Author: migrant

Tomorrow is back to work time, so the beard has to come off to some extent at least. The sunburn will take a  little longer to deal with.

Picture from the Sydney Morning Herald, and very similar caption and image at ‘The Age’ website.

Joe has more to say:

http://tanajoe.blogspot.com/2010/12/its-christmas.html

Hello to all, and greetings for Christmas time.

It is midday, the sun is shining, the vista is gorgeous.

I know I say it all the time but the place does look good today. The weather has been pants up until yesterday afternoon. It had been raining lots, and yesterday the gale force winds were back. But now….

Yesterday work continued until 11-30, and even that was too much.

We went to family mass at 6pm, with carols and the nativity, and the usual level of chaos. Then, home for dinner with Helen and Andrew and the litlte lads.

we spoke to Eleanor through Skype. She looked happy and excited as her German Noel approached. Parties, parties and presents and fun. What not to enjoy?

This morning the boys opened some of their presents, we have had breakfast on the deck with “bucks fizz’. Joe did the BBQ, and the “Messiah’ pumps out through the house.

And it is early yet, more fun to be had.

I ws looking through the Guardian website and found this photo of Ealing, I think taken in Walpole Park. I assume it was taken on Friday.

 Here is our Saturday:

It was in the mid 20s. Today it is raining, but dare I say it, warm almost tropical rain!

I am surpised to say, myself, that this time mum and dad have actually produced a decent looking garden. As you can see in this collage that we haves some reasonable plants, we have a fig tree (left), gazania’s (middle), rosemary (bottom), flax sprout things (top) and a poly tunnel, which is actually not a plant as you can see. As things are looking very successful I hope that they stay the same over the years (which they probably won’t :)!)

This weekend has ben so busy that it has been hard to keep up with ourselves. So much going on that I have not had the time to write it all down!

First of all this has bee a big weekend for Eleanor. She has gone off to Germany for her exchange, a follow on to having Yasmin stay with us earlier in the year. She has been very excited and positive about the trip. As she will be away for eight weeks, and so will be away for Christmas. So we had Christmas early on friday. The turkey was cooked, with delightful stuffing and all the trimmings. The table was laid out with beautiful crackers containing very poor jokes. Nina and Nathan were there to marvel at the Quirke household! Eleanor received her substantial and thoughtful presents early. The young people then disappeared to watch “Gavin and Stacy”.

After Isaac’s cricket (another wicket for him, but a very fortunate one) it was off to the airport. There were lots of young people on the trip, so lots of friends and parents. There were tears from the bro’s and Mum, but none from EQ. Too positive and excited for her to shed a few tears.

Later in the evening M&D went off to the near annual trip to enjoy Handel’s “Messiah”. It was staged in the Town Hall with the Wellington Orchestra playing, and the Orpheus Choir, of about a hundred, doing the honours. We agreed that it was the best of the five NZ performances that we have been to. Even though we are no longer young, we were very much of the younger group within the audience. Or is that feeling just because everyone thinks it is only others who are growing old?

On the way home we drove past the stadium where Bon Jovi were playing. Now that concert was full of people not accepting their age.

After all that activity, I was up early on Sunday to do a triathlon at Scorching bay, just like ealrier in the year. However, This time i was on my own. EQ away, and JQ citing lack of training. It was not nearly as much fun being on one’s lonesome. Anyway the results were ok. Overall the time was worse, but wind conditions were more difficult and training was less than ideal. The swim time was better than the last two efforts, quite remarkable. Though I did feel absolutely knackered on leaving the water-not a good start. The next one will be better, so watch out Joe.

No, and there’s more! Off to the Basin. I went with the boys and a friend to watch my first in the flesh T20 game. The boys had free tickets so it was only me who needed to pay to watch a bit of toytown cricket. It was good fun really, though the strong wind took some of the edge off the pleasure. I have watched on tv, but there was some added value at being in the crowd. Made me reminisce about my own youth, watching the Sunday John Player League on tv with “flat Jack” playing for Lancashire. The only misfortune was that when we arrived home, the Ashes coverage wound down because of rain.

By the way, in Wellington it now longer does rain. Glorious summer!