Two new things for Mauritz

Mauritz is at the Air Force academy in Bulls - about 40km from Wanganui, but spends most weekends with the young crowd here. He has been anxious to begin guitar lessons and acquired a guitar last week! After his first lesson on Saturday - Pierre was also hanging about with things for us to help him do for the Big Braai event, we discovered that Mauritz had never IN HIS WHOLE LIFE been on the back of a motorbike.
This 'omission' had to be corrected and we scrounged around
for a fourth helmet so that we could take him out on a little ride.

This old helmet has no visor anymore - no matter, a huge pair of sunglasses sufficed and I happened to snap this moment while Mauritz waited for us to get enough jackets and gloves and things organised to take two bikes out for a leisurely ride! (It seems that he reckoned he could get some practising in for next week's lesson while he waited!)

He rode out behind Pierre on the 'old lady' 750 and back behind Jo on the 'big bike'!
We think he enjoyed it immensely!
Dis al!

First music workshop

The Boessenkool family live and work on this farm about 2.5km outside of Wanganui - this photograph shows the view from their house where I did the first of three 'singing' workshops for children yesterday afternoon.

There were fourteen children aged between seven and eleven and a mixture of boys and girls. All of them are home schooled and so this was an opportunity to do something a bit different and enjoy an afternoon of music and fun. As you can see by the photographs, some of the mums (and one dad) stayed for the workshop and enjoyed the afternoon quite a bit too.

About half way through the afternoon we took a wee tea break - some of the mums provided plates of yummy things to eat and everyone's taste was apparently catered for! Fresh fruit, (including a big bowl of plums from our tree!) popcorn, crunchie biscuits and carrot cake. A veritable feast! Once the children had taken some time out to get to know one another a bit better too, we got back into singing and clapping and 'echoing' and laughing at some of the silly words in the nonsense songs we did!

Judging by the generally happy faces around me, I think they all really enjoyed the afternoon.

We have two more of these workshops planned - another 'junior ' one this week and one for teens early next week.

Dis al!

Our abode (finally some pictures as promised)!

So many of our 'special folks' have been asking to see photographs of our new abode in Wanganui, that we have finally got our act together and put together a little sample of the house where we are living at the moment. We have deliberately omitted to include pictures of the bedrooms - two of which are reserved for guests and hope that you will be curious enough to fill up the 'tickets piggy banks' and come and see them for yourselves!
For our new friends here in Wanganui and elsewhere in New Zealand - we want you to know that our home is always open to guests - can't guarantee 'koek', maar die koffie, hy's is!!!


View from the front door.

More of the view from the front door!

Front door and entrance beside the open garage door. The corner window on the right is the kitchen window and the one visible beside the front door - the study.

This 'drive through' garage was a huge drawcard for the one who spends time tinkering about with things in the garage, like cars and bikes!

The sliding door seen bottom left of the picture leads into the open plan 'comfy corner' beside the living room. The plum tree is absolutely laden with plums at the moment - need to make plum jam very soon!

Entrance hall from the outside.

Entrance hall from the inside.

Dining area from the kitchen counter side - three of the five windows in this area are visible in this picture. The table is in a perfect position for excellent natural light for painting - the blinds help to direct which light we want and which we don't!

Living room with the piece of extra internal wall which we could do without - made it really hard to arrange the furniture. That little wall does, however shield the sliding door which is very handy for music students to use!

Living room corner - the streaky walls are as a result of the sparkling chandelier reflections!

The en-suite bathroom with it's 'skeef' wall, making it sort of diamond-shaped!

Open plan kitchen - connected to dining area and the comfy corner below!

A comfy corner in the open plan kitchen, dining room area.

The passageway takes a turn into the laundry, past the study and into the garage - very handy when it's raining!

Dis al!

Sunday afternoon quick trip to Kai Iwi.

Now this is what we so looked forward to being able to do - saddle up on a 'good weather' Sunday and head off to somewhere pretty!

We almost took a house very near to this spot when first arriving in Wanganui - at it happens, it was the best decision to stay closer to town, since generally speaking, most kiwis don't like to have to travel too far with their kids for things like music lessons. Kai Iwi Beach is still a beautiful part of our closest coastline and we thoroughly enjoyed a little bike ride out there on Sunday afternoon.

After a casual pub lunch at the hotel in town, we decided that the weather was perfect for a little jaunt on the bikes - there is always someone around who would just love to join us - especially since we have a 'spare' bike!

With a beautiful view of Kai Iwi beach in the background, one still needs to chat about bikes and how they handle and how they feel on the New Zealand narrow, windy roads!

Martin and Blanche are seasoned 'bikers', but having not been able to bring their bike with them to New Zealand, they have really missed being able to hop up and take a leisurely ride whenever the weather looks good.

With the wind getting up a bit - time to head on home for coffee and waffles!

Dis al!

A few photograps to capture a bit of the spirit of New Year celebrations here in Wanganui. A three day affair starting with a 'sokkie' and 'braai' into the wee hours of January 1st - a super fireworks display on the banks of the Whanganui river at the stroke of midnight, followed by a day of water 'sports' - plenty of team spirit rustled up for the 'sideline sports' like egg throw, tug-o-war, three legged races and apple bobs.

After all the slipping and sliding and flinging about of bodies (literally in many cases) the marquee was transformed into a movie theatre to screen a Leon Schuster trilogy - most of the sunburned, stiff water sport competitors not managing to keep their eyes open past the half way mark! Day three dawned - at about 11am for some - and everyone congregated at the Botanical Gardens outside Wanganui (quite near to Kai Iwi Beach) for 'backyard cricket, volleyball, touch rugby and frisbee-netball. Teams changed rapidly and fearlessly and there was much hilarity and cheating going on! We took our picnic basket filled to the brim with all the festive fare we had left over and some fresh dilectable nibblies, but some folks hauled out the firelighters and charcoal and did the braai number all over again! After a day in the sun, dusk saw the most fearless of the bunch headed back to the big marquee at the Top Ten holiday park for a 'chocolate fountain' and some good music. Sunday morning saw loads of folks from the surrounding districts bidding farewell and heading off home after church - where we once again provided the music - there is no organ folks so someone has to do something!

Jo and I ended up ambling down to the local Celtic pub for a bite to eat and a quiet and relaxed time with some of our new friends before closing another New Year's chapter.

(us old fogeys spent a couple of days recovering from all the exercising of muscles we'd forgotten we had! - we were tempted to haul out a walking stick or two for a laugh, but the old bones recovered and we are back to normal!)

Hope that you all had a good New Year and we wish you the very best 2010 possible, with plenty of love and laughter in your lives. We send our love to our special folks and our wish is that we get the opportunity to welcome some of you to Wanga- Vegas in the course of this year.

Dis al!