What??!!

I live in the most beautiful place in the world

I even uploaded this image at high-res so you can download it and use it as desktop wallpaper (and stare at it every day wishing you too live in Leigh :)
Aren't I kind!

Chocolate + Children = Chaos

Ok, so we've just survived another Easter.
To be honest Easter doesn't really rock my boat. Ever since the whole chocolate allergy thing when I was growing up (and way too much carob! yuk!) easter has lost it's charm. I now indulge in chocolate but seem to have lost the ability to eat way too much of the stuff (and then feel sick for the rest of the day). My niece and nephew on the other hand... oh they can knock back the chemically charged brown stuff like the best of 'em.

Hmmm.... kids with too much sugar and chocolate in their system.
It would be a waste to let all that excesss energy go untapped. What game should we play to help burn off those calories?


Tee hee :)

Of course that only lasted for about 30 minutes. Mum and Dad may have a big house but this little blighter is amazingly quick with a vacuum!

So it was outside to play in the hammock. The girls weren't too keen on Callum joining them and so tied him up (as you do).



Apparently this was more fun than you'd expect, so Callum asked to be tied up more.



And after he escaped that lot he came back for more (wriggly little blighter!).



What a great way to spend Easter. Nothing beats a good ol' festive hog-tying.

A few hours later this is where it had progressed to:



Yes he escaped that lot too. He's a little Houdini I tells ya!

...if you work for Child Youth and Family my real name is Gilbert Von Trinkle-Bottom and I don't live in Leigh...

Anzac parade

Ok, enough wasting time playing with other people's blog templates, it must be about time I posted a blog.

Next week (the 25th) is Anzac day. People in Australasia take the day off to comemorate the brave acts of the Australian New Zealand Army Corps in WW1. I won't get into the details of the day in history, you can read about that here .

Every year there is a dawn service in virtually every town/city in NZ. In recent years these have become more popular as the grandchildren of the troops learn about anzac day at school.
A few years ago we were filming at a school in Hamilton for the Ministry of Education. The class were studying Anzac day (as you do at this time of year) and so were going to the dawn service in hamilton as a class.

We decided it would be a good idea to go along and film a few shots of the service for use as cut-aways. We got there at some ridiculous hour (about 5am if I remember correctly) and got set up. We took a few shots of the kids in the crowd and the soldiers guarding the anzac plaque.
At the break of dawn the RSA band started and RSA soldiers (mostly from WW2) marched behind them. I saw the opportunity to get another shot and quickly found a spot where I could see over the crowd. I fired up the sun-gun on my camera (this is a sun-gun. They are made to light up large areas and are incredibly bright) and the street was instantly lit up.
With that the RSA band fumbled and stopped playing. The soldiers lost their step and a few bumped into the band.
:-S
Oops....

After a few seconds the conductor got them all back into position and they started again.... (and I got the shot ;-)

I don't take cameras to dawn services any more...

The Hare Returns

Having noticed that my name seems to have fallen off the guest bloggers list at Tramspotting (the evil Mad Hatter has blocked me, the rat!), I feel the need to contribute absolutely nothing (this message) to this blog, a blog, any blog, in order to ensure my notoriety lives on...

Hello Again!
Love and Hugs
GBFSB