I was lying in bed just before thinking "I should go into the travel business". No, I was. You see, I figured that I could make a fortune organising tourist trips down into the Grand Canyon that has evolved over a period of years in my left bottom molar.

I don't think I could make enough money to be able to pay a dentist to remove the Grand Canyon though. Their prices are scary, even scarier than planning how to get clove oil into my tooth without it touching anything else near my mouth and starting a chain reaction. I mean, have you ever got clove oil on your tongue??? Its not nice, let me tell you.

I bet Heather could tell you all about it even better than me. When she was 4 and we were on holiday in Paihia with Mary and staying at her backpacker's lodge, H got into a bottle of the stuff and had it all over the inside of her mouth and boy, did she go off like a fire siren - you could hear her coming from miles away. I think she still remembers falling over in the main street of Russell after we got off the ferry, and the lovely man at Pompallier house who patched her up as well.

The most breath taking scenery I have ever seen is up there above Paihia, at Waitangi. The view from the Waitangi Golf Course, out across the Bay of Islands is simply stunning. The picture doesn't do it justice.


That was one hell of an interesting trip;
The Treaty House,


The Stone Store at Kerikeri


and Te Waimate Mission House.


It's funny the things one remembers at 3 in the morning...

"Did you hear about the Buddhist monk who went to the dentist and refused to take Novocain? He wanted to transcend dental medication."