The Graduates

The Victoria University graduation begins with the Parade of students through Wellington City centre.  They close off the streets to cars and the students parade from the Law buildings to the graduation cermony.  It was a lot of fun to be the centre of attention from tuourists and passers by.

Here are my classmates Vicki, Danielle, Melinda and Gemma  in their very fetching Fuchsia and aquamarine. 

Fred and I had to walk with our respective colleges but it was fun to meet at the end

The student parade was followed by the parade of lecturers in their alma mater college finery.  You should take a look at the guy with the outfit from the Sorbonne.  Some of these outfits would do well on Castro Street

We both had to endure the same boring speeches and musical interludes two nights in a row. 

Here is Fred and myself at his graduation cermony.

The O'leary boys came along to support their big brother.

Fred on the cat-walk

The MIR graduandes of 2010 December Graduation.


The following night, the same stupid jokes about students spending too much time on Facebook.  Here is Barbara and her Thesis supervisor, Dr. Ben Thirkell-White.  Happy to have one more damn student off his back.

 The final step on the catwalk.

Down Under Again

Back in New Zealand for Christmas again.  We were greeted at the airport by the faithful followers of the "Save the Paua" (SAP) foundation chanting "set my Paua free".  Happy to be reunited with their exiled leader.

Paua Pete, AKA Pepe's Tours Pete began our touchdown with the mandatory lightening jetlagged tour of Wellington.  It was a stunning morning in the Capital.

Barbara and Fred down at the waterfront

Wellington harbour view from the top of Mount Victoria.

The faithful SAPs Joanne, Mark, Fred and Peter with their freedom fighting Irish leader

In the afternoon we decided to have a BBQ and invite over some potential new members to the SAP foundation.  Sadly sibling rivalry got in the way rather quickly and in no time, Fred had re-established himself as the resident BBQ bulley.

Bobbie and Lorraine - recent Irish emigrants - brought some youth to the party.  I provided translation services for Bobbie's cork accent.

Fabulously grilled vegetables from the BBQ bullie.  I had forgotten how good New Zealand veggies taste.

Obviously Paua Pete's therapy is not working... let go Pete

Happy Thanksgiving

This is our first Thankgiving dinner in over two years as we have been in non-practising countries.  Americans thinks the rest of the world celebrates it too and always seem surprised that it is an American tradition.  The centrepiece of Thanksgiving is the turkey and it becomes a source of obsession for cooks - how long to cook it for, how not to over cook, not to undercook, what to do with the 20 lbs of leftovers.  Anyway, I brined mine.  It is a sure guarantee of a moist turkey. 

Basic recipe: 1 cup of salt for every gallon of water.  Stick the turkey in the saline solution for up to 24 hours.

Here is our turkey at the halfway mark.  It is looking beautiful.  Another hint, don't cover the turkey in tinfoil.

Kathryn and Tim came to visit over the holidays and helped prepare most of the dinner - that is Kathryn did.  Tim helped Fred watch the football game.  The reason they are on our bed is because the only room with tv is the bedroom.

By early afternoon our friends Bernie and family had arrived with lots of very yummy appetizers.  Here is Bernie with her sons Chad and Michael.

Kathryn, Tim and Rick enjoy champagne while Tim pretends to cook.

Bill and Sue, flanked by our faithful Molly.

Summer and Emily played with Thomas the Tankengine.  Emily was a fantastic au-pair all day and kept Summer really occupied.

The Thanksgiving table

All the yummy food.  Nick's southern candied Yams (yams with marshmallows), green beans, butternut squash, stuffing, potatoes, lamb and turkey.  Nobody is quite sure what the glowing red dish is other than it comes from Kansas.

Thanksgiving plate stuffed to the gills

And the best part is that the boys did the wash up.  Nick and Rick in the kitchen.  PS.  I haven't found most of my plates since, where did you guys put them.

