poor old fire men. life is sometimes very depressing and we all need a little boost sometimes. when they open this up there are all sorts of encouraging words and phrases to help them on their way. we all need that sometime.
by the way, you’re looking great today and you’re having a really positive impact on those around you. keep up the good work dear funkypancake reader
living in a land with little recent human history i enjoyed seeing some old stuff in australia. even if it was an ice cream advert from probably 50 years ago. that’s ancient in new zealand terms.
here’s a classic bit of road which just stops and goes no where.
old boat
newer boat and secret submarine (shhhh, don’t tell anyone)
xmas tree in the thirty degree heat.
we had our office xmas party yesterday. the theme was wild west.
my desk-neighbourhood went as characters from Outrageous Fortune, which is a top NZ TV show. i was munter (if you can’t tell from the picture)
the party wasn’t actually in the office. but here’s the scene before the departure. just like a normal friday afternoon.
the party itself was very good actually with people dressed in all sorts of comedy costumes doing comedy things in a nice friendly kiwi manner
i finally got to meet Andy in Auckland. He’s a friend of good friends in the UK and has been fantastic at ‘praying us in’ to New Zealand over the last year. Including one moment when i was in the NZ embassy in the UK where an admin error threatened to derail our visa process. Andy was at that moment on Twitter and a few arrow prayers later, everything was sorted !
anyway, it was great to meet him in person and find he lived up to my expectations as a thoroughly nice/jolly/welcoming chap !
here’s a man adjusting the polystyrene bits in the snow globe. it’s the second time i’ve seen polystyrene bits in the last week – last sunday night i lay on a bean bag looking up at the underside of an umbrella at sydney observatory. we had to lay on bean bags on the floor looking up at the rather basic start display projected on to the underside of the umbrella
when we got up to leave there were polystyrene bits all over the floor due to a leaky bean bag. but it looks like little stars had escaped from the planetarium
oh, and here’s the 20 foot santa where i met a friend for morning tea yesterday. you can see a much better photo of santa and a bit of history at this excellent website here
i’ve been in australia for the last few days, but i’m back home in auckland, new zealand again now which is good. Australia was hot – mid/high 30s and >75% humidity. NZ is mid 20s i think, so a welcome relief.
anyway, expect an explosion of Sydney picks over the next few weeks !
this is a close up of that mannequin in the local mall (maul) which i’ve photed before. she’s definitely not right
what an amazing instrument. perfect for a snake to hide up i’d imagine.
i’ve been publishing our family pictures elsewhere so funkypancake is now less autobiographical. but anyway, here’s a picture of jane with an egg benedict (i think). a popular local dish (the food, not jane)
