Cooking on Gas

On Wednesday we found ourselves in the Tauranga branch of the Warehouse, where we scored a 4 burner gas barbecue, gas bottle and cover for $249. The barbie itself was reduced from $299, and the gas bottle and cover were free. As these items are the best part of $100 on their own, this seemed a rather good deal. We were offered an extended warranty for a measly $25, which also seemed like cracking value, so we had one of those, too.

We also stopped off at the Music Planet on Maunganui road, and bought a pink ukulele for Freya's birthday next month. She seems dead keen on joining the school's ukulele orchestra and we thought it would be a good idea to get ahead of the game and make sure that she had one ready for the start of the school year in February. Not wanting it found before its time, we popped in on V&W, to stash it at their place.

The leather repair kit has turned up, partially restoring my faith in mail order services in New Zealand. I have yet to try it out but will report back in due course. Also, the managing director of the freeview box manufacturers emailed to say how disappointed he was with the courier, and promised to refund the carriage charge.

The rest of the afternoon was spent visiting various bicycle shops, since Di tells me everyone needs a bicycle for Christmas. We've looking at over $1,000 which ever way we slice it. The impressive thing is that there are so many shops with some quite extensive ranges to choose from.

Thursday we visited yet another cycle shop, this time in Bayfair. They were actually selling Raleigh bikes. Did we buy British? No, although they offered us a good deal price wise, they were at pains to point out that the "mountain style" bikes could not be used off road (and were therefore less durable than you might imagine) and were only prepared to offer 6 weeks servicing. We eventually decided to place our business with Bike & Pack, who were prepared to haggle and whose range of bikes looked to be of higher quality and could be used off road and should therefore be Imogen proof. They agreed to store the bikes until Christmas eve, but we relieved them of the helmets and locks and deposited these at our favourite neighbour's house. V&W were fretting about their impending delivery of stuff from the UK, and the lack of anything looking like a visa allowing them to collect without leaving large deposits and paying GST. We suggested they hassle the immigration department to see if anything shakes out.

Rhiannon wasn't feeling too well today, so had the day off. She had decided she wanted books rather than a bicycle and unfortunately overheard us discussing prices. She now thinks she's getting $400 for Christmas. She may be disappointed.

Thursday evening we went to see Phoebe in her school production. It had a Christmas theme, but there was a total absence of god or religion, which we found very refreshing. OK, I know that Christmas is a religious festival, but the vast majority don't treat it as such. The kids sometimes get a bit uppity when they have to sing "god" songs, since we've always told them religion is a load of old nonsense, but that they should still respect other people's beliefs even if they are misguided. Phoebe was fabulous in her role as a "stocking", and despite falling off her perch at one point (a classic "you've been framed" moment) seemed to enjoy herself and the production was fantastic, and loud!