Take it for a burn

Christ! mas

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 01:11:00 +0000

So, we're in our new place (see previous entry), and It Was Decided that all possible members of Rach's family would come to our place for christmas.

So, in addition to me, Rach, Barns, Ella and Bethan, we also had: Rhys, Jasmine and Jai; Rach's mum Chris; Braydyn, Krystal, Aimee and Jaxon staying for a few days. This merely meant that all potential bedrooms got used - no-one had to sleep in the lounge, dining room, or a tent. Rach's dad Ian was also here, but stayed elsewhere, then on Boxing Day, Palmerston North invaded, adding Jan, Greta and Paul, Dawn, Wayne, Lucy, Austin and Jack for a grand total of 23 people.

Luckily, we currently have three fridges and two freezers, and the week before saw me buy three extra couches, for a total of 5 couches in the lounge. NOTE: total cost of ALL FIVE couches was less than $100

So, since I've been ~~told~~ asked, here are some photos, some with hilarious captions. Click for big as usual:

Here's Jai being our bum-boy (with his mum and dad):

First thing was to open the stockings/santa sacks. There was some kind of time limit set, where they weren't allowed to start before a certain time, but still quite early as I remember:

Betty did her standard, "Oh, it's JUST what I WANTED!" exclamation for every single present:

Jak-jak was a hilarious guy as usual:

The pile of wrapping paper outgrew this box in about 30 seconds:

Betty - caning it since 2007:

Bet Krystal complains about this photo. Save it! there's worse to come:

Haven't had a chance to use this yet, quite looking forward to giving it a go:

Here you get a good look at one of the Sallies sleigh-couches (Kendyl, this is about one-third of the lounge):

Shiny ball to the right, Brayd's head to the left OR IS IT THE OTHER WAY AROUND?

Try and ignore Rhys's expression and look at how stoked Jai is to get some more bubble mixture:

Before:

After (she hugged the Jenga for a while after that):

Betty got the kitchen that was on her list:

Some of Bear Grylls' tips for eating horrible crap may have come in handy for Ian a bit later on, as I had done baking:

Ella modelling new clothes. I can almost guarantee that hat gets re-used outside the christmas period:

Rach is happy because she knows the kids now have their own area, so we don't have to listen to Elmo (although we probably will because he's quite funny):

Not sure if Jai knew quite what to make of all the insanity:

Krystal kept the gin handily hidden inside a cosmetics box. Wish I'd thought of that:

Jacko got a jigsaw, perfect for hacking up the floor:

Barns has not seen a Clarke christmas before. I think he's OK now:

Betty-bets also got new clothes:

Note the empty wine glass:

He had a big morning, time for a rest:

Time to play with all that new stuff:

A final photo of all the cousins (plus bonus Rhys at no extra cost):

Thanks to everyone for a great time, I'd even consider doing it again. Maybe.

"You may find yourself in a beautiful house..."

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 07:52:00 +0000

Hopefully you now have the brilliant Talking Heads song, "Once In A Lifetime" in your head after reading that title. I know I have.

Well then. After a protracted and largely fruitless search, during which fewer than one ~~grandmother-selling bastard~~ real estate agent was murdered, we have (very nearly) bought a house in Wellington.

I've kept very quiet about this one as I'm sick of having bored/annoyed many people with details and fantasies about the many other houses that we looked at, but didn't buy because we were too cheap/we were too picky/too much water was coming in through the roof (delete as applicable).

HOWEVER, we went unconditional on this one on Friday last week, and I've now transferred an annoyingly big amount of money to the owner's lawyer, so it's pretty likely that we'll actually move in to it.

Where is it, you may ask? Well, I'm not going to tell you exactly where on this blog, but feel free to email me. If I don't give the address to you, take that as a hint.

It's in a suburb called Crofton Downs, which doesn't seem to have a lot written about it on the Internest. There's a Primary School, a little shopping centre with a ~~Woolworths~~ Countdown, and a baby Mitre 10!

Anyway, none of you probably care about any of that.

The house is, er, quite big at 230 square metres. It has five bedrooms, two bathrooms, a rumpus kind of room, and a basement workshop kind of area. There's also a sort of hallway which is essentially another room. Here are some pictures:

Here's the house from the street:

Yes, we compromised on the garage. We'll have to see what happens about that...

Downstairs is a bedroom where any long-term visitors will likely be staying:

Long-term visitors also get their own bathroom!:

Downstairs also has the rumpus (hate this word) room, with decor I feel right at home with:

Off the rumpus room is a basement workshop sort of thing, which is what allowed me to compromise on the garage:

Why yes, the table-tennis table will be staying.

Up the stairs (NOT SHOWN) and through the indoor ranch-slider (NOT SHOWN) and into the lounge:

Note the bush view out the window.

Looking back the other way you can just see the indoor ranch slider at left, also the ~~hate~~ heat pump:

Turn around again to see the lounge going round the corner, note open fire:

Looking back the other way in this bit now:

A dining room:

A kitchen:

If I were the sort of person to shake sticks at things, there would be more cupboards in this kitchen than I could do so at. The whole house is extremely well-endowed with cupboards; some might even say it's over-cupboarded. Those people are wrong; there is no such thing as too many cupboards.

A bedroom:

Ella thinks this will be hers; I foresee much discussion.

A bathroom (separate toilet NOT SHOWN):

A bedroom, which I would like to be mine and Rach's:

These last two bedrooms (and the bathroom) are off a hallway (NOT SHOWN). At the end of the hallway is this room/hall/office:

Just past the outside door at the far end is this bedroom:

...and right next to that is this bedroom:

There is a door that closes this whole area of the house off; perfect for kids? I reckon.

Outside the room/hall/office:

Up the back:

The bit you can see on the side is a kind of a porch over the back door, but it has doors at either end.

There's also a laundry inside (NOT SHOWN) and a greenhouse outside (NOT SHOWN).

Some of the furniture in the house (most importantly for me, the double-door fridge) will be staying there.

Come down and stay with us any time after November 7th. We've definitely got enough room (just maybe not the furniture quite yet).

Please ask about the things we forgot to check by email or in the comments.

Oh! A kune...

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 07:13:00 +0000

WARNING: massive post - you might want to take a couple of goes at it.

[click on the pics if you like]

Many Wellingtonians seem to be happy to see the back of the snow we had a few weeks ago, but not us.

I have a season pass, so I've already been up a few times this year. The first time I went, I took Ella and Betty with me. Ella went from strength to strength, her lesson teaching her how to turn better, as well as ride the (platters? pommers? Whatever those beginner disc things are called).

Betty was another story, though - she had a beginner lesson, where she was probably the youngest and smallest, and didn't enjoy it at all, despite being able to do all the technical stuff she was taught. She's never that keen on things she can't already do, so needed a bit of time to come to grips with it by herself - I certainly didn't want to put her off by forcing her into it.

So, we booked a few days off for all of us to go to Ohakune, and hopefully get some skiing in.

I searched around for a while to find a place to stay, and decided to go with novelty - an old railway carriage at Rimu Park. Bethan was a bit puzzled about where we'd sleep - I think she was picturing something like the inside of the J'ville trains we go into the city on, with all the seats and everything.

Here's what it looked like:

Yes, we took the Horrolla - partly because it's 4WD, but mainly because it has a working stereo at the moment.

I should backtrack a bit and describe the trip up to Ohakune first, even thought there aren't any photos for some reason. We knew the weather on the mountain was likely to be pretty shit, so we didn't rush too much. Although, with the "Are We There Yet?", "This Is Taking Ages," "I'm BOOOOORED" girls in the back, there was never much chance of doing it all in one go.

We stopped at the Levin Adventure Park:

View Larger Map

This is a free playground, although calling it that is a bit like calling the Taj Mahal a bach. It is MASSIVE. Dozens of things to play on, including not one, but two of those big barrell-roll things that you get inside and run around like a hamster and make yourself feel sick on (based on a true story), and a loooong flying fox.

As if all this wasn't enough, there's also a miniature train on the weekends, and an indoor picnic area with a microwave and boiling water, and a coffee truck with nice coffee, and, and...

This may not be a widely-held opinion, but this playground, plus a roast shop and a noodle shop next door to each other make Levin a great place.

