Post No. 81 - a good year!

Well what can I tell you. 1981 was a fabulous year as it was the year I was brought kicking and screaming into this world! And can't you all just picture a one year old Graeme - how cute!

Anyway I have digressed. Until I realised this was post number 81 I planned to show you more photos! Its like last Saturday with us flying out to Oz. We had loads of immigration paperwork to fill in (okay, I exaggerate - 2 small forms!) and every time they asked for todays date I filled in 22 October 1981! What a dafty!

So for starters here is a picture of me feeding a kookaburra on my great uncles balcony. I was feeding it bacon rind - the little meat eater - its a wonder it never pecked me fingers off!

And next up, here's a scary looking one for you. I think I will entitle this one 'Sharky and George' (hands up who remembers that great piece of television history?!)

Tomorrow its back to work for us....yuck! We've had a fabulous holiday and now its back to reality. Graeme heads back to counting those beans and I have the most fabulous temp job lined up this week - data entry at the University - woohoo! Very soon, our fun in the sun will become a distant memory!....then in 4 weeks time me da' arrives so more holidays - yipee!

Post No. 80 - We're home!

Hey Peeps! Did you miss us? Sorry for the lack of messages while we have been away - I did attempt to write a message while we were away but got sidetracked and forgot to post it! We had such a great time - it was wonderful. Not only did we catch up with family we haven't seen in a while and meet family from the 'Oz' side we also saw lots of Australian 'stuff'!

Won't say much else now. I managed to get some photos uploaded so will let the photos keep you amused and tell you more later!

First up - us at Surfers Paradise after a nice long walk - we walked for 2 hours! My feet hurt so much when we got back to the car and we both got quite sunburnt - we had some lotion on but it was raining so didn't expect to catch the sun!
Next up - a polar bear cub - yes, thats a cub can you believe! This was taken at SeaWorld. There were 2 of them and they were just the cutest!




Couldn't go to Oz without seeing a koala! And I actually got to cuddle one. Me and Graeme and Mum got our photo taken with one!




And finally, another Aussie photo - a kangaroo! We got to feed some kangaroos in one of the enclosures too!

So hope that will keep you all going for a wee while! We will try and get some more up for you over the weekend! Have a good one!

Post No. 79 - Lots happening!

So whats been happening with us?

Well, my current work contact ends tomorrow. We - me and the other contractors - were told 2 weeks ago that they were unable to renew our contracts after the end of October. This came as quite a surprise, especially to those in the department that had been there for 18 months! For me, its been a good run of almost 3 months though and I have certainly picked up a lot of new skills!
Since I found out I have been looking around for something else, updating my CV, signing up with agencies and hope to have something for the start of November.
I have also checked some books out of the library about finding a job you love! Might as well do something useful with my free time huh? !

This weekend we get to see the rellies for a wee while!
Have been getting excited about the family reunion due to take place on Saturday!
Hopefully we will come back with plenty more photos for you!

We really need to start thinking about Christmas as well as parcels and cards need to be sent off near the start of November. The shops here are just starting to get the Xmas stuff in. I wonder how long it will be before we start to hear Mariah's All I Want for Christmas is You?!

So how are you all doing? Looking forward to Christmas?

Note - we are currently having some 'technical' difficulties uploading photos to the blog and are looking at other options. Hope to have normal picture-posting services resumed soon!

Post No. 78 - Don't you just love the dentist!

I am going to blame my distinct lack of posts this last week on a variety of things:
a) a very painful wisdom tooth (more on this in a bit)
b) trying to find a new job
c) getting ready for our holiday to Australia

Excuses, excuses eh?!
So the tooth.....evil tooth, it was sore a few weeks ago and the pain revisited last Monday with a vengance. Those that know me well enough - will know how much I winge when I am in pain - so come Thursday Graeme was demanding I visit the dentist (understandable really!) So I had some recommendations from work to go and see Mr Joe on Main Street. Called on Friday and managed to get me an appointment for 10.20am this morning.
Now I was expecting the dentist to tell me to stop being such a wuss and send me on my way but oh, no, he did the thing I dread most (well, maybe not the most, my biggest fear of all is having a trachotemy - eeeek!)....he said I had to have a wisdom tooth out.
And you wanna know something really ironic - it wasn't even the one giving me the hassle! I had to have the top one out as that was digging into the botttom and causing inflammation and infection!
So I asked what would happen if I was just to leave it (what a wimp I am!) and he said it would get worse. I protested that I was going on holiday on Saturday and he said - all the better to do it today then to get it out the way.
At this point, I started hyperventalating. By the time, he had given me the injection (which, by the way, did NOT hurt - after the pain with the tooth all week it was nothing!) I had gone green and nearly threw up so they had to let me lie down for a while and compose myself. See if I could have stood up then - I would have run away!
So I finally calmed down a little and they took me to get an x-ray (harmless!) and when we came back he started prodding around in my mouth. It hurt! So he had to top me up on the drugs before going any further.
But see after all the fuss, it really wasn't so bad. He was poking about and stuff but I kept my eyes shut the whole time and all was well.
So know I am a quarter short of my wisdom....and the best thing, I have to go to the Oral Surgeon to have the bottom one out in the near future (in the meantime, I have anti-biotics) and while I am there I may as well have the other two out as the same problem will probably occur that side (as per the xray).
I was still shaking when I paid (but that may have been to do with the bill...and I have to multiply this by 3 next time!) and made my way out to the car. I called Graeme and asked him to come rescue me which he did - took me to the pharmacy for drugs, the supermarket for soup (theres no way I am eating solid food for a while!) and brought me home.
Went into work for a few hours and felt miserable as couldn't laugh or talk very much so I came home and curled up in bed with a book - the perfect cure!

