Not as planned. 
It's raining, sort of. Must have had about 0.2 mm so far. We'll need several months of this to catch up. It's also hot and humid.

Some things just don't work out as planned. I didn't make it to Parachute (in Hamilton). Bronwyn has been really unwell and wound up in hospital three times. She's been OK for the last few days. I took her down to Hamilton to visit a friend there. I'd been planning to spend the daytime at her house anyway, so at least part of it worked out. They had a great time chatting, and I drove them around.

We went to visit the Hamilton gardens. It must be one of the best free attractions in the country. They have a large number of themed gardens, including a chinese garden where the bamboo towers overhead, and several buildings to mimic different housing styles. They also had a Maori themed garden, with several rather obscene carvings, and a fruit and vegetable patch with just about every kind imaginable.

Bronwyn starts work next week. It's going to be for seven weeks, five days a week. After last week, I hope she can cope. I'll certainly be doing a lot more work in the house! We've organised a roster for Sarah, and Rachael will be back at school.

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Back to work 
Had a reasonable week at work, but didn't get a lot of planned work done. Spent most of the time sorting out the new hardware that Dave, our product manager / ageing surf dude had bought, plus fixing a number of issues from all the teachers that have recently emerged from hibernation (or is that aestivation?) Might not get much done next week either; it'll be the last week of the holidays for most schools, and the teachers will be panicking.

Plus I'll have Friday off to go down to Parachute. We've got a meeting tonight to go over all the details for the coffee bar. I've also got the offer to stay at a friend's place for the day. The weather is looking rather iffy, so I might take them up on that.

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Camp 
I'm on my fourth load of washing, and there's still more in the bag. I just decided to wash the lot! We had a great time up near Whangarei last week. It was a small campsite but just the right mix of people, and everyone got on really well, especially the children. Bronwyn kept them all entertained with play dough, cornflour, balloons, and glowsticks. Our tennis pole got used so much we went through three tennis balls. They all fell to bits.

On the Friday two of the others came back with a bucket full of snapper. A big bucket. There must have been about 15, and the largest would have been about 4kg. They cooked them up in egg, flour and butter. Best fish I've ever tasted. So we all had a shared dinner, and because it was my birthday the day after, Bronwyn brought out the cake as well. It really was a great evening. No idea when we all got to bed!

Another guy was a talented juggler, and could do 7 balls at once. He gave quite a few displays. It was really impressive. I understand he ranks third in the country.

Back to work tomorrow. No petrol, and not a lot of money. But apparently the kindergarten owes us quite a bit. I think they haven't checked for a while, and it's been accumulating. At least I hope it has. Otherwise we've got quite a bill to pay!

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And a happy new year to you too 
Quiet. Too quiet. I guess I did so much last weekend that I'm running low on things to do this weekend. I'm sure I'll find something. The spare room is now tidy, the loft is now full, the lounge is in a mess again (but that's normal) and I'm beginning to work on the garden for once. We'll be going camping in a week, so Bronwyn's been making a big list of things to take. We always seem to forget something. Last year we took two solar heated showers but forgot the washing up brush. Not easy cleaning saucepans with your fingers.

Bronwyn wanted to go to visit the same waterfall that I took Rachael to last year, but I pointed out that Sarah was going to find a 90 minute hike rather hard going. So we walked up the bush on the farm. Except that there was a hay paddock in the way, with grass three feet tall. Again, not easy for Sarah. So Bronwyn drove the car up through the paddock, and then we walked up the rest of the way. Must be the first time in years that we've all gone on a walk together on the farm. The girls are still more interested in dressing up and drawing pictures.



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Christmas! 
Bronwyn bought a mini water slide. It has a tube with holes along one side, so you get sprayed as you slide along. Rachael, Sarah and Bronwyn all tried it. I hung up the grass and mud stained swimming togs to dry...

Several people were away for Christmas day, so we had a big dinner round at Claire's on Christmas Eve. Followed by a smaller dinner on Christmas day. Today, we had lunch in the shade of my in-law's garden.

The lounge is looking tidier than usual for this time of year. I spent a lot of time tidying up and washing loads of clothes. I spent Boxing Day sorting out the spare room, and came across a huge boxful of 5 year old clothes, so Sarah will be pleased. I've put a lot of stuff up in the loft, but there's plenty more that could go up, and I think I might need more boards up there to put it on. I washed a foam mattress yesterday. I put it in the bath and squelched it with my feet. I then put it on the washing line and hosed it down. It's still damp.

Finished covering our arm chair. Now it has arms again. Or at least more than fraying foam and bare wood.

Spent a couple of hours this afternoon looking up funding sources, primarily for the youth project. I had to go into the city library, because they have an account with the directory of funding. Otherwise I'd have to pay by the hour, and it's not cheap. Now I have a long list of websites to look up and sort out.

It's hot and sunny, and likely to get humid. But there's a little rain on the way. I've been watering the garden. We have two taps in the garden. One comes from our tank. The other comes from the lake. I prefer to use the lake. It's smelly, but bigger.

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