Growing....

The Great-niece is growing...
She has the same big blue eyes I remember her mum having at that age...

Classic!

How's the top letter on this page for classic?
I'm left speechless.
(nb, the "official party" were the Principal, Associate Principal, Kaumatua, Deputy Principals, House Deans, Board Chair, Head Boys (2) & Girls (2) & the local Member of Parliament. I may have missed one or two, possibly)

Satisfaction...

Londonkind were back in town tonight, so we took a stroll down to the viaduct for dinner. Although it's not quite the hopping venue it was when the America's Cup was "ours", it's still pretty busy.
Apart from the joy of spending a few short more hours in the company of good friends (and I love the way we are just able to pick up again from wherever it was we last left off 5 or 6 years ago), it was a pleasant surprise to be ably waited on by an ex-student of my last school. He has just qualified as a chef, he says, and is finishing off the Hospitality diploma. He was a student of "character", and it is a joy to see him grow into such a nice young man.
Finished with the special guided tour under the bridge and looking back across at the city lights...

Rugby week....

It's been a great rugby week. Not that I'm a fangirl or anything - not half! First the news of the 2011 rugby world cup being allocated here, though it'll be a case of taking out a mortgage to buy tickets, and then the lovely win over England in the early hours of this morning. And no, my dedication doesn't extend to getting up at 3.30am to listen (since free-to-air isn't an option, and I'm too cheap to have Sky).

And then, to move on to other good news, this morning I read that U2 are going to be playing just down the road on March 17. Yay! St Paddy's day was never as good as this before! Another mortgage, probably. I'll be able to pay that one off just in time for the rugby.

On the home front, lovely to have London visitors. I took Helen and her mum on an outing to Piha yesterday afternoon. We did a wee bush walk, and strolled along the beach. It was gorgeous and hot! So good to see them :):)

Logical intelligence...... below average

Sigh... and I like to think of myself as quite logical. Just shows how deluded it's possible to be. (I couldn't work out the sequence question. blegh.)
Another nonsense online quiz-type thingy thing

Your IQ Is 120

Your Logical Intelligence is Below Average Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius Your Mathematical Intelligence is Exceptional Your General Knowledge is Exceptional

A Quick and Dirty IQ Test

Rosey tinted glasses....

I discovered, today, after driving 25 mins across the city, that I'd put an event in my diary a week too soon. Ah well. My friend and I decided instead to head for the Parnell Rose Festival, but were easily diverted by the weekly French Market. YUM!!! After a jolly good shop (and having bought some honey and walnut bread, and exceedingly yummy aioli and chutney), we finally headed for the Rose Gardens. You can see that there were plenty of lovely blooming roses. I was amused, also by the cultural mix. On the one hand we had the morris dancers, on the other, the flamenco dancers. There were Devonshire teas to be had, or carved Nativity sets and Christmas decorations from the lovely woman from Bethlehem (mostly NZ woods, although her husband still loves to work in olive). We always have a wee chat, whenever I see her - I have visited her brother-in-law's shop in Bethlehem. When I first met her, about 10 years ago, I was not long back from there, and had been given an olivewood kiwi by a friend. Meeting her solved the puzzle I'd been mulling over - how it was that someone from Bethlehem was carving kiwis.
Today felt like summer is upon us. I'll not be surprised to discover a bit of sunburn, which I wasn't anticipating at all.

dreaming...

Hahahahaha!!! One of them told me today that he'd dreamt about the mountain in my book, last night. We had a big combined morning tea with them all this morning, and the hall was full of tears. That letting go and moving on thing is hard anytime, but when you're fraught with the thought of upcoming exams, and it's the close of not just a whole chapter, but a book, it's that much worse. The sudden shock that they are being turfed out, that it'll never be the same. Every year I see them suddenly wake up to it, and even the hardest of them seem to suddenly turn into big softies!

Stephen, over at Greenflame, talked about songs that define the moment. They played one of those songs today at morning tea. Cat Stevens' "Old Schoolyard"... I'd just been telling one of my leavers about my last day in 7th form, how we'd had a ceremonial sofa burning (that's another story), and then gone down to the local park with a tapedeck, and the Cat Stevens album, and made us a memory, on the swings and roundabouts and seesaws and so on. Not two minutes later, it came over the soundtrack to the morning. It was one of those moments! I was really amused - they'd put together a whole bunch of feel-good tracks, so much more pleasant than the nasty stuff they played at the Grad dinner.

...you're off to Great Places!

Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So... get on your way!
And they were off! Another year, another crew, another great bunch of young adults making their way in the world.
We've had good laughs this year, and they wrote lovely things in their card. It's always good to be reminded that even when you think you've done a crap job, mostly it's gone ok.
What really DID warm my heart today, was an unsolicited comment passed on from my previous school...
Cut and paste from an email I received today:

Out of the blue, RL says... "what was the name of the science teacher I had in Y10??" I supply your name, and he says "yeah. I think she was the best teacher I ever had."

Aint that sweet? It's always so much nicer when it's completely unexpected!

Snap Crackle Pop..

I don't remember another Guy Fawkes night that was sooooo full of it! It feels like some of them are coming right in my windows! Went outside to watch, and am convinced I can see a place actually burning away right across the valley, and I did hear sirens a while ago. Honey came out to investigate with me, and really didn't seem at all intimidated by the crashes and bangs, but when I came inside, she RACED!!!!! She was so "I'm not going to be left out here without you mummy"!!! It's all just an endless series of little explosions. So cool. I have no other sounds playing, so it's really the theme tune for the evening.

I was going to a fireworks party tonight, but in the end, was just too tired. It's been a very draining week. Yesterday was both David's funeral in the afternoon, and our Year 13 students' Graduation Dinner in the evening. Both were celebratory, but in quite different ways. The funeral service was of course tempered with loss. The priest pointed out that it wasn't yet 2 years since David had been standing in that very spot, speaking about one of the lads killed in the massive car accident that had sent shockwaves through the school and community. And that it was a great testament to David how many current and ex-students had come to farewell him in turn - hundreds were there. The words that were shared about his life were in themselves filled with life, and I think David would have been delighted. The haka the boys from the 1st XV performed in his honour at the end of the service was an absolute show stopper. It was filled with more emotion and passion than I've seen in an All Black haka in quite some time. (although the test tonight may be the exception to that rule, of course) It was awe-inspiring, and rousing, and while I don't work there anymore, I still know quite a few of the boys, and felt sooo proud of them.

Grad dinner was a hoot. It seems very American, to me, to be handing each student a certificate of graduation from high school. They were a very raucous bunch. The "most likely to...." awards were the funniest of the night, and they didn't stint on them. My year 13's had given me a gorgeous pendant and a card on Thursday, which had me smiling over the good memories of the year. I hate saying goodbye to the leavers, but it's such a necessary part of their journey, that I like to make it a bit special, but humorous at the same time. I have a copy of Oh The Places You'll Go by Dr Seuss that I read them on the last day. I hope they all turn up like good little campers on Monday!!!!!

And today, my friend was up from Dunedin, and had organised a brunch out in West Auckland. Yum (shame about the service). I used the opportunity to get to a plant nursery out there and purchase a chinese pistachio sapling. I've wondered for ages what this tree was that I just love in the autumn. There was one outside my window in the first place I lived in Auckland. It will grow quite a bit bigger than I expected, so that'll be interesting. It won't happen overnight, though.