General Chat

I guess having fingers crossed explains the spelling of certain words Allan?

Glad you are surviving, we in Auckland have been having reasonably good weather and then you here the news and all these roads are closed, houses flooded and in one case a dear little place on our holiday Island ended up in pieces down the hillside and onto the beach.
One woman was wandering around in knee deep water looking for her car, she said she saw it float away and wondered where it ended up.
Northland has had very arid summers recently with even the kiwis coming out of the bush in search of water and now a lot of it has been flooded.

The extremes are so bad and I know this didn't happen like this when I was young.

Persie

So, Persey, it's not climate change! You are at fault for becoming older. :0))

Allan

Correct Allan (^_^)

Hello just a message to wish you all the best with your bad weather . Take care Allan & OH .
Barbra x

Before I close down for the night....

~~Hope your eye is better Tony:) Just cold water eye baths are soothing.
Go to the Dr if it doesn't improve soon , please.

Allan ~~ 'Batten down the hatches' mate and take care .

Goodnight / Good day to all on the the thread~~~~

Sandie.xx

Mornin from a hot sunny Melbourne.

11:00am and temp is 36c building up to hot 41c.
Next two weeks for Melbourne are reported to be in the mid to high 30s.....so i guess Summer has arrived......:>))

Tele news is recommending that all elderly and those with respiratory problems stay indoors today by their air-cons or fans.

Just covered my Tomato plants and summer vegies with shade cloth, as they will cook on the vine if i dont.

Thanks for the thoughts regarding my stupidity with the eye.
Feels much better this morning and the bluring has gone.


Allan . Stay safe over in the West. Tele showing us some of the storms in and around Perth.

Grandids arriving shortly,the Pool is crystal clear, and Chicken and Beef skewers are ready for the Bar-bie to feed the hungry mouths.....lol

Cricket starts at 2:00pm 50/50 and the decking fridge is chocka's with VB tablets....and thats where i will be for the rest of the day and evening.


Tony....:>))

Must get back over to New Zealand.

Been about 6 years since was last there.

Perse. We stayed in Auckland when holidaying the north island.

Checking through my papers, we stayed at the Crowne Plaza Hotel.....and if my memories correct....just around the corner in Wellsey street ( sp ) was the best steak house i had ever been to. "Tony's steak and sea food"
I remember thinking at the time ...if the name was "Tony's" then the food must be great.....lol
I wasnt wrong...Yumm!!

Hope the restaurant is still there, for when we come back over.
The flight time from Melbourne to Auckland is basically the same as Melbourne to Brisbane in Oz..... so i dont know why we havent been back since, as we go to QLD every year. NZ is a beautiful country and much to see and do.

Tony...:>))

Do you know something Tony's is still there in Wellesley Street. He did have several other restaurants and I have been to a few of them but I think most of them have gone now.
The price of restaurant eating has gone through the roof.
The waterfront has a lot of good eateries.

I prefer to go from Auckland to Melbourne than the other way around. I hate losing hours but like gaining them. Especially if going to Tassie - I can have a potter around Melbourne using the free trams as we have a whole day there between flights.

I'd advise anyone coming here to get a flight to Christchurch (they need the dollars as well) and then get a rental car and go up the coast or cross the country through Arthurs Pass, up through the coal mining towns and a trip to Farewell Spit and then around to Nelson, if you can leave the car at Picton or take it with you though would be cheaper fare without vehicle on the ferry to Wellington (have even done that on a rough day). Wellington is underestimated as a city I really like the place. Has quite a few points of interest including Te Papa Museum and if you ever go there do watch the screening of Golden Years of NZ. You get to sit in a bunch of scruffy old chairs just like early NZ.

Do you think I should send my CV to the tourist board?

Persie

Dear all, the cyclone ended not with a bang but with a whimper. It fizzled out to a low and passed the coast near Perth at 8.00pm last night. We got some heavy rain at about 9.00pm but no very strong winds.

Tides were higher than normal and it's possible that some low-lying areas may be flooded.

Tony, those storms that you saw on tele it now turns out, had absolutely nothing to do with the cyclone. It was due to seperate weather conditions that sprang up without warning. Unfortunately two people lost their lives during them: and elderly woman was killed in her car just metres from her home, and up in Grealdton a 17 year old girl was electrcuted when she stepped on a fallen power line.

Allan

Below is a link to the local newsite if you are interested



http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/storm-worse-than-cyclone-shire-president/story-e6frg14u-1225996973112

Allan

Thanks Allan,

I think my family are surviving the weather okay but we did hear on the news that people at the event were having their tents stolen. This is supposed to be an sing song weekend with all the various churches attending and they have to put up with this sort of behaviour.

That is awful about the young girl getting electrocuted. Fallen wires are such a hazard. They were laying new underground wires at one place here in Auckland and some enterprising soul went in and cut himself a mass of the wires so as he could sell the copper they were great big thick strands. He was fine but the chap that got sent to repair it got electrocuted and died.

Persie

Persie

Whilst you would think that church goers would be above that sort of thing, unfortunately there will always be a few bad apples.

It's such a cliche, I know, but very true. However, I'm a great believer in Karma

Allan

Do you have self-serving check outs at your supermarkets or is NZ so far ahead of everyone else?

They have become just that self=-serving, people pass their products over the scanner etc and then the whole lot is okayed by weight etc. However, with fresh fruit and veg and bulk food purchases people have been found to be coding their mandarins to oranges if they are cheaper per kilo and their brazil nuts to peanuts or fancy apricots to the cheap ones. One woman who did not want to be named in the paper (well hardly) said she did it all the time. I know times are hard but this results in a price increase in groceries in general and the rest of us to pay.

Now that is not etchical.

P xx

Not ethical at all Perse.
Naughty woman, surprising how the fraudulent can suss out these things.
Criminal minds!!
I wouldn't have even thought of that one.
Yes we have those self-service checkouts, have for a few yrs, dau always used them whilst she was in Uni in Swansea before we had them in the'valleys'.
Tho we've have them locally for a few yrs, I tend not to use them cos I have a discount card as my son does seasonal work where I shop, and to use the discount card always needs authorisation ,so doesn't save much time and I've usually got too many items.

Sandie.x

Arvo...from a rather hot Melbourne ( 41c )

Knocked off work a little earlier today, as the hot sun saps ones energy.

Alan. Sorry to hear about the loss of life of the two people.
Any loss of life is a tragedy, and there has been quite a few recently with all these floods we are experiencing.


Things are not looking good still for our Queensland State as these two cyclones move about on and off the east coast.
The second one is absolutley massive, and if it hits the coast will do quite a bit of damage.

Below is a link showing this ""second"" Cyclone out at sea, and you can see on the left the outline of the east coast of Australia ( Queensland ) in comparison.
Just below the Cyclone you can make out the white outline of the islands of ( New Caledonia ) Noumea...... and a bit higher Port Vila .....Vanuatu. We holidayed on these Islands 3 years ago, and the local people are lovely.

http://www.goes.noaa.gov/sohemi/sohemiloops/shirgmscol.html

Some of our friends live on Hamilton Island ( Whitsunday Islands ) of the Queensland coast, and i'm hoping they will be O'k.

Poor old Queensland is really taking a beating this year.

Tony.