All Quiet

Not much has been going on in the last couple of weeks thus the lack of posting.

I hope you all enjoyed the video of the outing in the Disco to be followed up with a couple of pics.

We have a busy weekend coming up with a friend coming out for Fondue on Saturday followed by the Mother of all green lane trips on the Sunday. I have a definite monster route planned so hopefully some stories to tell and some pics/video as well.

Till soon

Laning Video

Watch it HERE

A Piece of Cake

Another weekend over. This one really felt like the winter is approaching and with daylight savings finishing next week it is the final nail in the coffin for summer. Oh well it has been a great summer with some seriously hot days and some seriously good weather which we definitely made the most of. Another one of those next year and I would be more than happy.

I played golf on Sunday morning. Another round that it didn't quite come together but I at least came up only one shot short of my 13 handicap for the first time. Annoying when you just can't put things together yet my bad shots did not get me in too much trouble. Never mind, next time is medal so I will hope for a good performance that day.

After golf I had made arrangements to go out in the Land Rover around Chelmsford. It fell through which turned out to be good as just after I got into the house it started raining and never stopped. The idea had been to take the girls out to give Catherine a rest before she had to go to work.

So We Baked a Cake

Yes the little darlings and I decided that to give Catherine a rest we would bake a cake. Apparently to cheer mummy up. Catherine got her quiet time before heading to work and we got into the tested method from the Mother in Law's cook book.(What great book it is!)

The girls really love doing stuff like this when I am helping. Although we generally end up with more ingredients spread around the table and floor than in the bowls we all have a good time. And it is always a challenge to clean up so we don't get in trouble for the mess.

The cake came up a treat and after cooling we added a filling of Butter Cream Icing and Lemon Curd. It might not sound traditional but it is very, very good.

Of course the girls then claimed they wanted cake for dinner. After I put the cake in front of them R decided that Lemon Curd was not something she like but she proceeded to eat most of the sponge anyway. N made a fantastic effort on the whole piece I gave her which was not small. However it did not take long till they were claiming to be hungry so we made some of the girls favourite instant noodles which went down a storm.

Alright, back on the bike tomorrow and off to work. A couple of late starts for Monday and Tuesday which are more than welcome. Hopefully I get the news I am waiting on early this week so we can start to make the arrangements that need to be made and we can officially broadcast our news.

I have charged the video camera and got it all up and running again so hopefully at some stage soon I can start adding some clips to the page.

That reminds me of a Story

The Survivor and the Saviour

Another day another dollar as the saying goes. Nice ride home from the station tonight apart from the howling, swirling wind and the RAIN. It is rather amazing just how wet one can get in less than 20 minutes. My waterproof jacket did well apart from the tiny bit of a rip in the sleeve which actually brings me to a bit of a story.

This summer we were in Wales with the Essex Land Rover Club for some Green Laning. For those of you not familiar with the term Green Lanes are basically unsealed roads which can be anything from Gravel to rivers. They are historic routes that have remained public rights of way and make for a great family day out.

We thought we were driving on one particular lane when suddenly the front wheels of our Discovery slid in a strange fashion straight towards the edge of what was as good as a cliff as far as I am concerned. I stopped the car before the back wheels came over it and after a little investigation we figured we had missed a turn somewhere along the way.

I was helped by a good friend in the car behind us reverse out of that predicament. The fact the poor bloke was standing down a cliff on clay trying to hold 2 tons of Brummie metal on the track and succeeded I reckon already deserves a medal but read on, it gets much better.

The Yellow Disco was now leading the slow reversing act. It felt so good on the way up but it is amazing how slippery wet clay on a big hill can feel! We got to a point where the track tilted down the will with nothing there to keep you on it. Luckily the Yellow Disco is fitted with proper mud tyres which made this hairy but not unbearable. Roll theBrunners disco with the slightly more road going All Terrains.

