A nice little spot

Daya has a viewing of a documentary she featured in for the Northcote Baptist op shop tonight. It's in the city so we ventured in before rush hour and plan to walk her up there tonight. W wille leave the other girls looking after the boys and maybe David and I will grab a wee bite to eat while we are out.

Check out where we have parked up in the city, it's down near the via duct. What an amazing city we live in.

 There's some interesting characters parked up down here. Most are retired fellows that have been living in their buses for years. We felt like complete rookies talking to them. Real Kiwi blokes with blokey stories that make you laugh out loud. Then there's the mad woman living in her van that thinks everyone is trying to sabotage her vehicle and has all sorts of stories and accusations against everyone not to mention lifting up her top to reveal her chest to the poor guy in the bus next to us. I think she may need some mental health care. I have not actually seen her yet, she must be out for the day.

Cuppa tea

The sun came out so I took a minute for myself to breathe in the sea air and sip a cuppa tea. I took the first photo bellow and then I thought how cool it would be to be able to see the view as I see it through my sun glasses. The sun rays were flaring and it looked amazing. So, I decided to try take a picture through my glasses (it must have looked odd to bypasses) and I must admit it was a bit tricky holding the glasses, the phone and pushing the button. It's not quite the desired effect but it was worth a crack :)

Is it time?

The last few weeks have been pretty wet and I must say that when David goes to work and I have 7 kids in Mother Trucker and it's raining the whole joy of Camper van life fades away. I found myself on the Internet looking at houses and wondering if the time of the nomad may be coming to an end.

I'm not sure how I feel about this possible change. There are pros and cons to both life styles and I am sure that once in a house I will be yearning to get back on the road. I'm not sure what time frame we are looking at until a house may become a reality but it's definitely on my mind now.

The funny thing is that if we do get a house we will be starting from scratch. We have no furniture or kitchen ware. I kind of like that. I only want to get what we need and keep it minimalistic. Less clutter = less stress. I have become less and less materialistic after living in India and then in our mobile homes. The mobile homes are compact and have everything we need to live. The only thing I really want from a house is a bit more space to have some private time.

I have a picture of us finding a house (rent or buy? I'm not yet sure what we can do) and then we can park our campers and keep living in them while we slowly get beds etc.

Like I say, I'm not sure when this will happen but it's in my thoughts.

The Manaiakalani Programme

Something exciting that David is involved in is the Manaiakalani programme. I wont do it justice to try and explain it so here's a wee blurb from their site and a link to their web site if you want to find out more. http://www.manaiakalani.org/home

  

The Manaiakalani Programme

Living Local, Learning Global

Manaiakalani is an education programme that is achieving significant improvement in student achievement outcomes for nine decile 1A schools in the Auckland suburbs of Glen Innes, Pt England and Panmure. This is Auckland’s oldest State Housing community, and 95 per cent of students are Maori and Pasifika. By offering students full digital citizenship, the Manaiakalani Programme is not only achieving improved educational results, but also realising the potential for greatly enhanced employment and life outcomes for these students.

David is involved in a voluntary role and meets every second Tuesday night where they discuss issues. From this he has become involved in another community project linked with one of the schools. They are planning using the kitchen facilities of the school to teach kids how to run a business, cook and cater, wait table etc and for IT support to be offered at the same time by the kids of the school to the community. There is also a possibility the kids will be able to earn credits towards their NCEA. The other thing the children will learn to do is apply for a job and put together a C.V. These are all very valuable things to know.

I'm really happy David has found something he is passionate about and can be involved in helping our local community using his skills. They are a great bunch of guys who are all working together and who all bring different skills to contribute. It's great to be around big thinkers with big dreams that are becoming grounded into reality. (Mmmmm, I could do with being involved in something like this myself)