Bay Area Mountain Biking

The bay area has some of the best mountain biking trails in the USA and some of them are only a couple of miles from our house. We have been training all summer for the mother of all rides - Almaden Quicksilver park to Los Gatos. Well it's not really that bad if you only do it in one direction. It must have been at least 12 miles, although disputes arose as to whether it was not longer.  If yo looks carefully at the map below you can see the trail outlined in red.  It goes through two parks and the entire ride is on dirt roads.

We started off in early morning fog and climbed from Old Almaden Park to the top of the Guadalupe mines. You can still see the ruins of the mine shafts from the quicksilver mining days.

While the top of the hill was busy, within minutes we were alone on the trail. As we crossed from Almaden Quicksilver to Sierra Azul, the trail was deserted. Here Dave and Fred take on the first hill. How come the hills never look steep in the photos.
As the early morning fog rose, we got the first glimpse of Mount Umunhum, which is at 3486 feet. Thankfully we weren't going that high, but we did hit 2500 feet at the top of the Kennedy Trail.

 OK this is what it looks like on a sunny day!

A lot of huffing and puffing, we made it to the top of Woods Road Trail. The sun had come out and most of the cloud had cleared. Fred and Dave looked very fresh, and the worst of the climbing was behind us.

You can now see how high we have come, Mount Umunhum and the Airforce Radar station are rising out of the clouds.  We still haven't met another soul.  Who says that Bay area is too crowded.

Finally we crest to the Los Gatos side of the hill and get our first view of the Silicon Valley.  Now do you believe we are at 2500 feet?

Family portriat at the top.  Did I mention that this was my new Trek Bike's first major outing.

 The good news is that we have come 9.2 miles from Hicks Road, the bad news is that we still have at least 5 more miles in front of us.

Group portriate when we hit Kennedy trail

Finally  we catch sight of Lexington Resevoir which means it is all downhill to Los Gatos and a latte and blueberry scone are waiting at the Purple Onion Cafe.

The whole ride turned out to be a lot less nasty than we were led to believe.  Of course, it might be a different thing doing the ride in reverse as it is much steeper on the Los Gatos side.  Next time, we will do the entire out and back - right Dave?

Family Celebrations

The Murphys love family celebrations and Colman, Heidi and young Jack are just as good an excuse as anything else. Young Jack Murphy could barely contain himself. He may not be able to walk and talk but he can get down when he needs to. Living in NY, image is everything. Siobhan O'Kelly couldn't take the line at the bar so she went in and took over herself...or was is so that she could get to see something other than the back of her husband who is in his usual propped up position at the bar.

The men hung out at the grand piano - romantic.

Guinness is good for you - full of Iron

When Siobhan wasn't pulling pints behind the bar she was plotting her next bit of mischief with soul mate Martha

Damian, Kathleen and the girls made a lovely family picture

Like Mother like daughter.

Loretto has always stepped in and been our cake mother. She didn't let Colman and Heidi down. The cake was so beautiful.

Colman and Heidi get to cut the cake. They look so happy together.

How did the Chicken...

The chickens are consuming a lot of our time. How do you teach a chicken to cross the road? Actually they seem to figure out most things on their own.
We have been thinking of ways to make the chickens more useful. There has been a total absence of eggs and it crossed our minds that we had been sold a couple of duds.
We have started looking for alternative ways to get the girls to cover their costs.
A friend of ours recently came back from Scotland where he paid a lot of money to have a falcon land on his wife's arm.
Inspired by their ventures, Fred came up with a much cheaper option and it could be done here....chickening
We started by loading Blondie up on grapes.
Barbara prepares the bird for flight. Notice the protective glove, just like they had in Scotland.

Finally we have lift off.

We reckon the ongoing threats of ending up on the rotisserie and the failed attempts at being a chicken of prey put the fear of god in Blondie. Tonight - September 27th, 2010 someone (we suspect Blondie) produced the first egg.

So the question remains, how did the chicken know where to lay the egg. It was beautifully positioned inside the hen box, just like she knew all along.

An who says chickens are stupid.