Another day in paradise!

Our weekly Thursday night sea swim race is always a refreshing highlight of the week. Numbers of participants have been rising steadily and we were all treated to a small pod of Orcas which used our swim course as a feeding ground before, during and after the race! There were 5 or 6 of them and some people were fortunate enough to see them eating sting ray's - their staple diet in these waters. A calf was also very visible and speaks well of the health of the group. A lot of swimmers were a bit nervous to swim with the huge dolphins, but there is no recorded event of an Orca attacking a swimmer so we all persevered - looking extra hard as an underwater 'fly-by' would have been great!

A friend of ours was paddling in a canoe and was treated to a broadside little more than a metre from her boat! We have heard of many sightings of this pod - resident to the area, but this was the first time we've been fortunate enough to see them. Click here for the newspaper story.

Talking of newspapers, I had a letter to the editor printed in the Nelson Mail! I am dabbling with local politics(!) by putting pressure on our mayor who is trying to push through permission to build a new road through our local community. We live in the most multicultural part of Nelson (a far cry from the diversity in the UK though!) and a lot of work has been done to improve what used to be a run-down area with few public facilities and no sense of community. Many of us locals are upset that the mayor wants a fast road through the middle of our park, shops and community centre, which regularly hosts festivals, a market and community events. This road has been argued over for decades apparently, but this mayor is fighting hard.

We had swim sports day at school yesterday. This involved competition races as well as fun races such a the dry teacher carry, which is pretty self-explanatory! I got involved a bit more and had a good rivalry with a senior student who competes at national level in the pool... I let him win honest!

Bernie and I bottled up 25 litres of lager last night and put a new brew of dark ale in the barrel. We are having a heatwave at the moment with temperatures in the 30's over the past few days, which means that the brew ferments in 4 days instead of 7-10 days like it did in the UK!

Bernie is in town having coffee (decaf!) with a friend and we're going to head up a local river for a swim soon to cool off! Bernie is finding this heat quite uncomfortable, but is handling it really well. Only 75 days to due date!

Love and best wishes from sunny Nelson! x x

Old School Style!

Not only is school back in full swing, but Bernie and I are getting back to some old-school techniques. We regularly go to a recycle centre in Nelson, where people take junk and things they don't need anymore. We have bought things like juicers, balls for Bobby, wood for DIY, plant pots, pans etc, etc. We recently found a soda stream machine - in 80's beige and couldn't resist! We enjoyed our first concoction this afternoon - to celebrate another old-school past-time revisited, brewing! We've got a barrel of beer bubbling away and will be ready for bottling in just 3/4 days due to our warm climate. I used to brew at home in Oxford and at Uni but beer got so cheap in the supermarkets, like most people, I stopped. Over here, beer is not as cheap, plus friends have been brewing for a while and produce dark ales and stouts far superior to the very bland beer which predominates the market here. Here's our celebratory drink - notice the authentic glass soda stream bottles!

The great weather keeps on coming and we have enjoyed some beautiful sunsets out on our veranda.

Bernie is still keeping busy and we enjoyed a lovely walk up into the hills above Nelson again today with Bobby. She is still baking her own bread and inspired me to make some fresh pesto today with the glut of basil grown in the garden. Cakes, deserts and hummus are regular products of Bernie's kitchen experimentation - all delicious and nutritious!

We have ploughed through a long list of little jobs this holiday, but there is still much more to do before our house is ship-shape... things like yesterday's 4km sea swim are enjoyable distractions and we cant wait to take our child exploring with us soon!

Love and best wishes,
C&B

White Water Whitaker!

What better way to handle the hot summer days than to go river kayaking?! My good friend at school happens to be the head of Outdoor Education and has kindly decided to teach me how to white water kayak. We spent a couple of days practising in quite calm rapids near school, before heading deeper inland for some more gnarly (get with the lingo!) grade 2 rapids today.

The following pictures weren't taken by us, but show the same places we passed through - the day was clear and hot, the water was clear and warm. We began by 'dropping in' just upstream from the waterfall below - it might not be Victoria Falls, but was still quite a buzz flying over the middle of it!

We paddled through unspoilt bush and rock formations with birds around us and fish beneath us - its an awesome way to sight-see in NZ's finest native bush:

The water was amazingly clear:

And we ended up here for a swim... in fact I ended up turning over twice en route - but the swim was very refreshing!
We finished off with a nice swim, cliff jump and a walk around the native forest with some of the largest trees I've seen in NZ. Roast chicken is in the oven and my kayaking mate is about to come around with a selection of 7 different brews he brewed himself - not a bad way to start the long weekend!

Bernie is growing really well and baby is moving almost constantly! Just 80 days to due date and a little over 5 weeks to the final scan... Our chicken eggs are 9 days from due date too - how do they grow so fast?!

Love to all,
C&B! x x

Sea Swim-tastic!

We have just got home from our weekly Thursday night sea swim race and scoffed a steak with new potatoes and corn-on-the-cob to replenish our reserves after another ace swim.

An afternoon sea breeze whipped in to make the sea choppy and the current made it hard to navigate between the buoys which mark the courses, but we both loved it!

I am so proud of Bernie, she completes the shorter swim course each week, but still at a healthy rate - she beat another school teacher who did an Ironman not long ago and he was wearing a wetsuit (makes you faster) and was without child (surprisingly!).

