OK well I'm being a right nerd at the moent and typing this from the pool on Saturday morning. Not our pool, but the pool that's at the aquatic centre while Beth is doing her swimming lessons. Theo is sitting behind me playing with Unicorn Pusheen, Winking Pusheen and his Dolphin Toy Finny. I thought I'd bring my laptop because it's an hour of me just sitting around not doing much, watching the kids swim aand little else, so I thought this will be the right time to try and catch up on my diary entires from since ages ago.
So, TWO whole weekends ago was Sarah's 40th Birthday Party at Cape Kidnappers. Early Saturday morning we got up and spend the morning getting the house all clean and tidy for guests. Ben and Di were driving down from Hamilton and also people would be coming over after the party so we had to get the lounge all nice and clean and tidy too. Once that was done, we got all dressed and ready, Ben and Di arrived as did the baby sitter who was going to look after Beth and Theo for the day. We said the quickest of "Hello"s to B&D and they had to go and get ready, and we kept getting ready. After 30 minutes evertone was ready to go, the Taxi arrived to pick us with up Peter, Mary, Holly and Adrian already in there having been picked up earlier. Sadly it was a bit of a miserable day. There was a bit of excitement though because no one knew where we were going for lunch. Well obviously Sarah and I knew, but no one else. So there was a bit of guessing as we drove out towards Cape Kidnappers, eventually we got to the point where the only place we could be going was either Cape Kidnappers, or Hugga. And we sure as shit knew we weren't going to Huggea to hang out with 5,000 sweaty disguesting cyclists. Ugh.
We arrived at the Cape and after a bit of back and forth trying to get through the security gate "Do you have a booking, sir?" we were let through on the slow drive up to the top. And then we realised, fuck, because of the terrible weather that we were't going to be able to see anything. I mean one of the big things about the Cape, other than the amazing service and food, is the amaizng views. And fuck it, it was overcast the whole time were there, so we couldn't see a thing really. Nevermind. Anyway we arrived and were guided to a very comfortable lounge to sit down and order some drinks, I was very impressed to see that they had Brave IPA (Bottle Rocket) as an option. After a few drinks and Sarah being given her presents, we were walked thorugh to the dining room, one of a number of individual rooms at The Cape it seems. Fancy! Anyway the food was amazing, there was lamb rib and lamb rack, all cooked to perfection. That was of course after a very flash entree/amuse boosch. I have no idea how you spell that thing. Finally there was dessert, which was also very tasty. I was quite jealous of Ben's chocolate thing, he's dairy intolerant so had a special dessert which looked tastier than ours. Overall a very amazing meal, all served perfectly by a very professional French waiter who had the perfect balance of being professional yet funny.
What else? Pool progress is being made. There was a lot of hassle about what sort of job Monty had done, I can't even remember if that was part of my last diary entry or not. I had to ring him to say that the job isn't level and will require agmentation to get it all up to scratch. I was expeting to have to offer him the right to repair it himself etc, but he just said no worries send me a bill for any work they have to do and he'll pay it. He said that so quickly I guess he knew that parts of it weren't as good as they should have been and was happy to just do what it took to make it right. So that was good, I'm glad that wasn't a difficult or awkward converstation. I'd already ready the contract back and forth to make sure I had the right things to say if I needed to, but no such hassle. Of speaking of the contract we got from the landscapers was mental. It was a clause in it where we gave them permission to lodge a mortgage against the property to pay the bills if we didn't pay them. I wrote back and said I'm sorry we're going to refuse to sign that unless we get our lawyers to look at it. Anyway Charlotte got back to me and said yea sorry that's just a boilplate wording from the landscapers assocation contract and that she'd strike it out when she re-sent it. Which she did, so that's good. We have down the rest of the concrete around the pool, which is where the tiles will sit, and Adrian (who we've asked to do the deck because his price was half the price of the landscapers) has put in all the groundwork for the deck out the back and the deck/pergola next to the pool. Here's a photo of how it looks this weekend, still a bombsite of course but you can start to see how it's going to loook when it's finished. And it looks like how I thought it would look in my mind, which is good because usually these things don't turn out like at all for me.
Covid is going nuts. I hate to write about it really, becasue it's your face 24/7 and all that jazz. But New Zealand recorded 12k cases yesterday, which is just batshit insane. That's double the number of cases vs the day before and we all thought that 6k was a mental amount. We have postponed our trip to the Melbourne GP later this year, we're just too worried what if we get there and there's a new strain and it means we get stuck in Australia and we can't get back to the kids etc. I mean unlikely, but it seems so silly to risk it for something that's really not THAT important, it's just a luxury. I mean it is Sarah's birthday present, so it sucks from that point of view but we both agree we're doing the right things. And Boys Trip Ltd have been just great, so easy to deal with, fully understanding why we're moving to next year etc. I thought they'd be a bit annoyed/upset but quite the opposite, he even went out of his way to ensure that we managed to get refunds on the insurance policy we'd taken out, something that I wasn't expecting at all would be refunded. So that was nice.