It did not take long to realise that on its own, the only place it was going was the bottom of the 300ft grassy hill. All I could think was thank goodness I decided to stick with these tyres but get all the suspension and protection sorted! Anyway we decided the best way to get this sorted was to tie our Disco to the Yellow disco and make sure that when I started sliding I had a limited amount of sliding to do.

The second I moved I slid off the side of that hill and some quick thinking and a a flooring of the Tdi had me gracefully bouncing along the trees and resting against a particularly thin, dead looking specimen. It was holding though. I am not afraid to admit, I squealed like a girl during that! The rest of the story is history which involves a little male bonding, some watering the grass and a bit of spade work.

The best thing is that there was hardly a scratch on my car, but I did tear my Jacket

Something in the Air

Evening all.

Some of you reading this will already know that there is some news that I am positively fizzing to make public knowledge but at present I can't quite do it. Until it is all wrapped up and I know for sure I can't tell you that the Brunners might be out of Tiptree for a little while again. (There is a big clue in the first few posts ever made on this blog)

Anyway, nothing much to update. I was out for a few beers last night after work and the bike ride home at midnight after a few lagers was quite the experience. I managed to stay on and seem to remember seeing how loudly I could scream while riding the bike. Why do we do it. After getting to sleep at about 2 and having to wake up again at 4:30 I felt pretty special for most of the day.

I am working on creating an audio file that I will try to update once a day but probably more likely once a week with a few thoughts. It will only ever be a max of a minute long and I fully plan to make it a Podcast for all you folks with iPods out there.

Another roll over gone

I really need to have a chat to the people who keep selling me loosing lottery tickets. Another close to £20,000,000.00 split between 2 people this weekend and I saw absolutely ZERO! I have no doubt I would make a deserved winner and I would make one of the best rich people you will ever meet. Never mind, next week.

The weekend went by so fast again this weekend. We had nothing planned and that is pretty much what happened. I took the girls out for a few hours on Saturday morning for a Playground Crawl and to throw some bread to the ducks at the pond here in Tiptree. They were excited to be out on their bikes and N though it was great when we went in opposite directions around the Boardwalk in the park by the pond. She did well although not realising I was running to get to the passing bay so she could get passed she sped up to head me off at the pass which she succeeded in doing. R who I was pushing on her bike also found the situation funny and was doing nothing more than screaming about how fast she was going.

After getting home the weather turned and although the rain never arrived we stayed around the house as it certainly threatened to do so for the rest of the day.

As I had not signed up to play golf on Sunday morning we spent a lovely morning at home again. We had the classic apple egg breakfast which I am fortunate enough to be considered "Rubbish" at by a 2 and 4 year old so the Lady of the house was on duty.

Later in the afternoon we made a trip out to Tiptree Heath for a spot of "fishing" at the pond. Most amusing seeing the girls fetch in loads of Weed and the odd Snail. They loved it though and somewhere along the way that is all that really matters.

Back from where?

I can't believe it has been more than 6 months since I last posted on here. Amazing how much time doing nothing in particular can take out of your life. Although I have to say keeping up with the little ones is the thing that keeps me busy during the day and makes sure I go to bed and sleep at night.

After getting back from NZ I left UBS for a job at Lehman Brothers in Canary Wharf here in London. I had a bit of a result in the way of a months "gardening" leave which was tagged straight onto the NZ holiday.

Although I would love to say that I played loads of golf I didn't. There was loads to do with the kids and around the house including pulling down a wall which there was no way I was going to miss out on. We also bought a 1959 Land Rover Series II as a station car for me. This was a move intended as both a way to get to the station and a vehicle that we can use for enjoyment on the weekends.

you not familiar with the term involves driving on legal rights of ways(Roads) which have never been sealed. Lots of enjoyment and the good thing was the whole family could come along. However we quickly established that the 1959 Land Rover was rather smelly and had absolutely no comfortable parts to it. After a couple of trips out as a family we got decided to change our 7 seater family car for a Discovery which would be more comfortable and less smelly. It worked a treat and we ended up with a 1998 high spec Discovery with a V8 engine. Luckily it had been converted to run on LPG so the costs are not as bad as the engine mightI joined the Essex Land Rover club and started doing a fair bit of green laning which for those of suggest.

