Sorry lucy, no pictures of tommy as yet, here's some snaps of our weekend down at christchurch/hamner springs. Will some trees do instead??

Lucy just reminded me that i must post mroe family pics soon. She however requesed pics of tommy explicitly even though i'm undoubtedly more handsome, strange...

Here's one of us in London to keep you going lucy.

Here's Annable, wee Tommy, me and my grandfather (Thomas Patton, wee Tommy's great grandfather, just turned 89) with my grandmother Dorothy. Also picture is my dad, my Auntie Ruth and Uncle Tom.

Tommy was named after my grandfather, whose father was also called (guess what?) Thomas.

In other photos you can see the famous Patton's Place, Ballyhalbert!

no fear as tommy mows the lawn

Here's some selected pics from the day, all the pics from our uk tour at http://blog.keithpatton.com/2008/04/23/UK+Tour+Pics.aspx

Sitting on a log at the end of my dad's garden.

Hey, who's this? It's Billy, and he's been out in the cold all night long.

Aww.. in the interests of peace and reconciliation, he gets a bit of love from tommy.

Worked out how to embed the flickr videos! here's the first batch..

Well, time for a holiday. Off to bed in a few minutes then up to brace 12 hours to South Korea, one night stopover, off to London, sprint across Heathrow and then hop on final leg to sunny Belfast International.

It will be good to get back to the Tayto Cheese and Onion crisps (they are the best in the world!!!).

After a busy few weeks (i was in Sydney all last week with work) it was great to have a couple of days relaxing up north in the bay of islands courtesy of some asb rewards points we had built up on our credit card. Lots of sleeping and lounging around, could have done with a week of it. unbelievable weather for middle of winter as well. I tell you, that spa pool was awesome;)

this week, canberra had what it called a 'multicultural' festival during the week. Today there were stalls from all over the world. Those that could be bothered were selling food, and the other stalls appeared to contain old posters from travel agents, a few people looking vaguely like they were from the advertised country (the women from swedish looking a bit abbaish, and the man from solvenia looking serious and a little confused) but i couldn't help feeling, tory like, that this was a huge waste of money. I mean, i sincerely hope it does make racists less racist, liberals more liberal but i doubt it. To top it all, northern ireland was left out of the united kingdom stand. Not wanting to come across all ian paisley or anything, but you know, and i didn't have time to find the ireland stall just to check there was someone from the north (politically correct enough for ya?) there. As annabel pointed out "no-one gives a shit about northern ireland anyway, they think it's all ireland" which said it all really. Poor me, disenfranchised ulster boy, so i sauntered over to the slovenia stall to look confused....

here's some more pics from the UK...

A big party was held at my dad and gaye's house to welcome tommy and for gaye'b birthday where i believe she was whisked off for a helicopter trip! I can't wait for annabel and tommy to come back, sob....

tommy and granda alan

granda alan, annabel and wee tom

loads of people

tommy, granda alan and annabel

we didn't really do much camcordering, preferring to relax and take lots of photos, but what there is is here. Sorry about the file size, couldn't be arsed chopping it into bits.

We drove down up to Milford Sound in the Fiordland National Park, the best drive of the holiday so far, and not to be missed. Milford Sound itself at the terminal was pretty hectic, lots of tourists and so we were a little wary the sounds would be full of boats. However, once we set sail we hardly saw another boat for 2.5 hours and were greeted with waterfalls, seals the odd dolphin and the most astounding scenery i've ever seen. No mobile pictures i'm afraid, but quite a few uuality ones to be posted up on our return next week. We were pretty lucky with the weather as aparrently they get 220 inches of rain down here a year, over 200 days a year are a washout!

We were planning to do some of the many walks available along the Te Anau - Milford Sound highway, but were both pretty exhausted by the time we went home. I've just spent 30 minutes under a cold shower and am still feeling pretty zonked to be honest. Tonight will consist of pizza and falling asleep on the lakefront before the sandflies start to bite.

It's nice to get all the comments people, makes me feel like i'm not talking to myself like some madman. Anyway, Lucy Howard, can you please post up a comment to let me know you're still alive, i've been old you're checking every Monday but you've been very quiet and Annabel and I would like to make sure you're still alive.

Captain Chris, can you please post up your blog address, as your wedding one is busted and i think you changed your main one.

Nasty Marlon, are you still out there?

