Change (jobs/the world/stinky nappies)

I don’t know much about blog etiquette but I’m pretty sure that not posting anything for over a year is the worst kind of betrayal. Sorry. Let’s move on.

Here’s a brief and selective run down of what’s been going on in the lesser known capital of the lesser known state of the big brown land.

Lucy continues to win hearts and minds with what can only be described as unreasonable cuteness (parental bias warning). A few little tricks she has added to her repertoire include reciting the alphabet whilst wrestling a bowl of soggy cornflakes down her tiny throat at the breakfast table, taking her nappy off and weeing in the kitchen cupboard (much to the chagrin of her disapproving parents) and dancing to anything with a rhythm, this often not excluding the washing machine. She enjoys spotting birds in trees, collecting the mail and seems to find more joy in watching the garbage truck than I thought possible.

Liv continues to be a beautiful and serene presence in many people’s lives including mine. Hunches you may have had about her being a creative genius have been confirmed in countless ways this year, not the least of which being her central involvement in setting up a group that connects women in this country with women in developing countries in the spirit of mutual empowerment. That’s right: she’s making cool stuff and changing the world at the same time. Local hero.

I have recently embarked on a career change: going from suit wearing middle management educator to ‘that guy who sometimes wears shoes, plays backyard cricket, drinks a lot of tea and takes his daughter on long walking tours of the city’. Unfortunately this new endeavour hasn’t turned out to be quite as lucrative as I’d hoped. As a result I have also been playing more music, lecturing in a sociology topic and running a literacy program for wards of the state; sometimes feeling like it’s meaningful, other times like I’m as useful as a book on how to read. But I’m learning that this is a pretty common experience of vocation in late capitalist societies (I’ll spare you the diatribe).

All this has also meant that we have found ourselves, at times, drawing on the services of the great leveler (in the ‘general wellbeing’ sense) that is Centrelink. Waiting in line at the ‘local’ Centrelink mega outlet is like waiting ankle deep in the ocean as the water rushes out only to gather in a looming and formidable wall of bluey green that obscures the sun before crashing down upon you with such tumultuous force that when you come to, soggy and disoriented, you gradually realise you are no where near where you thought you were and neither are your swimmers. Only in this case the wall of water is a wall of inane bureaucracy in the form of bizarre and intrusive questions coupled with requests for obscure and unattainable documents and your swimmers are any sense of self worth and dignity you may have brought with you. The one saving grace of this experience was watching Lucy gaze at the humming TV fixed to the roof above us like a lifeline. Gritty hip hop interspersed with edgy metal riffs accompanied an extreme sports presentation, you know the sort of thing - tough guys, doing tough moves to tough music. This was all punctuated with squeals of ‘weeeee!’ from Lucy when each hooded teen busted phat air on bike, board or blades. Take that, brooding youth subculture.


Despite dull encounters with government subsidiaries we generally feel like we are moving further along the road of being ourselves whilst finding wonder in the new places we come to.

Until next time (hopefully before 2011), big love and deep autumn peace to you on your road to wherever you're going,

Tim, Liv and Lucy

A kind of homecoming...

Okay, this is quite the belated blog entry, please forgive my tardiness and I will spare you the inane excuses.

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It was with heavy hearts that we packed our things and said our hospital goodbyes, selling all that wouldn’t fit into our packs to fly back across the Tasman Sea. Lucy decided that cutting her first tooth was best done eleven kilometres above the surface of the earth. But in between the high altitude dramas she made it her mission to win over the airline staff with cheeky grins and complex gesturing.


Stepping out of the Brisbane international terminal, heavy laden with backpacks and babies, we were struck by our sudden lack of samurai swords. This was perhaps because we were unaware that we would need them to slice our way through the oppressive south-east Queensland humidity. So unarmed, or at least less than equipped for the climatic contrast, we arrived in West End with soggy hugs and big smiles, noticing over the best coffee in the country that Lucy was sweating for the first time. Not quite the ‘pushing-out-your-first-tooth’ milestone but a milestone none the less. This is her taking respite in the sink...


