Peacocks, Ducks and Lamb...

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It's that time again!

Blog time!

This week has been another crazy one with SO much going on i'm not entirely sure where to start!
Firstly I would like to thank you for the post I received - it is SO nice to get post when you are this far away from home and I am starting to rival Milly (my roommate) for weekly post!

Last Sunday night as i mentioned we all headed over to Annette's (our organiser over here in Kiwi Land) for a BBQ. Having found her house after a bus trip we met her husband John and were then shown next door where Annette's lucky neighbours own a 25m long swimming pool in their back garden!! The weather was beautiful and we had endless fun attempting to climb onto an inflatable Killer whale who we originally named Shamoo and taking photos of Tess's Rubber travel duck whilst also hitting people with a rugby ball! Following our swim we had the most fantastic bbq with fresh new Zealand Lamb and Mint sauce in a ketchup style bottle which made my day! If only we could mint sauce in that quantity at home! (not that my life is food oriented or anything... read on it gets WAY worse).

Monday saw the start of another week at school. That morning was Kauri team swimming sports so all five volunteers were on the pool side helping to organise the races which involved diving for coloured wheels, swimming under hoops, pushing balls along with noses etc. That afternoon Ben and I started private (free) drum lessons with two of the boys in Kauri team - both boys are sometime very over zealous in the classroom and are often named as trouble makers but the two of us have never seen either so eager to learn. It was fantastic and I can't wait for the next session this week. It was a beautiful day and so in the evening we decided to go up the Sky Tower. The Sky Tower is the tallest building in the Southern hemisphere and provides the most fantastic 360 views of Auckland. It also helps as a marker for any lost travellers such as ourselves when in the middle of the Auckland suburbs! We timed it so that we were at the top of the tower to watch the sunset and so could then see the city in the dark as well as the light. Auckland is the most beautiful city I have ever seen and admittedly I haven't seen many but I doubt many could challenge it! We found out as we were up the Sky Tower looking at these stunning views that it was Nick (our Brazilian friend)'s birthday and so decided to take him out for a meal to this crazy Mexican Cafe by the Sky Tower. I have never had as much food for so little money that tasted SO good!

Tuesday was as I hope you know Shrove Tuesday - or more importantly - Pancake Day! The day was very busy music wise and the day was full of dancing around singing songs about making shapes followed by a session with a group of Gifted and Talented children in Rimu team (KS1). I take this group completely by myself as Robyn is teaching the older children at this time and it is absolutely hilarious. We sang some songs and played on the mini glockenspiels we have in the music room as I got to know the girls and boy in the group. The end of the morning saw Puriri team choir in which we sang through the warm-ups i taught them last week and Hine e Hine as well as learning a new song - 'See you later Alligator' which they absolutely loved! Puriri team choir is very hard work as it contains a few children who find it very hard to concentrate but the sound they make is fantastic so it is definitely worth it! The evening was spent making pancakes (myself and Matt doing most of the cooking this time which was good fun). A lot of chocolate spread was consumed and no other sustenance was needed at all! Milly and I then spent the rest of the evening tidying our room as unsurprisingly for us it was like a bombsite. However 5 days later it is still pretty much spotless so we are very proud of ourselves!

Wednesday was relatively quiet and involved chopping a lot of watermelons for the children's morning fruit, my special Gifted and Talented Group of children again and Kauri team choir in which we went over 'Colours of the wind' which i had taught them last week and I taught them 'Rock around the Clock' to give them something fun and more high spirited to sing!