Our other long stop was just up the road at Foxton. Ever since I first moved down to Wellington, I've wanted to check out the de Molen Windmill. Follow the link to read about it, it's amazing, a working windmill that actually produces flour.

Back to our carriage in Ohakune - the inside looked like this:

Through the door at the far end is a room with two bunks, a toilet and bathroom, and beyond that, a bedroom. It was great - not so flash that we worried about destroying it either.

Friday was again too crappy to go skiing, so we drove to the Tokaanu Thermal Pools for a hot swim instead, which was, as always, awesome.

Saturday also looked a bit useless up the mountain, but we thought, "bugger it," and went up there anyway. Glad we did.

Rach and Betty headed into Alpine Meadow (the learner's bit), while Ella and I headed up the Parklane chairlift for her lesson. It was her first time on a chairlift on skis, but was no problem.

Here's Betty getting her little skis - her face kinda sums up her attitude to skiing at this point:

As you can see, Ella's more relaxed about the whole thing:

Nobody else turned up for Ella's group lesson, so she got a personalised, individual one. I abandoned her with her French-Canadian instructor for an hour and went up the mountain, where I found some great snow in between bouts of bad visibility.

I returned to find Ella even more confident than before - so much so that she was able to ski with me all the way back down Clarry's Track to the bottom:

Betty had had enough of skiing by this point, so I went up for a bit more, while the three girls made a snowchair:

slid down a hill on their bums:

and Ella did a little bit more skiing in Alpine Meadow:

On the way back down the mountain, we had to stop to take care of Bethan's obssession about making a snow angel:

Ella had a go too:

A quick beautiful scenic shot:

...and then briefly back to our train, then out to OCR Cafe for dinner, which was cheap and delicious. Highly recommended.

Sunday was our last day, and we were determined to go skiing again, so it was straight up the mountain after checking out of our train.

This time, Rach got some skis, so she and Ella went up a bit higher, while Betty and I hung out in Alpine Meadow. At first, she was pretty tentative, but then something just seemed to click, and she was suddenly a whole lot more confident. Still wanted me to stick around, particularly to help her on the Magic Carpet (a conveyor belt for humans, here Ella demonstrates:

)

I even took Betty up on the Parklane lift (which she managed to get on and off while wearing skis) to do a run down Clarry's Track, which might have been a bit ambitious, as we had to stop halfway down for quite a long rest:

This time, Rach had had enough of skiing, so Ella and I went back up to go to her last lesson, with the same teacher as the previous day. Again, I abandoned her for the hour, getting in some of the best runs of the year, and then we made our way down to Betty and Rach.

Betty was now completely self-sufficient, and in her usual style, unstoppable. Ella and I went up for another run down Clarry's Track; Betty was still skiing when we got back. I went right up the top for a few more runs; Betty was still skiing when I got back. She'd progressed to getting on and off the Magic Carpet by herself - "I don't NEED you, dad" - I stayed with her while it started to snow, and Ella went back and returned her skis.

The only reason Betty stopped in the end is that the lift itself closed for the day at 4pm.

I couldn't be more proud of my daughters, and pleased that they both seem to love skiing at least as much as I do. Just got to get Rach a bit more time up there and we'll be set.

Here's a video of first Betty (in the pink jacket), then Ella (then a loud unknown snowboarder) skiing past the camera:

(available right up to 720p resolution).

Check out the amount of snow that ended up on the Horrolla - I don't know the measurement, but it wasn't enough to stop Betty, that's for sure:

The girls wrote what they thought of the mountain:

...and then we drove home, pausing only at OCR again for some coffee, and then Levin once more for KFC (15% off for season pass holders!)

SNOWTASTROPHE 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 07:47:00 +0000

Today, as promised, it snowed in Johnsonville. Not only that, it settled on the ground (my car is still covered as I type this at 8:15 pm).

Here are some pictures COMMENT YOU BASTARDS, JUST HIT THE LINK AND TYPE WHAT YOU THINK.

We got a bit excited when it started to snow, so took pictures of what appear to only be rain:

Get bent, there's totally snow in that picture!

It got a bit heavier (always seems a funny word for snow), so now it just looks like I chucked some bits of paper in front of the camera:

Still, it started to settle:

HUUURRRRRR:

Mrs HUUURRRRRR:

HUUURRRRRR Jr x2:

Uncle HUUURRRRRR in the background:

This ponga tree doesn't know WTF:

Telephoto shot out to the motorway makes it look like Siberia:

Barns and I went for a walk around J'ville. Safer Communities Together:

This snowboarder was having minimal success, but definitely the right idea:

Betty's kindergarten. Starting to get a bit of an unintentional tilt-shift effect due to all the water on the lens:

This thing kills me to death in the dry, christ knows why I tried it in the snow:

Ella's school:

Click on the following if you are insane and want to see 72 photos:

This is how we do

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 00:41:00 +0000

You may be aware that I no longer live in Hamilton. I won't explain any further (your mad theories will be far more interesting than the reality anyway), but I now live in Wellington.

My first five weeks here I spent staying with my Auntie Cheryl - BIG INTERNET UPS TO CHERYL. We had a great time, no homicide or anything, but it was always my intention to move a bit closer to the city.

So, yesterday I moved into a flat in Wadestown, which for some reason has no entry on the Suburbs of Wellington Wikipedia page. EDIT: a Wadestown website.

Today I tested out the walk to work, so here it is (of course, click for big):

I start by heading north along the road:

Mere metres from the flat is this graffiti, which is something of a different class to that which I am accustomed to:

There is an illustration of "ur mama's hairy balls" next to it, which I didn't take a photo of.

A bit further down the road, this is the view to the left:

Those houses underneath the pylons are Chartwell - was Chartwell someone important in NZ history or what?

A little further along, also on the left, is Wadestown School:

Presumably the kids abseil in.

This is the other side, Tinakori Hill:

I need to climb over it. To do so, I go up Wade "Street":

This is Wellington's version of a street. If you look carefully to the right of the corrugated-tin garage, and the left of the little yellowish hedge, that's it. Wade Street. If you make the picture huge you might even be able to read the "street" sign.

It's not really for cars.

In fact, it's just barely navigable on foot. There are a lot of hairpin corners like this:

I don't know how many, as all my body's resources were diverted to my lungs at that point, nothing left for counting.

This hairpin has a water feature:

After a while, it turns into an actual street, with cars on:

My guess is that the cars are purely ornamental, as there's no way they could have been driven there.

I'm over the crest of the hill by now, and I can see some water:

I need to get down to near where that big ship is, but how? It says NO EXIT:

Ah no, just to the right of the NO EXIT sign is another one letting me know that there's some more Wade "Street", again, not really for cars.

Just at the start of that bit, I can see where I'm headed:

Just to the right of centre is a chimney, and just to the right of that is a greenish square. That is the building in which I work. Still a way to go then, although this point is only about twenty minutes' walk from the flat.

Just to prove that these are my photos, and I actually did this walk:

A bit further down and I'm on Wadestown Road:

I'm sure there was a city around here somewhere ...

Ah, there's the stadium, through the trees:

Wellington names a fair few of its steps - these are the Wadestown Steps:

The tree at the upper right is obscuring a building which some of you may recognise:

Some of you may even own parts of it.

Now, across Molesworth Street, over the motorway:

Looking back over my shoulder from the other side of the motorway:

That massive green thing in the background? I've just walked over that. Half an hour or so in now.

This is Thorndon now:

Old Saint Paul's:

I think they mean the church is old, but it could be that Saint Paul is old and that's what they're getting at.

At the end of the road (I think it's still Molesworth Street) is the Railway Station, a nice building:

I've been here for after-work drinks once, I'd go again:

On a work day, I'd cross the road from the Thistle, and go up these steps:

... which lead up onto the massive concrete concourse above the station, leading to the stadium, and also my work:

The top of the building I work in is just visible to the right of centre.

Behind all this, the Beehave (thanks E0n!) watches over us:

Last shot is of the inside of the railway station. It's no Grand Central, but it's still nice:

It's made even better by having a New World Metro inside it, which is one of the best things ever.