Ever changing Brisvagus, with it's flashing lights and summertime promises was as great as we’ve come to expect it to be, and we enjoyed good times with dear friends sorely missed. I was particularly impressed by a new medieval costume outlet that had opened up on Boundary St in our absence: it boldly offered punters both formal and casual options from the dark ages. Intrigued as I was to discover more about the casual options that a feudal society might offer a 21st century gent like myself I didn’t care enough to actually pay them a visit but it’s on my to-do list for next time, as well as finding a pair of thongs that can withstand the blistering pavement of the inner city. But as the sunny state continued to pour out an unreasonable amount of sunshine on our browning shoulders, our hearts soon turned to the great south and all that we had been missing.


I was lucky enough to sit next to Margaret on the plane, a passionate South Australian grandmother whose brother had only the week before won $734,000 in Oz Lotto. They were going to spend up big by driving to Port Lincoln for the weekend. As I pondered her ambitious plans the feeble orange lights of the outer suburbs began crawling across our black windows.
‘Now I’ve been all over this great land, to Sydney and Brisbane, Perth and Melbourne, and all these places are nice with their Harbour Bridges, their pristine beaches, their fancy new Ferris wheels and what-have-you, but quite frankly I wouldn't thank you for it,’ Margaret exclaimed, ‘there’s something about Adelaide... it’s just so…’
‘Flat?’ I offered.
‘Exactly!’ She replied, ‘Who’d want to live anywhere else?’
‘You’d have to be an idiot’ I added, as we both stared stupidly out of the window in reckless admiration as only South Australians can do. We were home.


Here's our cheeky little tiger back in the town of her birth.

Much love and deep peace to you in your corner of this great planet,

Tim, Liv + Lucy

Liquor? I hardly knew her...

As a South Australian I genuinely enjoy the novelty of buying alcohol from the supermarket in New Zealand, but I have to say that what I enjoy the most is the actual checkout transaction involving said alcohol. As I approach the counter clutching, among other things, a bottle of ridiculously underpriced red wine from my homeland I am greeted by a relatively bright uniformed year 9 with whom I gather I will be completing my transaction. He is cheery at first, if not a little pimply. We chat about the recent endeavours of Kiwi sports teams against Australia as he scans a box of washing powder, a carton of milk and a four pack of toothbrushes, but as we approach the Peter Leahman Shiraz his demeanour changes dramatically. He effortlessly goes from ill-proportioned teen to suspicious, sleuth-like detective. Shifting his head to get a proper view of mine he suddenly looks very stern. Unsure whether he’s going to call the cops or divulge the secrets of the universe I ask tentatively if there’s a problem, to which he responds by asking me for some I.D. Fumbling through my wallet I retrieve my South Australian driver’s licence. He pores over this before calling for what I assume can only be backup. He stares blankly, if not a little accusingly, as I gently rock my 6-month-old daughter back and forth in her pram as we wait for the manager. When he arrives, appearing to have only recently completed year 10, our man glances at the card before asking for another document that might more adequately verify my age. By some strange twist of fate I reach for my back pocket and find my passport (see previous blog). This appears to just scrape in as the proof they need to sell me liquor. Smirking rather cheekily as I swipe my credit card I ask whether comprehensively bearded 17 year olds with young children, fraudulent South Australian driver’s licences and a taste for wine from the Barossa are a common problem in Orewa. He replies that stranger things have happened - this only serves to heighten my intrigue at what I have already found to be a fascinating country.

In other news:

A few months ago we moved into a house that has to be an exact replica of the house that Phil Collins wrote ‘Easy Lover’ in, complete with retro brass décor and oversized light switches. Those attuned to New Zealand folklore will be impressed by the fact that this house was once owned by Mr Asia, an infamous drug tycoon for whom the aforementioned décor must have been contemporary. Whilst living in his past dominion I have wandered what sort of stunts you have to pull to get nicknamed after a whole continent.

Unfortunately for us and our would-be Skype friends we don’t have broadband at our new house. At our previous house, which was only 100 metres up the street, we had more broadband internet than we needed, but after a month long debacle involving the less than highly efficient NZ telecommunications bureaucracy they concluded that our new house is three kilometres out of range for the broadband service. With the only reasonable explanation being that there is a tear in the very fabric of the space-time continuum somewhere between our front gate and no. 23 Oceanview Road we have resigned ourselves to the waiting game that is dialup.

