Rain rain go away!

Greetings devoted followers.  I think our weather here in New Zealand is mirroring the rainfall I know some of you are experiencing in Manitoba.  Yes, the skies are regularly opening up and pouring forth on us here.  We live on the top of a hill and there are times that I wonder if the house isn't going to slide down into the estuary!  It's not unusual to have a 100 ml come down in a day.  Rain isn't unusual here in the winter but even the locals are a little agog these days at the amount of rain coming down.  I fear that my winter lettuce and silver beet will never grow.  They are existing at the moment but certainly not growing.  The weeds however are reveling in whatever conditions come their way - that apparently doesn't change no matter where you are in the world.

The McLeod's have been taking it easy for the past few weeks, sticking close to home.  We'd love to be doing some more hiking in the area but with the rain it would be a wallow in mud then anything else.  So instead we just hang about and corrupt the neighbors.  We arranged for a babysitter last Saturday and had an honest to goodness night out with our neighbors.  I had my first pedicure in NZ and took Jacqui, the neighbor, along for the treat, and then we picked up the men and went for drinks at the 'club' (Chris - the hubby - is quite the well connected Tauranga business man), dinner down at a lovely no children allowed restaurant, and then more drinks on the Strand at a bar watching the comings and goings of all the cute (and not so cute) young things on a happening Saturday night.  We weaved our way home by midnight feeling like grownups, not necessarily parents!  Some of us spent Sunday recovering.  Others of us went and practiced our tennis with our willing children.  Poor Aidan volunteered to bounce me balls so I could practice my backhand and spent the whole time dodging my wildly hit balls and actually took a few body shots.  What a good sport!

This weekend was the NZ version of the May Long, called the Queen's birthday.  Unbelievably, this is the last long weekend until October!  Ark.  These people don't know how to build relaxation into their national psyche.  So unlike Canadians.  So to observe this long weekend we decided to go camping with the neighbors.  Camping here in NZ, in a proper campground, is not at all like Canada because there are cabins for rent that have all the comforts of home.  So that's what we rented, with the neighbors along side of us.  They hauled down their major fishing boat and the guys were able to get a great round of fishing on Saturday for a few hours before the next round of storms hit.  Connor and Aidan both caught about 3 fish a piece and Don caught the biggest fish of the day, a Snapper.  That's what he is cooking up for dinner as I type. Sunday the rain fell horizontally given the 100 km wind speed so lots of time was spent playing board games - typical camping stuff.

This week I was snookered by my oldest son. At school they have been practicing (i.e. running endless laps around the school field) for the cross country race.  EVERYONE has to run the cross country race, but you can choose to run it on as a competitive or a non competitive runner.  My kids definitely committed to the non-competitive, pacifists that they are. Anyways,  Aidan came in 20th on his practice run last week and I was saying that if he improved on his result on race day I'd buy him a slurpee.  One should note though that we don't actually have 7-11's here, but McD's sells frozen cokes - same same.  Connor piped up that he walked his practice race, what was I going to offer him??  So, by the time the negotiations were done it was agreed that a top 20 finish in their respective race got a slurpee, a top 10 finish merited a slurpee and $5, and a top 3 finish desired a dinner at the restaurant of the kid's choice.  Don went down to watch the actual race.  Aidan ran first and came in 16th.  Then Connor took to the field.  While all the other kids took off like rabbits Connor actually, he tells us, employed the strategy of slow but steady so that by lap 3 as the kids were running out of steam he happily chugged by them and claimed 3rd place.  He surprised everyone, including himself!.  We got off easily on the meal front as he asked to go to McD's which we picked up on our way down to the campground.

So there you have it, the update from the McLeod household.  I wanted to mention that we will be missing out on a very happy event on  Friday.  Don's nephew Gord will be getting married to the utterly lovely Jess.  It's a hard time to be out of the country because we love being around for these big McLeod events, watching the kids run around like crazy souls and dancing up a storm on the dance floor.  Please know that our thoughts will be with you guys!  Happy wedding!

Much love, the McLeod