The wettest city

Posted on Thu 6 September 2007 at 11:26

It's official, according to the Waikato times dated 03.0.07 - Hamilton was the wettest city in New Zealand over August.  Well, that comes as no surprise to those of us who live here, I can reliably inform you.  But as it is a winter month, that is to be expected.  Compared with the cold that the South island experienced (down to -8.4C), I really don't mind at all.  And when you look out over the gully, you can see the effect of all that rain as it is so very, very green.  So the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research point out that Auckland was the warmest, Dunedin was the driest, Christchurch was the coldest, Hamilton was the wettest and Wellington was the sunniest.

We had a lunar eclipse last week and apparently New Zealand was meant to be the best place in the world to see it from.  Note the use of the word 'apparently'.  Now, put that together with the commonly used 'land of the long white cloud' business and I can assure you that our deck at least wasn't the best place to view it from.  I'll give you 'land of the long white sodding cloud'.  The long white cloud rose up and covered the blood red moon and thus obscured our view.  To be fair, it did drift about so at times there was a bit to be seen but it did spoil the viewing pleasure consdierably.  Ahhh well, it least we were here to  see it at all and Melissa can tell her grandkids that she saw it when she was a child.  Come to that, i can tell my grandchildren if I ever have any....................Oh dear lord, have I just tempted fate?!....

Last week, we had Jan and Ian and their 11 year old twins from the BE site over for the evening.  We all agreed it had been a good evening, so we went round to their house and did it all over again last night.  Thank you for your hospitality Jan and Ian, we had a lovely evening!  They have very recently come to New Zealand so Steve and I gave them the benefit our our 11 month's experience!!

Last week I started on a course involving the Maori world view and how best to incorporate that in MH nursing.  Well, the jury is still out on this one.....

Apparently we sat 3 modules last week.  Following dicussion, we all wrote down what had been written on the board, in our own words and that passed 3 modules???  I'm finding it all a bit nebulous and ethereal.  How what we disussed impinges on health care I really don't know.  Hopefully it was an 'icebreaking' day and things will be a little more concrete in the 5 remaining Fridays. 

They take their hosting very seriously here.  At the start of the session, everyone had to stand up and say a little bit about themselves, their geneaology etc (which is very important to Maori).  I dropped in I was a McGregor by birth and come from the Spey Valley, where arguably the finest whisky in the world is made.  That seemd to impress people immensely - guess they have a taste for it here as well!

I have decided to do the 10k walk on Saturday instead of the half marathon as when I have completed a longer walk, I have ended up with sore shins for days.  If I were being sponsored or had really set myself the target of doing the big walk, I would maybe have persevered but as it is,  am quite happy to do the shorter one and spend the rest of the day exploring with Steve and Melissa.  I thought that 2 of my colleagues were also doing the 10k but one has dropped out and the other has decided to do the 21k.  I have no objections to doing it on my own anyway...who knows, I may even break into a jog at some point.  As long as I am not ovetaken by the 21k'ers who will be starting 15 minutes after me, I don't care!!  Watch this space!