Theo's Birthday

Just to let you know that he did have one and we didn't just ignore the occasion. We skipped school and spent the morning at the local playgroup instead. Theos was particularly amazed to discover that there are other people of his age, and got Happy Birthday sung to him in English and Korean.

Annie was skipping the afternoon off work, so it was into town for a celebratory lunch in a restaurant by the Harbour. Theo had Fish and Chips and I had a beer. His party took place in the evening, he was the guest of honour at Dinner provided by our hosts Doreen and Annie. There was fish and chips again, and some chocolate brownies made my myself. Jay helped blow out the candle.

So, gone are the days of infanthood and Theo is looking forward to starting to walk. He has a good line in standing up, but can't quite do a step just yet. He also has a good line is switching off the computer while jay is using it, but this is not such a handy skill.

Free Comic book day

Jay has spent a lot of the holiday reading comics. I couldn't quantify the split between reading and just looking at the pics, but they have served him well as in-car entertainment, bribes for good behaviour and he does seem to be getting into reading as a way of having fun. His and my choice of mainly Simpsons comics may not be nurturing the finest vocabulary possible, but the sooner he can read Theo a bedtime story, the better.

So the prospect of Free Comic Book Day at the Onehunga comic store has been eagerly anticipated for a couple of weeks. 2 free comics for walking in, 2 free comics for a donation to the local school, and 2 free comics for wearing a super-hero outfit. Our lack of super-hero outfits got us 4 free comics each. That's 12 as we didn't claim any for Theo. We were expecting the shop to be offloading their lost product onto us, and to be spending the week reading copies of Millennium Bug vs Pager Boy, but actually they were giving away special editions of all the latest comics that were distributed across the world on what I discovered is a universal event aimed at combating illiteracy (and selling comics).

Not to be out done, the supermarket had free-knife day on the preceding day. This could feature in the 'things they don't do in Stokey' blog, and had less noble motives than combating stupidness. There was no requirement to dress up. You simply had to listen to a sales pitch about some larger knives and you got a free small knife. The small print was that you had to be over 21 so Jay and Theo did not get tooled up.

Toy Drought is Over

Whilst my attempts at home education of Jay have been somewhat successful, the real credit for Jay being able to divide oranges into equal piles of segments for us all to share must go to Theos Dios. His patience in the mornings and ability to play on his own has been essential when trying to sellotape basic arithmetic to Jay's brain. But after a few days, my guilt at watching Theo banging a few plastic bottles together grew too large and I resolved to score him some toys.

After failing to find anything nice in a couple of second hand stores, I found out about the Toy Libraries. Not just an option for those that can't afford toys, Epsom Toy Library provides a social drop in on wednesday mornings and a chance to act like a kid with the keys to a toy shop. Membership entitles you to 3 of the big bags, 2 of the small bags and a puzzle. You then get to stand in a small room stacked to the ceiling with toys and decide which you'd like. Then the admin, you have to check the detailed inventory of lego pieces before signing out your bags of plastic stuff.

The toys are all in good condition, there are no weapons, and best of all, you get to bring them back and swap them for new ones once you start getting bored of clearing them up all the time.

Palace at Onehunga

The Picture is captioned: The lady with the big butt is at my door again

So glad am I that we are not in a caravan. So here's a little tour of our new apartment. We enter via the coded gateway at the back, down some steps into the garden, and then enter the lounge thru the sliding doors. We have baby-proofed the entire lounge area, so moving to the open plan kitchen requires a big step over a kind of low table. The kitchen features a breakfast bar from where I throw lumps of breakfast to the boys as though I were feeding the seals at the aquatic centre. Then its up a couple of steps into the one bedroom where the four of us squeeze in. Out the front door, a quick beep on the remote control and the gate swings open, and we can drive away.

The accommodation is attached to the side of our hosts', Doreen and Annie's house. It's what is known as a 'sleep out', and could translate into english as a granny flat. It differs from a caravan in several ways: it has its own bathroom, sky TV, laundry shed that doesn't require the correct change or guarding our stuff, and room to move around. Although the record player doesn't work, but this is probably for the best as the boys would probably have scratched them all by now.