There's a big fence of bras on your way into Wanaka. Apparently a farmer put up 5 of his wife's bras when she left him and tourists have added hundreds since. If anyone has more information on this bizarre piece of art, please let me know. I'd like to build a website allowing people to put advertising on the bras, or perhaps purchase them, a real winner methinks. Should really have stopped to take a picture, i know it sounds weird.

I have stubbed my toe. On the way back from a big dinner at the Moose bar and sunset food smack grassy knoll snooze, i jammed my jandle/flip flop into some gravel. I'm ok, don't panic. The nice ladies at the Top 10 Holiday Park have given me 2 band aids and the general opinion is that i will make a full recovery in time for our big day tomorrow. Te Anau is about 2 hours drive from Queenstown, and yet again, the scenery is astounding, changing all the time.

Te Anau is mostly a tourist stop off point for delving into Fiordland National Park in the south west of NZ. As Annabel is pregnant we won't be doing anything too adventourous but a 2.5 hour cruise tomorrow with a 4 hour return drive to get there will be action enough i think. We would both love to come back to do the 3-5 day walks such as the Milford track that are out here. As with Abel Tasman you could easily spend many holidays in this neck of the woods, but we only have 2 days.

It's been a bit of a whirlwind tour, but we've managed to balance the 2 days breaks with 1 day stopovers pretty well so far I think. On Monday we're off to Invercargill, then we're taking the Catlins drive over the Southeast coast (not many people do this apparently, so we're special) up to Dunedin, then Timaru, 2 nights in Christchurch and 2 nights in Kaikora before heading back from the mainland;)

We set off by 9am today, getting really good at packing the car. Stopped by a little place called Blue Pools. I've been trying to figure out what it is that reminds me of the colour of the icy blue water, and realised it's the Colgate Gel you get in those pump packs. So it's like swimming in diluted toothpaste, but not really.

We stopped off at the amazing trip highlight (for me, annabel tolerated it) puzzling world, just outside wanaka. there was loads of optical illusion stuff and a huge maze, which i successfully completed, testing my theory of 'stick to the left' which worked a treat. Annabel was very impressed at my orienteering prowess. She took a picture of the leaning tower of wanaka from distance as if it was poking me in the arse, which i'll be posting up on my return, this caused much merriment, a very carry on moment.

Got into Wanaka, still very hot. We've spent a few hours by the pool, and did 3 cycles of swim, dry off, swim, dry off etc, until we got hungry for chippies and pop. We're going to go and see Little Fish tonight at the indie cinema Cinema Paradiso which is supposed to be very cool. Red Star Burgers has been recommended to me as a colleague Simon N has a friend called Trudy who runs the place, a full review will be posted in due course, as i am a connoiseur of gourmet burgers.

The internet terminal i'm at is scary, it's $2 for 15 minutes, and it doesn't tell you how long you have got left, so if it goes off someone will have access to whatever it is you were working on. I don't have a watch but can feel the 15 minutes approaching with every key stroke, so, farewell until queenstown..

have arrived in Haast, a stopover village on the west coast on the way to Wanaka/Queenstown. It's blisteringly hot, not what we had been led to expect, although the sandflies are starting to bite now. They love my ankles and the small of my back.

Annabel fell a little ill last night after dinner, but is much better this morning. She hasn't got much room in her stomach and we ate quite late, so there's nothing to worry about.

The trip down from Franz Josef was great. We had a walk around Lake Matheson, which is famous for showing reflections of Mt Cook and Mt Tasman in the lake, but unfortunately it was a bit windy although it was still pretty impressive. We stopped off for another break at Lake Pakaringa which was just lovely where we had chocolate and banana muesli bars.

I've got 6 minutes and 52 seconds to post this as i'm internet outpost at the Rainforest Retreat. The major irony with this place is that it looks like it's taken a rainforest to make the retreat judging by the debris i can see out of the window. The place is fairly new and we're here for a couple of days.

Today was brilliant, we slept in and then took a drive and walk up to take some pretty breathtaking photos of the glacier itself. I confused myself trying to understand the geology of the place but eventually felt content to stop thinking and just go 'wow' inwardly, which brought on a smile.

Afterwards, we took a fairly long walk down to Lake Wombat, a lovely little place where we scoffed a picnic of BLT and Ham Salad sandwiches, with chocolate brownies and fizzy pop. I read Empire magazine, which contained a helpful list of 100 movies i must rent out on DVD when i get back, together with little 'Seen It' checkboxes which i thought was great.

Loads of pics on this holiday, burnt off 210 already. Camcorder not seeing much usage, dunno why, scenery doesn't move very much, and i'm getting into my photography a bit more.

toodlepip.