Rangitoto from Mount Hobson
















Looking Glass Gardens near Te Puke, Bay of Plenty















Evening drinks at Pukehina Beach, Bay of Plenty

Kiwifruit orchard

Humpty Dumpty at Gardens near Te Puke

flying high

After some slow flying in the Cessna I have upgraded to a Learjet. This baby flies 3 or 4 times faster than the Cessna and is the aircraft of choice for the mega rich and famous.
Sadly I have been unable to land the thing and although my journeys in it have been swift and exciting I invariably arrive at my destination in a heap of tangled aluminium. (or whatever it is)
On one exhilarating climb to a high altitude, I forced the jet too high, too quickly and at about 30,000 feet the wings stalled, the plane plummeted like a stone and we fell straight back down to earth.
In the process of trying to recover from the stall, I reached some terrifying speeds, and hence reached the earth again very quickly.
Since that experience I have reverted to flying the trusty old Cessna!

We had a visit from Anita's cousin Sonia and Ralph from Switzerland before Christmas

Flying lessons

Have spent many hours flying and have had a few collisions on the way. Tom and I flew from Zurich to Interlaken, then to Venice, on to Rome, Athens, and Istanbul. It is slow going at real time in a Cessna Skyhawk and we have upgraded to a Skylane which flies a bit faster!

Joe in the back garden looking for birdies (diddies)

Christmas

Another Christmas is upon us. It seems to me that Chistmas comes round faster and faster each year. That's the effect of the ageing process we are told. The theory is that as you accumulate years of life then one single year becomes a smaller percentage of ones total life and so seems shorter each year. (Does that make sense). I'm hoping though that the rate of increase in the speed will decrease. In other words start decelarating, otherwise by the time I am 104 years old, the next Christmas will be with me before I have got through the last one.

I've spent most of the holday trying to fly a Cessna Skyhawk from Zurich on a tour round the world in my new flight simulator.

We had a small firework display in the front of the house, and here's Anita & Tom getting to grips with the sparklers.

A fine example of a Palm tree

Upland road

Work and play

Today I've been busy again on the new look for Sport 365 at Sky. The Opening titles are now finished, the set is being constructed and the Break bumpers and interstitials are almost finished. I'm just working on the last few bits before it goes on air on Friday. The rehearsal is on Thusday night.
Joe's new interest is gardening. He spends as much time as possible outside now, and as soon as a door is opened, no matter in which part of the house, he'll hear it and come scootling along to see if he can get out.
It's as though he feels that he's a prisoner in the house and cannot wait until he is released. If for some reason he is not allowed out he screams with an ear piercing cry.
Here he is repotting something.

Joe's recent hobby

Repotting

Joe walking.

Mount Eden crater

One side of the crater at Mt Eden

Discovery on the North Shore

Anita bought a ride on ambulance for Joe's birthday on TradeMe, which is like Ebay. We set off for the North Shore to pick it up and when we arrived at the address, I looked on the box and remarked that the photo of the boy on the box looked like Tom. We had a closer look... at the clothes, the photo on the other side and... Anita recognised the shoes; I recognised the other photo. Then we remembed the modelling he had done eight years earlier in Hong Kong. It was Tom on the 'Ride-on ambulance'. Then I noticed that the girl on the top was Eleanor, a freind of Tom's in Hong Kong. Funny eh?

Tom is on the box.

Tom on the Ride on Ambulance packaging

Music lesson