Four seasons in one day...

This weekend was a busy one, starting with the Kooks gig in Reading on Friday night. They were fantastic, really really good fun. They played pretty much every song on their album, so it was always going to go down well since nearly every song is a crowd pleaser! Their album is "Inside In/Inside Out" if people haven't come across them. They play happy Indie pop & I'd highly recommend it to anyone. We got back from the concert in time to catch the last couple of hours of a BBQ being held back at school, so that was a bonus.

Saturday it was into London for Hyde Park Calling, after watching the AB's sneak in against the Boks. It was a bit close for my liking, we're not going to win the world cup by making that many unforced errors...

The nearest tube to the concert venue was Marble Arch, so I took the opportunity for a tourist snap of marble arch & a red telephone box. If you look closely I even managed to get a double-decker bus between the arches (quite coincidentally!).

Crowded House were brilliant, Neil Finn still sounds amazing. You wouldn't have known that it was 10 years since they last played live. Three songs from the end the heavens just opened, with the hugest raindrops in the world! The weather has been shocking here lately, but the rain had held off for most of the day. We got soaked! Luckily we'd taken waterproof jackets, but our bottom halves got drenched!!! After the Crowded House set we were wet & cold, so headed for the second stage which was inside a huge marquee to warm-up. It happened that Buena Vista Social Club were playing, & they were great fun. It was a real bonus that just by chance we got to see them. Their old-school Latino salsa had people on their feet dancing, & we quickly warmed up. The main act, Peter Gabriel, was OK, but I thought Crowded House were better. I think a lot of the crowd also agreed. Neil Finn was a lot more personable & interacted really well with the crowd. Peter Gabriel was at his best when belting out such classics as Sledgehammer. All in all it was a good day out, & we made it back to school at around midnight. Neither of us had much planned for Sunday, so we enjoyed a good sleep-in then a nice relaxing day.

School finishes tomorrow!!! Then it's 1 week tomorrow until I fly out. I'm getting really excited, but I will miss Will for the 2 weeks I'm travelling by myself... It'll be a lovely reunion in Lima me thinks...

We are the champions...

...of the world!!! OK, champions of the world may be a slight exaggeration, but definitely of Reading! Yep, we managed to scrape a 5-4 win in the mixed division 1 touch final last night. No one can quite believe it! This team kicked our butt twice during the regular season, & cruised to the final having swept everyone else comfortably aside. As you can imagine, they were pretty gutted about losing. We just played the game of our lives, with everyone fronting up for the big occasion. Last year we won Division 2, so it was a great effort winning the top league in our first season in it.

We celebrated with an after-match BBQ at Sarah's, to drink the beers, & bottle of bubbly which we won. The trophy we won was a rugby ball with a hand grasping it, so it opened up a few photo opportunities during the night...

Sarah happened to fall prematurely asleep, & Chris couldn't resist the opportunity for a bit of embellishment...
His whiteboard marker wasn't really cutting the mustard, so Will just happened to mention that you can make pretty good charcoal by burning a cork...The end result really was quite spectacular! We printed the pic below & put it up on the staff notice board (I know, we're a mean bunch) & lots of people didn't recognise her...Luckily College exams started today, so there was no 'real' teaching involved. The exams officer was very kind to the maths department this year & scheduled 3 of the 4 maths exams on the very first day. It means I've already got 2 of my papers marked, & will easily get the 3rd one done tomorrow as I'm free for the whole day apart from a 50 minute invigilation. The last of my exams is on Monday. The end is well & truly in sight now, I realised today that in 2 weeks time I'll be in Ecuador! How cool is that!!!

We're in the final!

