Lots happening!

Wednesday before last my mum & nana came to stay for 5 nights. We picked them up from the railway station on Wednesday night after they had spent the day on the train coming down from Hamilton. It was fantastic having them around, & they certainly earned their keep in terms of helping out around the house! We set them to work on our flat-pack ikea furniture we had brought over from the UK. They ended up putting together 4 Billy bookcases, 9 Benno CD/DVD units, as well as several other assorted shelving units.

We have put these up in the Africa/music/library/chill-out/second guest room...
There used to be a double, double wardrobe where the above shelves used to be, so they also helped us take that out. Storage is one thing this house is NOT short of, so we decided we would rather have the extra space in that room.It wasn't all hard work, we did let them relax a bit as well! Nana was particularly taken with the Wii fit, & can be seen above slalom skiing & hula-hooping. If I am half as sprightly as she is at her age I will be doing well...Will was also busy & took out a large Grevillea shrub in order to open the patio up. You can see the before & after in the photos above & below. The birdbath below was a very kind house-warming gift from nana that we love.That Friday we attended the wedding of one of Will's colleagues. The wedding & reception was at Wilton Bush House, which is only a few minutes from where we live. It was a very nice ceremony, followed by a superb meal, & then an open bar & dancing for the rest of the evening.As befitting someone in Will's line of work, there was bit of a robot theme happening. Will was particularly taken with the robots on the top of the wedding cake, & there were also cute little wind-up robots on the table to play with...We put mum & nana on the train back to Hamilton on Monday morning, & then Tuesday I had

to go into school for the new staff induction day. It was a good day & we got given a whole stack of useful information. There are a handful of new staff who all seem really nice. I didn't have to go in on Wednesday, but spent a few hours there anyway getting myself sorted. Thursday & Friday was taken up with staff meetings & professional development. We had bit of a staff bonding session on Friday afternoon where we were put into teams & sent around the school to complete a series of tasks (think a combination of pictionary, cranium & trivial pursuits!) followed by drinks put on for us in the staff room. It does seem like it's going to be a lovely place to work. However I was shattered by the end of the week, it is a shock to the system having to get up in the morning & go to work after my 6 months off!!!

This weekend ended up being quite social, despite us not having a huge amount planned! My friends Neal & Nicky stayed on Friday night as they were up from the 'Naki to go to the 'Them Crooked Vultures' concert at the TSB arena. They arrived at around 6pm, & had just headed off to the concert when one of our next-door neighbours popped in & asked us if we wanted to join them for a drink. It was a glorious evening so we had a lovely time drinking wine on their lawn in the sunshine.

Saturday was also a glorious day so in the morning we all went for a walk in Otari-Wilton's bush which is a few minutes walk from our house. We spent an hour & a half exploring some of the trails. It is a fantastic place, it's the only botanic garden in NZ solely dedicated to native plants & consists of 100 hectares of native forest & 5 hectares of plant collections. Nicky & Neal's dog Charlie certainly enjoyed the walk!

My mate Marty was also in town this weekend, so Saturday night Will & I went round to a BBQ at Marty's friends place on Pembroke Rd. It was walkable from our place & took us about 20 minutes, all uphill! We thought at least it would be downhill on the way home, but in fact we ended up getting a lift with someone who was driving. Marty & his friends had been out at Makara snorkelling for paua during the day & had got a decent haul, so we had beautiful paua fritters done on the BBQ. It was another amazing evening & the house had lovely views out over Wellington to the south coast.

I'm glad the last few days have been nice, because today is wet & windy. Probably just as well though as I have lots of things to do... I might pop into school for a few hours this afternoon & make sure I'm all prepared for the kids coming in tomorrow. I got given a nice new shiny red laptop at school on Friday afternoon so I haven't had much of a chance to play on that yet.