Dunedin: This Week

It was raining both Monday and Tuesday. The same dripping happened again from our ceiling by the chimney. Sighhhhh. Tuesday night a cyclone called Gita went straight into the top of the South Island of New Zealand. Somehow Calcifer decided that this was the best night possible to somehow escape their bedroom via the window to get outside. Around 11:30pm we were both woken up by sharp and very loud meows. At first I just thought it was cute, but after a while we were both getting more awake and wondered if it was more of a calling for attention, or help. We got to the front door to hear the loud meows coming from right outside our front door. We unlocked it and opened it only for Calcifer to run inside, completely wet! It was only upon entering the cat room that we noticed the window was opened by one of them. The rain was getting inside and drenching the windowsill. Calficer looked pleased as punch to have had his little breakout adventure, but he couldn't have chosen a worse night to do it on. Cyclone Gita was getting worse at the time and it was already atrocious weather outside. The foul storm actually arrived around 3am. Maybe that will teach him a lesson to not jump out of open windows? We wiped Calicfer down and went back to bed.

The next morning Hermione was hissing at her brother like crazy. She didn't recognise his scent at all.

Poor kitty rejected by his sister but happy to be home- the morning after his outside ordeal

On Thursday in the evening the landlords came over to deal with the roof some more. We used this opportunity to let our cats outside for the first time, seeing as we were outside anyway in the nice weather. Calcifer LOVED it, running around not sure what to do. Hermione was shy at first and just stood on the rake head for comfort I guess. But even she started exploring around in the end. They never strayed too far from our sides and each had big bushy tails to show their excitement.

23 Fri-
Pogo released a new album called Ascend. Its really good!!
I nearly got run over today when coming home from work. I was near home actually, crossing the road by a playground, when from behind me to my left, a car was driving at speed turning right and ignoring my right of way (I had pressed the button, I wasn't J walking). He jumped a light at speed and very nearly ran me down. I was livid. He stopped and parked almost instantly and ignored me when I told him to apologise to me as he greeted his family playing in the park. I went home really angry and met Sabine with the cats playing in the front garden. She told me to go back and get the number plate, so I did. I went back to this car 2 mins down the road and took a photo (below). The owner with his wife and children or whatever was just looking at me. Its annoyingly frustrating as on both occasions they just had the attitude of 'if we ignore the weird guy, he will just go away'. YOU NEARLY KILLED ME YOU TWAT!

This prick

When at home again the first thing I did was report his car online. Not that its going to help much. These bloody NZ drivers are incredibly dangerous to themselves and everyone around them. Its not like England where you get the occasional twat. Here they are everywhere. Realistically I would say 1 in 5 drivers need their license revoked.
Anyway. Sabine received our rejected NZ expression of interest package with a note saying my birth certificate is invalid. Sigh... Turns out that's two places now that think my birth certificate isn't real. I bought a new one using a courier service as we need my proper one next week. At least I'm hoping its an official birth certificate and not a copy of whatever version of it I have. An official birth certificate has the parents names on it. Until now, mine has always been just this square shaped certificate with just my name and some basic details on it.

24 Sat-
We went to a mammals workshop at 9:00am at the marine science center at Portobello, where we were last time. We saw the itinerary for the day and realised that it was not a workshop but rather a bunch of lectures. We listened to the first which was about dolphin ecology. Then we had a tea break which was nice.

After that we skipped class to go do our own thing. We actually went bird safari again up the cost to where the Monarch boat trips leave. The mammals workshop said it was going to be a boat trip using the Monarch, but the itinerary said it would be for 2pm. We hung around a nearby beach where this stupid loose dog was running around, unfortunately. He had no obvious owner. Next we hung around the jetty and saw a sea lion in the water where the boat leaves, which was playing with a big octopus, thrashing it too and fro. Then sometime later I noticed a big octopus in the water missing a lot of its tenticales. Same one? Who knows...
Two terns were also sitting on the jetty.
The group joined us and together we set off on the Monarch boat. When we set off, within minutes we came across a Blue Penguin, sitting just bobbing about on the water. At Taieri Head we saw the resident albatross sitting on their nests, and another penguin on the shoreline. Then when out to sea, a huge albatross landed next to the boat, right next to me in fact, again just sitting in the water, then 2 Hectors dolphins got interested in our boat. We also saw a petrel on this boat trip.

After that we went to Pac n Save via Allans Beach road, the long way round.
This evening I let Calcifer out the house for a run around. He was cute in that he followed us around the two gardens. Hermione has a bad paw so we cant let her out today.

25 Sun-
Today Sabine wanted to visit the kitten adoption day at the pet shop that hosted it before. I was really surprised to find that she wanted a kitten that was in Animates.
Next we went to Mitre 10 for the first time to ask regarding what we can do with our windowsills that are currently scratched really badly. We bought a roll of carpet and adhesive tape so we can hopefully put it on without the cats scratching it further.
Next we visited the butterflies again. Afterwards we each had another nice burger at Re:Burger.
The landlord guy Richard came over to replace our lock which is playing up yet again (we've always had issues with it), and he also installed some uprights on the gutter so that it doesn't dip terribly like it was (water was gushing against the side wall- kitchen side)
aaand now its raining.
aaaaaand the drip is back. Sigh......
aaaaaaaaaand after texting the landlords, they say they will call their plumber. A PLUMBER?!?! Why not a roofer?!?!?!?!?! SIGHHHHHHHHHH..................