Easter Sunday on the Beach!

After church on Sunday, Nyree and I decided to go down to the beach for a bit! I think this is the first time I have spent my Easter Sunday afternoon on a beach apart from possibly at Spring Harvest but you wouldn't have sat sunbathing then!

We decided to lay in the sun until we were hot enough to get in the sea! The sea was freezing, but we did both go in and even had a swim around, doing a bit of excercise!

I then cooked the flat a roast for our dinner, I demostrated Dad's speciality of crispy roast poptatoes and Mum's speciality of honey roasted parsnips and carrots. It was a great day!

Proof! Nyree and me!

Wellington Zoo

I decided to go to Wellington Zoo today and have a look around! It is pretty close to my house so I thought I would take a look. I had been told that I probably wouldn't see any Kiwi birds as they are nochturnal but I was told on arrival that they were due to start a talk about Tahi, the one legged kiwi! He was caught in a trap that was left to get possums and as a result had to have his leg amputated. He has had so many procedures and operations done to him, he is quite used to being up in the day so they bring him out very day. He was pretty cool!

I then saw Shaun, the Sun Bear, he was pretty impressive. The keeper had just put some food around his enclose and then let him out. He was very striking and enjoyed a good feed.

It was a very pleasant wander round seeing lions, tigers, cheetah, zebra, ostrich, wallaby, kangaroo, baboon, giraffe, wild dog (and their half eaten lunch!)

This is all good research of things to do when people come to visit me!

Skippy and co.

Easter

This weekend is Easter weekend and I wanted to take a moment to recognise why we celebrate easter and to remember that God sent his only son to die on the cross and then rise again so that we don't have to live under the judgement of our own sin.
Matthew 27 vs 45-54:

From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"—which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
When some of those standing there heard this, they said, "He's calling Elijah."
Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. The rest said, "Now leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to save him."
And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.
At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people.
When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, "Surely he was the Son of God!"

Matthew 28 vs 1-11:

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.
There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.
The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.' Now I have told you."
So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."

Happy Easter everyone!

Photography

I have enrolled on a photography course! I have a digital SLR camera and I have absolutely no idea how to use it! So, last Thursday at 5.30pm I attended my first of 5 sessions. Last week we learnt about shutter speeds - what they do and why, apeture settings, what they do and why and how apeture and shutter speeds work together. We also learnt about ISO/ASA settings and we did a bit on exposure. It was really interesting and a lot of it made sense when you look at the different aspects in isolation. When you have to put them all together, it becomes a bit more confusing! At 7.30pm, I left with some serious brain ache!
I decided to take my new found knowledge and practice at the cricket, I didn't last very long in manual mode! I got what I needed to do, just didn't do it very well! Automatic was much easier to make sure I caught the action shots that I wanted.
Last night I attended week two! We had a quick re-cap from last week and then spent the 2 hours looking at metering. Apparently my camera has 3 different settings for metering which made sense to me, it also made sense to me that the camera works out the exposure on a grey scale but when putting it together and trying to work out when I come to take a photo: what kind of photo I want to achieve, what part of the scene do I want the camera to use to metre from, are there any strong areas of black or white which I will need to compenste for? What is the lighting like and therefore what ISO setting do I need to use? what depth of field am I trying to get in the shot and therefore what apeture setting do I use and finally what shutter speed do I need after all of that to achieve the correct exposure, is not so easy to get. To add to that, the order in which these things are thought about can be swapped around depending on what kind of photo i'm trying to achieve.
Again, I left with serious brain ache! Practice will make perfect though and I'm sure I will get to the point where I can think about all of the above in about 5 seconds rather than 5 hours!

Test Cricket at The Basin - part 2

I apologise for the two part post but it was getting late and the pictures take ages to upload! I'm afraid I can't really remember what cricket happened on what day! I do know that England won despite some very bad fielding mistakes. I also know that I loved every minute of being at the basin even if the cricket wasn't the most exciting in the world! I will leave you with some of my photo's!

The Slips! KP himself!

The crowd at the basin. It was absolutely packed on the Saturday! We arrived at the ground at about 9.30 to save our space on the bank which is not very Kiwi and felt very strange not to just think 'she'll be right' (which is a fairly common kiw thought) and turn up at 10.30 for start of play!
The barmy army were at the far end of this picture and they definitely made themselves heard! They had some good chants and songs and probably made England feel like they were playing at home.

At lunch they let people onto the outfield which you would never see happen in England! I went down a took a picture of the wicket!

Monty bowling, we had a few wicket maidens, sidebottom himself, and some batting action.

Below is the winning moment on Monday morning!

Test Cricket at The Basin! - Part 1

The English cricket team have been in town and it has been great watching them. The TSCF office is literally just down the road from the Basin Reserve! From Thursday to Monday, every spare moment was spent watching the cricket! Lunch times were spent at the ground, after work. On Friday, my supervisor said I could go down in the morning and watch Ambrose get his century! Saturday and Sunday were spent with Tim and Lizzy and other friends watching the cricket. The weather was fantastic on Saturday and it stayed dry on the Sunday (I went to night church instead of morning church). The five day ticket cost less than 25 pounds! What a fantastic way to spend your weekend. It was a strange feeling getting to work todayand not plugging my headphones into the radio!

A Little Taste of Home

My lovely flatmates clubbed together and Nyree went to a shop called 'Cool Britannia' which imports and sells lots of English goodies that you can't get over here. The picture is of the things they got me. They also got me a Thorntons bar of chocolate but i've eaten that! Thanks guys! It was really thoughtful and meant heaps!
You wouldn't really think that PG tips would taste that different to tea here but I made myself a mug of tea and it was familiar, it tasted of home. It doesn't even start to make up for not having all of my friends and family around, but it was lovely to have a little taste of home!

Staglands Reserve

After a pretty rough week, Jen and I decided to head out for the day and spent the morning at Staglands nature reserve which is in Upper Hutt about 50 minuites out of Wellington. It is home to a wide variety of ducks, birds, parrots, pigs, donkeys, goat, deer, a horse and some guinea pigs! It also had an Old Bush Settlement. We both had a bag of feed to ensure our popularity with the animals. The ducks are certainly well rehearsed and know that the people wandering round are extremely likely to have food! I think next time I will go, I will not wear jandals so that i'm not so paranoid about my feet getting pecked.
After making our way through all the ducks, we arrived at the Kune Kune Kainga which is a unique NZ breed of pig! There must be a funny caption to go with this pic of the very ugly pig. He was quite a bully of the other smaller pig in the pen!

We made our way round the track passing through the Kea Gully(A Kea being a rare mountain parrot), the donkey stables, a trout pond, the toe toe avery and accros the river on a swing bridge.









We had a bit of a laugh at the recreation of an abandoned Akatarawa settlement, as we had a drink in the bar and ended up in jail.

















Then of course were the goats, horse and deer! After enjoying lunch in the cafe we made our way to the shopping mall and had an afternoon of retail therapy - I didn't buy any shoes though!!!!!!!

Ana vs Anna

People keep mistaking me for someone else. They keep thinking that i'm someone called Ana (long a at the beginning). I have no idea who she is! Seriously, I don't know how to say my name in an English accent without people thinking I am called Ana. I can't say it in a Kiwi accent without sounding like i'm taking the micky. I might resort to wearing a name badge, I have once introduced myself: 'Hi, I'm Anna, A-N-N-A.' Any suggestions are welcome!

Flatties!

Here they are! My new Flatties, Nyree and James! I'm looking forward to getting to know them better and sharing lots of fun times together.