I wrote this on the 11th July which was my niece Lucy’s Birthday so it is now a belated Happy Birthday but the same love and best wishes apply!!

We are at the Waikato museum where Aonghas is happily learning how to play/do Rakau – a Maori game/battle training using long sticks.  It develops hand eye coordination and reflexes as well as rhythm ready for battle!  Lachlan and I have just left him with a group of children in the Museum of Waikato Marai area whilst we have a coffee.  The tutor was desperately trying to get a group of very shy children all aged between 6 and 10 to shout loudly!  Not usually something Aonghas has a problem with!  We’ll go back after our coffee to see how he hi getting on.

Now something I forgot to mention it in my last post – don’t know how I forgot because it is a fairly momentous event!  Take a look at the photos!  I arrived back home at about midnight after my long journey from Europe and Nigel greeted me – nothing odd in that, I

had been away for three weeks after all.  We had a cup of tea and caught up on some news and then I noticed…… half of Nigel’s face was missing!  Well, not his face but it did sort of seem like it – he has shaved off part of his beard to leave his moustache and his beard at the front but not down the sides of his face.  I was quite taken aback and, I have to say it has taken a bit of getting used to!  It does look quite cool though and makes him look a bit younger and less wild! He says he was prompted to do it after we had watched a couple of those make over programmes where they take a middle aged couple and revamp their looks to make them look younger.  Nearly all the men look younger by simply shaving off scraggy beards!  I never knew he was so vain!  You learn something new about people all the time don’t you?  What will he do next?!

Well, we have had a couple of days of beautiful weather, clear blue skies and surprisingly warm in the sun though very chilly in the shade.  We cycled around Hillcrest to look again at a house we are quite interested and to get a feel for the area.  Due to my imposed computer ban on sunny days the boys enjoyed playing out in the park.  Lachlan spent a good couple of hours doing some rugby training with Aonghas and they played hide and seek and various other things in the park and garden.  It is sad that their default activity is the computer however when they have that taken away they do really have much more fun doing other things!  Aonghas spent a couple of happy hours building dens with the cardboard boxes and when his friend Jamie came round they created ramps and race tracks for the remote controlled cars with them.  It was so warm that Liz and I even sat out on the decking to have our coffee. But the rain is back today so we are at the museum where they run activities for children each morning from 11 until 12.  Lachlan is too old but we will take the opportunity next week when Aonghas is booked in again to have a good mooch around the museum exhibitions.  We have a couple of free tickets for the cinema so we will go and see a film this afternoon.  Right, I’m off to see what they are up to with the big sticks!  Will report back later.