Busy Weekends - Winter, 2004

Weekends are a bit of a busy blur these days. With netball star in the school A team, and T the dedicated coach, we're up with the larks on Saturday mornings, walking the dog & swinging by the German bakery to pick up brekkie on the way home, enduring the fat girl who works there tell us how her 1. cat follows her to work or 2. new bed was delivered to some place in Hamilton by mistake - take your pick, scoffing down the chocolate croissants followed by toast & plum jam & several coffees, grabbing the dog (team mascot), in the car & off to netball.

Where we were roundly beaten by what is probably the best team in the league - a well known girls' school with about a zillion teams in the A grade. This was their number one team. 2 year 7 reps & 5 year 8 reps in it.... We weren't actually down to play them yet, but M's team has exceeded all expectations & completely whipped all their other opponents & were top of the table. SO the table got rejigged to knock them down a peg (there are dubious politics involved here apparently - and this is only year 7 & 8!! - but the top two teams go through to some tournament during the season. Seems our team wasn't supposed to be one of those two. Things are worked out in advance, and only inspired play by the underdogs can threaten well made plans. Apparently..

Anyway... we're so far ahead we may well be one of those teams, along I'd say with the team who beat us on Saturday. And since they aren't the faction doing the rejigging (that's another school, who administrate the draw), all is good. We weren't completely whipped anyway, and the 2nd half was much better once the girls settled down. We'll give them a run for their money next time.

It's only a game after all. Like that other game, with the egg shaped ball. More on that later...

And then home again, pack up the bags & head for Sunny O. Because it is closer to the netball tournament on Sunday at Paraparaumu, and netball star is in the year 7 rep team.

By the time we got to Sunny O, it was mid afternoon. Time to light the fire & prepare for the evening, and head for the beach to give the dog a run & swim. And I could kick myself because I didn't take the camera. It was the bestest, clearest day I have ever seen there. From the beach, the south island looked like it was just past Kapiti. Close enough to swim to. And in the distance, we could clearly see Mt Taranaki & Mt Ruapehu. Fantastic! And the sky was a clear blue above, and a bright orange at the horizon. It was like a Graham Sydney painting. And no camera....

Later, once the house warmed up, & we had feasted on spaghetti & meatballs, we settled in expecting to see the English rugby team dish it to the ABs. Funny how things turn out... we speculated that the English guy at work who spent the previous week sending messages to the entire floor telling us what the ABs would be in for (animated gifs of some creature being spanked - must be an English thing I think) might not turn up on Monday (he did though, in gracious humour, since his workplace was redecorated for him with silver ferns etc).

And then... half time during the TV3 screening of the test, we wrapped up warm, turned the lights out & stepped outside to see the state of the heavens. And the night sky was magnificent. We usually spot at least a satellite traversing the sky withing a few minutes, but this time, just as we were reminiscing about shooting stars & space stations past, M shouted "Shooting star!!". And I swear, we had time to turn around & see this thing in a flattish trajectory, heading due north, almost the entire expanse of the sky. It was just like that "Vad did you vish for?" advertisement. I have seen meteorite showers in the past, and single shooting stars, but I think this was the most spectacular I have ever seen. it had a tail as it streaked through the atmosphere.

The bikini team didn't turn up though.

And bonus! The next morning on the radio we heard that a meteorite hit a house in Auckland!! Wasn't till we got home & checked the web that we discovered that it was at 9.30am & couldn't have been "our" meteorite.

And then we happily trooped back inside & jubilantly watched the end of the rugby game. And a spanking was administered indeed.

Sunday saw us up at 6.30am, the poor dog got a brisk trot out to the forest & back & that was it for her till we got home at night. We scoffed breakfast, packed the car & we were on the road at 8.10am heading for Paraparumu.

Never having been much of a sportsman, I wasn't really prepared for a rep tournament. There were dozens of teams from as far afield as Hastings, Nelson, Dannevirke, Wairarapa... you name it. And thousands of people. Apparently they kept announcing over the loudhailer to us to get our dog off the court, but I didn't realise this till after lunch & someone mentioned it to me :-) After that Wilma & I watched the games from behind the wire netting.

And M's team won two games & lost two. The coach (not T in this instance) seemed pleased. I have to note that the umpiring is a whole other league from what we're used to in the school tornaments.

We have a rep tournament every sunday now for about the next 8 weeks. We will be touring as far afield as Hastings & Wanganui. Oh joy... say... how long does it take to get between Levin & Palmerston North? Or Levin & Wanganui?

But on the Sunny O front, wasn't much time to do anything constructive (or destructive) this time... when we visited at Queen's Birthday we finished digging out the bamboo from around the deck. Once the grass grows again, it'll be a very large expanse of lawn & will look nice. Any bamboo that sprouts from now on will be nuked with something noxious.

Also, bert & ernie have visited & started replacing several rotted windows, and have fixed up the corners & weatherboards on the sleepout. And they got their plumber mate in who hacksawed off the rusted old tap feeding the toilet cistern, which leaked. And he's replaced it with a brand new, flashy tap, which also leaks...

The sheep have almost ringbarked one of the trees I lugged out into the paddock a few weeks ago. SO next visit, I daresay I'll have to put a little fence around it so they can't chew at the bark or whatever it is they do. Thought I might have got away with that one.

I need to get new batteries for the electric fence too. I use it to graze part of the section that isn't entirely fenced off - not from the house area anyway. On a couple of occasions now, I've rounded the corner & noticed Wilma (when she thinks she can get away with it, she'll breeze between two wires) in with the sheep. She doesn't chase them anymore, but she's very interested in getting to know them. And they're not. Fresh juice should cure her of that.

And I really do need to get the old sheds demolished, the nor-westers are starting to rip the old roofing off & there is quite a clatter & bang that the neighbours must be getting sick of. But first I need to find out whether the cladding really is asbestos or not (hopefully not).

The to do list never seems to get any smaller....