Into May - still warm!

Days are pleasant, nights are warm; a balmy autumn so far. We have 100kph winds forecast and some gloom and rain for the rest of the week - oh well.

Looking west last night we saw an unusual cloud (jet trail going over it). Wind turbines languid.

And tonight we've made more peach chutney (end of the peach season and they are still yummy). Bought a kilo at the local Sunday market and they are now chutneyfied. Also scored a bag of free feijoas from the whanau and Mish has bottled them (our first time for that). A friend gave us some she'd done and they tasted just like fresh fruit (the only reason you'd want to bottle a fruit I reckon). So we got her extremely simple recipe and gave it a go.

Then I'd had enough of that and watched a couple of videos on The Art of Photography MOOC I'm doing from RMIT. Learning a few things too.

It's only Monday?!

Mish went to Sydney on Sunday for a while...a bit of family time, a bit of work, a bit of tech study, a bit of design skills updating...so I get to eat popcorn and watch lots of movies and leave an almost finished novel all over the kitchen table.

Signed on for my first MOOC (massive open online course); this one is run by the University of Iowa. Six free lectures and other stuff (not sure what yet) on how poets write poetry. Should be interesting.

Had two recent kitchen triumphs: Mischa's fish cakes with all sorts of goodies in them on Saturday, and Sunday night's dinner: Nessa's ginger beer corned beef, eight hours in the slow cooker - awesome.

More duck fun at work:

How to comment on a blog

Hi all you readers who rarely tell us when you're there. Judy, you are an exception (of the best possible kind) - blessed are the cracked for they let in the light! Merryn, Kelvin, Jody - where have you gone, dear friends? Here's the lowdown for our other readers: posting a comment is soooooo easy! To comment: all you need to do is click on 'No comments' below the post. Yes, it's not one of Google's finest moments of communication: no comments actually means click here to post a comment. A window to type in will pop up, you say Hi gals! and click 'publish'.

Great scott it's been a month

How time flies.
Mish is travelling the North Island with her folks, so she'll blog that when she gets back no doubt.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...have started looking around for work so have been having fun and games with education and driver licencing boffins. May do some casual teaching, so I have to renew the teacher registration I paid lots of money for about 10 years ago. But is it a simple renewal? Of course not. There has to be documentation, an abundance of; there must be testimonials by approved people and proofs of all sorts of things and photocopies and blood. And money too, of course, everyone wants a bit of that. There has to be a police check from the Australian Federal Police, and of course a Carol cheque to get that. I do believe I am almost there. But if I have to talk to Ms Snooty at the Teacher Registration Board once more - well, there may be bad words. I cannot abide snooty.
Then I'll have to brush up on the NZ educational system. Here's something NSW teachers will find interesting. I wrote a little study guide for a Wellington tutoring company and found out that, nationwide, there are no common texts for study at senior level English. Each school chooses their own novels etc - actually, each class in a school may do different texts. There's a national exam, but, wo, imagine the marking nightmare.

Also decided to get a NZ driving licence as I might do some pro driving again - probably not buses though. I wanted a duplicate of my NSW licence, a heavy traffic + motorbike licence. Oh, the paperwork. See above. But, then, when I got it all together and took my shoebox of docs down to the 'agent' (cause there's no central licencing authority in NZ haha), I had some good news. Only days before, the rules had changed and I didn't have to sit the theory test - yay! There are some very detailed questions in the NZ heavy traffic rode code, so thank gawd for that. Have to get myself a medical though, so will do that next week and get a sexy new NZ licence.

Finally, the Lola saga. We've stopped the chemo mid treatment. Poor dog, she's suddenly got a major arthritic problem, right on the lung op site, and she refuses to go down stairs. There is much lying down, and worried looks, so not the Lols we are used to. Painkillers are working, and chemo is now out of the system, so things may look up.

And now, off to cook dinner, one of my faves: cabbage, apple, bacon stirfry. Yum

Gillian+Carol in the perfect Wellington shop

Gillian popped into Wellington for a weekend. We had a stroll up Cuba St, always good, and checked out the cool things in the Met shop.

Lamb & calf day!

Back in the classroom

Did my first day casual teaching yesterday - what a breeze. A nice, small, private gels school, close to home. I have picked my school targets carefully! And what lovely gels they were. A bit of senior English, junior science and food tech - all work provided and they just got on with it - almost criminal to pick up a day's pay for that, but I will haha.
It's been nine years since I stood in front of a class. Wo.
There was a discussion in the staffroom about Summer Heights High - one teacher who had seen it in Australia describing it to others - so I had a little smile to myself. Was also amused to hear very similar talk, e.g. whinging about the executive. 
NZ has a mad tv show set in a high school: Seven periods with Mr Gormsby. It plays occasionally on late night NSW tv, don't remember the station. It's pretty funny too, and out there in terms of teacher - pupil 'correct' behaviours.