Chinese Horse 2

This horse is drawn with technical pen and black ink on A3 cartridge paper.

Chinese Horse

This drawing of a bronze Chinese horse is in Charcoal pencil on cartridge paper - size A3

Tom on Xbox

Here is a drawing of Tom playing on his Xbox on Boxing day. It is unfinished.
It is on cartridge paper size A3
graphite pencil 3B, 6B

Self Portrait 2

Anita

Here is a quick sketch of Anita. It is A5 size.
I will be starting a pastel drawing of her when we have time.

Helen playing with Joe

Here is Helen with Joe. Helen is studying English and has been staying with us for about 2 months. She just left yesterday and Joe will soon be missing her as he loved playing with her. She will be missed by us all too. She was wonderful with Joe, and great fun to have around. Here we had a day at Anawhata beach on the black sands of the west coast. The last half hour of road to reach the beach is unsealed and then there is another half hour walk down a steep hill.

Joe getting ready for Christmas

Self Portrait

This drawing was made by first rubbing graphite powder onto the whole paper to make a ground base of mid grey.
Than the highlights are made by rubbing out the base and finally darks are added in with pencil.

Auckland Zoo

I'm not sure if this girraffe should be sitting down! Will it ever be able to get up? Or is it destined to a life only 16 feet tall.

At Auckland Zoo

Wisteria on the deck

Newmarket from the roof

This photo was taken at about 7.00am after Joe had woken me up! I wouldn't usually be up at that time.

Palm tree in the back yard

Joe on the deck

The back courtyard.

The Lounge downstairs

Work going on in the Storage room

Tim replaced the water heater with this brand new one power by electricity.

Bassett Road

Removals Van loading at Benson Road

Joe in his room

Dining room

View from roof

Newmarket from the roof terrace

The Main Lounge

The deck outside the Kitchen/Diner at Bassett Road

Matthew and Joe on the roof

The new house at Bassett Road

This strange looking building with very few windows is in fact a boat!

Benson Road

Tom being chased by Papparazzi!

On a visit to the centre of the Auckland to check out our apartment.

Joe helping Dad

We refurbished the kitchen by adding an extractor as shown here. Joe is helping by holding the ladder steady! The last minute decorations before we put the house on the market for sale.

Sky Tower from Federal Street

The Federal Street Apartment

We bought an apartment in the city to let out and it's in this block.
From the outside of the building you can't see our flat as it's at the back. Also it sadly doesn't have a balcony like these nice flats.



















Here is the open plan lounge/diner with one of the bedrooms off to the left.

Joe playing on the keyboard

Anna and Michael's visit

Here is the obligatory family photo at Benson Road.
Note that Michael has taken charge of the fluffy toy.












Keri Keri beach

Anna at Keri Keri beach, West coast Auckland

Grandma nearly takes a tumble down Mt Hobson

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.