Crashing isn't fun

[Fri 30 Dec 05 1130]
Ok, I'm slightly annoyed that yesterday I wrote a week's worth of a
blog entry and the computer crashed before I could finish.
Unfortunately, I don't know enough about AppleWorks 6 on Mac OS 9 to
recover what I had written. So here I am again writing a big update.
Last Thursday Hayden & Jonas did find my house. They visited quite a
few houses before getting to mine; they were pleased they didn't just
walk in to the first house they thought it was. I must say it's hard
finding a place you don't have the address for - not that RD5 would
have helped them much. I don't quite remember what I did on Thursday
night, nor Friday, but I do know that on Saturday I drove Joy & I to
New Plymouth. We stopped off at Patea beach because it was taking a
lot less time than we thought. There wasn't as much traffic as we
thought there would be. After the sea air and visit to the beach, we
felt like Fish & Chips (kiwi style, no mushy peas!) so we stopped in
Hawera and found a place that was open and went and ate it in a local
park. When we arrived we saw all the family again and caught up with
them. It's strange how it's been so long and so much has changed, yet
we're all still the same. Later that night we watched Napoleon
Dynamite. It wasn't very good at all (imho). Geoff & Emma arrived just
before I went to bed so I got to meet her. She's cool. Christmas
morning we had our extended family present giving thing. Then we went
to church; they had a family-focused service which was cool. We had
ham (that's pig) for lunch. It was good. There was a nice mix of hot
and cold food. We had the kiwi classic pavlova for pudding which was
great. I think everyone had a nap that afternoon. Because we ate quite
late in the afternoon we didn't need all that much for tea. In the
evening Shawshank Redemption was on TV so some of us watched that.
Later on our (immediate) family did our present thing. Boxing day was
Mum's 50th birthday. In the afternoon we went to the river for a swim.
My feet got sunburnt. My fault really; I should have put sunscreen on
them as I did the rest of my body. As it was my mother's birthday, the
women went out to have some coffee, leaving the men to prepare tea. We
made a very nice meal with things we found in the fridges. We even had
berry pancakes for desert. That night we climbed Mt Parituku just as
the sun was setting. We came back and had a look at some photos of
various things including some of the ones taken over the weekend.
About half of the people left during the course of the day. The next
day (Tues) everyone else who was left left. We (Geoff, Emma & I as Joy
had left the day before) packed up and headed off just before lunch.
Before we actually left NP we went into town and had a look around. We
bought some stuff in the sales. Then we headed off taking the scenic
route around Mt Taranaki, stopping for lunch at a surf beach, then an
ice cream later on. We also stopped in Wanganui for a short while.
When we got to Feilding we had tea with Mum & Dad at Ken's
Cook because Mum felt like Chinese takeaways. On Wednesday we all went
to our Warwick St house to collect and return stuff from our storage
there. It was strange seeing other people's stuff in our house. It's
such a nice house and I look forward to it being ours again one day. I
also miss having a spa, maybe I'll have to convince one (or more) of
my friends in the UK to get one. Geoff & Emma headed down to Chch
shortly after lunch and a visit from one of their friends who was
pasing through. That night I decided to go see the glow worms up by
Highland Home. So I rounded up a few people and headed off. Due to the
(maybe not so) recent flooding, the river we walk up had lots of
debris in the way, but we mannaged to get through all the same. The
glow worms were just as amazing as I remembered them to be. When we
got back to the car we (Ace, Hayden, Jenna & I) lay on the road
looking at the stars and talking for about an hour and a half (or
maybe two). By the time we got back it was too late for a movie so we
just headed to our respective homes. Thursday was reletively
uneventful. I took Mum & Dad into Palmy and dropped them at the
hospital and PFL respectively, before coming out to our place (where
we're house sitting) for lunch and the afternoon. No-one txted me back
about doing anything in the evening except Mike who is down in
Waikanae and couldn't make it. Today we arranged to meet Jonny (our
cousin) for lunch and hang out in the afternoon tomorrow which sounds
like fun.