On Wednesday we won our touch semi-final 7-4, putting us in the final this week. It was a great effort because we lost 4-3 to the same team when we played them in the pool match. We'll probably get our butts severely kicked in the final, but finishing second in the top division would be an awesome effort for the team, far better than we anticipated at the start of the season! Regardless of the result, we're planning a big night of celebrating on Wednesday. School exams start Thursday so no-one is actually going to have to do any teaching the next day, just a bit of exam invigilation.
Last night we had a 'midsummer dinner dance' at school. It's usually a summer ball held in a marquee on the headmasters lawn after speech day, but this year they opted for a slightly less formal event in the dining room. It was a great night! Sometimes these events are a bit hit & miss, due to the large number of parents there, and having to be on your best behaviour... This year the parents were all well up for it & keen to have a really good night out. I returned from the loo at one stage to find a conga line going around the room! Yes, that is our college chaplain in the frock on the right getting involved.
The helium balloons on the table didn't last the duration of the night, with Steve being the main culprit (as per usual!) in getting people to inhale the helium & talk in a silly voice.

I love the pic below of Curto & I. Curto is great, he's like the 'father' of the common room. He has been around long enough to have seen it all, & is great for advice. He also possesses a very eclectic music collection, & one whole section of my ipod is filled with the 'interesting' & sometimes downright bizarre stuff he has passed my way over the last few years (Mongolian throat-singing anyone???).
Today started with a loooong lie-in, to sleep off some of the effects of too much vino at the dance. I'm heading to the gym soon to also help make amends. It has been another good week of training, with lots of running, cycling & cross-training at the gym. Hopefully I'll be fighting fit for my South America trip. Only 2 & a half weeks until I fly... Which means only 1 & a half weeks till the summer holidays! Next Saturday a large group from school are going into London for 'Hyde Park Calling', which is a music festival set (in case you haven't guessed) in Hyde Park. It should be a great day out, Peter Gabriel is the main act, with Crowded House second on the bill. Speaking of gigs, I've also just got tickets for Prince, playing the Millennium dome in London on 1st September. This Friday Will & I, along with Steve & Kate, are going to a Kooks gig in Reading which should also be lots of fun. One of the things we'll probably miss the most when we (eventually) move back to NZ, is having such easy access to so many of the big acts.

No more duty weekends!

Gidday,

Have nearly finished my last weekend boarding duty EVER. It has been a lovely quiet weekend. Saturday night was 'music on a summer's evening' on the headmaster's lawn, so Will & I wandered over & enjoyed the various items in the sunshine. There are some talented musicians at Bearwood, one girl has been selected for the National Youth Choir which is singing at the opening of the Beijing Olympics.

Roger drove over late Friday night & stayed the night, ready for the All-Blacks/France game early Saturday morning. It was a great match to watch, a real stuffing! And without Dan Carter as well!! Rog likes watching the rugby at mine, mostly I think because he gets freshly baked blueberry muffins for breakfast! He came to my Saturday morning tennis activity with me after the rugby & we had a good doubles match with a couple of the kids.

Goody, a mate of mine who left Bearwood a couple of years ago, was also down for the weekend. Him & his wife are holidaying in NZ next summer, so we spent a bit of time today sorting out a rough itinery. It was great to see him. He was rather taken with my balancing kiwis, & managed one of the trickier permutations... It was a glorious day today, seriously hot. I spent most of it sitting out in the garden. I picked up some very distinct t-shirt tan lines from sitting in the sunshine at Twickenham all day last Saturday, so I was doing my best to get rid of them before the school summer ball this coming Saturday. Will had loads of work to do this weekend so joined me in the garden for some of it. Between me distracting him, the French open tennis final, & the England/WI cricket test on the telly, I'm not convinced he got as much done as he probably should have! I cooked a nice dinner tonight, NZ lamb chops done on the barbie, new jersey potatoes & salad. I swear I eat more NZ lamb over here than I did back home! It was washed down with a lovely NZ sauv blanc courtesy of Goody (cheers Goody, it didn't last long, but we very much appreciated it!).The garden is still looking lovely. It really is a bumper year for the roses. This red one is the last of them to flower, & smells gorgeous. My first geraniums are just about out, & my sunflowers are now mid-thigh. As you can probably tell, I get quite excited about my garden...

