Back up North

After a very smooth ferry crossing, we arrived back in Wellington on Friday & stayed the night with my newly wed sister & her husband. Of course we felt obliged to help clean up some of the left-over wedding wine... On Saturday it was a big trip all the way back to Hamilton, via Napier to meet up with Trudy, a friend of mine from primary school. She & her husband have a very cute 17 month old & I was even persuaded to hold him for a bit! Never the less, it was a relief to hand him back to mum... A very pleasant New Year's Eve was held at my uncle & auntie's place down the road from mum & dad's. My very cool cousin Andrea was also there, so it was good to catch up as we haven't seen much of each other over the last 5 years.

It was a rather memorable start to the year as earlier in the evening Will proposed... & I of course said yes... He asked me in the Hamilton gardens, which is one of my favourite places in Hamilton. He got down on one knee in the English flower garden, which was quite appropriate, & rather romantic really... He even managed to time it for when lots of white doves were hanging around! We managed a pretty passable self-timer portrait to mark the occasion.New Year's Day was spent catching up with friends in the Tauranga/Mt Maunganui area. It really was lovely to see people, & of course show off the ring... It was an excellent day. Today was also all about catching up with people, it was pretty much a steady stream of people through the house. Apologies to those who I didn't manage to see, it was always going to be impossible catching up with everyone. I can't quite believe we are flying back to the UK tomorrow. Luckily we are flying late in the evening, & to make sure we make the most of every minute over here, we've arranged to go fishing at 5am! For those that know Wayne, I still keep in touch with his family, & his dad Colin has a boat & is taking us fishing in the Firth of Thames. Will is pretty excited about it, so hopefully we'll catch lots of snapper. Last time I went out with Colin we caught our quota of 9 each in 2 hours!