Police actually caught the dude!

A Tauranga man has been charged with the armed robbery of a Westpac branch last week.

Adam Leatham, 22, appeared in the Tauranga District Court yesterday morning on five charges related to the robbery last Tuesday but entered no plea.

Police allege that Leatham, dressed in orange overalls and a balaclava and brandishing a pistol, stole nearly $6300 from the Cherrywood branch.

New Zealand Hearald Article

I KNEW this dude looked familar. He went to school with my sister, Christine. And I knew his older brother Dwayne.

Cops n Robbers

This afternoon after picking Nicole up from school I went to the local shops to buy some stamps. While we were there we were witness to an armed holdup of one of the local banks there. I saw the dude run down the street and force a teenaged boy out of a car at gunpoint and take off in the car.

Because of my allergy to the local police force, and the fact that there were many other witnesses and the bank's security cameras, I didn't make myself known or make a statement or anything. It took them about 3 hours to track me down and make contact. Fuck, I hate being 'known' by the police. The police dude was here for an hour taking a statement. Fortunately he was a dude I went to school with, not one of the other total fucktards that work there.

Its kinda scary when that stuff happens in your own backyard. At Easter the local video hire store had its door sledge hammered in and all the x-boxes, playstations, DVD players and new releases stolen. That same night someone tried unsuccessfully to ram-raid the pharmacy across the road. That block of shops are becoming a target to thieves.

So anyways, the hold-up dude dumped the stolen car a few blocks away and disappeared into thin air. Apparently the cops haven't found the gun yet but 'think' its a toy. I don't think I'd be game enough to find out. That dude would have to be pretty damn desperate to rob a bank in broad daylight, at a busy time of day and without a pre planned get away vehicle.

I have one of these outfits.

One year on...

Yesterday marks the one year anniversary of the Bay of Plenty floods. Our house was flooded with rain water and overflowing sewage. We lost just about everything downstairs. My car, which was parked in the garage, was written off too. Our house, our Nana's house and most of our neighbor's houses were deemed inhabitable until they were totally stripped out, disinfected, dried out and rebuilt.

We lived in a motel for 2 months. We sent Nana to Australia to live with Dad for 3 months. And even then we were the first house in our street to be rehabited. The people across the road only just moved back in a month or two ago.

We got a nasty virus from the flood water. My doctor told me that people had gotten hepatitis C as a result of spending time in the water, we fortunately didn't. The man next door ended up in hospital with an infection as a result of the exposure to the water.

I helped a Police man evacuate an elderly woman from across the road and kept her warm upstairs at my place till we could get hold of her daughter. Because of the flood waters I couldn't get to Nicole's school to pick her up. I eventually made it up there at about 3.30pm.

Even though all this happened, we were one of the lucky ones. Some people's whole houses were totally destroyed and it wasn't safe for them to go in and even get special things like family photos etc. We were also fully insured. A lot of people weren't at all.

I had some guardian angels over that time.... my good friend Suzanne who let me, Nicole and Nana stay at her house for a few days until we'd sorted out where to go from there. She also looked after Nicole when I was meeting with insurance assessors etc and helped bail out my Nana's lift.

My good friend Heather organized for me to borrow a car from her uncle for a week or so. And borrowed her husband's work van and helped me transport a huge load of wet and yucky fabric stuff to a commercial laundrette.

My other family, the Harrises. They came over and helped me move furniture, go though boxes, cry on their shoulders when the emotional impact of having to throw away ruined personal belongings of my late mother hit me.

And my Hunni. You were always there to listen to me, even if it was the middle of the night...yes, I remember the 1am phone call that first night. You helped me calm down and take it one step at a time when it just seemed too enormous to deal with. You spent hours wandering around shops with me getting quotes for different things. I really appreciate you being here for me.

I worry when it rains heavily. That storm was supposedly a one in a hundred years type of occurrence....I wonder though....

Nothing Else Matters by Metallica

So close, no matter how far
Couldn't be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are
and nothing else matters

Never opened myself this way
Life is ours, we live it our way
All these words I don't just say
and nothing else matters

Trust I seek and I find in you
Every day for us something new
Open mind for a different view
and nothing else matters

never cared for what they do
never cared for what they know
but I know

So close, no matter how far
Couldn't be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are
and nothing else matters

never cared for what they do
never cared for what they know
but I know

Never opened myself this way
Life is ours, we live it our way
All these words I don't just say

Trust I seek and I find in you
Every day for us, something new
Open mind for a different view
and nothing else matters

never cared for what they say
never cared for games they play
never cared for what they do
never cared for what they know
and I know

So close, no matter how far
Couldn't be much more from the heart

Forever trusting who we are
No, nothing else matters

A song that has special meaning to someone important.

My new project!

Teach Emma to Cook Blog

Walk around the Mount

Following our trip to the firestation we went for a walk around Mt Maunganui. It took us an hour to go right round.

A day out and about

Sunday last week I looked after my friend's two daughters aged 5 and 8. The four of us went along to an open day at one of the local fire stations. We watched a demonstration of a kitchen fat fire and learnt the correct way of dealing with it, and what NOT to do. We watched them cut the roof off a car in a mock accident scene. We looked though fire engines, their chemical spill equipment, their helicopter monsoon bucket and watched a interactive movie about the speed of fire. And the girls got heaps of pamphlets, books, balloons, stickers, temporary tattoos and other bits n pieces.

The bottom picture is what happens if you put water on a fat fire. Its what you're NOT supposed to do. You're supposed to smother the fire with a pot lid or wooden chopping board.

Just....Wow!

Last night I took Nicole and Abbey to Girls' Brigade like I always do and one of the leaders stopped me and handed me a piece of paper. She explained that back in June last year a Girls' Brigade company down in the South Island took up a collection during their area church parade. They decided that they wanted to send the money collected to Girls Brigade girls affected by the May 18th floods, here in the Bay of Plenty.

Nicole's company was given $90 to give to families with girls who were affected by the floods. So last night I was given a cheque for $45. I'm still kinda in shock. It was so out of the blue.

Am I the only one who looks at this picture and smells trout?