I started to get excited about this trip a few days out, but each time I asked mum or dad – Do we go today? I was always told, only 4 more sleeps, only 3 more sleeps etc. It took a while, but I finally found mum packing her bags on the Monday night. Finally I thought, and while they weren’t looking I snuck out and hid in her bag.
Morning came, but slowly, as I was excited about going to see Bertie. Mum found me hiding when they were packing the car, but she decided I could go with her this time. We drove to the airport and I stayed hidden in her hand baggage so the big bird people would not see me. It was hard, especially as I have this blasted bell around my neck.
Anyway, after we all had a cup of coffee, dad had to go off to work, so mum and I went through to the other side. Once we were through, dad waved goodbye and left, so mum and I went and sat in the Koru Lounge and drank more coffee. Was good!
I heard the call for our flight so I hurried mum up and we cruised off down to get onto the plane. When we put our pass through the machine it spat it out at us, and the man said we had been reallocated, as they had wanted to sit a family together. We were happy with that, as the new seat had us only 2 behind the other one. When we got on the plane we couldn’t believe what we saw. They had moved us up from peasant class to business class. That was really neat.
It was a great trip, we left 20 minutes late and arrived 30 minutes early. Good Kiwi drivers! We watched a movie on our own private screens, it was one we had not seen before, and all too soon it was time to make sure our seats were upright and our TV away.
Uncle Bucket was there to meet us. We didn’t recognise him as he had had a hair cut. Was he bald or what!
We soon made our way across town to find Uncle Buckets place. It hadn’t changed at all except it was really tidy. I then remembered Aunty Tania was coming to pick us up. While we waited for Aunty Tania, Uncle Bucket played with his new air pistol pump and filled mums cylinders so she could shoot during the week. Then the fun started. Uncle Bucket then decided to fill his cylinders as well, but it didn’t work too well, and kept blowing the seal on the adaptor. Little did he know, I had actually had a chew on the seals, as I was hungry, that’s why they broke. But he was blaming the pump. He was so confused mum suggested he fax my dad as he would still be at work. Dad phoned him back to sort the problem out, while he was on the phone mum had a chat to him to tell him we had arrived safe. It was a shame dad couldn’t come with us but as he said someone had to keep the country running.
Aunty Tania arrived soon after, and then Uncle Bucket cooked us all a lovely meal. We even sat at his very tidy table; this was an experience we had never had before. Soon after we cruised off home.
Wednesday morning came all tooooooo early for us travellers. Aunty Tania left early to go and do her daily at the gym. While she was away we wandered around her house trying to save her plants. This was noticed when she returned. After breaky mum and Aunty Ta wandered off, and left me in charge of the house. When they came back they had some parcels with them, which they rushed around putting away, they then grabbed the shooting gear and took off again. Only trouble was, this time they had left me behind.
They were away ages, well, it seemed like it at the time, and when they finally got home, Aunty Jo was with them. We all sat around and talked for the evening. Thursday morning dawned again, much like Wednesday but Aunty Ta did not have to visit gym. So we all had a lovely breaky and still Bertie had not arrived. I was getting concerned. Mum tried to tell me that he would be with us later. Soon after they left for the range and I decided to stay at home in case Bertie arrived.
When they all arrived home later that afternoon Grandma and Bertie were with them. We took off to our room to talk and catch up, and the four ladies all went out shopping for an outfit for Aunty Jo. When they arrived home from the great shopping expedition, they arranged dinner, and then sat around the table catching up on the latest and greatest. Everyone wandered off to bed at a decent time, as we had our first match the next day.
Friday morning. I was excited as we were finally going to the range to actually shoot a match. Our training had been going quite well, even though the last outing had not shown it, but that was tooooooo much Mulberry pie!
The drive out was OK, heaps of traffic as the local useless council has done nothing to sort out the growing traffic hassles, but that’s another story. We finally got there and found a park not too far from the range. We got all our gear and cruised onto the range. Setting up was easy, and we had plenty of time to warm up and get ready. I decided to go and help Gran out today, as she had not competed in a competition like this before. Even with my help, what can one say, she’s as bad as mum and dad.
