuit to the vet soon overcame that.  Biscuit was fine, he's lost 2kg since his last visit which is really good, he was a tiny bit overflab last time.  We put this down to the fact it was lockdown, I/we didn't go out and do a real lot of running/exercise and we were always at home dropping him bits of food, left over sandwiches the kids didn't finish etc.  So he got a lot of extra food and not a lot of extra exercise to make up for it.  These days he's the opposite, he only pretty much gets what we give him and he's going for 5km and 10kms runs on some days, so he's burning up lots of energy.  So yes, a clean bill of health and his vaccinations are up to date for another year.

Once done at the Vet we dropped off Biscuit and all of us piled in the car and we went back to the beach, the same place (Ocean Beach) we'd been to on New Year's Day.  This time it was much less packed because a lot more people were back at work.  We had a nice time, the kids played in the creek, we build some sand castles, Theo and I went for a little walk along the beach looking at shells and sticks and all sorts.

Saturday morning I got up and did Parkrun, then I'm sure we must have done something else in there but I can't recall what it was.  That evening though we went off down to Danniverke for a 60th Birthday party.  It was an interesting party, everyone smoked like a chimney stack, someone accidentally brushed Beth's arm with a cigarette, burning her a tiny bit.  There was a puppy for Beth to play with though, and Theo found some likeminded friends to play Bay Blades with.  THREE TWO ONE LET IT RIP.  We drove home once people started getting quite boozed and all the EFFING this and that came out, though tragedy stuck because we couldn't find Theo's Sucky toy so we had to leave him behind.  On the drive back Theo cracked us up with his request for some "Cooling Down Foot Wind" which he meant as turning on the aircon so it would blow out of the vents near his feet. That's how we all refer to the air-conditioning now - Cooling Down Foot Wind.

Sunday morning we went to the Farmer's Market which was nice, there'd been a big 60 Sixty concert in Hastings the night before so we though it'd be totally rammed. It was busy, but not that rammed.  Had a nice time anyway, at the end the kids went and looked the eels and things swiming in the pond behind all the stalls.

Then it was just a week of work. On Tuesday evening I rode down to Arhuiri to meet Sarah and the kids, Sarah jumped in the Ocean as part of the Ocean Swim training she's doing, the kids had a great splash in the water.  Thursday was my day off work, so I looked after the kids while Sarah was working, we went to the library in the morning and then when we got home some puppets that Granny made had arrived, so the kids had a good play with them for the afternoon.

Then the weekend - mostly just doing jobs around the house, I did Parkrun again which I don't know how I managed seeing as I woke up at 4:30am and couldn't get back to sleep.  But I did.  And got a Vo2Max of 45 according to Garmin (Good) which I was very happy with!  Was a terrible time though, I had to stop for a pee after the first lap and a 3 legged dog beat me.  Damnit.

Tuesday was again Sarah's beach day, I met them down there.  This time, the waves were HUGE.  I couldn't believe they were going out, but go out they did.  I took the kids to a really sheltered bit of a the beach, a natural little rockpool.  Beth was having a great time when of course 5 massive waves or so, all lined up, flew into the rockpool and flooded it, got our bags/shoes all wet.  Poor Beth was washed over the rocks, thankfully not hurting herself.  Gawd it was terrible - I freaked out for a second or two!!  I mean we were in an area where you can't really get washed out, there was no rip etc, but still scary for a second.  Anyway after we managed to recover from that, hard with no dry towels, Sarah came in and she was beaten to death by the waves.  Apparently lots of people had needed help in the massive swell, it was a bit of a shitshow all round really!  They rang her today to make sure she wasn't traumatised (She's not) - they'd have had to ring about 35 people and I bet some of them were still in tears!

And today, Wednesday, the kids started back at school.  They seem to have had a great day, they're both smiling and happy when I got home.  So that's good.  Growing up so quickly our lovely little tackers.

And my watermelons in the garden are starting to take off and grow.  Woohoo.  Another month and they'll be ready I hope!

Time to go to bed, I'm knackered.

Tim