Porsche's Christmas Present.

Porsche got a Catnip filled monkey on a string with little bells, from Father Christmas, it made her go all silly! She had to have a little lie down!.

Christmas Joke.

Merry Christmas to you all.
I hope you enjoy this Christmas joke.

My big red Amaryllis

I am so pleased with my Amaryllis, its the first time it has flowered, so I brought in indoors so we could enjoy it in the conservatory. I have a second one growing in the garden, that is more pink with stripes of white, not so pretty.

Rowena's Paintings

Two more of my sister Rowena's paintings. A Cityscape and an Island, I like them both.
Rowena paints abstract so maybe you can see some other thing in them.
She must get her own blog to showcase these great paintings. Maybe she might sell some more of them.

My Sister's painting.

My Sister Rowena has taken up painting with oils. She is going to classes and I think she is doing real well. This is her 2nd or 3rd big painting, it looks rather like a Masai shield all painted, or a pod full of bright red seeds, whatever it looks like to you its quite good and in fact she sold it straight away as soon as she showed it. I am not certain whether it was quite finished when I got this photo there may be some more painting added within the white area.

Porsche fishing cat

Pet Pride Meme.
Porsche likes to sit on this pole with the string hanging from it, to watch the goldfish in the pool below it looks just like she is fishing, and maybe she is!
Doesn't she blend in well with the colour of the trellis.

Nyle's medals

These are the real gold and silver medals that my Daughter, Nyle won at the World Masters Games in Sydney last week.
Her Auntie Rowena from New Zealand just happened to be in Sydney at the right time to watch her niece walk her Gold medal walking race. She is congratulating Nyle just before the medal presentation. It made such a big difference to have her Auntie there cheering her on.

Gold Nyle won Gold

Gold, Nyle won a Gold medal at the world games for 5 kms Race Walking,
Wonderful, she has trained and worked so hard for this, she really deserves
her big moment. I am so proud of her.
Congratulations daughter.

Silver Medal for Nyle.

WOW, Nyle won a Silver medal at the World Games for Race Walking in her age group over 10kms. I am so proud of her, she only lost to the gold medal winner by 1 second! And in a Personal best time!
Next race is only 5kms long, I am expecting big things from it.

Finding the road to success

Finding the road to success. ( from the Nelson Daily Mail Newspaper)

My daughter Nyle's story.

Sometimes it takes time to find your favourite fitness activity, but the passage of time doesn't necessarily mean you can't achieve at the highest level.

Nyle is 42. She's always had some involvement with sport and fitness, but only now is she reaching her peak in the sport she's chosen.

"I am fitter than I have been in my life. I feel younger and enjoy the extra energy I have now."

Nyle is a race walker. Today she leaves for Sydney for the World Masters Games – one of 25,000 competitors from more than 100 countries competing in 28 sports at 70 venues across the city. How did this happen?

"I represented my school in New Zealand national cross-country and inter-school athletics. I had tried powerlifting, and in my early 30s had entered a couple of bodybuilding championships. But nothing had really grabbed my attention as a permanent sport.

"As a dare, I entered the 2006 Taylors Women's Triathlon in the walk section as a recreational walker. It was at this event that I spotted my first race walker and thought, `Wow, how can I learn to do that?'.

"I tried to teach myself. I entered some duathlons at Rabbit Island, and even biked in the Lake to Sea and Lake to Renwick. But I didn't enjoy the biking as much as the other events.

"In 2007, I decided that I would enter the Taylors triathlon again, and so trained for it, and it paid off when I won the walk section and then later that year the Blenheim Women's.

"I then met Sharon McD at one of the Wednesday night 5km races, and she showed me how to race walk and explained the rules. I still couldn't get the hang of the style, and still looked like a recreational walker."

By this time, Nyle had a ton of motivation, but needed to be pushed in the right direction.

"It was Stephen arriving up from Dunedin that was to change how I walked. He joined us for Wednesday night walks in Richmond, and with his coaxing and guidance my style slowly changed.

"Last year I approached Stephen and asked him to be my coach. I improved quickly under his tutoring, winning the Nelson Shoe Clinic Half Marathon in May, then going to the Oceania Masters Track and Field in Townsville in September. I won three gold medals, one silver and two bronze. The golds were for the 10km road walk, 3000m track walk and 5000m track walk."

Nyle faces her first challenge of the 2009 Masters Games on Tuesday, when she will line up against nine other women in her age group at the start of the 10km road walk at Paramatta Park.

Her competition will end on Sunday with the 5000m track walk. There will be eight women in her age group, but a total of 83 on the track in the various age groups.

The route to the start line hasn't been easy. "I have a programme that my coach has made up for me. It alternates distances and pace times usually one long distance walk a week up to approximately 15km, one track session, two drill sessions and three road walks, 5-8km each walk.

"There have been days where motivation has been lacking. I had a long buildup to this event, and it gets hard day in and day out. I don't train well in the frosty cold mornings, so I do all my training in the evenings.

"When it's raining or it's cold and you know you have to go out and do an 8km training walk, you focus on the main goal. That is to get on the podium in Sydney."

Written and published by the Nelson Daily Mail.

My Pet has a pet of her own.

