Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

What a week it has been! I have to start off with the subject that has occupied most of New Zealand this week - the World Cup. The team started returning home today as heroes, after three drawn matches in the group stage. There was a little disappointment after the 1-1 draw with Italy; there were hopes the All Whites might get through to the the last 16, but it was not to be. However, their achievement is massive. After watching their last qualifying match against Bahrain (which they had to win), I felt they would do very well just draw just one game at the finals. So, to return home undefeated is fantastic. To try and put this into context for you, not only were they rated 78th at the start of the group stage, but there are only 25 Kiwi professional footballers (Italy has over 3500). Not all of them made the 22 man squad, and two of the team playing against the Italians are amateurs. The other even more significant event this week, though it has passed by most Kiwis, was our 25th Wed

The major excitement here this week has been the New Zealand football team drawing 1-1 against Slovakia in the world cup. The general joy was heightened by the Australian 4-0 defeat the day before. I knew there was a level of rivalry on the sports field between Australia and New Zealand, but I hadn't realised how deep it went until this week, seeing the anchor-persons on the news talking up New Zealand's goal and really rubbing salt into the wound of Australia's defeat. In the small hours of tomorrow morning New Zealand play Italy, so the Australians who drew 1-1 yesterday with Ghana may have new ammunition for their rhetoric. For us, work has been busy for Nicky and I. Claire has sat her last two exams and now has a few weeks off before the next semester starts. Both exams went OK, and on Friday we had Ryan over for dinner with special veggie lasagne and cheesecake which Claire bought to celebrate the half way point of her degree. Nicky took Friday off work to make cakes a

We started the week with a public holiday to celebrate the Queen's Birthday. The weather wasn't brilliant, so we didn't go to the beach for a brisk walk. Claire was studying; Nicky and I went over to see Alex, Naomi and Doug's new arrival. We then popped round to see Paul and Jenny for hot beverages. Claire has started exams this week - Politics and Social Anthropology - the later went better than the former. Nicky's work has been as busy as usual and things have picked up a little for me. Otherwise it has been a quiet week. Quite a bit of rain and the temperatures are getting more wintery. We have caught the edges of some storms and have had some major downpours, especially overnight. Yesterday Claire had her Anthropology exam (yes, on a Saturday morning) and spent the rest of the day with Ryan. Nicky and I had a quiet day at home. I made a Christmas pudding for today's family lunch, and Nicky made Peach muffins, some of which we had with Dawn and Barry (our la

I suppose the highlight of this week has been my 50th birthday, which was on Wednesday. After giving much thought to the question "how would I like to celebrate my birthday?" I decided I would like to cook dinner for a group of people who reflect the range of people who I have got to know since moving to NZ. Family were of course bound to be present in the form of Nicky, Claire and Ryan. Jan and John Clearwater I have met through the friendships Nicky has made at Church. Talia came with her Alex (Talia was my boss at Ubertec) and Janet with her Mike (Janet was a fellow massage student). So, there were 10 of us in total, which we just managed to squeeze round the dining room table with the help of 4 dinning chairs borrowed from our neighbours/landpersons. We greeted the visitors with mulled wine, supplied at Christmas by Moira & Peter. This is a NZ product which just requires hot water to be added, and tastes fantastic. Each bottle makes over 2 litres of wine. It went very