July

Div and I have both read the Te Atea discussions. I have replied to the Te Atea 4 (Whaea Ange) and Div is to reply to Te Atea 3 (Whaea Janeen.) Am impressed to see Te Atea3 has also started a wiki. Don't know where my reply went to but I did tell Ange that I had e-mailed a reply to TA4.
 * Tuesday 28 July 2009: **

We have also had a message from Tarawera I ( Lesa) and have listened to one of her children reading their story.

We are hoping to head to Scotland in a week or so, so will have different things for everyone. We need to purchase a laptop microphone to record on Voice thread. Unfrotunately the shops are a long way away (20 minutes drive) and we keep forgetting when we are in town.

Cheers Noel
 * I check in to the wiki every day to see what is there so tell staff/kids they are welcome to keep in touch.**

Give everybody our regards and best wishes for a good start to the Term. Also hope everyone is in good health. Swine flu is in this country as well with the first local teacher diagnosed with it last week. Cheers Noel
 * Monday 20th July: **


 * Photos received Sunday 19th July from Mr and Mrs More can be viewed by ** [|**clicking here**]

Well here it is. Your last day of official holidays. We will be thinking of you all come your Monday morning,our Sunday night. Hope you are all well and looking forward to the new term. "New faces" but old faces really, will add to the interest of the term which again shapes as being busy for you all. We have both cycled nearly everyday exploring some of the trails like the "Camel trail" which is a very popular tourist trek over here. It has also helped us adjust to the time changes which really affect your energy levels. (12 hours time changes.) I am typing this at 9 am Friday 17 July. So if I was in NZ I would probably be considering having a light supper before bed. Here we are getting ready to go out for the day. We visited a local school yesterday - a 3 room, 60 pupil school. In terms of classroom space W4 and T4 would be more than adequate, in fact oversize to one clasroom we visited. No playgrounds, doors which open straight out onto the road and a 300 year old building to work in gave us both the impression that we are lucky by comparison. They are all trying to fight off the effects that league tables have had on teaching and particulary "Principalship" over here. The Government has started listening and some changes are being made to negate the negative impacts it has had over the last few years. Their school year finishes next week, they have 6 weeks holidays then start the new school year. Older kids move onto new schools -Colleges etc (like we would do after the January break.) Better stop rambling. Cheers Mr and Mrs More
 * Saturday 18th July 2009: **
 * I have posted a few pictures of Cornwall for you to view.** Of real interest for you as adults would be the notorious Cornwall hedges. Once you get off the main roads you travel for miles on these narrow roads. You have to be prepared to stop and pull over to let someone else through. If you pull over too far you will damage your vehicle because of the rocks in the fences. All of Cornwall is covered with these sort of "fences." You have absolutely no vision of anything around you nor what might be around the next corner. However all drivers here are extremely courteous even giving way to cyclists on these lanes.

Kia Ora everyone. We left Auckland airport at 5.15 pm on Monday 6 July flying with Emirates. After 4 and 1/2 hours we stopped at Brisbane Australia for a couple of hours then onto Dubai. This was an extremely long and tiring flight. We were in the aeroplane non stop for 21 hours. As we flew economy class we were jammed in and to get out of your seat to stretch you had to ask other people to stand up so you could get out into the aisle to - stretch or go to the toilet. **Can you imagine having to sit in your desk at school all day and all night and hardly being able to move?** That is what it was like. Consequently when we arrived at Dubai we were stiff, sore and very tired.Dubai airport is huge and we had to be bussed across for about 10 minutes to reach another terminal so we could catch the next flight to Gatwick-London. The temperature at Dubai was like standing in front of a heater, which is on full blast. If you moved too much you instantly started to sweat. We landed at Dubai at (their time) 7 am on Tuesday morning (7 July). That means we had to adjust our watches and body clocks (this is what makes long distance travel another issue to contend with.) We saw a lot of men dressed in flowing white robes moving around the airport and naturally we could not hear a lot of English being spoken. Funnily enough, although we found it very humid and sweat producing the workers around the airport had on longs, shoes and socks, and long sleeve overshirts. They did not seem to notice it was hot like we all did. After that we were on the plane for another 8 hours to London. When we got off the plane we were both very tired and just wanted to have a long sleep in a nice comfortable bed but we then had to make our way to another terminal to book into our next flight to Newquay which is in Cornwall Southern England. After a 4 hour wait, during which time we were both falling asleep just sitting around. Eventually we were on our way and landed at Newquay where we were met by Jay, Kylie's partner, and then driven to their home. This took another 1 and 1/2 hours. We both were sound asleep, in the car, by the time we arrived which was 7pm (English time)Tuesday 7 July. We both went inside and almost immediately went to bed for the night. Ok will keep you informed of other things and hope to include pictures and video clips. Cheers Mr More
 * Sunday 05 July 2009: **
 * Flying is not all it seems to be. There is alot of time spent waiting, flying/sitting in aeroplanes and hurrying from terminal to terminal to gather your bags and go to the next flight.**