The hi-tech entry and exit procedures do mean that anyone can simply climb over the gate and freely access our home. But everyone seems cool about this, so I'm trying to be so too.

I said I'm going to the Museum...

I'm not yet certain what effect taking Jay from school will have on him. I never thought it would be bad for him, and I prefer to show him that the world is a big place with all sorts of different things to do, than to ensure he knows knows all his times tables just yet. And I'm not certain if I'm providing evidence for or against Educational Institutions, but this photo was accompanied by Jay calling out 'I said I'm going to the Museum and I'm going to the Museum'.

The building in question is the Auckland Museum, with lots of Maori stuff (war canoes, kiwi feather cloaks) and stuff about the dude that climbed up Everest (his pick axe, video of him being very modest about it all). It is located in 'The Domain', Auckland's biggest city park. We also saw a band who do easy listening, smooth jazz versions of classic rock songs play in this park. A very coool way to spend a sunday afternoon.

But what can't you learn from jazz versions of Bob Dylan songs?

I have gone completely mad

For all of you who believed that I would probably just end up living in a caravan one day, well that day nearly came. As you may know, Annie has scored a month's work in Auckland. So while our holiday is soon to come to an end, we will not be returning to England quite so imminently. Annie's supreme talents got her the job offer a while back, but also required was some affordable, temporary accommodation. If we couldn't find any, then we could extend our stay by taking the job, but it wouldn't actually make us any money, so no point really.

Looking at a few of the commercial options gave us little hope. A few of the cheaper motels offered us a slight discount on a month's stay, but the discount would be very small, and the motels were in busy parts of town, although near Annie's central work location. So it was back to one of favourite places of the early part of the trip: Takapuna Holiday Park. Located across the water from the city centre, a small field right on the beach with a few cabins, campervans and caravans is surrounded by really swanky houses. How long it will last I don't know, but it should remain in business for a month. It is possible to commute by bus or by ferry, yet the whole village feels like a holiday resort. So I just need to get over the communal bathrooms and I can spend a month hanging with the kids on the beach. Sweet as (as they say over here).

Couple of nights later the reality check thankfully arrives. The clocks are due to go back, and the practicality of there being no spouse to look after one baby while I take the other to the communal bathroom in the rain. Not sweet as (as I say over here).

We have been saved by friends of friends of friends in a suburban district called Onehunga. We went to a barbecue one saturday night. I barbecued some peppers, played drums with the band, and got a tip that someone rented out some section of their house nearby. A couple of days later I'm being shown round an apartment. I try to keep calm and say 'hmmm hmm, yes' while being told that they can take the snooker table out if we'd like. But almost keel over with 'oh gosh! It's a palace!' whenever I get a chance.

I'll let y'all know more about the place once we're in there in a week or so. But for the moment: it has a remote control for opening the gate from the car as we drive up, a record player (actual vinyl), and a picture of a woman with a big bottom on the wall.

Six metres high and rising

To all who love and care about Jay, I apologise if I have pushed him into a hobby that will result in him becoming the New Alain Robert. Having rejected a go on the gyroscope as too scary, which was fair enough; and bailed at the last minute on the 3metre vertical slide, which is just sensible; I was expecting him to dismiss the climbing wall out of hand.

But no. Thanks to a very good tutor, the qualified member of staff here at 'Science Alive!' in Christchurch, Jay scampered up the vertical incline. Unconcerned about falling off, he actually quite dug the 'slowly rope' as he called it, which would gently lower him back to earth. He would set off for another go immediately and usually fall off at a difficult section about 80% of the way up. He said he was too concentrating on holding on to think about how to do the tricky section. But on at least one occasion he made it to the top and planted his palm onto the hand print there to mark the dizzying height.

I've told him to remember that he doesn't have the harness when he's in the playground, but once again, I'm really sorry if this kind of thing catches on.