Not much other news... We have our touch rugby semi-final on Wednesday night. We finished in 3rd place, despite playing like muppets last week & drawing 3-all against the bottom team! We'd better play better this week or we'll get slaughtered... This weekend I (finally) managed to find the trek we want to do in Peru for a good price, leaving on the day we want to leave, so I'll book that in the next day or two. That is one of the last things to plan for our summer South America adventure. 2 & a half weeks till school breaks up, & less than 4 months till I fly. YAY!!!!!

Rugby overload...

Yesterday we begun our epic day of rugby viewing by watching the All-Blacks stuff the French at 8 in the morning. Will & I then took the train to Twickenham to meet our friends already there for the Churchill Cup finals day. First up was the 5th/6th play-off with Canada running up a huge score over the hapless USA. Then it was a nail-biter between Ireland A & Scotland A for 3rd & 4th spot. Scotland got a last gasp try, & needed the conversion to win. Unfortunately the kicker choked under the pressure, giving Ireland a 22-21 victory. Then it was the big one, NZ Maori against England Saxons (England A). Despite a very impressive haka at the start, the Maori struggled to breach England's awesome defence, & the kiwis ended up going down 17-13. Despite the final result not going my way (funnily enough, Will was pretty happy about it!) it was a great day out. What better way is there to spend a day, than having a few beers in the sunshine, while watching some rugby at one of the worlds premier stadiums... It was seriously hot there, we all ended up topping up the tans quite nicely. As if that wasn't enough rugby for the day, I also managed to catch some highlights of Aussie stuffing the poor old Welsh, & England getting mauled 55-22 by South Africa later that evening.

Today was also nice & hot, so I took advantage by sitting out in the garden writing reports. They are nearly there... They're due Tuesday evening, so I'm well on track. Back to school tomorrow, but then only 3 & a half weeks until Summer holidays. That includes 1 week of College exams, so I don't actually have a huge amount of teaching left this year...

Another win

Gidday,

We had a good 7-4 victory over the Dragons at touch last night, putting us into 3rd place. Next week we play the bottom ranked team who haven't won a game yet, so fingers crossed... Hopefully we'll finish 3rd, thus avoiding a semi-final against the top team, who are pretty much unbeatable! We celebrated with a BBQ back at mine. We decided that Chris, the sports assistant, was suitably qualified to cook the barbie, being an Aussie and all...

He kind of had his hands full! He tried to blame me for not initially telling him the BBQ had temperature control, & then he turned it onto full blast when he thought he was turning it down! Young Aussies, I don't know... Luckily he redeems himself by being a lovely guy...

Steve had specifically requested pistachio nuts, seeing as they were bit of a tradition at my bashes. I believe it was indeed Steve with the opening gambit of 'I bet I can't get this shell down your shirt...' Needless to say, it turned into bit of a free-for-all, resulting in carnage. Next time he asks for pistachios he might have to make do with peanuts, & ones without shells at that!

This morning was rather leisurely, before getting up to sweep all the nut shells off my patio! Will is snowed under with marking exam scripts at the moment, so worked from home in the morning & got lots of marking done. He is considering doing the same tomorrow which would be nice. I've been chipping away at my reports, which are starting to get there... It is mean of the school having them due straight after a holiday!

There are loads of birds around at the moment, my garden is full of parents feeding their young. At one stage today I counted 12 birds on my various feeders & table. The cutest by far was a tiny baby woodpecker which sat on the fence. He was just a black & white ball of fluff with a bright red head. His mum pecked out nuts from the nut feeder & fed them to him beak to beak. VERY cute! I've also got a family of tits who do the same on the fat-balls.

Below is the latest sunrise from Richie Roe in good ol' Dunedin. As I've said before, it's not a bad view to wake up to every day!