The picture below doesn't do the choppy waves justice - it is always magnified when you're in it, but the sea is still warm and a good night was had by all as always. I beat a few of my adversaries, which was good after a poor show last race. This weekend is another endurance race - a comparatively short 2km swim from a boat house to a gold sandy beach... there's the 3.8km Ironman swim coming up towards the end of Feb... not sure if Bernie will lead that one out or not!!

Below is a snapshot from the Nelson web cam - it's very hard to see us dots (moving from right to left) amongst the kayakers who provide safety assistance if required. We long race swimmers swam right out to the platform in the water top left below the trees... and back:


Bernie is coping well with work and I'm still getting her to do a bit of digging every now and again. She is starting to complain at carrying me home from the pub on a Friday night though... (I might be fibbing a bit there so please don't send offensive emails... she's more than happy to carry me home!)

Ante natal classes are still fun, with a fair bit of role play last night, and there was a lot of wincing at the plastic pelvis and doll birth simulation - I think the doll lost both ears and its nose which made a few mothers-to-be wince somewhat! The guys seemed excited to hear that labour lasted upwards of 8 hours rather than the expected 2-3 hours we thought we'd have to spend in the pub - that will be a long drinking session!!

Sadly school starts tomorrow (without kids - yey!), we have a public holiday on Monday though thank God... its hard being a teacher!

Love to all,
C&B! x x

Youtube Stars!

I thought I'd try to communicate with snippets of our life here in NZ via video to the rest of the world... everybody else is doing it!

Try clicking here it is my first (and very poor) attempt!

And here is Bobby being Bobby Dazzler!

And here is the beautiful Bernadette in da kitchen!

The Holidays Are Nearly Over!

Poor us! After 6 long weeks of sun, sea, Sydney, swimming, sgardening, sdecorating and meeting up with friends, we are reaching the end of the summer holidays. Bernie starts back on Monday, still on 30 hours at the moment - her boss is fine with her reducing the number when necessary. I don't have to go in until Friday, but will go in before hand to move into a more centrally located laboratory (woop-woop!) and prepare for the whopping 5 subjects I'll be teaching this year - Science, Maths, Horticulture, PE and Conservation... variety is the spice of life as they say... I guess I'm quite like a curry...

Bad jokes aside, we decided to do one of our favourite walks this morning - up into the hills (Grampians) above sunny Nelson and tried to tire out our tireless dog... which is by definition, impossible! We took it nice and slow and made the steep ascent at a comfortable pace for Bernie - allowing me heaps of time to stop and throw sticks to Bobby.

Once at the top we spent a good while taking in the beautiful landscape of Nelson and surrounding wineries, mountains, beaches and islands. Our house is approximately where Bernie's left shoulder is and the place where I've swum with dolphins and we've both kayaked with a Southern Right Whale, is next to Bernie's left eye:

We practiced our cheesy grins - I didn't realise my face creased up this much!

We managed to wrestle Bobby's stick away from him for a quick moment to get him in on the cheesy grin effort - he smiles more than the pair of us combined!!


Looking inland towards the wineries and Monaco - where we used to live (the dog-legged finger of land projecting into the estuary)

It was bang on high tide and a large boat set-off for some distant land... the picture doesn't reflect the very rugged topography of Nelson:

Our first ante natal session went well t'other day - an interesting bunch of couples and plenty of humorous conversation about wind, back-ache and tiredness - and that was just from us men!! We got a little overwhelmed by the presentation on car seats, but if anybody wants to give us $1,200 for an all singing, all dancing child booster seat then I'll send you our bank details! We have another 5 weeks of these sessions and alongside the multitude of books we've acquired over the years, we're getting better prepared for meconium ('google images' it if you dont know!), sleepless nights and temper tantrums.... yeah right!

In reality, we're trying to enjoy our last slice of 'easy life' and have a couple more BBQ's, sea swims and beautiful walks before school begins on Monday... 87 days to due date!

C&B! x x

Feelin' Broody!

As promised in my previous post, we headed out to a farm nestled amongst some of the regions finest wineries and picked our own fruit. By heading out of Nelson we paid much less for our fruit - paying $6 (less than 3 quid) for about 3 kilos of juicy Boysenberries! As I type, a huge pan of Boysenberry Jam is boiling away behind me!



Here's B (and bump!) at the farm:



We then drove to another farm and bought 6 fertile eggs tio put under our broody bantam. On the farm were aviary birds, peacocks, chickens of all shapes and sizes as well as large rabbits - I asked if I could buy one to eat and to my surprise she said people do buy them for that purpose - they're just a bit too expensive for that!

Here's Bernie, relaxing in the evening with a very comfortable Bobby who loves curling up on the floor, a chair or on the bean bag with either of us - he only has 3 months of so much attention left!



I finally finished the nursery off this morning! Some might say its tacky, but we like it - we're a bit nervous to start painting fish and birds though... we're no artists!

Bernie has been going to aqua natal classes - aerobics in the pool for mums-to-be. We have our first ante natal class this evening too, which is very exciting. A bit more tiredness and aches and pains for Bernie, but she's still keeping pretty busy - I nag her constantly to sit down, but you know what she's like!

Ciao for now,

C&B