Saturday 7^th April. Today Toby, Sylvie and I took Snowy to the kennels. It was so sad saying bye to him but Bethells (where he stays) is a great place for dogs. They have a tv for the dogs, a leather sofa and mini wendy houses for them. Snowy was immediately at home and we have been looking on their facebook page where they upload photos of the dogs to see if we can see him. We then went down to Bethells beach and had a lovely lunch before walking around to the beach itself. The scenery was so dramatic and gorgeous. Sylvie and I planned to go in what we thought were the shallow waves but the waves were huge and were coming in fast and I ended up getting soaked up to my waist. We then walked over to a little cave before going back to Titirangi.

Last day with year 2 in Mrs Morgan’s class. They did maths work in groups, some were working with the teacher, others were doing maths on the active board, doing maths games and math sheets. I went around assisting the various groups. They also sang maths songs to learn their two times tables and they were so cute doing actions and singing in their kiwi accents. It was so sad leaving them as even though I spent more time with year 5, I prefer the year 2s. Lots of them made me pictures and were telling me their connections with England. Maddie, a little girl, asked if I would come back and teach her in a few years. 

Friday 30^th and Saturday 31^st March. The annual Titirangi music festival is on at the moment. During the festival there are lots of different acts performing through the day and evening in multiple venues such as the theatre, hardware cafe and RSA. On Friday evening Tanya had some friends over and cooked her amazing paella and sangria. I then joined them as we went up to the Titirangi RSA to watch The Nukes. The Nukes are a trio of ukulele players who write and sing their own songs. They were really good even though we didn’t have the best of seats. On Saturday I went to Sylvia Park shopping centre in South Auckland. It was a rough area but I got what I wanted. When I was coming back on the bus into Titirangi there were street performers outside the shops on a stage with lots of people dancing to the trumpets and singers. Sylvie had her friends over for an April fools party but Tanya and I went out to the theatre in the evening to see cabaret artist Victoria Girling-Butcher. She was lovely and some of her guests were brilliant. They played soft rock and she explained to her blind father what was going on in between songs. After the cabaret we heard the jazz artists at the hardware cafe so went to explore. We had some calamari and then tried to go downstairs to see the performers but were denied entry as we didn’t have tickets. They sounded very good though. On our way back home we looked into Titirangi hall as more performers were playing and even though we didn’t have tickets we were allowed to listen to the last song. The festival was so good and it was really nice just walking up the road and listening to local artists.