Sunrise (with the moon setting over the island)
Black sands at sunrise
Sunset
Last Day Of Winter
Opened the curtains to the balcony this morning to find a clear sky, calm sea, slight pink hue settled over the island and a bright, round moon completing the picture. Last day of winter? Think that day happened earlier in the week.
Four degrees at 6.30 this morning the only sign that it is not yet high summer, We have, to be fair, had the mildest of winters. Polar blasts have been generally been short lived and those wildly-windy and wet spells have been interspersed with long spells of fair weather.
Let me get the soccer out of the way!
3-1 Defeat in the knockout final. A poor performance by our standards and a season ending injury for me. No participation in this weekends league final and a disappointing end to my "competitive" playing days. It is time time to throw my lot in with the social teams in the club. More of a runaround, less committed and more "my age and lack of pace".
That is that! Bring on the cricket season, though this year we get a break of about a month between the two codes, unlike last year with the soccer season going until early October and overlapping with cricket. A month of two day weekends!
May be a good time to arrange that weekend away. Brian and Michelle were keen on my suggestion to do a weekend away somewhere between Auckland and Wellington, Maybe the National Park or lake Taupo in the central North Island.
Been pretty busy in the garage of late. Took two days leave early this week, one reason was to get over the soccer injury, the other because I just needed some time off. Built a TV cabinet / shelf for the downstairs lounge, now that we have moved our living room there from the upstairs "family room". It is a pretty small small space and the furniture we had did not really fit. So a purpose built unit to house the TV, DVD, VCR.
VCR is vital with the world cup coming and the fact that we are on the other side of the globe - games are mostly early hours of the morning.
Also fashioned a rather funky looking coffee table to match the TV unit and have leveraged on of the side tables I had made for the family room until I make up some to match the coffee table. That was Monday and woke up on Tuesday energised enough to tackle the picnic table I have been considering for some time.
Worked a treat, though the wood was "wet" so it needs a week or so of good weather before I can sand and varnish. Built entirely of fence palings. 1.8 meter lengths of rough-sawn pine 150mm wide and 25mm thick. Absolutely stable, solid and comfortable.
Projects that are still in the pipeline are a dresser for our room, a book case for Travis' room and framing a few of Sherrie's art works for around the house. Have also been pottering on the motorcycle and need to service both cars, which is looking like being this Sunday. The big job is going to be changing the automatic gearbox oil on both cars and I doubt the Nissan has ever had a change of auto fluids in it's 200 000km. The oil is very dirty, though the gearbox is quiet and smooth. Speaking of the Nissan, we made our last payment on it this week. Wooo Hoooo!
That's it for today! And it really is a cracker, probably means that the first day of spring will be shite!
Update (4 Sept)
First day of spring was crappy! Second day was glorious, fathers day - more on that in the next blog.
We won the league final on penalties, so the season ends on a bright note!
Sunrise - Paraparaumu
Sunrise - 24 August 2007.
Taken from the balcony toward the west.
Windstill and probably 10 or 11 degrees.
We get this pink hue over the island most mornings
Think it has something to do with the sun breaking over the Tararua ranges behind us in the east. Still pretty though!
Soccer, Soccer and Soccer
The big news of the past week would have to be my soccer sides successes toward the end of the season.
Having secured second spot in the league and the resulting season ending final, we entered into the knock out phase of the season. Four pools of four teams each meant three pool matches, with the top two teams moving to the knock out stages. Winning two, away from home, and one loss at home ensured we were going to do it the hard way, meeting the team that won the league at their home ground in the quarter finals. A two, two draw and penalties was the hard to do it, but through to the semis. That also meant meant we had beaten them in two of our three encounters this season.
Saturday we traveled to Levin and disposed of their first team 5-2 in one of the teams better performances of this season, building on last weeks hard fought win in terrible weather and slippery, muddy conditions.
Conditions were good, a bit of wind, though not the gales of last weekend and a good surface that enabled us to string passes together, carving them up for most of the match.
So, in a repeat of last season, our last two games are the knockout final (which we won last year) and the league final, which is a season ender and will not change the league result. Paekakeriki have won that, but we are looking forward to making it 3 wins out of 4 against them.
Two more Sunday's-into-Monday's of sore bones!
Spent some time on my motorcycle project on Sunday. Have not set time aside to progress the project in months and months and I enjoyed the fiddle yesterday. Have decided to complete everything I can apart from the motor. Should be a good motivator to put some aside and save toward buying a motor to build into the frame. The bike is taking shape pretty much as I had envisaged, the style being old style chafe racer and the colour scheme and silver highlights working well to define and compliment the lines.
A great weekend passed, a challenging week ahead and the prospect of trophy on Saturday.
Life are good . . . .
Update
Monday morning, clear skies, winter sunshine and a crisp southerly breeze. Long, lazy rollers in a calm bay!
What a change from Saturday's gales, rain and misery.
Sunday wasn't bad either and I was stripped to a t-shirt by 11.30 and only went in search of a sleeve after 4. Spent some time replacing the steering rack boot on the Nissan yesterday. The car failed it's warrant of fitness and needed a little rust spot repaired (by a panel beater) and the boot replaced. Unfortunately spotted an oil leak while I was under the car and am surprised it was not listed by the inspector along with the two repairs requested.
So to save myself another trip I will get into the underside with a spray gun one evening this week, clean up the dirt and figure out where this leak is coming from. If I am lucky it will be a gasket, but knowing Murphy, it will be an oil seal and probably one that requires a whole bunch of stripping stuff out to get at it. This will naturally be preceded with the usual realisation that I do not have the correct tools for the job, necessitating additional cost, frustration and a tool that will be once before being resigned to producing rust in the tool box.
Shouldn't complain, the car has passed the 200 000km mark and still runs a treat. Doesn't use oil or water, is gentle on fuel and I would be confident to take it of the garage today and do a "Cape Town to JHB trip"
Cricket club AGM yesterday afternoon and it was good to spend a little time with the lads, after a few months away from the game and the club. Same old bunch and the club appears to be in a reasonable position, both financially and in terms of player numbers. The club have decided that there are enough good young players to warrant entering a second "competitive" team this season, to support the first eleven. Unfortunately it means the club need some older heads to balance the team and I have been asked to consider throwing my hat in.
While the level of cricket is not out of my league and I am able to contribute, the thought of 50 over games every Saturday is a concern.
The plus though, is that I would play a lot of cricket with Travis this season, a problem I had to deal with last season and which was highlighted during the soccer season, with him playing competitive sport, I seldom got to see him play.
I will wait to see how pre-season goes before deciding which peg to hang my hat on.
Desiree's new patient, Hugh, is providing Des so many rewards . . . but that is for the next blog. A truly remarkable story, this kid!
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