GCSE Results

The GCSE results were released this week. Thursday the 25th August and Iolo Caudy was to find out how his exam preparations had gone. He went to the school to get his results. In summary his results were:

8A* - Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Welsh, IT, Media Studies, Maths, Stats
3A - DT, Geog, English Lit
1B - English Lang

All those days of preparations, of Sunday afternoons, of chats and days in school. All those times when your work came first has been rewarded.You have done so well and everyone is so proud of you. I am proud of you. Well done Iolo. Keep aiming high. As the Kiwi's say "go hard or go home". Keep going hard.

Cathy did well too and she got 8A* and 4As.

Kia Orana Day at school

August the 4th is KIA ORANA day. This is the day that the culture minister declared for singing and dancing in celebration of the Cook Islands. Previuosly people would sing and dance to celebrate political perties or village and tribal events. On this day the culture minister declared that people should come together and celebrate being a Cook Islander. At our school there are many Cook Islanders and infact I have been linked with the Cook Island whanau. Here are a selection of the pictures of the day's celebration.

The Penclawdd Mafia in New Zealand

The Penclawdd Mafia get everywhere. This is Huw Davies who was born and brought up in Bridgend but is descended from family in Penclawdd. He emigrated here 40 years ago and has named his house PENCLAWDD. This is a small world.
We live in Howick up the road from Cockle Bay beach. The girls go to Cockle Bay primary school and the next village over is Whitford. Does this sound familiar to anyone else?

The link is as follows:

His father was one of six brothers. David Davies, Eufrion Davies (Father), Vincent Davies, Miall Davies (head of Penclawdd School), Tommy Davies, Meirig Davies. 

His cousin is Elwyn Davies...

If life gives you lemons and cockles

There is a saying that if life gives you lemons make lemonade. Well life gave us lemosn and cockles this weekend. Cockles from shelly bay where we met the local fisheries guy called BAZZER! I went over to ask how many cockles we could collect and he greeted me with "Iechyd da boyo!". A kiwi greets me in Welsh! It turns out he has a good friend who is Welsh called Huw Davies. I gave BAZZER our telephone number and he passed it on to Huw.

Huw called last night it turns out he's from Bridgend and his Dad was from Penclawdd!!! We spoke for 68minutes on the phone. Small world eh?!

Hot Water Springs, Miranda

Hot water springs in Miranda is the largest hot water pool in the southern hemisphere. There are three pools outside and a four more private pools that can be booked. Plus barbecue areas and a play area and a large inflatable jumpy thing for the children.
The largest pool seen in the image below is the largest hot water pool in the southern hemisphere.

It is a concrete pool that the hot water feeds directly. There is a faint smell of sylphur occasionally but it is very faint. The pool is so relaxing. It is at about 40o centigrade. There is an adult pool aswell which is slightly hotter. Four hours just flew by.

Mt Eden

Mt Eden is another extinct volcano above Eden Park and it provides panoramic views of the CBD and beyond, here a few images of our trip out and to the park we found at the foot of the mountain.

Eden Park from Mt Eden 

If you open up this image or save it you can see the workmen still erecting the temporary stands for the world cup.

Ginger Beer

We tried the age old family recipe for Ginger Beer recently...

I remember as a child Mam making this recipe and decanting the mix into glass Corona bottles to ferment. The gas builds up and then twice as I recall the bottles exploded. Once in the outside toilet and once behind the front door. It blew a hole in the front door and destroyed the toilet too. The 21st century recipe recommends PET bottles, as you can see from the images below we now await the tasting. One test is to check the 'hardness' of the PET bottle to check the carbon dioxide is being generated. It most certainly is!

 

The proof is in the pudding so to speak! This is the first bottle of ginger beer we have tried. It was extremely gassy. PET bottles are an excellent invention for making ginger beer.