It’s not often these days we are awake in the early hours of the morning but we had been trying to finish the 1000 piece Wellington jigsaw on behalf of my son…..and wouldnt you know it, the final piece missing. Whether we dropped it on the floor and the dog ate it or someone in the jigsaw factory took one piece out, we will never know!!! But I digress. Finally getting to bed and checking the news. “New Zealand Chooses to bat against South Africa”….so I turned the tv on. At this point I must say I am not a sports person and wouldnt normally comment on anything sporty. However, my first thought after seeing South Africa batting was that some stupid reporter had got the simplest of facts wrong. After ten minutes, the horrifying truth emerged. The days of embarrasement are long gone. I was bought up in the days before one dayers. I remember in High School, sneaking a transistor radio in my school bag so we could listen to the test. Hadlee, Howarth, Wright and Coney. We hung off every word. Then came the young guns….Crowe and Cairns. We always had heroes. We always had pride in OUR team. But now….it’s hard to even put in words. All out for 45 in 19.2 overs on day one of the first test. And this after the captaincy debacle. Capitulation, pathetic, an utter disgrace. Whichever words you use, enough is enough. How much money do these guys earn? Maybe its time for performance pay, although after today, they should be paying NZ cricket. Lets not even tour any more. I simply no longer have any interest in watching it, or in fact supporting it. Fire everyone from the top down. You want to play for NZ…….earn it. Our cricketers used to get no money and play for pride. Now…they get lots of money and have no pride.

R I P………NZ Cricket…..Died, Jan 2, 2013.

I write this on the eve of armageddon. The day before the 21st, although in saying that is it the 21st in New Zealand or the 21st in South America, or maybe Rome or London. And what time exactly on the 21st. I mean if the mayans were good enough to tell us the date, they could have at least told us the time. 10 past 4 maybe. At least then I could have a final drop of the very expensive champaigne I’ve been saving or perhaps have a quick….and I empasise quick…shag. Be a bugga to get halfway through and all of a sudden dead. Still worse ways to go I suppose. Its been a great life, I’ve been to many doomed places, have lots of friends, a wonderful son and lived well. To all whose company I have enjoyed I say ta muchly. To those I hated and quite possibly hated me….die you bastards…..hmmm…doesnt really have the same impact now……and to all those I owe money to….you can quite frankly stick it. No more mortgage….actually just had a thought…imagine if you had just paid your 30 year mortgage off today…..glad I didnt!!!!! ha ha…..just goes to show, glad I spent all my money on dinners and wine and good times instead of putting everything towards the mortgage. Whose smart now?…..anyway been fun, thanks and I can only hope the world really does end tomorrow….I’ve just cancelled all my A/P’s.

One of the most enjoyable things about arriving home feeling great after a long break, is going through the mountain like pile of mail. Naturally most of it is bills. No different for me. The best one? My house insurance has just gone up by 50%!! Thats ontop of the 26% last year. Yes I know, it’s as a result of the earthquake in Christchurch….oh and the Japanaese floods….ooh and the constant Queensland floods…oh and the fact that insurance companies dont like paying out insurance claims…after all they’re really just in the business of gambling…..they are getting you to place a bet with them on whether or not you will make a claim. Naturally they are setting the odds. So feeling very shitty, I got a quote from several other companies. One was $1000 dearer. Another was cheaper ….but only if I took my contents and car over as well. The conents and the car were in fact dearer which overall meant more. I told them this so they gave me a quote with out the car, but because the car wasnt there the house price was dearer. Also as I had claimed for insurance twice in the last year(one as a result of a burst pipe and the other hail damage) I would have to pay more as I had a history of making claims.I would have tought they should charge less as these two faults had both been fixed and were unlikely to happen again. But no. In the end I decided to stay where I was but have managed to reduce the price. Heres the interesting part. By moving the office of insurance to my local one instead of in town it saves $8 a month…yes I dont know the difference either and they will never tell you unless you ask. Also for the privilege of paying monthly, they charge you between $25 and $35 more a month. Much better, now it’s only gone up by around 75%….cant believe my luck!!

What is it about travelling that always make you glad you’re home….or does it. I have a strange mix of feelings after this trip. I described it to my friends as a bucket handle….not a list but a handle. Not quite ready for the list yet. Paris….ah Paree….Sacre Cur, The Eiffel tower(after a 2 hour queue), Monte Matre and the artists….fab as usual!! Not sure if I need to visit it again tho. Venice….2 days is enough however if you havent been there before, then it’s a must on the handle list!! Tuscany….loved Italy…loved the village life..the early short walk to get pastries for breakfast….the cheap food and the cheap wine!!!. Rome…well once you’ve seen the Collusium and the Vatican what else is there??? Shop assistants are rude so spend your money in Venice. Crete….wonderful….great people, never a cloud in the sky, beautiful water…and as far as Singapore and Japan are concerned….too dear. There is now no price advantage in going to singapore at all…in fact some of the electronics are cheaper here than there. Over all a wonderful trip…I have however returned with the question “how can food be so much cheaper in Europe” Cheese, a 3rd of the price(and thats after conversion), meat cheaper….veges…cheaper…water under 1 Euro instead of the $2.50 to $4.00 a litre that we pay here. Today in the paper came the news that petrol has hit a new high in Italy…$2 Euro a litre…it then went on to convert it to NZ dollars. I think its time we stopped this practise. It doesnt work…A dollar is a dollar is a Euro…..if you do convert it, then petrol is the only thing dearer…so dont bother!! We have also come home to 13 degrees and rain on the 3rd day of Spring…..still..it’s always good to be sleeping in your own bed. As to my bucket handle?….not sure the next place to add….I will however continue the blog…I’ll just pretend I’m somewhere exciting!!

All this travelling but will finally be home in around 10 days. Having stolen a hotels password in Crete I have been checking out the news from home. Surprise surprise. Petrol has hit a new high and naturally economists are worried. YOU are worried!!!then of course comes the response from some academic that we should all be grateful because it’s far less if you compare the price 30 years ago with wages, it actually was far greater then. BOLLOCKS. The main problem with people like this is they refuse to give up the past. Move on. I’m not grateful with the price of petrol but thank you  for reminding me. We all have to look and move forward. Not look backwards. Otherwise you’ll never see opportunities or in fact anything, coming!!I can however still moan about the price of petrol.

As I lie here next to a rather small swimming pool in a small Tuscany village called Greve, I ask the following question? Why would 2 families, consisting of 4 adults and what appears to be a cocophony of children… Travel all the way from Holland to sit around a small swimming pool and yell and scream and splash and generally annoy everyone else who are just lying and being very quiet????

And yes…..I’m sitting here too!!

Here’s where the fun begins.  Or does it. Yesterday I tried to start a blog under my user name on a well known app site. Because I am in Europe it tried to speak to me in Italian. After 2 hours I was set to go. Sent a blog about the amazingly low price of beer in Europe and how mortadella is $1.80 a packet here but back home the same packet costs $12.00. Even With currency exchange I can’t believe how cheap things are in Europe or maybe it’s that things are so dear in good ol nz. Anyway they reckon it was spam and removed me completely. Stick with an nz blog site I say!! Mind you I have just replied to myself 3 times thinking I was blogging. Maybe senility is setting in hopefully this has worked. So someone please tell me it  is!!