Renovation time!

After completing the interior renovation of my home about 12 months ago [bathroom, new kitchen, paint, carpet and lino, double glazing and a heatpump], it's time ot do something on the outside.

The deck is well past needing a lot of work, so before it becomes even more urgent, my neighbour and I have started by surrounding the building with 'DANGER KEEP OUT' tape then ripping off most of the decking. What's left could not safely be removed without scaffolding.

Anyway, here are photos from the first day's effort. I'll try and keep things up to date as the work progresses, although I would expect that there won't be much visible progress for a few days at least.

More zoo photos!

Here are a few more pictures from our visit to Wellington Zoo earlier today!

As you can see, there's plenty to see - it's a good place to fill a few spare hours. See if you can name the animals in each photo... Not so many friends and family photos in here :-)

Mum and Dad visiting and off to the Zoo

Yesterday and today I had the pleasure[yes, pleasure!] of a visit from Mum and Dad. We had planned to go for a flight, but with the winds being too strong, we went to the Wellington Zoo instead.

Despite having been in Wellington for about 7 years, I have never been to the zoo! Anyway, it was a good walk around with plenty to see, although I have to say, some of the enclosures seemed a bit small, especially for some of the more active animals, but certainly a lot better than what zoos used to be like.

Anyway, here are a few photos from today. Several of these photos have friends and family in them - see if you can guess who is who [hint, the first picture is Mum and Dad up on Mt Victoria just before going to the zoo!]!

Long weekend in Whanganui

This weekend has been "Wellington Anniversary Weekend" and the extra day off work has been very welcome. I took the opportunity to pop up to Whanganui overnight last night to visit my young-looking parents [Hi Mum!].

Whanganui was having a "Vintage Weekend" comprising mainly of old cars and a very old tractor. At the risk of never being allowed back in town, I think that the cars are about the same age as the average resident :-)

The other event worthy of note was the downhill go-kart racing. It looked like a lot of fun - would have been nice to be in the event :-)

Photos are of some of the vintage cars and then the go-karts. My favourite kart would have to be the last one - making a good attempt at camoflaging itself against the trees... it helped that it lost a wheel on the way down also... very funny!

Red sky at night...

The last few days have been fairly windy in Wellington. No surprise there, and today was no exception.

Thankfully my house is sheltered from the prevalent northerly winds, and often it just results in interesting days watching the clouds go by.

Today's photo was taken at about 9pm this evening. Red sky and some low clouds scooting past. I should have taken some photos earlier today where there were a lot of lenticular clouds hanging around at higher altitudes. Anyway, here is the outlook from my home looking south-west.

My very own "Unexpected Journey". Hobbits not included.

I arrived home this evening to find some mail in the letter box. Opening it up, I found that it was a letter from the BNZ with my new "netguard" card [which is used as a second factor of authentication when accessing their internet banking].

Unexpected, and surprising. Why? You'll see why soon.

I immediately phoned BNZ to discuss this development, and while on hold, I then tried logging into BNZ's internet banking site. It accepted my access code, my password, and prompted me to use the new "netguard" card, which I did and it was accepted.

The following page then appeared:

BNZ Internet banking error - click for a larger version

In short, it wouldn't let me in!

It's a pity, but not altogether surprising, since I have not been a BNZ customer for about 12 months now! It appears that when I closed my accounts, my internet banking was not shut off properly. Still, it didn't actually let me in, so that is good.

Funny thing is that they still had to verify my identity before properly closing it off. banking access code [yes, I could remember it!], name, address, date of birth, phone number, email address [and not my "normal" one] and drivers licence number [also remembered], so that went smoothly.

It appears to be all shut down now. Darn. I was hoping that I had won some money and could retire young :-) Yeah right!

Christmas and the "Hunting of the Native Waikato Zebra"!

I'm just back from a trip up to Cambridge to celebrate Christmas with relatives. As expected, this ended up being 4 days of almost constant laughs, plenty to eat, not too much to drink and more laughs!

Christmas lunch was to rather large affair, with more relatives and others around a large table, then more laughs [you get the idea!]. Add in to that a trip to Auckland and even more laughs [and a few lies from what I remember!]... a great time was had by all.

A special treat though was a visit to Maungakawa, aka Sanatorium Hill, on the outskirts of Cambridge. In ages past this was a place for the treatment of tuberculosis . Nowadays, all but one of of the buildings are gone, but it makes for a nice place to visit and offers great views over a fair part of the Waikato region. Included in this special treat was a safari to try and track and follow the mysterious, and not very well known, native Waikato Zebra.

See if you can spot the Waikato Zebra in some of the photos which follow. Top to bottom are photos of Maungakawa, views and the results of the safari. Last is a photo of my parents and aunt and uncle. Enjoy!

Legal movie download options for New Zealand

I have been looking for LEGAL movie download options for New Zealand, for use on an Android tablet. I thought I would share the results of my search. I thought this would be the shortest blog post I ever made.

I was right. This is what I found

.....

Does anyone know of an option I've missed?

The Simpsons!

A very very funny version of The Simpsons opening credits!

Final day in London and back home

After a very enjoyable 3 weeks, it came time to return home. Darn. I spent a lazy morning and early afternoon doing very little. We [sister, bro-in-law and niece] went out for a late lunch at a local pub followed by a walk to get an icecream... yummmm, icecream! Mine included organic honey - yum, yum!

After this, a brisk walk "home" to be picked up for my ride to Heathrow.

I spent rather more time than planned at Heathrow. Firstly, the traffic was very light and so the driver set a world record for the quickest ride to Heathrow [without breaking any speed limits]. Next, from joining the check in queue to clearing immigration and security [including an explosives check on my bag!] was just 10 minutes! Lastly, the flight was delayed by 40 minutes.

Oh well, at least it was a relaxing wait, and a good comfy flight home [which it always seems to be on Air NZ].

Photos are:

Me, Ferne, Rochelle and Sam
Ferne being her usual smiley self
Departure board at Heathrow

Enjoy!