Bird Brains

We have been having a few problems recently with birds of the feathered variety. Not only do they dare to come into our section they also dare to nest in our roof. Yes baby pigeons are chirping away up there as we speak!!

These birds however underestimate the laziness of our Samoan dogs who can spring to life in an instant. One day a mother chicken with her chicks in tow dared to come in the gate. Before we knew it there was much squawking from outside and a flapping of feathers. This resulted in us flying out of the house and me running around the backyard yelling at the dogs like a fish wife. Not sure the neighbours have even seen a palagi fish wife before as they looked quite startled to see this!! Don’t worry I gave them my best Cheshire cat grin J Adam had to grab a dog and then rescue said chicken and toss it over the fence while the chicks managed to escape through the wire fence. Phew, job done for one day.

Sad to say though that one of the parent pigeons was not so lucky. It in fact got caught by “Lucky” and met a dead end. RIP pigeon. I think I’ll stop encouraging the dogs to “get em” pesky birds as I’m not so sure I like the consequences or dealing with the aftermath!

Samoan Bus

This is the life, Vailima on the beach. This is what Samoa is all about right?!! Check out this graphic on the back of one of the new Samoan busses and remember to “enjoy responsibly” as it says!

Focaccia Bread

Inspired by the recipe in the NZ Gardner magazine we received at Christmas we made this focaccia bread.Yummy. Bagels – bread, what will we try our hand at next?!!!

Dragonflies

There have recently been huge numbers of dragonflies flying around our backyard. Very cool. Reminds me of that scene in Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone where Harry, Ron and Hermione have to find the key to open the door to a chamber and the keys are all flying around their heads. Here is one of the dragonfly’s on a flower.

Samoa National Netball 2011 and NZ Umpiring Badge

In January 2011 the Samoa Netball Association held national trials to select the squad to compete for Samoa at the Netball World Championships in Singapore in July. Trialists from Australia, New Zealand and local Samoan girls fought it out on court for a place in the team. Cyclone Wilma managed to wreck some havoc on the netball courts at Apia park and caused many more leaks in an already leaky roof so trials had to be swiftly moved to one of the gymnasiums at Tuanaimato, Faleata. We were fortunate enough to have two visiting umpire coaches from New Zealand who worked with the Samoa Netball umpires during the week long events, coaching and mentoring to help us improve our skills. On the final day myself and “Joanne” sat our NZ Umpiring Badges while umpiring one of the trial games … and we passed!! This was very exciting and is an excellent achievement for us and for Samoa Netball as now we qualify to be invited to umpire at certain events in New Zealand and progress further.

In April 2011 we were invited, along with 2 others from Samoa, to attend an Umpires Training Camp in Auckland along with umpires from Fiji and the Cook Islands. This was a fantastic week of training and umpiring in local competitions and nice to focus time just to umpiring. We stayed in Henderson, West Auckland, right by the Waitakere Trust stadium where Adam and I had attended the World Champs in 2007 and got to see the Pulse vs Mystics game live. We have now been named in the OPUS – Oceania Pacific Umpiring Squad and I have been invited to umpire in October in Napier at the New Zealand Secondary Schools Championships, a tournament where a number of Silver Ferns have been identified in the past. I’m expecting this competition to be fast and furious and am beginning to see why I need to reach 14.5 on the YoYo test to be an umpire at this level! We appreciate the help we receive from Netball New Zealand with our umpiring and know we could not have achieved these results without. There has been mention of becoming an IUA (International Umpires Association) umpire for Samoa. This will require further testing and nailing of Postion, Vision and Timing including that pesky Advantage rule which is my next mission to accomplish. Maybe in October ……..

Visitors During Cyclone Wilma

Shortly after arriving back in Samoa after Christmas we had visitors from the UK. Friends from Bristol who I hadn’t seen in 10 years (am I really that old?!) and who hadn’t met Adam. It was of course excellent to see them, just like the good old days, and fantastic they made the trip to Samoa as part of their 3 month world tour.Unfortunately they arrived about the same time as Cyclone Wilma so maybe didn’t see Samoa at its absolute best however what can you do? No one can control these natural events. As it happens everywhere they went on their travels they encountered some sort of natural disaster, cyclones, earthquakes and snow storms so hmmmmmmmm!! The cyclone brought much rain and eventually some strong winds but nothing worse than a windy day in Wellington!! I had the interesting experience of trying to pick Adam up from downtown one day by driving through flooding. The water reached the bottom of the doors on the car and sploshed, sounding like the hull of a boat. The big Samoan busses coming towards me caused quite a bit of wake that I hoped wouldn’t swamp the engine.

Our friends did manage to get out snorkelling at Samoana before the worst of the storm so saw a bit of beach and sunshine. We picked them up and took them touring round the south coast of Upolu, past various sights. Lulled them into false security with a nice lunch at Sinalei resort before heading for a swim at the Togitogiga waterfalls but due to the rain they had turned into a torrential raging river like we had never seen before so we decided against the swimming idea! We arrived at our place of accommodation for the night at Hideaway, a new resort, and checked into a shared double fale with 1 room and 2 double beds side by side. Very interesting arrangement! All fine though. The cyclone decided to hit and they eye passed close by so we battened down the hatches and broke out the travel Rumikub game to while away some time. Before the trip everyone wanted to know why I was packing so many snacks and drinks however these came in vary handy during this time, especially as there are not a lot of shops to purchase things on this side of the island. On the Sunday we all partook in traditional to’ona’i Sunday lunch after dashing through the rain and holding down the table cloth blowing in the wind. That was an interesting experience for our visitors with octopus salad and solid pieces of taro which they say they could still taste several weeks later!! We finished off the trip with a drive around Lalomanu to check out the re-building after the tsunami.

Maniac on the Water!

After her short ride on a jet ski at our netball party Angela decided she has to get a jet ski. Unfortunately for her that is not going to happen, but for her Xmas present I managed to hire one for half an hour.

So, after getting our lifejackets and a few instructions we were let loose, Ang in charge and me hanging on not knowing what to expect. It started off OK, nice and gentle keeping to the speed limit while we got away from the beach, but once we were clear then the fun began! All of a sudden we took off and I was almost left behind, then we came to a sudden stop and I had my face mashed into the back of Angela’s lifejacket. At this stage I couldn’t tell if she was having a good time or not as all I could hear was a strange mixture of screaming and laughing.

Well, she was having a ball and the faster the better. The only problem was that the faster we went the harder it got to see where we were going. I just held on with my eyes closed while we charged up and down the beach, jumping off some waves and crashing into others. We also quickly realised that she was not that worried about (or very good at) turning, so our ride became a series of high-speed blasts along the beach, usually with a sudden stop at the end, followed by a slow u-turn then the next blast along the beach.

It was great fun, but after half an hour we were both a bit sore from hanging on so tight and being bounced up and down. I think she wants to go again, but maybe next time I will get to drive?!