So it really was THAT big!

DEAR SPOOK, really, could you be any more pleased with that catch. So that is a Barracuda, Andy caught a couple of wee sharks, and Roddy caught a couple of Snappers. Not bad for a wee boat. I am a little disappointed to see Roddy looking less like a Southern Man than his normal. Maybe if you stay there too long your trousers get long again too. Tell him to get his stubbies back out of the drawer.

I can tell that Nelson feels like home. Full of people you know well, and so good to have Josh there too - someone we would have wished for more time to get to know well. Sunday really will come around too quick for you.

Meanwhile, I have much excitement here. I was supporting someone tonight and was just trying to find the knob on the radio to turn it down, when the voice on the radio announced the next song was for me! It was the Belle and Linda show and they must have known I was trying to turn them down. Honestly, I thought they were in the room with me. It really was for me, because the lovely lady I was visiting had put a request in and timed it for my arrival. Remember that funny one when Belle was reading out a request for a lady in Mallaig who was 111 and she waxed lyrical about how wonderful that was until Linda finally managed to get a word in to tell her that she wasn't 111. She was ill. Must have forgotten her glasses that night.

I am sad to say that Justin, our Fort William celebrity got put out the jungle tonight. As Granny would say "our lives are very full". However, as Granny's life IS fuller than ours, I'm sure she was neither listening to the Belle and Linda show, nor watching I Am A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. She was probably too busy knitting me a new dress.

Your children are well, though a bit sad about Justin. And you, obviously!

xxx

Thinking........

DEAR SPOOK, so you are up in the north of the island now. Nelson is lovely and I do hope you get to swim in that surf. Finn was wishing he could swim in it again too. I think the warm sea and the waves were a big highlight for the children. It will be bitter sweet to see The Sinclairs as it will be a good while before you see them again. A bbq up at Marion and Glen's amazing hilltop villa will be wonderful. Hope Marion doesn't run you off your feet when she takes you on a pre dinner run. You will not be the only one who has got fitter this last wee while. And I hope you get your cycle with Josh.
I went to work just ahead of the children this morning and ws home just ahead of them. Not so tomorrow, but they are taking that in their stride and I managed to have a bit of quality time with each of them tonight. Meg was listening to an old CD she had put together 7 years ago and laughing at her choices then. That was whilst putting up more christmas lights, of course. Finn did well with his Dickens homework, but failed French. He seems to have failed on his English spelling, so I have written a note to remind her he is dyslexic. He even likes French! So don't want him to be discouraged.
I checked the caravans didn't have burst pipes and tried, but failed to turn the water off, before the next frost arrives. Lo and behold, without even blogging it, Granny phoned to say that your father would be down tomorrow to turn off the water! Now I only need to think it!
In fact, in between coffees the other day, I had a look in Fatface. They have a beautiful woolen dress that I thought Granny could knit no bother. NOw............sit back and wait...................
xxx

Better to bare your chest than your butt.

DEAR SPOOK, we woke to quite a hard frost and your daughter was out at 7.45am trying to coax a sledge down the field. It wasn't for sliding, so she gave up and defrosted the car for me. Fortunately, you don't get fined for a patch of frost left on your window in the morning, as you do in NZ, but I think they would have something to say about only a patch of unfrosted window, as could happen to me if I leave for work 10 minutes before I am supposed to be there.

We put some new lights on the kitchen window and when we looked up at the house on the way to Meg's running club, they looked really sparkly. Of course, that reminded me of the year you hung lights all around the house and were so proud, you made me go to the bottom of the road to admire them. It was a windy night and I couldn't be bothered, so I drove down. As I went down the drive, a car pulled up at the layby at the bottom of our field. I waited until it went (which it did quite quickly) and then drove down and looked up at the house. Yip, it was very pretty.

When I got back to the house you were giggling. You asked if I had seen you. I said, no, but the light looked lovely. You had seen the car pull up at the bottom of the field and assumed it was me. You bared your butt at the bedroom window, which possibly explained why the car had driven off so fast. Of course it wasn't me, and I had missed the show. Unlike the occupants of the car. I imagined a father and child stopping to look at the pretty house and the father driving off fast before the child saw the nasty man.

Finn went to rugby training and enjoyed it as usual. Then he had English homework to do. It is such a pleasure to be able to help him with subjects I am comfortable with. He had to read a passage from Dickens, (Christmas Carol, of course) and write 5 questions for the rest of the class to answer. When he first read it, it was gobbildygook, but as we went through it and pulled out questions, he began to understand. Give me English any day. How can you pour over maths and it start to become clear? When I don't understand it, I don't understand it; end of story.

Quite fancy you in that photo.

This is last nights sunset in Albert Town. Only 18 days until the sun sets on your current adventure in NZ's lovely South Island.

Drug induced Happiness.

