Holidays!

A couple of weekends ago we went to watch Dave Dobbyn play as part of the 'acoustic church series'. Like last year we went with Keryn and Brendon. The initial plan was to grab some dinner at the General Practitioner (buy one main get one free using the entertainment book...) but it was absolutely chokka and we couldn't get a table. Keryn and Brendon then suggested the 'Buenos Aires Tango Bistro' off Cuba St. With our bellies full of very tasty empanadas we headed to the concert. As usual Dave put on a great show, and the acoustics in the wooden church were fantastic.

In a similar vein, we have just bought tickets to 'A day on the green' at the Alana Estate Vineyard in Martinborough on February 19th. Crowded House and Supergrove are playing, so it should be a great way to celebrate Will & my birthdays (17th & 20th Feb respectively). A couple of my friends & their partners have also got tickets, so if anyone else fancies joining us, the more the merrier!

http://adayonthegreen.co.nz/concert_calendar/Crowded_House_NZ

Anyway, back to the holidays... They kicked off with a pretty full-on social weekend. On Friday night we had dinner at Lucy's. Her and Emmaline are both English with kiwi partners, and then Will & I are the other way around. Hence we had an English themed meal. Em & Wayne were in charge of starters & produced a smoked salmon terrine. Lucy & Paul cooked toad in the hole with mashed spud, leeks and onion gravy for the main, & Will & I rounded off the meal with sticky toffee pudding. It was a very enjoyable evening, and a great way to start the holidays.

Saturday was a glorious day so Will and I spent most of it outside in the garden. My job was to prune & tie back the roses, which took a while as they were pretty wild! I don't think they had had much attention for a while... Will mowed the lawn, which you can see below needed doing. Those magnolia flowers are no more, being a victim of the notorious Wellington wind...
Saturday night was a house-warming party over in Lyall Bay. One of Will's korfball team-mates has bought a house there, right across the road from the surfclub. The only problem with living right on the beach is that their backyard was under a metre or so of sand! Some of the team had spent the afternoon shovelling it out, but Will & I decided we had too much to do on our own property first.


We also spent a lot of Sunday outside, before heading to dinner at the home of Will's head of school. He lives on the same street as us so it was nice to just walk up the road & both be able to enjoy a couple of glasses of wine with the meal. Will had driven on Friday night, whereas I was the sober driver on Saturday.
Monday was a glorious day, I got to bust out my jandals & singlet for the first time this 'summer'. I had a very productive day tidying up the patio & clearing all the leaves & debris that had accumulated. I bought some petunias & geraniums at the local garden centre & put them into pots. I also had to re-pot some of the succulents that we inherited with the house. It is looking very nice, especially with all the tulips in full bloom. I had bought the tulips 'reduced to clear' from the Warehouse, & put them in quite late. I wasn't expecting too much from them, but every single bulb has come up!



On Tuesday I had a big seed planting day. I have got lots on the go on our sunny lounge windowsills, including beans, butternut squash, courgettes, sweetcorn, several varieties of tomato, plus all manner of herbs. I also have peas & carrots ready to plant directly into the garden on the next nice day. On Tuesday night Marty & one of his workmates came for dinner & stayed the night. They were heading down to the south island for work & had an early morning ferry crossing on Wednesday. It was great to catch up with Marty, he has dubbed our place the 'Wilton Hilton' which has quite a nice ring to it! The other exciting news regarding Tuesday is that once again we have got tickets to the sevens. No mean feat considering that just like last year they sold out in under 4 minutes! This time we have Brendon to thank for getting them. Now we'll just have to plan our outfits...

Unfortunately today wasn't nice at all. It was pretty wet & wild, so a good chance to do a few indoor jobs. I made it into the gym for the first time this holiday, so will have to make that more of a habit. Touch starts in a few weeks, so it'll be a good incentive to get fit for that.

That's about it, this is starting to get quite long... This weekend we have Nicky & Neal staying, as Nicky is competing in the tree-climbing champs on at the Botanical gardens on Saturday. It was tulip day at the gardens last weekend, so I'm looking forward to having a walk around & checking them all out.

Spring!