Lucy, apart from helping me to pose as an underage drinker, is making all sorts of new sounds, rolling around on the floor and waking in the middle of the night with the giggles.

The ocean is getting swum in despite it not really being warm enough (the entire nation seems to take to the sea to cool off when it hits 24 degrees). We call it ‘sympathy swimming’.

Our pohutakawas are turning red – which to the Australians out there may sound quite rude until they google pohutakawa.

Festive love and peace,

Tim, Liv and Lucy

Red Stars and Red Tape

After just about making a career over here out of photocopying my important documents and handing over large wads of cash to the countless manifestations of New Zealand bureaucracy I was recently awarded the right to teach in the country’s schools. This I have done with no small amount of enjoyment and I can say that teaching students whose pronunciation of certain vowels leaves one in mild hysterics is incredibly rewarding. Let me recount a typical post-lunch dialogue:
Taeuna, a lively lad, arrives well after the bell and pants breathlessly:
'Gee, um so hot und switty, ay?' To which Molla replies:
'Not uz switty uz yo mama last night bro!' At this point I interrupt and attempt to explain the irony of 'yo mama' jokes that end with 'bro'.
'Not evun!' Molla replies indignantly. This roughly translates into English as 'You're right, our cultural turn of phrase is very silly, our accent is ridiculous and all sheep related jokes made at our expense are true.' Very good fun in anyone's book you'll agree.

Unfortunately, in the midst of my witty classroom observations I remained naively unaware that the aforementioned paper work did not give me the right to be paid for said work. This would involve many more weeks of me disclosing increasingly inane details about my life such as the verification of my grandmother's next-door-neighbour's sister's second-best-friend's deceased budgie’s registration certificate. A particularly stunning example of a government department's complete inability to adhere to common precepts of logic occurred when I rang the Ministry of Education in order to procure for myself a Ministry of Education number. The response from my heavily accented phone correspondent was one of uncertainty:
'Ah...I'm not exactly sure… I don't think we actually give those out here.' To which I responded:
'Isn't this the Ministry of Education?'
'Yes it is.'
'Do you deal with Ministry of Education Numbers?' I ask, now second-guessing my own logic.
'Yes we do, that's how we identify teachers and allocate their pay'
'But you're telling me,' I continued, in increasing bewilderment, 'that you can't tell me how I might get one of these numbers?'
'Well, it's not a simple process...' I stopped him here to explain that previous experience in this country had left me with no illusion that the getting of this number would be, by any means, a simple process. But it was again my naive hope that I might get the ball rolling before continental drift saved me buying plane ticket back to Australia.

Finally, feeling battle weary but mildly triumphant at having gathered and forwarded all the relevant details to every person in the country in possession of a shirt and tie, I eagerly awaited my paycheck. This arrived quicker than expected but appeared a little thin. Don't get me wrong, I know teaching's not rocket science and I don't do this job just for the money in any country, but being paid at the rate of $29K per year, holiday loading included, certainly makes me thankful for all those diligent colleagues of mine back in Australia who turn up to enterprise bargaining meetings to fight for more than the award rate. This is not forgetting that we're talking New Zealand dollars here - which are at best worth marginally more than their cricket team.

Needless to say I've decided to focus my attention on the country's better-known attributes in the remainder of my time here like the dramatic landscapes, endless pristine bays and my beautiful wife. Thus I have chosen not to work on sunny days and, as summer is almost upon us, there is a distinct possibility I may not grace the gates of another place of learning until we return to the big brown land.

Big love.

Mr Moore (+ Mrs and Miss Moore)

Ps. In keeping with the theme of tedious bureaucracy I have decided not to put any photos or videos on this post but you can click here to find semi-recent photos of the Moore family at various states of rest and play.

Guy Fawkin’ Good Times

For thousands of years the Chinese have used fireworks to light up the nights and the faces of everyone with that boyish love for dangerous explosions. It was only relatively recently that the whities came along and said ‘Hallo chaps, perhaps we can use this stuff to conquer and subjugate less developed nations’ to which the Chinese replied ‘Now look here,’ (they had English accents too it seems) ‘That’s not terribly sporting, we just use the stuff to make our festivals and future Oympic endeavours a little more exciting.’ To which, if my sources are correct, the whities replied ‘Oh dry up. Come back when you’ve got your own plan for global domination.’

