Ha, I hear you say, no blogs for a few days! Maybe you thought that Lesley was working her socks off and Roy spent his days surfing in Wanui Bay. Actually, the first part is true, though embellished a bit, Lesley is really happy with what she's doing.....and what she does best......seeing and advising patients. And she meets a lot more of the locals than I do. The luxury of fifteen minute appointments means that some fat can be chewed : she has seen a patient who was born in Dalkeith (this is not something you would want to publicise, but it's quite impressive hearing this on the other side of the world.....apologies to our good friends with Dalkeith roots).

Lesley has taken to cycling the 7km into work. That is to say when it's not too windy, the prevailing wind here is south west. There are times when the valiant girl has set off in the name of keeping fit, and been stopped in her tracks along the way by a vicious gust. However, the upside is that she gets a good wheech back with much freewheeling. This morning she set off and with no wind did the trip in 30 minutes bettering her worst time by 15 minutes!

We're now established in our Wanui Beach palace, rented until November 28th. It is in a quiet subdivision, a rather nice modern one storey building, no more than two years old. And it has double glazing! Water is provided by rainwater runoff from the roof, so no danger of a drought. The beach is about 300 metres down the road from us; we've walked along it a few times but it's still too chilly to actually go and sit on it.

There are chores to be done, and it's a Monday. Isn't that the day when the old wives do the washing and ironing? Are floors not swept and windows cleaned? What about loos and showers......a clean once a week keeps them happy, just like Tonya used to do in Ancrum Bank. It's a cracking sunny day with a breeze, so there's no excuse. Not even an unresponsive i-phone needing reset (grrrr), the need to write a blog and get a haircut. Well, your man can't clean the bathroom without a bottle of cleaner, so a trip to 'Countdown' is fairly near the top of the agenda. We do try to go at least one day without going to the supermarket and if we manage we congratulate ourselves. Today is, yet again, not that day.

Throughout the blog so far you've read 'Lesley' and 'Roy'. Out here the accent is quite distinctive and you have to listen quite closely to pick up words..........Lesley is 'Leasly' and Roy is 'Ruoy'. Another couple of examples : yesterday I went for a 'herecut', and tonight we're having fresh 'feesh' with 'pataytoes' and 'beaynes'.

The antipodean accent prompts me to tell an old joke (actually it's relevant as the battle of Gallipoli was almost 100 years ago) :

A group of Englishman have been posted to particularly dangerous part of the front line. With shells and gunfire exploding a few hundred metres away, and bullets whizzing overhead, the ANZAC officer pokes his head into the muddy dank trench billet, lit by a flickering electric bulb and, and shouts 'Welcome to Gallipoli, gentlemen. Have you come here to die?' 'No Sir', replies the fresh faced 17 year old Essex youngster looking up from his bunk, 'we came here yesterdie'.

In the next blog I'll write about where we've explored in the Gizzy region and also some ground breaking local Maori news. Till then, G'day!