Yes, yu're quite right. Nothing is happening here. Once more, to school, home from school...you get the idea. Christopher is munching his way through a cookie while playing with Lego, Matthew has gone to Mason's house again and I'm typing meaningless words into a log for nobody to read.

It's been a very quiet day. A couple of phone calls, but not much else. After school, Matthew went to play at Mason's house, while Christopher came home and played as usual. At tea-time, we ahd the usual easy Monday meal of tuna and corn chips. Soon after that, bruce came round to collect some certificates Viv had produced for the Toastmasters club (competition prizewinners, participation certificates and some blanks).

I cannot believe how much trouble and how many tears can result from Christopher's inability to spell awhile, centre, chocolate, different and disappeared. He then read part of a story to me and the boys had their drinks and went to bed. A quiet day, so far. It will probably remain so.

Less than a month on. This time, Viv is off with David, leaving me with the two younger boys. This time, David is going to a school camp in the Marlborough Sounds, staying at Gem Resort (or, to give it a more usual pronunciation, "Jim Resort"). As the announcer at The Warehouse said yesterday, "Fireworks marked down to sivin for tin dollars".

We went to the big civic fireworks display in central Wellington last night, starting at nine o'clock - which meant it was a late night for us all. All the boys fell asleep on the train home.

Unfortunately, it's also an early start this morning. Viv and David need to be at school at seven o'clock, no later than 7:30.So after a stumbling start to the morning, we were soon on our way, dropping Viv and David and their bags at school, followed by another trip to drop off their biscuits which they are bringing for the morning snack.

The rest of the day will be under way shortly. I can't believe that it will bear too many similarities to the last trip, but we'll see: it's schooldays not holidays, the selection of boys is different and I'll be at home rather than wandering around up to Auckland and things. Probably at least some days will see trips to the workplace for bits and pieces.

Viv and Chris were in a surprisingly bright mood on their return. Viv asked me to read the weblog to her last night, and I was shocked to find that some of it had been archived and was inaccessible. So I'm in the middle of fixing that. Please bear with me...

Off to the airport, having checked that the flight is on time. Certainly seems to be.

No, just ten minutes late in fact. However, Viv and Chris emerged from the corridor to be greeted by me and the other two boys. The three boys have scarcely stopped talking to each other until now.

The roads were as crowded as a weekday: some sort of accident in Lower Hutt, but we all arrived home shortly after 5. Viv and Chris have lots to tell us, lots to show us and we have lots to tell them too. That, as they say, is another story. Welcome home!

Apparently Viv could have made the connection, but the nice people at United had omitted to make the onward booking to Wellington...check back and see if they caught the 2:30pm fligth successfully!

Meanwhile we went to church as usual, David was crucifer, I helped set up and tidy the lunch afterwards - just like I would have done if Viv had come back yesterday.

Just a short break now while we tidy up, and check if there is anything else glaringly wrong with the place before Viv gets back.

So the rest of the day wasn't quite to plan. David and Matthew accompanied me to the church leaders meeting because Frances wasn't available to look after them, but that's fine: they played in the room next to the office, read books, played games and watched another Veggie Tales video while the leaders continued looking at the future mission and direction of our church.

I was reluctant to inflict this on the boys, but I really did have to attend this. Next was fish and chips - it was hard to get the cats out of the house for long enough to eat it. After that, a game of Risk, a couple of scoops of ice cream, bath, bed...

I spent a while doing things on the computer and time drifted by until it was too late. Meanwhile, Viv's flight started out on the long trip to Auckland, where it has apparently just landed, 131 minutes late. So it's time to eat breakfast, get dressed, shower, go to the airport, again not in that order. The key question is: can Viv and Chris get off the plane, clear immigration and customs, pick up baggage, check baggage, transfer terminals and get on the Wellington flight in 59 minutes? My guess is no, but we'll just have to assume they did unless I hear otherwise.

The weather has turned foul again. The bed is covered with washing which we are about to start sorting. As it turned out, the barber was fully booked this morning so the boys will still look shaggy on Viv's return.

The boys did get to have morning tea at the bakery, however. That's one of the things that normally happens after a haircut. So they got lucky today... Meanwhile, it's sorting the clothes.

My replacement phone is now fully harged, fully customised except for the phone book list (which will be the biggest problem) and you can now send me short text messages once more by email using Telecom's text messaging service.

