Well goodness me time flies when you're at work! Here we are and it's September. We have been here in Redland Bay 7 months.
Hamish is enjoying high school, and life in general, especially since starting up playing hockey again. His team came third in the local competition. It took him time to get used to playing on real turf after years of astro turf on the North Shore. Anyway now it is swimming season and both Hamish and Kate have signed up to a local swim club and will also be joining a surf life saving club called Coochiemudlo Island Life Saving Club, starting next term (Depending on the qualifying swim.).
Kate has been really loving her CAPA dance classes owned and run by her gorgeous and very talented cousin Kristy. They had their studio performance last holidays and now it is practice for the exams. She has settled into her new school well and is looking forward to going on her first school camp on the Gold Coast in November. Better still is the Loop Camp also on the Gold Coast which is run by a network of school chaplains on week two of the September holidays.
We have had visits from both sides of the family with Nana Phyl in June and Grandma Gwen and Grandpa Ken in August. It was really lovely to have them over here. We finally bought a decent car and took them both to the Tambourine Mountains. These are in land from the Gold Coast. Very pretty and full of neat nicy-nacy type shops plus a great lolly shop run by a very nice man which was, of course, the kids favourite shop. We want to go back and check out the tree top board walk that has been advertisied on tv.
Today we decided to go and check out the film set of the Narnia movie. There is a replica of the Dawn Treader and it is on hydraulics . It is built on the end of Cleveland Point. We saw it before filming began with my parents. At that time it was fairly quiet there and the film makers had built a small grandstand for the public. Well the nice grandstand has been removed. We had to park quite a distance away as the road was closed and walk to the Point. There were plenty of others there. I wore a very bright pink top that I had given to me. But it was no good. I didn't get talent spotted but neither did any one else in our family! We think we saw Prince Caspian - a very yummy looking bloke who was standing round chatting. The kids thought they caught a glimpse of Lucy but couldn't be sure. You can see why movies cost so much. We were there about 45 minutes and they seemed to film a 2 minute shot at least twice. We saw some strange Narnian creatures. And the pirate like crew. I think the best bit was the yummy coffe and chocolate ice-cream I ate on the way back to the car.
We have started the process of importing Blue Heron - Lindsay the Brave has been doing battle with a couple of government departments and managed to get the paper work sorted. A big achievement. Blue Heron passed the termite dog inspection. She also got a very good compliment from the inspector who also did a moisture reading of the interior. He said it was the driest boat he had measured.
I am enjoying teaching here in Australia. This is despite a very unsupportive state government who refuses to pay teachers here a decent wage. They are the lowest paid in Australia and significantly lower paid than NZ! Here the hourly rate looks ok until you get told that you will only be paid for 25 hours per week. Plus if lucky enough to be offered permanent work you can easily be sent to where ever the department wants to send you. Hmmmm. The great things are the lovely people I work with and I have had some very cool professional development. The kiddies are super with a good splattering of kiwis thrown in!
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