I must say that none of this transcontinental dialogue, however historically accurate, was going through my mind at 8:51pm on the night of Wenesday the 5th of November. Nor was I thinking about Mr Fawke’s anarchistic aspirations of the early 17th century as I drove past endless front yards that teamed with young families, teenagers and the elderly gingerly lighting fuses that trailed out of buckets full of pointy coloured rockets. As great showers of sparks lit up the night on either side like great computer animated footsteps my singular concern was getting to the local supermarket before they locked the doors on our pyrotechnic adventures for another 360 days. That’s right, New Zealand’s charm does extend beyond dramatic scenery and their willingness to put soft cheeses in meat pies, for five days a year anyone with a fiver and a less than keen affection for all of their fingers is free to strike terror into the hearts of neighbourhood dogs in the name of disestablishmentarianism.

Landing the Honda in the New World carpark at 8:58pm I burst through the automatic doors to see the assistant manager dismantling the temporary fireworks display. Trying hard to mask my desperation I casually enquired about the possibility of purchasing the goods that go bang. He blankly directed me to a box of Mad Lion fireworks (pictured). The severe looking king of the jungle staring up at me from the passenger seat only served to heighten my excitement and sense of danger as I drove my bounty home. Pausing only to read the very obvious warning labels (Caution: This product may emit showers of sparks) and assure those concerned for our safety that we had absolutely no idea what we were doing but were sure these things weren’t dangerous, we joined our fellow revellers on the beach. Needless to say that in the half hour that followed much fun was had and many a cheeky grin was exchanged in the flashing lights as, ankle deep in the sand, we lapped up the best NZ$39.95 we’ve ever spent.

Fully sick bro...

Whenever I am asked about where I come from, on mention of the Adelaide Hills most Kiwis say something like 'Oh I couldn't live there with all those bushfires'. It's an understandable fear, I must admit that when I hear the distant sirens ring out in the middle of a 40 degree day with a hot northerly blowing I put the cricket bat down and pause to think about what my bushfire action plan might have been had I cared to have one. But coming from the inhabitants of a land peppered with some of the most active volcanoes in the world I do find it a little incongruous.

Before coming here I was previously unaware of the events of 146 AD. It was in this year that the Chinese heard an awfully loud bang and the Romans noted peculiarly red skies for quite some time. What they saw and heard was the effects of the most catastrophic natural disaster in human history. It was in this year that Taupo (now a sleepy tourist town nestled around an unusually round lake) erupted with ten times the force of Krakatoa, destroying almost everything unfortunate enough to have made this land its home.

Intrigued by these events our little family packed our things into the car and headed south to the place where the Indo-Australian and the Pacific tectonic plates grind over one another with unimaginable force - known to the world as Rotorua, and marketed to the public by NZ Tourism under the misleadingly benign title of the country's premier geothermal wonderland.

Arriving late in the afternoon at a city where steam seemed to rise out of lakes, drains, lawns, cracks in the footpath and small children we decided to shelve our cost cutting plans to cook in our cabin and chose instead to eat at the saddest looking Turkish restaurant we could find. This was a mistake. It was only after the event that we found out that all New Zealand eateries have an alphabetic quality code that must be displayed by law near the counter. Assuming that 'A' is the best we must have missed the line of 'Zs' that should have featured in the service area of 'Cafe Istanblue'. Liv, a notoriously slow eater, noticed after a few mouthfuls that the food tasted funny. I, being a notoriously fast eater, gazed at my empty plate in sombre reflection. What followed is better left unsaid except to say that the experience of New Zealand's premier geothermal region is heightened when hot, stinky mud is not just coming out of holes in the ground. It must be noted that a green faced family fronted up at Cafe Istanblerk the next day to provide some much needed customer feedback.

Still feeling queezy I visited the local museum where I learnt about the 1896 Tarawera eruption that erased three whole villages from the human gene pool and I was harangued by images of the whole regions impending, if not spectacular doom. Upon asking passing locals whether total annihilation was a genuine threat or just a hyped up tourism device, all seemed strangely evasive and offered no assurances that anywhere in the vicinity was a safe place to be. Bushfires were looking better by the moment. So with an apocalyptic step in our stride we set off for Waimangu National Park - the world's newest geothermal formation.