That of course means that my fly-in fly-out trip to Wellington last week to get my Australian passport was pointless. Well, not really pointless, but I didn't need to do it in the rush I did. See I was going up to Auckland the week before with my workmate to do some installation work. And I thought "While I'm there I'll duck over to the Australian Consulate to get my passport renewed". And so that was my plan on the Monday night before I was ready to go. Sarah said "Are you sure you don't have to book?" and I said no, I've spoken to a few people on the phone and no one's mentioned the requirement to book. Anyway long story short it seems you DO have to book. Sarah couldn't find anything at the Auckland consulate (all booked out) until April, but she did manage to find an Feb 21st appointment at 2:40pm. So we booked that. Man I was so stressed out (we hadn't cancelled our Melbourne GP Trip at this stage) thinking fuck what if I stuff this up, there's not much wiggle room.
The next morning I set off super early (5am) with my workmate and we drove up to Auckland. Come 10am I finally managed to get the consulate on the phone, thinking they'd help me. But she said no, the only way to visit the Auckland Consulate is to have a booking, they won't help otherwise. So thank FEK Sarah managed to get that Wellington booking, it must have been someone cancelling. Even the lady on the phone said "Sir if you have a booking we advise you to hang onto it and attend it" because of how busy they are.
So I did two days in Auckland, we moved a rack out the Glenfield Exchanged over into the Forest Hill Exchange. That was fun. Then on the Wednesday night/Thursday morning I upgraded the Vocus Parkhead Place MX480 from Junos 13.3 to 20.2 in one big move, put in the ol' "Format the Routing Engine and Install New Software" USB stick and then just restored the config. A few small hiccups (had to reboot the entire chsassis to get the chassis mode changed accepted) and we were away laughing. It went so smoothly I was amazed really, though to be fair I had spent quite a bit of time testing and planning the work. Anyway it's been going solid for a week now with no performance issues, so I'm quite happy. And so are our customers, I guess.
The whole time we were in Auckland I kept refreshing the Auckland bookings page in the off chance there was a booking that opened up (I'd taken my passport and form etc up with my in case) but it wasn't to be. The whole time I was there I saw 1 booking pop up and it was for the week after we'd be there. So keep the Wellington appointment it was.
And that brings me to last weekend which was Jordan's bucks night on Saturday night. Saturday afternoon at 2pm Eddie (who I used to work with) picked me up and we drove down to Jordan's mates place in Otane. We set up Eddies huge tent, not bothering though with the fly because we didn't think it would rain. The bucks night itself was pretty tame, they made Jordan run around and they shot him with pellet guguns. Pellet guns have really evolved these days, the ones they had take "Orbeez" which are those little plastic things you soak in water for 24 hours and they puff right up and smoosh if you touch them. Or they fly into a groom at 100km or whatever speed they were. After we'd done the ol' "Shoot Jordan" I manned the BBQ and cooked up all the food everyone had bought. Well I say everyone, I bought enough food for 3 people to have 2 servings, and I know Eddie bought a lot of food. I'm not sure how much food other people bought cause by the time the BBQ was over there wasn't any food left at all! Still we had a good time though, they started playing drinking games close to midnight and me being the old man that I am, called it a night instead and go into bed. At about 2pm a farking local Fire Dept siren started going off, they sound like air raid sirens. That woke me up and pissed me off. And then fark me if at 4am it didn't bloody well start raining. So of course I started getting wet. So I decamped from Eddies tent and found another huge tent with 3 people in it and a spare sleeping space, and got in there and went to sleep until about 8am when everyone got up. Everyone rallied together and cleaned up Jordan's mates place, someone else manned the BBQ (I think Jordan) and cooked us bacon and eggs for Breakfast. Then we packed up the cars and headed back home. With a quick stop in by one of Joran's mates to steal a cactus. No, I don't understand, but the guy was (still is, I guess) obsessed with cactuses.
Right I think that's everything. This week was just a week, oh Sarah took Beth and Theo to the dentist. Theo was great, Beth had to be physically restrained as they cleaned her teeth. She has another small cavity in one of her back teeth. The dentist when to great pains again to tell us it's not our fault, the fact Theo's teeth are perfect just shows its Beth's enamal problem that's the cause, not anything we're doing wrong. It's not like we feed Beth lots of extra sugar/lollies/fizzy drink etc.
Last weekend at Mitre 10 I had to buy a bucket. I'd taken Theo with me and while buying the bucket he suddenly decided he really wanted a bucket too. So I let him pick one out and he bought it home. Wow so much entertainment from a bucket. It was his chair. Then it was Big Bae's house and Big Bae slept in it, on Theo's bed, that night. And the on Monday he took the Bucket to school for news and apparently everyone loved the Bucket. Good work Theo!
Ok now I think that's everything. Oh no one more thing we had Parent Teacher Zoom Interviews a week or so ago, they went really well. Their teachers are very happy with them and their work, they're doing great and progressing well. Theo's doing great writing, Beth's doing great writing etc. So that was good.
Ok that's really it, he said. Swimming is almost finished, Beth wants to know why I'm typing on my computer and is upset I'm not watching her instead. I explained what my diary is to her and she's now keen to write something in it later today.
Tim
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