So, I will miss taking trains to work for the next little while, but I think the walk's pretty good too.

Tell/show me about your walk/bike/bus/train/drive/plummet to work.

Fush

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 08:49:00 +0000

AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHH it's the school holidays; what do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO?

Well, if you're lucky, you get invited to go fishing and you take your daughter along.

Gary and his daughter Gabrielle were going to have a fish off the Whangamata wharf, stay the night and have another fish in the morning, then come home, and they were kind enough to invite Ella and I to come along, so we did.

We got there about when it got dark, so after chucking our stuff inside, we got dressed up:

and headed down to the wharf. This picture doesn't really convey the awe-inspiring conditions:

It wasn't raining much, but I'd estimate 900-knot winds. The only reason Ella isn't blowing away is because of the sinker on the end of her line.

Nothing was caught except fish and chips at the takeaways. This was followed by some card games, giving Ella plenty of opportunities to call her father a loser:

I don't know where she gets this from.

The next day we woke up so early that EVEN ELLA WENT BACK TO SLEEP AFTER THE ALARM WENT OFF. We had a quick look at the wharf, but it was too EXTREEM even for us, so we had a bit of breakfast first.

Then it was back into it:

It was still windy, just not as windy as the night before.

Can you imagine the neverending gloating if Ella was the only one who caught a fish? Luckily, there's no need for me to imagine it, as this is exactly what happened:

Actually, she was just very excited - anyone who's ever caught a fish for the first time will know exactly how excited she felt.

After that, all that was left was some breakfast and hot bread for lunch, a couple more games for me to lose, and icecream on the way home in Paeroa.

Massive thanks to Gary, Gabrielle, and their extended family whose bach we stayed in.

Tell me about your first fish.

I used to have a boss called Ski, true story

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 02:28:00 +0000

Even though I don't have income, I've already got a season pass for Ruapehu, so I need to ensure that the $350 I spent on it last November doesn't go to waste.

With that in mind, Ken and I headed down to the mountain on Thursday. At that stage, Whakapapa only had the learner slopes open, so we went to Turoa, even though it's a bit further.

Since one of their lifts is bung, Turoa only had two chairs operating (Movenpick and High Flyer), but that was enough for a first day.

Here's Mount Egmont/Taranaki in the distance (you might be able to see it if you click for big):

Here's what the field down from the top cafe looked like:

One of the reasons we went was to test out our gear, which included helmets each for the first time ever:

This will probably mean fewer head injuries, but more broken bones as the helmets will spur us to ski far outside our abilities.

Plenty of snow on the upper mountain:

. . . but we couldn't get to it due to the bung chairlift. They made good use of the nice day to get almost the entire tower rebuilt though. Here's the helicopter they use to ferry bits of tower up:

Here's a panorama:

A few people turned up, but the queue never got much bigger than this:

This here's pretty much what we skied all day - not huge, but just right for making sure we could still do it:

Bloody good start to the season.

Wacky like a fifties sitcom

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 10:00:00 +0000

Betty's school had a Wacky Hair and Pizza Day. Let me state right now that only the hair was wacky - the pizza was not wacky, nor was it wack.

Rach installed some pig- or pony-tails or whatever and sprayed some pink dots in. Betty looks a bit apprehensive - she was worried that no one else would have wacked out their hair.

Not to worry though, she was not alone (although it's a bit hard to tell in this photo):

Here she is again:

With her friend Maddy - parents went in for the pizza bit too, that's why Rach is there:

Very excited about pizza, although they ALL eat their bits of fruit first, without exception:

Why does she have her eyes shut?

Maybe because her dad was the ONLY PARENT with wacky hair:

The centre manager said I'd get a certificate for this, but I have yet to see it . . .

Staring into the abyss

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Wed, 26 May 2010 10:35:00 +0000

Some of you may already be aware that I was made redundant a couple of weeks ago - I'm not going to talk about that here (comment or email if you want to know more), but it does mean I've had a bit of "spare" time on my hands.

If you can see my Reader Shared Items (also over there on the right), you might have seen me share a post on Twisted Sifter about bellmouth spillways.

I've always found the idea of these things terrifying and fascinating, because they can produce something that looks like this:

. . . which, I'm sure you'll agree, is even scarier than Bethan post-sugar.

The beauty of TEH INTARNET means that my father was able to point out that one of these CIRCULAR CHASMS OF HOPELESSNESS exists in (where else?) Auckland. Well, not far out of Auckland, at least.

It is up in the Waitakeres, which is something like my spiritual homeland, if I went in for that kind of thing. There are a few reservoirs up there providing some of the drinking (and presumably showering, and bog-flushing) water for Auckland. One of them has one of these.

Since I had something to pick up from Auckland, I decided I'd make a bit more of a day of it, and go and look at this thing. As luck would have it, my good friend Eion is currently in Auckland, so I picked him up on the way.

It's the Lower Huia Reservoir we were after, but I didn't know that until later. Here it is on a map:

View Larger Map

We stopped at the Lower Nihotupu Reservoir, but soon realised it wasn't what we were looking for, and continued.

If anyone wants to go there (and I suggest you do, it's well worth it), you go through the little town of Huia, then turn right immediately after the one-lane bridge, and park up the end by the closed gate.

We did this the first time, but were discouraged by the closed gate, and turned back around. Good thing I had Eion with me, as he is man enough to ask for directions at a shop, unlike me. We were duly pointed back to where we'd come from.

The 'five minute walk' is a little more than that - maybe fifteen minutes - but completely worth it. You walk up the road, which goes steeply up the face of the dam.

Once you're on top of the dam, you can see the beautiful (although quite empty) reservoir amongst the bush-clad hills, and even out to sea in the other direction.

At the other end of the dam is what appears to be a jetty, sticking out into the reservoir - just walk across the road on top of the dam to it.

See, it's just a nice, harmless OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL IS THAT DON'T LOOK DOWN

The nice little jetty goes directly over the ~~entrance to hell~~ centre of the bell-mouth spillway.

It's difficult to give a proper idea of the real size (and more importantly, the depth) of this thing. I'd guess it's about ten metres across, and between 4000 and 5000km deep.

Eion and I wavered between leaning as far as we could over the fence, fascinated by it, then suddenly realising the possibility of falling, and crouching down, clinging to the railing and gibbering with fear.

We took some photos:

Note the safety stance.

Note the white face of terror.

This thing has massive fins on it, which I found horrifying, partly because they're a little too much like teeth, and partly because they remind me of another terrifying concrete structure, the Ryugyong.

It wasn't until we were about to leave the we realised the small circular hole in the bridge couldn't possibly be a drain. No, it was a ~~direct portal into the evil depths~~ viewing hole exactly over the centre of the spillway:

Please go and look at it, the photos really do not do it justice. Just make sure you take some Valium or something.

Here's that bit of sea I was talking about:

It really is quite picturesque up there (assuming you ignore the vortex to another world):

So, if you're in Auckland, go and have a look. It's about a fifteen to twenty minute drive past Titirangi, not far, and totally worth it.

Next time I will take Bethan and some rope.

Snow! [1400km final]

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Mon, 24 May 2010 01:52:00 +0000

At last, I'm going to finish writing about our trip, and it hasn't even been a year since it happened!

Last time, we were just about to leave Wellington, on a freezing, windy Tuesday morning. We could have just driven straight home along State Highway One (i.e. the way we came), which would have got us back home easily within the day.

However, we're more ~~adventurous~~ stupid than that, so we decided to drive through Upper and Lower The Hutt, over the Rimutakas and through the Wairarapa instead.

Mostly we did this because I've never really been over there before, and I wanted to give it a look.

I should also point out that large parts of the central North Island (which we'd need to drive through to get home), including the Desert Road, had been closed due to unprecedented and slightly unseasonal snowfalls. So, there was even the possibility of getting stranded somewhere. Exciting!

The Rimutakas surprised me with their unexpected size (seemed a lot bigger than the Kaimais) and unrelenting expanses of gorse (or was it broom? Yellow flowers anyway).

Featherston's the first town once you get over the hill. It's nice enough, but seems a bit like Wellington's version of Tirau - I wanted to see the real Wairarapa.

