Sabbatical & Polar Swim

Maurie left on Friday for the first leg of his 3 month Sabbatical. First stop Harvard for a 10 day course. He would have had a bumpy ride on the flight to Auckland, as we were having gale force winds at the time. Bunny lined up for his 10th Polar swim today. The sun came out briefly as the swimmers emerged from the sea, but the air was pretty raw today. On Saturday we saw our first Kereru for this season. We're looking forward to seeing these big birds closer to the house as the season progresses.

Kath's Memorial

Yesterday I received an unexpected email from Theo's son, Jacob, with photos from Crete of the planting of a memorial tree for Kath. This is the second tree that has been planted on Crete. The first one was planted at Antoni's holiday accommodation in Stalos. Unfortunately it didn't survive the transplanting. I think it was because it was too big when transplanted, & was unable to cope with the extreme winter gales that occur there. This second tree is small enough to take off, & its location at Zourva is particularly beautiful, & a place which Kath was very fond of.

Florence's Pics

Florence came to our house on Friday, & we had an enjoyable time looking at all the photos we had taken during our trip. I was hoping to be able to copy Florence's pics to a CD for her, but I was only able to copy part of her collection of 480+. However, it was great re-living those experiences, & also remembering some of the things we had forgotten. I have uploaded a few of her pics to Picasa Web Album. Just click on the Picasa link to the right to see them. Here are a couple. One is of a very pleasant lunch in the Old Town of Chania, & the other is of the last stage of the full changing of the guard in Athens.

Back home & working

Been home for 5 days, & today was my first day back at work. All went pretty well, & pleased to say that the old ribs hung in there. I've sorted some of my pictures from the trip, & I hope to post a couple here. I think they sum up the atmosphere pretty well. Florence & I had a smooth crossing from Crete to Athens, even though we drew the short straw as far as boats went. Ours was a much older vessel than the new Ariadne, which Jane & David were lucky enough to travel on. We had a busy couple of days in Athens, the highlights for Florence were the full changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, & a hike & funicular ride up to the top of the highest point - Lycabettos. I was able to change our seats on our homeward flights, which meant that we had a spare seat between us on both legs. A one night stopover in Bangkok was welcome, with comfy beds & a swimming pool. Before we knew it we were back in NZ, & by the time we hit Rotorua we knew that we weren't too fussed about the cold weather. However, being met by Bunny, Winston, & the big surprise - David, more than made up for the cold. A couple more photos on Picasa-more coming.