Luckily my course of drugs ends on Saturday morning so I am planning to have a good drink in our first night in Australia (what with it being my birthday and all!!!!)

Post No. 77 - Virtual Winery Tour

Okay people, I am a total let-down. Yes, I did remember to take the camera on Saturday but alas, at no point did I whip it out of my bag to get any photos for you. Terrible Kate!

So instead I am going to find you some suitable links so you can take the virtual wine tour!

We strolled on down to The Square on Saturday morning to meet up with everyone and catch the coach. I think there were about 20 of us in the end, Graeme's colleagues plus some partners/friends. The weather was pretty yuck on Saturday morning and it rained all the way down to Masterton where we had lunch, a vineyard tour and our first tastings at Solstone Estate Winery. Lunch wasn't up to much but the tour was interesting and here we bought our first bottle of wine - an Autumn Riesling (delish!).

After lunch we headed back on the coach and travelled further on to Martinborough which is a huge wine making region in New Zealand. There are literally roads where every property on it is a vineyard!

So we headed out to 4 other vineyards:
Tirohana Estate (no wine here - were not keen)
Te Kairanga Wines (we got a Sauvignon Blanc and a Pinot Noir here, our only red!)
Margrain Vineyard (no wine here as was starting to wonder about carrying it home! I did like a Chenin Blanc here but neither of us were sure if we could polish off the bottle)
and last but not least,
Voss Estate Vineyard (where we got another Sauvignon Blanc - the best we tried all day, and a dessert Riesling - only 375ml bottle for same price as normal size bottles but the stuff is like nectar - yum!)

So there you have it! 5 bottles of wine later! The coach ride was fun, lots of laughter and fortunately no-one was sick! We were so tired when we got home though and ended up in bed at 9.30pm!

Haven't drunk any of the new stuff yet - we will probably try and save for Christmas time. It was an enjoyable day and definetly something we would consider doing again (especially when our cellar gets low on stock!)

There were some people that did have cameras with them and they never stopped taking pictures (!) so we will see about getting some pictures from them for you.

Hope you have enjoyed your virtual winery tour, unfortunately no tastings but if you come out to visit we will take you on a 'real' tour!

Post No. 76 - For once, there are no words

Well not many anyway!

We are going on a wine trail tomorrow with the folk from Graeme's work. I will try to sneak the camera in my bag and get some vineyard pictures for you although that may be frowned upon by 'the accountants'! We shall see.

In the meantime, heres a little something for you:

In a Past Life...

You Were: A Gorgeous Fortune Teller. Where You Lived: Germany. How You Died: Consumption.

Who Were You In a Past Life?

and a picture too while I am it:



Have a fun weekend!

Post No. 75 - Not long till Xmas!

Hmmm, thought I would conduct an experiment with the photos tonight. Have one on the left, one on the right and see how it looks. What d'ya think? I thought you might like these two - one of me and one of G, both on similar bridges at opposite ends of North Island. We are both like little kids when we get on these type of bridges and have to jump up and down to make them swing! Shocking behaviour!

And mentioning shocking behaviour, I can hear the sounds of disgust you are all making at the title of todays post. Well, peeps, its really not that far now. And we have even more distance to think about this year than before. We need to have all our Xmas presents and cards bought and shipped by the 11th November - how scary is that! Its like a month! Maybe you should take this as advance warning that we may just ban Christmas this year to save on postage costs!

Well I better keep typing so this post doesn't look all weird with too much photo and not enough text....hmmmmm, what can I say? How 'bout Happy Birthday to a certain wise old man thats a very big age today! Very old, poor mite. He will have to go in a home soon....but ne'er ye mind ole git cos I've found you a nice one in Palmy up by the airport!
Now I think I will make myself scarce before I get told off!

Post No. 74 - Red Sky at Night

The Sky from our window the other night

Not really got much to say....for once....don't all be too shocked now!

Its Sunday and Graeme has been trying to complete our expression of interest (to do with extending/changing our visa) for a few hours. There are loads of questions and some are quite ambiguous! Saying that, he's got most of the way through it. I need to go and add some info in the relevant sections and speak to someone at Immigration to check if they really want me to list all of my family including aunts, uncles and cousins....cos thats gonna run into hundreds! (okay, maybe not quite!). And then we will get it submitted and wait with bated breath.

We found some really interesting statistics on the immigration website about how the system works and how many people are applying using the same category as us (over 800 applications every fortnight!) Scary stuff! So make sure you keep your fingers crossed for us! We will keep you informed of what happens when!

I got very excited yesterday when I realised it was three weeks to my birthday! Which, of course, means three weeks until we go to Australia! Yipee! Can't wait.

Onto other news...we finally found the wind farm yesterday and stood under the turbine. It was so windy (well duh Kate!) it took my breath away but it felt pretty amazing to be standing up so high. Of course, we didn't have the camera with us cos we wern't planning to go on a picture taking expedition when we left the house, we were just planning to go to the Stationery Warehouse so I could drool over scrapbooking supplies and start organising supplies for the NZ scrapbook I plan to make! But never fear - we will head back out again soon and get some pictures for you!