I am almost bursting with the extreme frustration with the development of the house. To cut a long story short, weather has slowed progress on the infrastructure increasing delays.Intransigence on the part of the land vendor to commit to a firm plan moving forward is... Being so far from family and friends, makes you appreciate them all the more. As I learn more about Maori culture I’ve started to think about some of the concepts of family.Whanau is the concept of family – its more than just your immediate family but the... Seven days of mourning has started for the Maori Queen, Dame Te Atairangikaahu, who died yesterday at age 75. She has reined as Maori Queen for 40 years and has been a driving force for maori issues over this time.Dame Te Ata is directly descended from the first Maori... No time for photoblogging this weekend, we’ve been catching up with chores. However, my mind has continued on the landslip theme, but this time because we had a newsworthy earthquake today.There are about 15,000 recorded earthquakes in New Zealand every year,... A devastating consequence of continued rain in these parts is landslips – these are chunks of hillsides slipping away.It’s a regular sight to see a pile of rocks and dirt at the side of roads where mini slips have occurred and just recently the roads up to... 