In August we spent a week in Wales and drove some pretty unforgettable lanes. It was good to get out on some terrain that is not more or less flat as it is around our way in Essex. Also driving on rock instead of clay makes you think about what you are doing a lot more as mistakes will not always just mean being stuck. One of the most memorable lanes on the holiday was below the Claerwen dam. It started with fording a river and cut its way along the river. At times you could have sworn the river was higher than the road and that is probably why you were driving in bumper deep water.

As for the golf I have not been out so much over the summer. It has been so hot and my game suffers in the heat as I tend to blow up at about the 14th hole. (good excuse anyhow).I have however played a couple of good competition rounds in the meantime and managed to reduce my handicap to 13 which is pretty much what I was aiming for before the start of the summer.

That will be the update for now folks. I am going to try and update more regularly and post some more pics to keep things a little more interesting. (No Promises though)

Back Home

Well keeping the blog updated didn't go so well on that trip. I think it is a sure sign that we managed to really relax and enjoy our stay in NZ. I will be putting some pictures on here over the following days and will be putting them in as of when they were taken so keep a look out. I am changing a few bits and pieces on the blog but will try to avoid any confusion.

All in all the trip to NZ was fantastic. The girls loved being in summer gear and being able to walk around barefoot. Catherine and I loved the summer weather and although I got a little burnt on out seconf day I was never badly burnt. The 3 games of golf I had were fantastic and I am not looking forward to this weekends game in conditions that can only be described as bleak compared to the golf in NZ.

Nia was back at school today and I am back to the office tomorrow so once that sleep patter is sorted things will be back to normal (what ever that means).

Milford Sound Day Trip

After flying to the South Island on the Thursday and driving from Dunedin to Te Anau we set off early in the morning to Milford. We were hoping that we would beat most of the tourist buses by leaving early and it worked well. Our first stop on the road was the Mirror Lakes. These lakes are on the edge of a wetland and are well sheltered thus reflecting the surrounding scenery near perfectly. With no foliage in the picture it almost looks better the wrong way up in the bright morning sunshine. (Even if it was only 2 Degrees)

Someone was proud of themselves

Playground time was popular

The Story so far

Our morning at the beach went well. The tide was up and the currents and waves were something else. It was fun for us to spend some time with our friends Nathan and Amy with their 3 children. Life in NZ certainly seems pretty great with the summer weather and wide open space. I keep telling myself it isn't like this all the time so that I get onto my return flight in a couple of weeks.
Some of you who know me well will be please to see that I got a bit of the cloud fix.

Off the the pool now. Bye.

Boiling Mud in Rotorua

We are here

Well the Brunner family have arrived in NZ. Flights were not my idea of fun but they are almost forgoten already. I will never forget the running through LA airport with my hand full of Nia's vomit though! You don't need any more details I am sure.......
The weather is wonderful. Sunny and hot.
We have caught up with some friends already and have a morning at the beach planned today. I am not in any hurry to get ready because it is 5.30am and we have been up for an hour already. What do you think about that Auntie Graeme?????????
Nik has yet to start his golf but I am sure he will find where I have hidden his clubs soon.
I will post some photos after today so you can see a little bit of this beautiful country.
See you soon.

Going to NZ Soon

Hi Everyone.

We are getting ready for our next trip. We leave on Wednesday 15th of Feb for Auckland. Nik is very excited about going home for 3 weeks and we could all do with a break.
As an added bonus we will go down to the South Island this time to visit Nik's sister Helen in Invercargill and go to Milford Sound too.
The girls are excited about seeing Oma and Opa again and it will be extra special to see Auntie Helen. Nia was about 7weeks old when we last saw her and obviously Rhiannon has never met her Auntie Helen.

Watch this space for the Brunner escapades