First swim of the year

Okay so Friday the work for the kids from the Correspondence School turns up.  Three huge banana boxes and some other assorted paraphernalia, and there was me worrying there wouldn't be enough.  It was just as well Walter the intinerant teacher for our area had paid a visit last week or I wouldn't have even known where to start.  He gave me some sound advice...don't open it in front of the kids, just sit down and work through it by yourself, start at the start and put everything else away.  Their teacher in Wellington has sent four weeks work through so you have to sift through it all and start with the unit with the lowest number and work your way up.  Unfortunately for me the units aren't exactly clearly labelled, they have ridiculous codes PX9671 and PX9762 for example, and the maths units for Lizzie and Xanthe have the same names but different codes.  Its all fairly straight forward once you get your head around it all though.  I think the most difficult thing is going to be the fact that the integrated units for the two younger girls are different.  Integrated units are kind of like a topic study but incorporates several curriculum areas.  So, Lizzie's is on colours and there's all these activities which all relate back to colour.  Xanthe's is whanau and family.  There is absolutely no cross-over whatsoever between the two units so I have to try and fit in on Monday hiding under the bed with Lizzie and working on doing things in the dark and writing stories about colour, while talking with Xanthe about whanau and writing letters to special people.  I'm sure I'll manage.  Didn't think carefully back when pro-creating about having two of them so close together...19 months between them.

Madi's work will be fairly easy as she can do alot of it independently.  I thought to myself that as the science unit is only 6 hours worth of work or thereabouts we would just do a science "day" at some point.  Turns out it is a plant and seed study and we have to keep a journal, so science every day it is then I suppose.  Not looking forward to all the art work she has to do, purely from a mess perspective given that I am the dogsbody who will clean it all up.

Had the first swim of the year yesterday (Friday) down in the mighty Waiapu.  The river is still running quite high after the nearly 300mm of rain earlier this month, but the Kouka Creek has made a nice pool where it flows into the main river and created its own channel.  Took the three girls and Scott's cousin down to the creek by the house where the girls thought it was a good idea to cover themselves in clay from on the bank.  Plenty of people would pay good money for a clay body wrap I am sure.  So the creek by the house doesn't have a huge amount of water in it so the thought was chuck them on the back of the ute, along with the dogs, and take them down the road to the slightly bigger creek where they could clean themselves off.  Thought we'd have a gander at the river while we were there and found the worlds best swimming hole.  Wish I'd taken the camera.  Its about 100m long and doesn't move a whole heck of alot so is pretty safe.  Very deep, well over my head in spots.  Kids had a great time.  Iwa the three legged dog managed to swim across to the other side and even the Jack Russell, who never swims, made an outstanding effort and followed her mate Iwa to the far shore.  Little known fact, that I will bore you all with, the Waiapu is the second most silt laden river in the world after the Yangtze in China.  It used to hold top spot apparently.  Basically this means that per cup of Waiapu water there is more silt than almost all the other rivers in the world.  Hard to believe when you look at the Whanganui or Wairoa River in Dargaville as a comparison for clarity.

Its now Sunday and its raining.  Typically it wasn't forecast very well by the Met Service, I am sure they think that only 5 people live past Gisborne so its not worth worrying about.  Given that we are two hours from Gisborne and three hours from Whakatane, it would be nice if we got the occasional mention.  Its like putting Auckland and Hamilton or Palmerston North and Wellington together and calling it one region!  Not much on the agenda for today.  Spent yesterday shifting our friends from Ruatoria to Gisborne, four ute and trailers did the job nicely.  We even got to have takeaway pizza which for us is a very rare treat!  Scott will be miserable all day about the fact that the All Blacks lost the rugby last night.  He is blaming it all on Stephen Donald who we believe should never have gone on the the tour.  Fortunately for my television watching pleasure, provincial rugby is just about finished so we will all be allowed to watch something else from Thursday to Sunday!!!  Can't wait for the next All Black's game where they might give the outstanding Sonny Bill Williams a run.