DEAR SPOOK, I'm sorry to tell you to go away from googlechat, so that I can blog. You may perhaps think the blog is more important than you??? But I will come back in there and look for you soon as.
It dawned sunny and frosty. A proper Kiwi winters day. I nipped in to town for one wee chore, and then was coming home to tidy up the house so it was nice for the children coming home alone as I was going out to work before they got off the bus. I then thought that I had done too much running around and not enough socialising and that I should take the time to take Corrina a coffee and get a chat with her in the bike shop. She had a REP in and her electrics had just blown up, so coffee was not welcome at that point. So I called in to the coffee shop and had a coffee on the house, with Helen, which was very pleasant. They are going to Australia when they sell the house and she wants to talk 'cleaning' opportunities. I can talk the talk.
Then I met someone else on the street and had a blether and then met Anne who I hadn't seen since I got home. So we went for a coffee and she said that she had the distinct impression that I was hanging around the street looking for coffee opportunities. She may have been right. We had such a good catch up. It could be a while before our next one, but we are always ok with that.
I got home in time to get a call from Nicky who was walking along the canal and wondered if I was in for a coffee, and then a call from work who wondered if I could make it to work early - ideally 5 minutes ago. So a quick coffee with Nicky, who grated cheese for the children's cheesy beans tonight, and I picked up a pair of smelly socks and put them in the washing machine hoping that would look like a tidy house.
I got to work in an elevated mood due to excessive caffeine and no lunch. It was a lovely shift and I came home to very happy, independant children. Meg had taken on the task of tidying the house to the next level and was putting up Chistmas lights!!! In NOvember!! She is excited about Christmas this year as it didn't feel like Christmas last year with all that daylight. I am relenting on early decorations as I now see it as an opportunity to brighten up the darkest month of winter. As a celebrator of the Winter Solstice, rather than Christmas, I can see December disappearing in a happy state of anticipation. AS long as the children keep it as an exciting time of family get togethers and bright lights, rather than what they can get their hands on, I will have a better attitude than my usual Scrooge-like approach.
Until the caffeine wears off.

You've got bigger - we've got older.

DEAR SPOOK, are you being competitive? I send you photo's of our biggest mountain and that really steep bit Sara ran up, and you send me a photo of NZ's biggest mountain and a scree slope that I'm quite sure our Sara could run up before breakfast and still be smiling.......maybe.

So I sent you one of Castle Stalker on the way to Oban this morning, and the Isle of Mull ferry coming into harbour. Ye canny match that!

I suspect you probably also couldn't match what happened just after I took the Castle photo at 8.15am. I came round the very sharp corner at the bottom of the road to find a woman on the other side of the road fervently gesturing for me to stop. I did, and she ran accross and jumped in the car. I did comment on it not being a very safe place to hitch, just as a van came round and had to take evasive action to avoid me. But she just pointed forwards and I drove off. I asked where she was going and she pointed ahead, again. I tried once more and she wrote on a pad "this way". She was in her mid-thirties and was clutching a book to her chest. I thought she might be

• unable to speak
• unable to speak English
• or just not wanting to speak

The clue came from the book title 'The Essential Dali Lama' and the fact that she sat with her finger sitting lightly on her lip in a 'shsush' gesture. The finger sat on her lip, the way a hand would rest in a lap. She was delicately chewing gum and brought a nice minty smell to the vehicle. I drove in silence, and wondered if I would be able to persuade her to get out the car on Oban High Street or if I would have to explain to Dad and Mum that they would be driving home sitting in the back seat, and most likely in silence. I wondered if she might even still be there when I picked you up at the airport on the 19th December. It was difficult to know what to expect, with the lack of communication. I had the red light against me at Connel Bridge, (10miles down the road) at which point she gathered her bag, gave me a thumbs up sign and hopped out the car. She crossed to the other side of the road and stood gazing at the currents that rage under the bridge. I wondered who else would be treated to the silent treatment and how they would cope. It looked as if she was going to head back in the direction we had just come.

I had a lovely drive down through Argyll with Mum and Dad. It is so pretty and was nice to see the places that Sara, Julie and I had cycled through on our cycle holiday, May 2008.

I dropped M&D at home and turned to drive straight back up the road to be home for the children. It was a bit wild crossing Rannoch Moor, but I wasn't really sure what it was doing. The gritter lorries had been out and there was a moon around, but a head wind was blowing what looked like snow into my windscreen which wasn't really getting wet, but smeary. I think it was very fine rain which was highlighted by the headlights, and the grit was smearing the window. There were quite a few fine Stags grazing by the roadside, reminding me to take it slowly, as they have a tendancy to want to join you in the front seat of the car too, via the windscreen, and although not budding Buddhists, they are not very chatty iether.

I forgot to tell you yesterday that you can buy 10 donuts for $2.60. Compare that with one pain au chocolat in Wanaka at $2.29 and no wonder we can be poor and fat in this country. Yum yum.

Paul Henry, the breakfast TV presenter in NZ, has made it to my favourite sunday paper, by calling Susan Boyle 'retarted'. He is making no apology. Hmmmm. He wouldn't last long in this country. Methinks he is not doing NZ any favours.

3 weeks and you are home, honey.

Sharing the sunshine with you.

DEAR SPOOK, thought I would take you on a wee tour of sunny Fort William. I had a lovely day at work and was out and about quite a lot, so took a few snaps on the way. In the pictures of Ben Nevis, it was that brown bit at the front that Sara had scaled yesterday morning. It would have been a great day to be up on the snowy bit. The 2nd photo may inadvertantly have your old Poo Works in it.

I'm glad you had such a good time at the bbq last night. I will be very sad when you wont be able to visit our friends anymore.

Your son had a fun day out at Murrayfield. It is gi-normous, he tells me. It was pretty unfortunate that Scotland lost in the end. He liked seeing Edinburgh Castle lit up, on the way home and the bus was good fun.

I'm not sure what kind of day Meg has had, but will catch up with her tomorrow night. Uncle Jamie took her out for dinner and bowling, so think she will be fine.

It was amazing to wake up to a dry day and people were quite cheery. A bit of a celebration.

xxx