Greytown and Carterton were getting closer to what I wanted to see, but it wasn't until we got to Masterton that I found what I was looking for. It was great, reminded me of the good bits of Tokoroa, although it's a hell of a lot bigger. It's the sort of place I reckon I could live in, for a while anyway.

After some ~~local delicacies~~ McDonalds, we continued on. Somewhere along the road, we suddenly noticed the looming Tararuas in the distance - and they had SNOW on them! We had to take a photo, there was no way we'd see that much snow again on the way home:

(if you click on the photo to make it big, you might just be able to make out the mountains, sandwiched between the hills and the clouds)

Next stop, Eketahuna, where we continued the "photos with oversized roadside objects" theme:

This last one was immediately prior to a major meltdown about something I can't remember, probably the only tantrum of the whole trip, and it was all over in about three minutes:

Eketahuna's another one of those little places I love - a town that seems truly represenative of its region, unpretentious in the extreme.

Pahiatua's another one of those, but it has the benefit of a massive and incredible playground:

Betty is sideways as usual; hopefully this is some indication of how she will drive a car:

They even have what appears to be a real plane:

Plane nerds, please let me know what it is - this emblem on the side may assist with identification:

I'm not sure that any of those photos convey just how bitterly cold it was. Ah, here's one that does:

We travelled on.

These pictures are from a place called Stormy Point Lookout. You've no idea how hard it was to figure out where the hell I took them - GPS may be a requirement on the next camera.

It lived up to its name, anyway, by being unfeasibly windy, but also providing a fairly spectacular view:

Again, I'll let Rach demonstrate just how cold and windy it was:

We joined up with State Highway One again at the humorously-named Vinegar Hill. (if you follow that link, you'll find out why it's called that, as well as why camp really means Camp there)

We got very very excited when we started to see snow at the side of the road, so took lots and lots of pictures, assuming it would be all we'd see. After all, we'd just traveled south on the same road a few days earlier, and there wasn't really anything then.

Here's a few of the sort of pictures I'm talking about:

However, when we rounded this corner:

BOOOOOOM, Winter Wonderland:

Probably not so impressive if you're used to living somewhere that gets snow all the time. And yes, this area does generally have a snowfall or two every year BUT not in October, and not this amount.

I kinda wish I'd stopped, climbed up a hill with my skis (THEY WERE IN THE CAR) and had an impromptu ski. Something like this would've been brilliant:

Still, we made up for not doing this by stopping in Waiouru and going mental in the fresh snow, as only non-snow-dwellers can:

It was hard to get back in the car and keep going, but we thought we'd better. The Desert Road through to Turangi was still closed, so we detoured through Ohakune. By this time we were getting hungry again, so rather than going the quick, sensible way, we went back across to Taupo to get food.

Luckily, this meant we were able to get one last roadside statue photo in; the Turangi Trout:

Despite going the long way round more than once, we had a really really good trip, and it hasn't even put me off driving long distances with small children. As a side benefit, I now know the High School Musical 3 soundtrack off by heart.

Since we had a whole day to spare before going back to drudgery, the girls did this:

Comments please about what they are making (and anything else you want to say).

1400km III

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 09:59:00 +0000

The third part of our trip, at last I write about it! Click for big on the photos.

You won't remember, because the last post about it was so long ago, but at the end of that, we'd just left Palmerston North (or New Plymouth, as a surprising number of people call it).

The drive to Wellington was pretty uneventful, despite the continuous High School Musical 3 soundtrack.

My cousin (once removed) Toby, his wife Hilary, and their three children Tom, Emily and Leandra were kind enough to let us stay at their place, despite being away in the South Island when we arrived.

Like the time we stayed there earlier in the year, we were made to feel incredibly welcome by very nice people. Of course, we barely took any photos, but here are some of the few we did take:

Two girls in a shower:

The same two girls in their bed, specially located in a magical under-stair area:

Here's the only picture of (two of) our hosts - Emily reclining, Hilary obscured by Ella Big Head:

MUST TRY HARDER

. . . and here's Wellington through their dining-room window:

The next day, we went to Te Papa for the Formula One exhibition. We forgot to take the camera, but here are some photos off the iphone:

Betty does her (great-) Grandad impression in front of a 60s McLaren:

Ella is a bit more impressed with a more modern McLaren:

The F1 exhibit wasn't bad, but not as good as I'd hoped. Formula One cars are not really the sort of thing that should be shown in static form - they need to be moving.

The rest of Te Papa was fantastic as usual though, and kept us all occupied for hours.

That afternoon we went to the City Gallery to see the Yayoi Kusama exhibition. No cameras allowed in this one, so no photos by us.

It was absolutely incredible though, to get a tiny idea of what it was like, click on this link.

We had a late lunch of $5 all-day breakfast at a cafe hidden up the back of a mall that off the side of Cuba Street somewhere. I highly recommend this place - if only I could remember what it's called . . .

The next day was hometime, but before that we went and parked at the Rose Gardens, then walked through the Bolton Cemetery to town.

We didn't have a lot of time, and it was freezing, but this is another highly recommended place to visit in Wellington.

We were on our way to what turned out to be another hidden gem - the Reserve Bank Museum. It's free, doesn't take too long to look around, it's interesting, but most importantly, the kids got bags of shredded money! What more could one ask for?

We had a quick coffee with Toby before embarking on our trip home, which I'll write about if I ever get around to it.

The moon's a balloon

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 03:34:00 +0000

Hamilton has a Balloon Festival every year, which is pretty frickin' sweet if you ask me (or anyone else in my immediate family).

Here are some photos (remember to click for big):

It seems that Ella is dressed in her Brethren outfit more often than not these days:

No, wait - sometimes she wears a "normal" hat:

There were at least 16 balloons on the Saturday morning, undeniably spectacular:

We all become experts on balloons at this time of year. This one can fit 22 dudes in the basket. That's a lot of dudes:

See, look, it's like a minibus hanging there under the envelope (sorry, another bit of balloonist jargon there):

Say hello to Jack In The Box - Ella's not scared of him, but I am. That's why I'm standing further away, taking the photo:

I'm never too sure about panoramas, but this new camera sure makes them easier to line up:

Mushroom!

I could totally sell this if people wanted iconic Hamilton photos:

Underneath:

That thing was stalking us, I swear:

It tried to go for a swim:

Ella got to go in a balloon (that one behind her):

That's her on the right:

Here's another panorama of the early part of the Nightglow:

This is what Ella looks like, all lit up:

. . . aaaaand this is what a whole lot of balloons look like, all lit up:

The girls all went to see a few balloons land in the poncy high school near us on the Sunday morning:

Jump Jam!

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Welcome to a new and hopefully not short-lived policy of more immediate, shorter posts. This has been brought about at least in part by losing a few photos when the camera got stolen. Maybe this way I'll prevent that happening again, as well as updating this more often?

Tonight we all went to Jump Jam at Betty's school (daycare). Lots of kids, lots of parents:

SAUSAGES were obviously needed after all of that:

1400 km (b)

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:37:00 +0000

IT CONTINUES (remember to click on the pictures for big).

You may remember from the last post that we had just left Ohakune, en route to Palmerston North.

We decided to continue with a theme we started as we left Ohakune, i.e. taking pictures of ourselves next to outsized roadside objects. The next available one on the way to Palmy was at Taihape, the gumboot-throwing capital of the world. What else but a giant gumboot?

It's made of the now seemingly ubiquitous corrugated iron, the material of choice for rejuvenated small towns New Zealand-wide.

We stopped at the DC-3 in Mangaweka, which were slightly disappointed to find was closed for upgrading. Good place to stop though, I'm sure they're still trying to get the biscuit crumbs out of the carpet.

No pictures taken for some reason so here's a FILE PHOTO (Wikipedia):

We got to Palmerston at about 5 p.m., bang on time for Rach's cousin Shaun to let us in to his mum's place, where we were staying. Greta is Rach's mum's sister, and we were made to feel very welcome by her, her husband Paul, and their daughter Mandy.

We had such a relaxing time there that we forgot to take very many pictures. Here's Greta (with Betty in an unusually relaxed mode):

They have a lovely dog called Tara, whose nose you can see poking its way into the picture. Ella had a great time playing with her, and even Betty (who is sometimes even scared of the cat she's known her whole life) warmed to her.

