Happy 5 month day

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Originally uploaded by malclocke

A quick wee status report on our dear daughter. She is still doing great, and seems to be a dab hand at attracting attention whilst out and about, exhibiting a wealth of cute smiles reserved solely for complete strangers.

Her alertness has been noted by the Plunket nurse, and she also seems to have a thirst for literature, seemingly wanting to digest book after book. Unfortunately, she wants to digest books in the literal sense, and the thirst for knowledge manifests itself as a puddle of drool all over the cover of 'All aboard with Maisy'.

Major breakthroughs of late noted by her oh-so-easily-impressed parents include blowing raspberries, rolling over, grabbing absolutely everything within reach and a frantic, breakdance like cacophony of limb motion that would be called crawling were it not for the complete lack of any forward progress.

A quick thank you needs to be added to Chris, Jo and Dylan for coming to visit us and showing great patience creeping around the house while Olive was asleep. Of course, we could never provide hospitality comparable to that on offer in West Bergholt, where even Fererro Rocher seem mundane, but hope you enjoyed your stay!

Keep an eye on flickr for more pics. Adios for now.

Bam ... and the dirt is gone!

I'm sure many of you in the UK have questions about living in NZ, what are the cultural differences, the good points, the bad points. But probably top of the list is 'can you get Cillit Bang?'

Well loyal readers, I'm afraid the answer is no! But into the fold comes a new contender, the only slightly less inconceivably named 'Easy Off Bam'. There are many similarities between the two, the garish packaging, exceptional ability at cleaning coins, etc. But the real difference lies, not in the product, but in it's champion. For where Cillit Bang has Barry Scott, on the other side of the world we are blessed with his evil twin, Martin Grelis. Sadly, the internet seems completely devoid of pictures of Martin fulfilling his role as Bambassador, so those of you on the top part of the world map will have to use your imagination.

The obvious question that arises from all this is who's better? The answer is, of course, Martin for two reasons:

1. Martin could beat Barry in a fight


2. Martin is a real actor, he was even in The Matrix. Barry is just made up, although he does have an interesting life story