Pet Pride Meme.
This little Silvery Eye flew into our lounge window by mistake and stunned its self. Porsche was fascinated by the bird and seemed to decide to keep it as a pet. She never did eat it, just gave it a few licks and pats then the bird recovered and flew away to safety.

Nyle's Sponsorship training gear.

My daughter Nyle will be race walking in the World games in Australia, in two weeks time, to do so she has enlisted some sponsorship.

To start with she had set herself a goal of how much sponsorship she wanted to achieve. she wanted to sell 10 golds certificates, 10 silvers and 10 Bronze. I am thrilled to say that she have sold all 10 of her Golds, 3 of Silvers and 4 Bronze. she will try for one more week to sell off the last of the silver and bronze certificates and that will be it. Nyle has put her sponsors names and logos on her training top (as per photo's) and yes she does train in it. Her training partner says its like walking with a advertising billboard .. She has also put the same names onto her training bag, it looks very official now.
I think she looks pretty neat in her training gear, and its great that she has managed to find enough sponsorship to assist with her expenses while at the World Games. Now she just has to concentrate on her racing and her times and the health and fitness of her legs and feet,
You go girl!

A blogaholic.

I saw this on Gillian from South Africa's blog and had to borrow it. Oh yes I am a blogaholic!

The Petonche Game

Summer Stock Sunday.
My grand children play a game of petonche at the beach house while at a family gathering. There were no rules just fun.

A real smart dog.

High time I featured a dog for Pet Pride Meme.
Not my dog, just one I found on the net and was impressed with. I hope you enjoy watching him too. He is better at pool than I am.

Stephanie's 9th birthday party

Pet Pride, for the big orange Garfield cat toy!

Summer Stock Sunday.
We were invited to another important birthday party, Stephanie our youngest grand daughters 9th birthday. She had many guests both young and old to celebrate her day, a bubble machine supplied an endless stream of colourful glinting bubbles that danced around the girls as they played on a delightfully hot Spring day.
The girls had a big orange Garfield that was fulled with sweets to play toss with till he fell to pieces and all the candy was gobbled up quickly, there was all the old fashioned games like pass the parcel, musical chairs, pin the nose on the clown and hide and seek games all with prizes for the winner.
Then all the food came out and children descended like locusts and quickly there was very little left. A chocolate mud cake was the birthday cake with candles that we couldn't keep burning in the gentle breeze, but Stephanie cut it anyway, it was delicious.

My Sister's surprise birthday Party

Summer Stock Sunday.
My dear sister Rowena was totally overwhelmed by the surprise 60th birthday party all her family and friends put on for her this Sunday. The lovely cake was baked by her youngest daughter Kirstie, we all enjoyed it and to give everyone a piece the whole cake was cut up and eaten. There would of been at least 100 people packed in to the restaurant to celebrate, we all had a wonderful time. She was given plane tickets for a free holiday in Australia, plus absolutely masses of both NZ and Aus $ as spending money, so wonderful when she has been very sick and has just lost her job, because of the recesssion. Arn't freinds and family wonderful sometimes.

Rooster lazing in the garden

Pet Pride.
Camera Critters.

Do check out lots more wonderful animals at both of these Memes.

I spotted this big rooster lazing in the garden on Lifou Island, he was waiting for dinner time so he could eat up the scraps.
There was also a skinny cat and a mangy dog waiting eagerly for their share of the scraps.
Yes they did get plenty of tit bits from us all.

Fancy Sun Hats from Lifou Island.

Summer Stock Sunday, wearing fancy hand made sun hats at Lifou Island. Couldn't stand too close together with the long fronds sticking out all around your head, but they were comfortable and covered with little flowers too.
Erle's expression shows about what he thought of the hats.
I am standing outside the Big Chief's palace/house, not exactly an every day Sunday experience either! (Seems I took off my hat for the big chief)

Man with pet Python

Pet Pride.
This man in Langkawi, Malaysia with his pet python, he was so proud of this snake, he wanted us to have a hold, but as New Zealand has no snakes at all, we have a horror of the reptiles and wouldn't touch it.
He was a taxi driver who took his pet along on his taxi jobs! Wouldn't happen in our country!

Summer Stock Sunday.
On board the Pacific Sun, cruising the Pacific, there is lots of time to just sit inthe sun with a book relaxing while watching the waves outside the port hole windows. Pull up another of these extra comfy chairs and join us, the cocktail waitress will be along soon, we can have a little party.

Scenic drive to the Wairau River Reserve.

Summer Stock Sunday, scenic drive.

Scenic lane to a pretty view of the Wairau River scenic reserve, where there are lots of wild native birds and a nice picnic area, great for swimming on a hot day.

Porshe guarding the keys.

Porsche, guards the car keys on our windowsill.
Sadly the car is a very nice Toyota Camry, not a beautiful Porsche.

Pet Pride Meme, check out lots of other delightful pets.
Camera Critters Meme. also has some really cute critters.
First time I have entered this meme, Porsche is a Silver Blue Burmese girl.

Sea Gulls on a stormy day

Summer Stock Sunday and Pets Pride Meme
Red Billed Gulls catch a free ride on the fishing boats railings during a stormy trip down the Havelock Sounds. Not exactly pets just very grateful friendly birds, riding while others have to wheel and fly in the strong wind. Beaks to the wind everyone, and hold on tightly.
Taken through the front, sea spray covered window.