Mandy works as an early childhood teacher, so of course we just dumped the kids on her. Not really, she obviously loves her job, and the kids loved hanging out with her, jumping in bed with her in the morning to watch cartoons.

Here she is, returning the favour by jumping into their bed:

By now it was Saturday, and quite windy. It's been windy every time I've been to Palmerston North - the locals reckon I've just been (un)lucky. WHAT EVER BRO. I had made a ballsup and not packed any jerseys, so we had wander around the central city on a fruitless search for one.

Having had a good look at the city, as well as the newly-extend Plaza (looking and feeling frighteningly similar to Gayfair), we went to see Rach's cousin Dawn.

While it may seem to the casual observer that Palmerston North is 36% full of people who are related to Rach (and therefore to Ella and Bethan), this is not really true.

It's more like 40%.

Dawn is Jan's eldest daughter. Jan is Greta and Rach's mum's sister. Dawn is married to Wayne, one of the nicest guys on the planet. Dawn is about 10 weeks younger than Rach, and in a nice bit of symmetry, her and Wayne's daughter Lucy is about 10 weeks younger than Ella.

They also have Austin and Jack, twin four-year-old boys. The kids all got on fantastically, so much so that we went away and came back for dinner.

Clicking on this picture of Ella and Lucy will take you to a set of pictures of mostly the kids doing their thing:

Sunday dawned bright and early, with us heading to church with the rest of the family. HA HA NO IT DIDN'T but I did go for a run. Yep, I've turned into one of those.

Once I'd regained what little fat I'd burned by eating 18 rounds of toast, we took off to Ashhurst, where we didn't stop.

Instead we drove over Saddle Road to Woodville. Woodville wasn't our main goal either - we stopped in the middle of Saddle Road to look at the wind turbines.

It was raining and, quite frankly, fucking freezing, but none of that could detract from the majesty/beauty/general amazingness of these things. There are far more of them than I ever realised, literally hundreds.

Driving up the road and seeing them loom out of the hillside is like being in some slightly surreal sci-fi movie.

You can park directly underneath one at the top of Saddle Road, and it's only then that you realise that not only are they awesome/eerie etc. - they're also bloody huge.

Due to the horizontal rain (dunno how it wasn't sleet or snow with the temperature being so low), photos were a bit tricky. Here's a lucky good one of Ella and a turbine:

It mystifies me why there are people who don't like and don't want these things around.

After the shock and awe of the turbines, we went to see Rach's cousin Errol (Dawn's brother) and his wife Carla before sodding off to Wellington.

Which I'll write about next time.

Feel free to comment your arses off, you know you want to.

1400km part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 01:07:00 +0000

[click photos for big, or visit flickr for too many photos]

The original reason for going to Wellington was to see the F1 exhibition at Te Papa. We flew down last time, but this was when Rach was working in Wellington, as well as Bethan being under two, so able to fly for free. Two extra airfares meant that it was going to be cheaper to drive down.

This also coincided with me getting a week of long-service leave. Yes, I've been there 10 years, yes it might be time for a change, yes I'm doing something about it.

Never mind all that though, I had to use this leave all in one go, so we decided to do a road trip to Wellington in the school holidays. It was also long overdue that we visit all Rach's family in Palmerston North, and while we were at it, why not go to Ohakune on the way down and have a bit of a ski?

So, Thursday 1st October, we left (relatively) early. Surprisingly, we had such a small amount of crap packed, I was able to see completely out the rear window of the Volvo.

Memory's fading as it was well over a week ago now, but I'm pretty sure Te Kuiti was our first stop, for a coffee and some kid snacks. Then it was onto a favourite town of mine, Taumarunui. My liking of this place was reinforced by the free wifi outside the Taumarunui Public Library.

We stopped next at Raurimu, home of the famous Raurimu Spiral. We'd looked for this in the past, but never managed to find any of it. This time, though, we found a path directing us to the lookout. There's a sign in case you forget where you are:

There's still very little of the spiral itself visible (perhaps it's better with a train on it?), but they provide a handy model on a big tall pole as high as the lookout:

What's that? The spiral's not exciting enough for you? OK then, here's a picture of us in the Raurimu bus shelter:

After our leisurely drive down, we went straight up to the Turoa skifield. It was late in the day, and quite miserable, so we just had a quick look, checked if the hire place had boots to fit Bethan (they did), then drove back down to our palatial accommodations at the Mountain-View Motel:

Doesn't look that flash you reckon? Check out how they fold the towels!

We very quickly made ourselves at home (i.e. strewed our crap everywhere):

then headed out to eat, at a restaurant, much to my surprise. We went to a place called The Bearing Point (not Breaking Point as I first read it). It had pub prices, combined with (for us at least) an upmarket menu, and crucially, a kids menu too. It was great, and I'd put a link in if they had any discernible internet presence whatsoever.

Quite swanky inside too, which you can only just see in this photo of us before we got kicked out:

No, we didn't get kicked out! The kids were models of good behaviour. The same can't be said about me - I went for an entree and a main, which turned out to be too much. So much too much that not only could I not face dessert, but I couldn't even go for the ice cream at the dairy that the rest of the family opted for.

We'd booked a time in the motel's spa, which the guy had apologised about for being old and not having bubbles. No bubbles? Dude, it's a freakin' spa, we don't care! It was hot and had jets, and was perfect on a cold Ohakune night.

Next morning it was skiing time! Picked up some rentals for Rach from Station Lodge Rentals, and got me some cheap ex-rental poles while we were at it too.

Up the picturesque Ohakune Mountain Road

View Larger Map

to Turoa. A smashing bloke let me drop the girls off, then park miles and miles closer than everyone else - thanks very much indeed! I joined them at Turoa rentals, picking up skis for Ella, and hilariously cute little miniature ones for Betty:

Ella had a go at skiing last year, so she got straight onto the skis and seemed to remember everything she'd learned last time. We'd booked her a lesson at midday, so she did a solid couple of hours.

Meanwhile, I skied down holding onto Betty, which she enjoyed as long as she was moving:

As you can see, the cloud kept coming in, but it didn't stop us.

Ella ended up having a one-on-one lesson (the teacher didn't believe she was six at first) - next year I'm determined to take her up a bit higher. Rach too - she loves skiing now. How lucky of us to have found a nice cheap family sport.

I had a single run from the top, but by the time I got there the cloud had completely closed in so it was a bit of an invisible ride down to meet the girls in the bottom cafe.

As it had started properly raining now, we decided to leave. Before we left Ohakune, we did the traditional fond farewell activity of taking stupid photos of ourselves with the giant carrot:

Of course, Bethan is actually licking the carrot in the above photo.

Next instalment, Palmerston North!

The Senior Systems Engineer's crumpet

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 07:24:00 +0000

Not Rach. Well, OK, Rach, but also these (cue over-processed photo):

[click for big on the pictures]

I don't know about you, but I furkin' love crumpets. Bung 'em in the toaster, put butter on while they're hot so it goes straight through onto the breadboard, then jam, or cheese, or honey, or golden syrup, or whatever. You just cant beat bread with holes in it.

I've been having a go at making things that you normally only buy. So far, this has extended to croissants (success) and pita bread (was aiming for something different but they were nice anyway), as well as just normal bread.

Crumpets can't be hard, right? Let's see . . .

[photos might be a bit shit as I took them, Ella was otherwise engaged as you'll see]:

Delia Smith's recipe was pretty much the first one I found, and for this second go, I've stuck to it as it works very well. In the future I might try one where you use baking powder rather than yeast. Maybe this one?

Here's the milk, water, sugar and real yeast (not Surebake):

After 10 minutes on top of the dryer, there's a brown froth on top, which I forgot to take a picture of. It looks kind of like the scum you get at the bottom of waterfalls.

Meanwhile, beside me there was some sort of fight going on between Ella and Rach. Not entirely sure what was about, but it seemed to involve about two thirds of the world's supply of cocoa powder:

Betty was asleep so we were temporarily safe from total destruction.