Hot water. We make tea with it everyday without a second thought, but I can tell you that when that stuff is pumping out of the ground it is one of the most impressive things around. At Waimangu (which is really the spectacular fallout of the Tarawera eruption) billions of litres of water too hot to drink churns around in enormous lakes, one of which, an opaque blue colour, mysteriously rises and falls 12 metres - 12 metres! And they don't know why! So we were apprehensively impressed as we followed a scalding river down one of the most beautiful and unique valleys on earth.


We were preceded by a group of cheerful monks that helped to lighten the sense of doom.






To the right of this photo flows the aforementioned scalding river.







In other news...

I know that it's fashionable for every parent out there to fancy themselves as neo-Freudian child psycho-analysts and present passers by with scads of psycho-babble that prove their child is reaching all the key developmental stages in such an order that proves that they are smarter than everyone else's children. We're not really into that. I prefer to use the animal kingdom to describe where Lucy is at. Currently she is firmly insconsed in the kitten stage. This involves a lot of lying on her back and pawing at anything vaguely interesting within her reach.



New Zealand's seeming oblivion to curious double entendre continues...













Much love and peace (particularly geothermal and gastric peace) to you in your corner of this great planet,

Tim, Liv and Lucy.

An accent by any other name

Think for a moment of the world’s easiest names to pronounce. I’m guessing that Tim features somewhere on your list. Well, let me tell you about an exchange I had in a shoe shop recently. The young go-getter assistant who seemed so eager to help that I was a little unsettled, asked me my name.
‘It’s Tim’ I replied.
‘Itseim… hmmm… is that middle eastern?’ he queried,
‘No mate, my name’s Tim’ I corrected.
‘Teem?’ Assistant now looking slightly puzzled.
‘No, it’s Tim’ I said, taking more care than would’ve seemed necessary to pronounce the all important vowel.
‘Sorry, I’m still not getting it…’ At this point, wondering whether I was actually in an English speaking country, I spelled my three-letter, one syllable name. ‘Oh Tum. I was just having trouble with your funny accent.’ My expression at this point could only be truly appreciated by another Australian. This would be funnier if it didn’t seem to happen everyday and it’s for this reason I no longer answer the phone at our house.

I also had another interesting conversation in a hardware store in Silverdale. Silverdale is a little town north of Auckland with a disproportionate number of lingerie stores – I counted eight out of the total of fifteen shops having ladies intimate apparel hung in the windows. I was not there to buy lingerie but a tool set (spot the gender stereotype). Knowing that I would be leaving in six months and therefore piffing the tools when I left, I had in my hand the cheapest set of tools in the store that looked like they would last at least until I got them home. I was carefully checking the price when I noticed not a small number of very young kids wandering about the store, some with ominous looking tools in their hands. At this point a quietly spoken young fella approached me with a baby on his arm appearing to want to help me find what I was looking for. Being the new dad that I am I asked whether the baby was his.
‘Oh no, this is my nephew,’ he continued, ‘most of these kids are either my brothers and sisters or their kids.’ Stunned by the number of kids in the store who obviously weren’t there to buy tools or gaffer tape, I replied:
‘Must have a pretty big family?’
‘Yeah, I’ve got eight sisters and seven brothers’ he responded casually. I paused,
‘From the same parents?’ I asked, forgetting that this might be a bit of an intrusive question.
‘Oh yeah,’ he replied like someone who probably has this conversation every day, ‘most people think it’s pretty strange but it’s not that out of the ordinary.’ The casualness of the last remark did not match the dumbfounded look on my face. Being Olympics time I mentioned China’s One Child Policy by way of a stunning contrast, ‘Oh they’re crazy over there,’ he replied. Crazy indeed, I thought.

As I wandered back to the car, passed windows full of frilly knickers and lacy bras, I contemplated the potential for disaster in hardware stores come childcare centres and the role that lingerie might play in the creation of what can only be described as the uber-families of Silverdale. I love this place.

Liv promises to add to this blog soon and save it from being the shamelessy self-indulgent Tum show,

Big love,

Tim + Liv + Lucy

Ps. Here's a photo of Lucy to demonstrate how she's getting cuter by the minute. Liv's seems rather certain that, despite our proximity to Silverdale, Lucy is not the first of sixteen.