Free time

It always takes me a wee while to get into the swing of the school holidays. One week is nearly over for state schools but I am only on day two. I feel very sorry for the two oldest who have now been on holiday for 2 weeks and done not a thing... 

I think today we might go and do a bit of geo caching in another suburb and find a good cafe. 

Wellington - I jut adore that city! 20 years ago I was a student at teachers college in Karori doing my library qualification. I met up with a good friend from library school days at the conference and we hung out a bit together reminiscing about the old days!

An amazing conference - a highlight for me being a guy called Andrew Fiu who is Samoan and got rheumatic fever at 14 and spent weeks in the hospital recovering from heart surgery. He has in fact had 6 open heart surgeries. The arrival of the NZ Herald every day in the hospital was a biggie - basically he had very low reading skills and listening to older men talking bout current events led him to become a reader. He was a huge inspiration . My school has public health nurses and it was reported only two days ago the shockingly high rates of strep throat that have been picked up in South Auckland schools from the throat swabs that these nurses undertake. At last something is being done about it.

Lots of other amazing sessions on working with Maori and Pasifika in libraries, chital literacy, outcomes of a child's life being a reader vs a non reader, inquiry learning etc.

I did sneak away from one session and do a quick run around the cbd, but there was still so much missed. Dinner at Te Papa was incredible - check out the dessert plate! I hope to get back to Wellington in a week or two just to be free to roam and explore more!

Man alive I swear the cases are so much cheaper down there - cooked breakfast for $13, scramble eggs for $10! LOVeD the cafe Make at the National Library , just up from Parliament (the Beehive building.) Wellington has such a different feel to Auckland and I like it!