I sifted some flour - here's a better picture of the floral sifter. No-one's asked, but I know that's just because you're shy:

I made a well in the flour:

The whatever-it-was continued unabated next to me, despite my protests:

I added the scum to the well:

and mixed them to a smoooooooooooooooooooooooooooth batter:

I left it on top of the dryer while those other two made pies or something, I dunno:

The batter had to rise for a bit, during which time the almost-solid-cocoa circles went into the kiln and came back out, looking like this:

I think something went a bit wrong, they look all puffy.

We all went off to Chartwell to get haircuts about now. This took longer than expected and I had visions of returning to find a laundry completely filled with expanded batter.

Sadly, this was not to be; it was only this big:

Close-up of the moonscape, glup glup:

I scooped up spoonsful of this (quite difficult as it's very very gluey, kind of like hot mozzarella):

which were then squeegee'd off the spoon and into the frying pan (butter in there already):

Full-on crumpets are meant to be done using metal rings, but the $2 Shop didn't have any, so we have free-form crumpets instead. After a while they look a bit like this:

at which point they get turned over for the other side to cook. This is what they look like at the end:

Not much like crumpets, right? Don't care, they taste bloody awesome, anyway, Delia said they'd be different. I think they're better once they've cooled down and gone a bit spongy, but they're pretty good when hot too.

They look a bit more like crumpets on the inside:

So, that's crumpets (and chocolate muffins), they're in the rotation now. Try it yourself and let me know how you go.

Springfield flowers

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 07:56:00 +0000

Ah yeah, I bloody love flowers, mostly because I'm so old. If you don't like flowers, or pictures of them, you may want to self-censor. Some of the photos include children though . . .

[Click on pictures for big]

Magnolia:

This tree flowers about this time of year, huge things, with no leaves on the tree at all. It's quite amazing.

They look like this once the petals fall off:

Hey look there's Ella (and her umbrella):

Ah god help they're multiplying!

Bye!

Camellias:

Manuka/kanuka/tea tree (pretty sure it's manuka but you tell me):

Weird bush that smells like a tea tree or something:

Daphne:

This one's back, minus pants:

Daphne smells nice (she may be eating it):

I don't know what these are but they're probably weeds:

These are also unknown but are probably not weeds:

Ooo hello saucy:

These ones look like they're made of wax or plastic but that can't be right:

Don't need no umbrellas inside:

Please comment or Bethan comes to your house without pants and eats all your flowers.

Bakery sweatshop

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 08:30:00 +0000

With the girls home sick but not really acting it (and me looking after them), I thought I'd better find something to occupy us. What could be better than making some bread? Ella took the photos.

First, locate your bread recipe. Ours is now largely obscured by the detritus of the breadmaking process:

Underneath the stains is a now-coverless 1980s copy of the Edmonds cookbook.

Next, into the 1960s floral flour sifter goes flour:

salt:

and yeast:

Now, sift:

Cold milk:

Followed IMMEDIATELY by boiling water:

Stir it up until it looks like thin tiling grout:

Leave it for a couple of minutes while you go and hang out the sheets that have now had the chunder washed off them (you may have an alternative activity). It will now look more like porridge:

Tablespoon of oil:

Sift in flour, half a cup at a time.

Stir 'til ya can't stir no mo', then cover the bench in flour:

and tip the mess out onto it:

Start bashing (kneading) the lump (dough) around. It'll eat up the flour - keep adding more so it doesn't stick to your hands/the bench/walls/ceiling/floor:

Let Betty have a go:

After a while it'll be "smooth and elastic", like the book says:

Grease the bowl:

then plonk the dough in:

Turn the dough over, put a twee towel on top, then put it in the lovely lovely sun:

After some time, marvel at The Power Of Yeast:

Tip it out onto more flour:

Bash (transparent hands are not mandatory for this, although they do help you see what you're doing):

Cleave (divide in two):

Divide each half into three bits, and make them into sausages:

Shit! Quick, grate some cheese!:

Mash one end of three sausages together:

then start plaiting (you know how to do it). Throw cheese in the middle before each plait:

Have some idiot point at the partially-complete loaf:

Here's the plait finished. Looks a bit crap, but don't worry, there's a happy ending. Make another one the same:

Cover the loaves with another tea towel and place in front of the lovely lovely heater or on top of the lovely lovely dryer:

After a while, marvel yet again at the size increase:

put more cheese on top:

then put them in the oven. 220 horsepower for ten minutes, then 180 until they're done. Hold yours up to the screen and compare with this photo to see if they're ready:

Full body shot:

If you haven't done this before, give it a go. It's really easy. Go on.

If you've done it before, but not for a while, go on!

Let me know about your variations, or post in the comments.

Absolutely, Positively Wellensteins

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 04:27:00 +0000

Rach had been doing her 2 - 3 days a week in Wellington as part of a secondment, and I said that the kids and I should go down and visit. Thanks to a local airline's bargain flight site, I was able to actually make good on this, rather than it becoming another one of those "always meant to" things.

$59 each way for Ella and I, and Betty still flies free (although she doesn't get a seat)! We got to Wellington about 2pm, it was cold and windy and starting to rain.

Had to phone the rental car guys for them to show up with our Corolla:

Despite this very slightly bad start, they were great. I especially like the mismatched wheelcovers, also unlike every other rental company, kid seats were completely free.

The Corolla was somewhat smaller than we're used to, but we managed to cram the pram in the boot, as well as all of us into the car.

I didn't get lost at all on the way into the city, getting us to Our Place no problem. Rach met us there, with some lunch as Ella had not been able to steal enough lollies from the plane to keep us going.

We had a brief (i.e. a couple of hours) look at a relatively small amount of the free stuff. The big hit for Betty was the big map of New Zealand that you stand (or in her case, jump) on. Ella showed a surprising amount of interest in plate tectonics and volcanism.

Te Papa really is an incredible place - if you haven't been, you really should make an effort to get there somehow.

Once we'd (actually, probably just me - I am the most prone to museum boredom in our family) had enough, it was off up the motorway to Cheryl's place in ~~Porirua~~ Ranui Heights. 'Auntie' Chezza was kind/mad enough to put us up for the next two nights, which was probably quite good, as the Corolla may not have made the best campervan in the world.

I had not been to her place before, despite her having owned it for a hell of a long time. It's a great place: massive garden, and like pretty much everywhere in Wellers, a great view. Here's a few pics (click for slideshow):

Because I am an idiot, I went for a run the next morning. Being from Hanimalton, where everything is flat, running on hills was a bit of a novelty. It was actually not too bad a way to get a look at the area too, as long as I ignored the massive leg and lung pain.

We decided to use that day to visit the Karori Sanctuary, a place I'd never heard of before, but highly recommended. It's not too hard to find, being pretty much right in the middle of a suburb that's very close to the CBD.

Once you've paid the entry price, had your bag frisked for mice (!), and walked in a couple of hundred metres, it's hard to believe that there could possibly be a city anywhere nearby.

Everything here is amazing, but some of the highlights were:

Green Geckos:

Tuatara:

Shag nest (hurrr):

I am not really that interested in birds, but as we were walking through I found myself getting excited every time I saw a Saddleback or a Tui.

Another place that's well worth the visit - we ended up wandering around for nearly four hours!

Hunger brought us out in the end - eating the native wildlife is frowned upon, I can't imagine why. There was a little bit of drama actually finding something to eat, but an awesome playground down on the waterfront took at least some people's minds off their hunger.

After lunch, we did a bit of a drive-around of some suburbs that I don't know the name of, then tested out another playground (where some maniacs were swimming in the sea):

Back to Cheryl's after that, where I cobbled together dinner using some of her tomatoes.

The next day we went back to Te Papa. We'd intended to go to the Monet and the Impressionists exhibition. However, the 3km-long queue plus 8 billion schoolkids made us reconsider.

Instead, we spent the morning seeing another 3% of the museum. This place is truly huge, it would probably take a week to see everything properly.