Another day, one when Viv might have been expected to return but plans have changed..let's see what happens. I ask Matthew to save his game. He does. Then he carries on...I wish he would have quit like I had wanted him too and then i wouldn't be thinking "he's so like his father...". But I'm just like that, so how can I expect my son to be anything other than a literalist?

The earliness or lateness of UA841 is academic: Viv will not be on it. United Airlines have seen fit to bump them off the flight with appropiate compensation and a night at LAX Sheraton Hotel. Before she left, I said that she should take the money if it were offered. Can you blame her? Compared with the currency now called the New Zealand peso, US dollars are an attractive proposition.

Almost forgot...while we were away, another postcard arrived. This one depicts the Mersey ferry. I remember when...One particular day when I was living in Birmingham I heard a Liverpool group play this song live. I'm not often given to homesickness. The song, the picture of the ferry itself...images of another time, another place, half a world and half a lifetime away from where I am now.

A mountain of mail, a mountain of electronic mail, a mountain of washing...after a light lunch the day drifted substantially and I think an early night is in order.

Then what happened? We went into Wellington to visit the Lost Property Office. Once they opened, the lady there was quite surprised to see us: the office we had visited in the morning had all the phones, so we had no need to visit her office...

I went to Cellphone City and one of the great dialogues of our time started. I walked several times between Cellphone City on Featherston Street and AMI Insurance on Lambton Quay, not forgetting one visit to the NZ Police on Victoria Street. They didn't have it either.

Cellphone City roughly explained my options, I went to AMI to find out what it would cost, they suggested abandoning my current contract and getting another one. Cellphone City told me this would entail a new number. This isn't really acceptable. Back to AMI. He'd been told that but didn't pass it on to me because he didn't think it important. Yet my cellphone number is to be found in a variety of places internationally, so changing it isn't something I would do lightly. They agreed to pay for a replacement phone instead of a new contract. I paid the $100 excess to Cellphone City, I now have a phone again, AMI want the charger from the old phone and they'll put it up to tender. Good luck to them.

The boys were pretty fed up by this stage, so we had tea at Burger King, which has no NZ website so no link. After the chicken tenders or hamburgers, we went over the road to check my mail box and picked up the Wairarapa service home, filling up the car's tank and tyres on the way home. Not much happened after that, except this updating of the log, the playing of some games and some music and that sort of thing. E.T. is on television tonight, so we're recording that for the boys.

I deliberately left lots of time to get to the station, because I suspected that even though we had discovered the Link bus (cheaper than a taxi) I wasn't sure of the details. We retrieved our luggage and went to the bus stop outside. It was hard to stop a bus at all, as a Bayes coach was parked in the bus stop, but we did stop a Link bus, who told us that although he was going to the station, he would be taking a long route and we should take another bus. "No problem, we're not in a hurry." "Well, I'm still not taking you" and drove off. I've never known such a thing. Some more buses went by without stopping, probably because they didn't see us but eventually I found one that was going to the station.

No sign of a train once we got there, however, and a call to Tranzrail's free telephone number revealed that our train was to be replaced by a bus between Auckland and National Park. This did not strike me as a particularly auspicious start to the journey.

Eventually we got under way and stopped at Huntly and Hamilton, where we got off to have a drink and stretch our legs while the bus went to refuel. Matthew was asleep when we got off, but awake and not too happy about it by the time got back on. Time passed and people slept and just past 2 o'clock we arrived at National Park. We waited while our luggage was trans-shipped and then it was time to board. There appeared to be more passengers than seats and some full and frank exchanges of views took place before all the passengers were seated reasonably peaceably. (Check spelling.) A rugby team was in coach U and an announcement soon after we departed, requesting them not to consume any more alcohol as this contravened the licence brought smiles to most passengers. My favourite comment of the whole journey was

I can't believe there are so many people in New Zealand who don't know what aeroplanes are for.

The journey continued reasonably until just after Palmerston North (I presume) and we seemed to be making reasonable time through flooded fields. I don't know why we stopped at Shannon. We stopped at every signal between Palmerston North and just south of Otaki, howvere, for the driver to wind the signals by hand. This resulted in us arriving in Wellington tired at just after nine o'clock in the morning, meaning that both trains had been late by just about one hour forty minutes. It is good to see consistency in a company. I admire that.

No sign of cellphones at the station though. They suggested that I call back between 3:30 and 4:30 while the main Lost Property Office is open. One hour? Are you kidding? What New Zealand needs is somebody who can make the trains run on time...perhaps not.

We got back to Taita station with no problem and on returning home everything seemed in reasonable order and the same number of cats were here as had been when we left. (Four.)