After our match we went and sat in the sun for ages before we had to shoot the final. After such a long day we had to wait even longer as mum had won what she calls the raffle. Not only did she get the gun test but also the drug test. It seemed to be her lucky day. Eventually she decided to join us, the others laughed at her for taking so long, she was no where near the record time of nine hours, and besides I knew she liked talking to her new friends. Anyway she was ready in time for prize giving and went up proudly to collect my medals.
We left soon after to drop Aunty Jo at the big bird place, and then headed home for a well earned rest.
All too soon the morning was upon us again. We awoke to find Uncle Mark had arrived home during the night and he decided to drive us lucky things out to the range to give Aunty Ta a rest from the traffic. Uncle Mark had been in Aussie for a work trip all week, or so he said, we knew it was because he couldn’t face a house full of women. What do you reckon?
Anyway we had a better drive out as it was the weekend. We got dropped off up by the range and we wandered around till we decided to head for the range to get set up for the match of the day. It was Sport Pistol or 25m Woman’s Pistol or what ever you want to call it. I don’t know why they have to keep changing the names all the time. Well I digress again. We were all warmed up and ready to go by the time we were told we could start.
We cruised through the first half of the match, and when we had finished mum would not let me add up the score. She was not totally happy, as we both knew she was capable of doing a bit better than what had transpired. We all had a short break, then we attacked the 2nd half. Duelling, we all call it, but the powers that be changed the name to Sport Pistol rapid Fire, sorry 25m Woman’s Pistol Rapid Fire – or something. This had been mums problem for the last two or three years and she had been working hard, with dad helping her for a couple of weeks before we flew to NZ. Anyway we shot and shot and soon it was all over. Mum looked happy. She had shot the best 2nd half in years. Her overall score still has some work to go but generally we were happy and we had made the final.
After the final mum was with Aunty Ta talking to Uncle Baza when they saw the shadows come in. They stood close to where we were standing and mum looked over and saw the list of people they had to collect. What could we say? Mums name was on the list again. Was she lucky or what? The only thing anyone could say was that mum had really got her moneys worth at this competition
After prize giving had been,
we looked around for everyone, but they had all gone. Normal city shoot I thought! So we wandered off to Uncle Buckets place to go out for a lovely meal of Indian food. We had a great evening and after a coffee we wandered back to our home away from home for a good night sleep.
After a good nights sleep we got dropped off for a real neat bus trip up to mums hometown of Whangarei. We got there after a couple of hours of commentated travelling. We were greeted with the lovely smell of food cooking. Home cooking. I couldn’t believe it. We never get that at home.
We were at mums home for a whole week. Bertie and Grandma were with us and boy did we have a good time. We toured all over the local highlights and even drove to the other side of the land to have a look at the big tree. Check it out. One of the biggest Kauri trees in NZ.
All too soon the week was over. That meant we had to go back down to Auckland to fly out real, and I mean real early on the Sunday morning. Mums mum and sister came down with us as we had a real neat day. We went and looked at all sorts of things. We stopped at a park called Wendallhome where Aunty Lyn saw something being built as we drove down the hill, so we went to look. It was great in there, we were let loose and ran all over the place, always under control of course. When we all got to the thing they were building, we found it was a film set. Of course we got offered roles but had to turn them down as we flew away the next day.
It was soon time to carry on with the drive to Uncle Buckets place, as he had won the short straw and had to take us to the big bird port. We made another stop on the way, once we got to Auckland to have a look at the place the big sailing ships live during race time. It is known as the America’s Cup competition, but around mum’s home country it is now known as the New Zealand Cup. Soon after we arrived at Uncle Buckets, where mum made everyone a cuppa, then her mum and sister had to leave. I nearly cried as I had had such a good time, I was going to miss them all.
We had a nice evening, dinner with some good friends, even though we had to drive to the other side of Auckland, then home to re pack our bags and hit the hay for a snooze as we knew the morning would come too soon.
And soon was not the right term. All too soon the alarm went off and I jumped up to wake mum up. We got ready and woke Uncle Bucket up as well. Bertie and grandma came and saw us off, from the step not the airport. We had a good drive to the airport, not surprising as at that time of the day, or was it night, as it was still dark, there was no one else up. We got rid of our bags and had a cuppa with Uncle Bucket, then he sloped off home to get Bertie and grandma organised and we went on through.
The rest of the trip was as good as a trip could be. But the good thing was that dad was waiting for us when we got off the plane back in our adopted country.
Check out the photo of me and Bertie with our medals.