Betty went polynesian:

and Ella forged some money:

We then wandered through the city in search of lunch, stopping only for photos of landmarks:

We ate at a French place with actual French people working in it, with accents and everything. We ate outside - not because it was nice and warm, but so as not to destroy the place:

At last it was time to go on the cable car. It wouldn't be a family holiday without some kind of train (well, pretty much):

Betty is only looking apprehensive because she wasn't allowed to drive. Actually, I think she only wanted to drive due to the awesome book you could read while doing so:

Cable-car museum next BECAUSE IT'S FREE but also quite interesting. Cue sideways pictures of kids on old cablecars (I wasn't the only one taking a picture like this, believe me):

The Wellington Botanic Gardens are picturesquely arranged on what appear to be a series of sheer cliffs. Don't worry though, for those of us pushing little Ms. Hefty in her pushchair, there were some merely near-vertical paths.

We descended about 900 vertical metres from the cable-car stop to a playground, which was very good, probably even worth the titanic struggle back to the top. Ella (maybe with some encouragement from someone who isn't not me) rolled down some of the gentler hills.

She enjoyed this so much that she tried it again where it was too steep. Standing up out of a barrel roll, as both her parents yelled out in panic, she slipped over onto her arse, then bounced over a bank taller than her to land, on her feet, on the path. This was much to the horror, shock, and finally amazement of some people sitting on a bench who would have been well hit had it gone wrong.

Here's some people playing in a playground:

(I told you Bethan was heavy)

Note how no sky is visible in either photo. This is due to it being blocked out by the aforementioned hill, which Wellingtonians probably consider more of a gentle slope.

Back to, and then down the cable-car, then off to my first cousin once removed Toby and family (some of who are my second cousins (not removed)). Sorry, this cousin thing's all a bit of a novelty to me.

Having met us only once before, and quite briefly at that (and before El Destructo arrived), Toby, Hilary, Emily, Leandra and Tom had invited us to stay for the night.

The girls got to sleep in an amazing bedroom under the stairs:

while Rach and I luxuriated in the rest of the basement (about two-thirds the size of our house):

It was really good to catch up - my extended family make up for their relatively (hurr) low numbers by being, well, just good people. The Fiennes house was a whirlwind, mostly of various sporting endeavours (possibly a glimpse of the future for us?), but they made time (and dinner) for us AND THEY HAD LOTS OF PLAYMOBIL which I've just realised we completely forgot to tidy away.

We'd love to return the favour if they're ever up this way - I'm sure we'll find somewhere to fit them all.

Here we all are:

From the left: Emily, Toby, Tom, Hilary, Leandra, Idiot Boy, El Destructo, an unknown beautiful lady no wait it's Rach, Invisible Girl, and o god I've forgotten the dog's name. Nice dog, I'm just terrible with names. Hopefully someone will remind me.

Due to the cheapness of the tickets, we had quite an early flight the next day, back to seemingly subtropical Hamilton.

AAAA+++++ would visit Wellington again as they say on TradeMe.

If you are insane you will click here for a massive slideshow. You have been warned, although I guess you could just leave it running in the background for a couple of hours.

Benz of an era

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 00:17:00 +0000

A while ago I came to terms with the idea of selling my Merc - this one:

[click for slideshow]

NOTE: those of you expecting a post about a different topic might want to scroll down a bit.

I'd had the car for about ten years, so it's been a pretty big part of my life, and as you know, cars are people to me anyway. This meant it was a pretty big decision - so much so that when we "had" to get rid of a car a couple of years ago, we barely even considered selling it, and instead sold Rach's Audi.

Probably the wrong decision, in hindsight, but there you go. Mostly I convinced myself it was OK to let the Merc go because I was barely using it, not even 1000 km a year.

Anyway, long story short(ish), I sold it to a young guy who is going to use it (and said he wasn't going to put stupid mags on and lower it or anything). He wasn't lying either - when we were on holiday at Oamaru Bay, Rach 'n' Rua saw it drive past on its way down from the north end of the peninsula, loaded up with dudes.

It's kind of like sending an old dog to a nice farm for retirement, only this time not a euphemism for death.

So, in the spirit of changing things about my life that define who I am, I did this today:

Create your own damn animated gif if you feel like it ehoa

More photos here (click the pic):

[STEALTH EDIT: Pam, Jill - this was not your idea.]

A wedding

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:52:00 +0000

My dad and his laydee friend of eight years, Angela, decided to get married. They decided this about three weeks before they actually did it. Coupled with it being the middle of the holidays while they were organising everything, it was quite an effort.

Two things made it sensible to get married on January 3rd. Firstly, Angela was very close to getting a teaching job in Doha for a year:

View Larger Map

Apparently it is easier to bring your special friend with you if you are married. I guess we're screwed on that front . . .

Secondly, all three of The Brothers Morris would actually be in the same place (and even in the same place as their parents) for the first time in a long while:

CHAAAAARGE! indeed.

The ceremony was held at Musick Point, a long-time Haszard family haunt. It's a beautiful place, if a little windy that day:

The dudes nonchalantly leaning against the poles are actually struggling to hold down the gazebo and prevent it flying off to sea.

A minor amount of rain, the Angela arrived, suitably late:

She got there in the only vehicle one could reasonably expect:

[insert father-enraging cliche/myth about unreliable French cars making people late]

The girls strew some rose petals (from Springfield Crescent) about the place:

Some bozo signed a document:

. . . and they were married! The vows were quite lovely, I wasn't crying, the wind just whipped some hair into my eyes or something.

All these people were there:

The reception was at the Secret Thai Garden in Otahuhu. Anyone who knows Otahuhu may be gasping here, but this place is nothing short of incredible. Also incredible is the good fortune they had in being able to book the place out at such short notice.

The Brothers Morris were also the best men (obviously), so we had to do a bit of talking as part of this. Barns, in his unruffled, casual way, had taken on the role of MC, which he carried out with aplomb (I don't know where he got a plomb from haha):

As you can see in the photograph above, the sun (or something similarly bright) is in fact shining out of his arse.

The food was superb (and there was tons of it) - including the cake:

A great time was had by all, particularly the kids - I'm sure you remember being a kid at some family event and having a wicked time:

Rach thinks this is a bad photo of her - I think it's a very very nice one. What do you think?

So, now the job in Doha is all set, and they depart on Waitangi Day, leaving their eldest son/stepson with only memories and a Citroen XM.

Here are a couple of slideshows for masochists - ceremony (54 photos):

. . . and the reception (84 photos!):

Thanks to google/blogger for losing the original post and making me retype it.

Actual thanks to 48 bottles of cheap Lindauer and Chang Beer.

Down the O.B.

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 09:10:00 +0000

We went back to Oamaru Bay for our holiday this (last) year. We've been there before, as you can tell by the fact that the Volvo and the Hyundai are visible in the Google Maps aerial photo taken two years ago:

View Larger Map

OH YEAH NICE ONE GOOGLE. It's not like I bloody zoomed in before I copied the link or anything. Zoom in on the balloon to see the cars.

Many "How's the serenity?" quotes - with such a horrible, cliched view from the deck, you can see why:

Aimee, Krystal, and Braydyn came with us, but had the hideous stomach thing that was going around at the time and had to go home after a couple of days.

Alex, Millie, Rua, and Jill stayed down the road at Shelly Beach, and Barns joined them after a couple of days, coming over on the ferry from Auckland. Kendyl took the same route on New Year's Eve, and Russell and Clare also stayed at Shelly Beach on the 31st.

Lots of swimming,

we went on the Driving Creek Railway again,

we went to Driving Creek Cafe again and again:

I boke up Driving Creek Road (this leads eventually to Kennedy Bay on the other side of the peninsula), once in the pissing rain, and again in the dry. Coming down was fun but quite dangerous as I'm faster than cars on a windy metal road.

From the top you can see Kennedy Bay itself:

No proof I didn't just drive up and take this photo, but I didn't.

On the way home we went to the Waiau Kauri Grove, which includes the Siamese Kauri. Kauri are truly magnificent and awe-inspiring:

Here's a slideshow of photos (click the picture ehoa):

Thanks go out to Waikato Air Conditioning for making a Volvo cool again.

Dunedin Rua

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 06:58:00 +0000

As usual, I've left it a bit long between posts, and now my memory is failing me. I have photos, but there may be some chronological errors.

According to all my records (i.e. Flickr), I didn't take any photos on Friday 7th November. Pretty sure that's the day Rua and I picked up SoNic Smith, Jess, and their daughter Bella (god I hope I have that right)[Edit - NO, I have it wrong, her name is of course Stella].

