She left in the middle of the day yesterday and is back late tomorrow afternoon so I have taken a couple of days of work to look after the boys and am quite enjoying it so far….

The really funny thing and just indicative of my life at the moment is the fact that the boys and I are driving to the airport to pick Vic up when her flight gets in at 4:30 tomorrow afternoon.  We’ll give each other a kiss, I’ll hand her the car keys, pass over stewardship of the kids and then board a 5:30 flight to Auckland.  Very strange

Not a lot has really happened in the last two weeks.  Prague was all work related with about two hours free time during the whole week. Luckily I had been there before so I didn’t totally ripped off   My four days back in London were great in that I caught up with a load of people that I haven’t seen for a very long time.

Gotta go and have a shower before my 11 hour leg to Auckland – see ya!

My brother picked me up from the airport and took me to Jay and Larry’s place and it was a quick cup of tea, shower and then off into the city to try and stay awake   After a quick wander up Tottenham Court Road (It was like coming home ) I met up with Jay and had a few beers with his workmates.  I worked out that I’d had 4 hours sleep in the last 48 so three pints in a warm pub was doing me no favours in the staying alert department I can tell you!

A bite (Larry’s cooking, so a very big bite) to eat when we got home and I was crashed out at 9:30. After a brief “oh God it’s 3:30 in the morning and I’m wide awake” moment it was back to the land of nod until 08:30.  A nice 11 hours sleep that has hopefully got me back into sync…..

Ian and Ngahuia are coming to visit today so better go and get ready.  See ya!

So far I have flown an hour from Wellington to Auckland, 12 hours and 15 mins from Auckland to LA and “just” have a 10 hour 40 minute leg from LA to London to go.

See ya

Vic and I left last Wednesday for Sydney and the Phoenix vs Sydney FC game on Friday night.

Thursday and Friday were spent shopping and just enjoying each others company. Then Friday night came around and it was game time!
We started off at the Fox and Lion pub where we managed to get about 30 Phoenix supporters together and that’s where the Jägerbombs started.  Multiple drinks later, and after some little toe-rag stole my scarf, we were off to the football stadium for the 8pm kickoff.
From the NZ Herald

A last minute penalty gave the Wellington Phoenix a 2-1 upset win over Sydney FC in football’s A-League.
Shane Smeltz converted an 89th minute spot kick after Sydney captain Tony Popovic handled his cross inside the penalty area.
Leo Bertos gave Wellington a 1-nil lead after powering a near-post header past the Sydney goalkeeper in the 34th minute.
Sydney looked as if it might escape with a point after a 77th minute equaliser.

Behind the goal after the second goal there were far too may overweight men waving their shirts around their heads, me included.  Vic got a lot of comments when she picked up Max from school so unfortunately my belly on the telly didn’t pass everyone by…… it even made the national sports program tonight!

It was really nice to get away for a few days with Vic and I think she enjoyed the break from the boys.  The poor thing will need it when I’m away for two weeks!

After all that it was nice to get home to the boys and huge thanks to both their Grandmothers for looking after them over the weekend.

Now I need to make the most of it before I leave for Prague on Thursday.

I’ll still have my Blackberry so I won’t be totally out of touch…….

Hunter Valley again – bored yet?

We are so lucky to have generous people that live nice and close and are willing to look after the boys. Without them we wouldn’t be able to do half the things we do……..

It started of when the guy in immigration wrote an “M” on my card when they sent me towards customs.  Sad though it is I noticed that the “M” was not the norm as they usually write an “F” on it.  I have no idea what either of them mean by the way…

Anyway I get taken over to a table and get asked all sorts of questions on what I do, who I work for and where I’ve been.  After handing over a business card and an itinerary of the sales event that I had been to the customs offices disappears into a large mirrored room with my passport.  I wasn’t worried at all, I just found it interesting that in all the travelling I’d done that this was the first time I’d been picked out.

When the officer came back he explained that they had had a chat to me because of all the travel I had done over the last 18 months and that they did it to ensure that I was in the business that I said I was and travelling for the reasons I had documented.

It should be interesting to see what happens when I get back from Sydney (off again next week) and back from Prague (off the week after)

I’ll let you know

Here’s another shot I took while I was away.