Thursday was a fantastic day! The boy in my Gifted and Talented Group - Harry - has very musical parents. His dad is a pianist and his mum, Jayne, is a professional singer and also a choral conductor. I had spoken briefly to her last week about my singing exploits and she had mentioned that Mike Brewer (the director of the National Youth Choir of Great Britain) was in New Zealand and was doing some workshops in Auckland this week. When I got in on Thursday morning there was a copy of an email she had sent to the lady organising a choral workshop that day explaining that I was over here etc and containing Mike's contact details and hers. I immediately sent Mike an email explaining what I was doing here etc and he invited me to the workshop which was over in a place called Epsom but he wasn't sure exactly where so I emailed Jayne and she gave me the details as well as offering me a lift to the workshop! I spoke to the deputy principal at school and she let me have the afternoon off to go. The workshop was aimed at teachers who were running choirs in their schools and how to get the best out of those choirs. This was incredibly useful for me as i'm taking the choirs at school and also gave me an insight into what Mike does with NYC. He didn't hesitate to pick on me and the workshop was absolutely hilarious. He also knew Jayne very well as he and her father are very good friends so we had a fantastic time and I can't wait for NYC at easter now! The evening was a quiet one, Annette popped in to give various people food money/bus money and I had a relaxing evening in with my book. (I managed to eventually find the second book in the trilogy i am reading and paid too much money for it. Finding the third is proving a little more difficult but hopefully i will find it this week!).

Friday - Ah the end of the week, Finally! This was a pretty quiet day with various music lessons, ukelele playing at break and helping Robyn how to use Sibelius (a music software programme). After school, Daniel, Milly and myself made our way to Gorilla a guitar and drums shop. Here I bought myself a ukelele! It is beautiful and i love playing it! I'm getting pretty good really! I just have to figure out how i'm going to get it home now!

Saturday was rainy. Again. But, being truly British we didn't let this stop us! Milly and I got up pretty early (considering it was the weekend I think half past 8 is pretty good thank you!) and treated ourselves to breakfast at Starbucks. Starbucks is next door to our hostel and so far we had completely avoided going in there and decided we deserved a treat! A white hot chocolate and warm berry muffin later we were on our way back across the road through the pouring rain to the hostel to sort ourselves out for the rest of the day. Tess, Milly, Daniel and I decided that we wanted to see the museum and so set off in search of the Link Bus which would get us a little closer to save walking in the rain (we can simply put this on our monthly bus passes so no extra cost!) We arrived at the museum and purchased tickets for the 'Maori Cultural Performance' after looking around the maori part of the museum we went to watch the performance where we learned about maori culture, games, dance, song and weaponry finishing with a traditional Haka (A Maori war dance most well known from its appearance in rugby matches). Following a quick lunch at the museum, a few nice Maori warriors and Tess having an unusual encounter with a peacock puppet we headed across Auckland Domain. On the way across the grass we encountered two ducks. I thought it would be a great idea to take a picture of Tess's rubber travel duck with them. Unfortunately we only suceeded in a) scaring the real ducks away and b) nearly losing the rubber duck to a hungry seagull! We discovered a greenhouse type building in the domain after our duck encounter and saw some fantastic exciting plants and took some great photos. At this point Daniel went back towards the Hostel and we made our way into the city to do a bit of souvenir shopping. Milly and I had spotted some cuddly toy lambs at Sky City on Monday and so went back to buy them as they were about £3 each. We named them Roast and Minted. 😉
In the evening a big group of 14 of us went out to Nandos as it was Nick (our Brazilian friend) and Greg's last night in NZ. This was highly amusing and turned into a photo competition! After a short trip to a sports bar and the cookie shop for Greg, Milly and I made our way back up to the hostel as we were getting up rather early today.
Thats right. We were stupid and got up at 5.40 in order to be down at one of our favourite bars to watch England v. Ireland in the Six Nations. This favourite bar happens to be called 'Father Ted's' and is of coure an Irish bar. Whilst very amusing company the match was appalling and I will therefore be having a nap later to make up for this lack of sleep! The boys were too lazy to get up to watch the rugby (only Milly, Emily and myself got up) but Matt and Greg met us for breakfast at a little cafe on K' Road near our hostel. It's a beautiful day today and so later we are heading down to Mission Bay for the Jazz festival complete with fish and chips on the beach. What could be a better end to a fantastic and incredibly busy week!

I hope everyone at home is well and having fun!
I miss you all lots but i'm still having a fantastic time as you can see!

Love to all! x

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Photos

Week 3
Annette's Neighbour's Swimming pool