We bought and made our spacesuits (paper overalls from the safety place with homemade stickers on them) and just generally hung out (hanged out?). Oh, and I also made Le Mon Chicken.

BAM! I guess this was the day I went and did my out-of-electorate vote too!

Saturday dawned especially bright and early (6:30 according to the picture data) because IT WAS MILLIE'S BIRTHDAY:

. . . which meant PENGUIN WAFFLES at the NEW TABLE*:

We went off to go ice-skating at the Dunedin rink, but IT WAS CLOSED. Some tears from Millie before we went through some suburbs and hills to the tenpin bowling rink/arena/building. It was only just opening, so we had the place to ourselves for a while, which was kind of strange but cool all the same. Here are some people doing bowling things:

It was all a load of fun.

We went to Robbie's in South D. I still want to call it The Robbie, but I know this is wrong. I had whitebait, which was surprisingly cheap, and completely delicious.

Rua and I were then delivered to the Radio One studio for that week's instalment of Energy Flash. This normally two-hour show was reduced to a single hour because of the Radio One Election Special.

SoNic Smith joined us towards the end of the show, and we walked up to the North Valley to someone's flat (another amazing Dunedin student flat). En route we picked up some hideous drinks.

We were crammed into a car and ferried nice and early to Sammy's for the Willy Wonky and the Southern Lit Spaceship party, at which Rua and Nic were both playing. I got no pictures of this, but there are many on the Haszari Facebook if you are able to see them.

It was a great night of spacesuits, dancing, Green Man Beer, and election coverage on a TV in the foyer.

As a side note, all the people I met that night (most of who were younger than me) were very politically aware, and almost without exception horrified that National won the election.

Rua and I got home about 5, after stumbling through the freezing Dunedin gale. Luckily our spacesuits kept us warm (also booze).

Sunday morning dawned bright and early again NO IT DIDN'T RUA AND I WERE MAX HUNGOVER. Lay on the couch for quite a while, snoozing, watching The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and eating pizza if I remember correctly.

That afternoon (or possibly more like evening, I dunno), we went out to Tunnel Beach. The gate was fully shut, we weren't going to miss out after travelling so far (at LEAST 10 km), so vaulted it anyway, dodging various types of animal faeces.

The track down to the beach was pretty steep, although these photos don't really show it that well:

. . . but they do illustrate the quite low temperature.

The beach is only reachable through a tunnel, dug in the early years of last century. It is a beautiful beach, with towering cliffs, squeaky blonde sand, and a rock formation similar to that at Cathedral Cove (you know, the hole in the rock deal).

Here's the tunnel, with a trepidatious Jillian:

Here is the beach, with some silly poses:

(Alex is in this photo, but is completely obscured by his showboating mother).

Here are Millie and Ella having a rest on the way back up:

We had some good sarnies there, can't remember if that was dinner or not . . .

We belatedly let off some fireworks that night:

Here are the kids - either they are running to school, or they are evilly flaunting their youth and fitness outside the old folks' home:

On the Monday, Ella and I went to the South D. shops, then the museum, then ate too much at Governors's's'. The only photo I have from this day is Ella frolicking about in the 70s dress in the non-sequitur sun and heat:

We had a great trip, A+++ WOULD TRADE AGAIN.

Our plane was an hour late leaving Dunners, because, without a word of a lie, they had to reboot it. Seriously, they shut off all power to the plane, waited three minutes, then powered up again, all to fix some unspecified piece of navigational equipment. It worked, as you can tell by how happy Ella is:

* In this post I am experimenting with SHOUTING IN CAPITALS. People think it works selling cars on TardMe/Ebay/Craigslist, so why not here?

Dunedin Tahi

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 22:13:00 +0000

Ella and I went to Dunedin a week ago, for a week. My brother Rua, my sister-in-law Jill, my niece Millie, and my nephew Alex live down there (there are other people living in Dunedin too, of course, but I don't think I'm related to any of them). Millie was turning seven on the Saturday we were there, so it seemed like a good time to go.

We flew down on Wednesday the 5th. We went from Hamilton to Christchurch on an ATR 72 (I love these planes), and then on to Dunners on 737-300 (I don't love these planes quite as much).

Anyway, it was 8°C in Dunedin when we got there - I'm sure you're all familiar enough with the climate of the Central North Island of New Zealand to know that it's usually a bit warmer than that in November. Snow on the hills in Dunners, though. Many different people told me that while this isn't usual, it's not unheard of.

I like the cold anyway, so I thought it was great.

Jill and Millie came to pick us up from the airport - Millie was off "sick" from school!

We settled in a bit, and the next day Jill, Alex, Millie, Ella and I went to the Cadbury factory, pretty much right in the middle of town. Nearly $50 for a family pass for a tour, but I think it was well worth it.

Here we are just after tasting plain cocoa beans:

They are not very nice. I am in fact stifling a chunder.

There's a small kind of display section to wander around in before you go on the actual factory tour. I wasn't too fascinated by it (aside from the old Moro wrappers), but Ella was pretty transfixed:

We had to put all our stuff in a locker (including cameras, which is a bit of a bummer) before heading into the factory. We also had to cram our hair into hairnet things:

Well, have you ever had a hair in your chocolate?

The tour was awesome - lots of interesting machinery and stuff. I have to say that pretty much all the jobs in there are horribly dull, but I guess factory work's pretty much the same no matter how nice the product is.

We were told that this factory produces all the Curly-Wurlys for Australasia. Were there any in the shop though? Were there buggery! DISAPPOINTING, but not enough to overshadow what was a cool tour - it even has a chocolate waterfall at the end, which fully kicks the Willy Wonka one to the kerb.

The kids posed as little Cadbury workers before we left:

You also get various chocolate bars as part of the tour (a small bag - not armloads like in my fantasies, but enough). To help the kids use up some of the sugar, we went to Baldwin Street, the Steepest Street . . . In The World (imagine Jeremy Clarkson saying it).

I've viewed it from the bottom before, from a car, but there were too many people in that car for the owner to be game enough to try driving up.

Ella uncharacteristically beat everyone to the top, me and Alex bringing up the rear. It is pretty steep alright. The most amazing thing is that some houses don't appear to have driveways. The occupants must either walk all their groceries in, or perhaps they have huge blocks of wood to chock their car in place on the street outside?

Here's everyone (bar me) resting on the thoughtfully-placed bench at the top:

Here are the kids courting disaster (thank god Betty wasn't there) by dancing at the top of The World' Steepest Residential Gradient:

. . . and here's everyone (bar me) heading back down. Close-up at the full extent of zoom on our new camera:

. . . and no zoom to give you another idea of how steep it is:

Yep, there's a dude bikin' up.

We rescued Rua from work and went and had lunch at Starfish in St. Clair, which was great, just as it has been in the past.

That night Alex and Millie's school had a disco. Despite Ella and I not being pupils OR parents of pupils, we knew the DJ:

so were able to blag our way in anyway.

Ella wore a dress handed down from her mum, so it may have seen school disco action before:

Millie wore a velvet jackardigan:

Alex wore his Speed Racer costume (of course):

There was a blacklight, which worked pretty well on a '70s dress, as you might expect it to:

Alex also showed me his classroom while we were there:

His principal took the photo, and for no charge gave the camera its first destruction test. It survived, and to be honest, Betty will probably give it a lot more of a hiding.

1 billion flashing rubber LED toys and 1200 K Bars later, it was pretty much the end of Day One in Dunners. More later.

Film Of The Year

noreply@blogger.com (Ed Haszard Morris) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 09:04:00 +0000

About time I uploaded some stuff off the video camera. Here're some youtubes for ya:

Here's Bethan blatting around after the bath:

She is wearing a butterfly towel, in case you were wondering.

Here's Bethan riding her bike:

She insists on wearing the helmet; as useless parents, we don't force her to at all.

Here's Ella having a bit of a dance:

We haven't sent her to any dance lessons. I think we ought to, if only so she has enough space to pirouette around without smashing into the fireplace.

Bethan dances to one artist ONLY:

The King.

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I was going to post up a few more, but I just keep running out of time. These will have to do.
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