Arachnoiditis!

A white tailed spider carries a potent punch! We think that was what bit Les last week but the Doctor was taking no chances as his hand swelled up like an udder needing milked... He got his Doctor's fee partially covered by the accident claim scheme but had to pay for his steroids, anti-inflammatories, antibiotics and anti-histamines - the only thing he didn't get was anti-ants.
The next day Fiona's Practical Duty was cleaning cobwebs so she went looking for the one that bit her man.. (Old woman old woman old woman quoth I.Whither oh whither oh whither so high? To clean the cobwebs off the sky etc.. funny what comes into your mind on a boring job!) After that we all clean the whole campus ready for Graduation of the 2nd years on Saturday then that is the end of the academic year.

We have ants, flies, mosquitos, moths and spiders to clean up after. Every car has its own resident spiders one at the front one at the back - they spin every night no matter how often you wash the lights. Even the big BMWs have them (Big Monster Webs) good job they are not as big as this moth!

A Land of Milk, Honey, Chocolate & Kim Bob

Well we are well fed. Milk arrives daily courtesy of the dairy, Bread arrives every second Saturday at no cost and includes everything from Cream Cookies to Garlic Bread and Buns with enough to live on and to fill the freezer. Kim Chi, or Kim Bob or Korean Curry arrives every time our Korean neighbours cook (You need to lock the door sometimes...) and yet we still fancied a square of cholcolate. Les bought a bar of dairy milk (as you do) and inside was a ticket for a free bar which they gave us. Once back home we noticed we had won another bar... and then another... to save petrol we just opened them up outside the shop, but having won 5 bars in a row we had to change shops. To use the glutt Sarah kindly gave up a skype cookery demonstration for Chocolate cheesecake which went down really well at the College Christmas Party. Then, at another Christmas party on Friday we met a Columbian refugee who keeps bees for Waikato Honey so now we have something to spread on our free Malt Loaf. He and his friends are Spanish speakers so we get to have free lessons as well. Jehovah Jireh!

Meeting Mount Doom

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Les and a bunch of like minded masochists from College did the Tongariro Crossing recently. Not some weird Pentecostal initiation rite but one of the most popular tramps (read “hillwalks”) in New Zealand. It involves crossing Mt Tongariro (strangely) which peaks at about 1900m (almost 6250 ft) and is a part of the Tongariro National Park. Tongariro itself was last active around 1890 but the nearby Mt Ngauruhoe (now better know as Mt Doom from LOTR) blew a fuse in 1975 and Mt Ruapehu also nearby went kaboom in 1996 sending skiers scurrying. The route is just under 20km and takes about 7 hours. Recovery takes 3 days. It was a fantastic experience though with 2 huge craters to trek through, a volcanic peak to drag yourself up then slither down, fantastic views above the cloud line, incredible colours and textures including sapphire blue lakes, red, brown and ochre rocks, solidified lava flows and ice and snow fields and also great company. Kung Hee, a very nice Korean lady refrained from doing the whole thing in about half an hour to wait for Les, encourage him up the steep bits and hold his hand down the slippy bits. Pretty fantastic all told and makes Les determined to challenge Heddle Hill with renewed vigour when we get home.

Home Assessment Visit?

It was just like being back at work taking Anne Taylor a wee home visit to see if she was ready for home. For those of you who don't know Anne & Ewen Taylor they have just moved here from Orkney where Anne was the OT Assistant in our team. Don't you just love the wee red suitcase the OTs gave her when she left to come out here? We got to her new house to flit her in and we both noticed the OTs had already been with a handy rail at the door. It reminded us both of Lambaness so we thought a picture was in order! Sorry for the lack of National news - we are having a really hectic term with 3 assignments a week but will try harder during the holidays!

Bannerama

Thought some of you might want to see the banner we made on Saturday at Oaks Christian Centre. Gayle who is pictured in the green blouse had this vision to get loads of fabric letters stiched and quilted or painted so we could hang different texts up each Sunday. Her husband Rob made up the washing lines for us! Coming out into the sun today (hurrah!) we took a snap of some of the congregation. We sent some relief money to a Church in Samoa which was affected by the Tsunami and they wanted to see what we looked like!

First Target Met

Good news for us on the Big Blog - we have 12 followers - thankyou to those of you who have signed up whether publicly or in disguise. We know who you are. :) So like Jesus himself we started with 12 followers and therefore our next target will be 72.... and so on!We reckon there were 215 folks at our silver wedding do so I am sure we can enlist a few extras. If anybody is planning a visit out here can you tell us soon as we are making plans to travel between December and February and would need to arrange accommodation for you. Cheers

"Hollow"een?

What should we have done? The kids next door wanted to know what we do in our Culture for Halloween but we didn't want to get into guising or spooks. So we settled on Toffee Apples and neepy lanterns. This was fine until we had to wait until evening to light the neep and it never got dark...who thought Halloween would work in the Summer months Doh!

Meanwhile, there being no broomsticks handy, Les went flying around on a private plane with one of the MAF students he got a great view of the college....

and also good shots of the lake (Hamilton Lake) where they were out racing in the afternoon sun...