Friday was a glorious spring day, until about 5pm... Then the temperature dropped 3 degrees in 10 minutes, the skies closed in, the winds got up, & we had a full-on hail storm for about 20 minutes! It was quite spectacular! Not to mention the thunder and lightning that went along with it... The patio looked like it had been snowed on.

On Saturday normal order was restored. The magnolia bush seemed to survive its battering...

The window seat in our lounge overlooking Otari-Wilton's bush is one of our favourite parts of the house. The sun streams in during the morning, and we will often have our weekend breakfast there.

Saturday was absolutely glorious. Will had marking to do, so set himself up outside on the deck. Next door have a very cute cat, who spends quite a bit of time at our place. She was quite interested in Will's work...

Our Cleopatra magnolia also seems to have survived Friday's storm. It is a stunning colour. We only put it in a few months ago, so should be even more spectacular in a few more years...

There is camellia hedging between us & our neighbours, and it has flowers of pink, red & white which are very pretty.

It wouldn't be spring without daffodils. Unfortunately these two seem to be the only ones on our property. We might have to do something about that next year...The tulips I planted are coming up nicely.

Saturday night we went to a dessert party at the home of one of Will's korfball friends. I made some chocolate eclairs to take along. It was a fun night, even if I was the sober driver. Someone had bought along vodka jellies which were a huge hit. We ended up getting home at about 1am after dropping off a couple of Will's friends at their inner-city apartment which was on the way home.

Today was pretty chilled. Will persevered with his marking, and I pottered around and did a bit of housework. In the afternoon we headed into town to have a look at a few fridge/freezers. The one we bought over from the UK has packed up. The freezer still works fine, but the fridge has given up the ghost. We found a Fisher & Pykal one we are quite keen on, so will check out a few reviews of it. The shop assistant said there was a good chance there would be 20% off whiteware next weekend, so that would be well worth waiting for. That would also give Will time during the week to have another go at trying to fix it! There are still a couple of things he hasn't tried...

Founders Weekend

Last weekend was a long one, being our school Founders weekend. It was an even longer weekend for me as I had the Friday off school ill. I hadn't been great on Thursday, then woke up on Friday feeling even worse after hardly any sleep due to a head cold. I literally slept all day Friday, then drove to the uni to pick Will up from work. He then drove us down to Ohakune where we (along with 3 colleagues and their partners) had a lodge booked for the weekend. Despite the rush-hour it was fine getting out of Wellington, but we did get a bit snarled up in traffic on the Kapiti Coast. However as Will said, getting stuck in traffic in NZ is a bit more scenic that getting grid-locked on the M4! (see below...) By the time we arrived, everybody else was already there. This did mean we drew the short straw with the sofa bed...

On Saturday morning the other 7 hit the slopes, while I again spent a lot of the day in bed recuperating. I did manage the 5 minute walk into the Ohakune township for the weekend paper.
The others got back at around 5pm after an OK day on the slopes. They had to wait a bit in the morning for the lifts to open due to the weather, & once they were able to hit the slopes, it was very cold with poor visibility. They all enjoyed it though, and arrived back tired but happy.

Will & a couple of others had bought along their guitars, so they took over the dining room... My friend Wayne was back in the country for a holiday, and he, Marty & Roger & a couple others were also at the mountain that weekend. They dropped in for a bit before dinner so it was really nice to catch up with them.
After dinner we enjoyed a movie using the data projector that Tim had bought along, and then it was time for bed.

On Sunday morning people were up early for the snow report, but it wasn't great, so it was back to bed and a lazy morning. Jo & Tim cooked us up a great brunch, & then people just pottered around for a bit. Will & I walked the half an hour or so to the junction where we happened to meet Jo & Tim. The weather had improved a lot, so a decision was made to return to our base & get ready for an afternoon session on the mountain. This time Lucy & Em stayed behind with me as well. We had a very chilled afternoon listening to music, reading the Sunday paper, and in the case of Lucy & Em, knitting & crocheting!

Late in the afternoon the others arrived back exhilarated after a fantastic afternoon of skiing and boarding. They had had plenty of sunshine and blue skies, coupled with fresh snow overnight.

Pre-dinner activities that evening included monopoly, handicrafts, & more music school...

Em & Wayne were on dinner duty that night, and after a very nice curry meal, it was time for poker. Wayne could afford to look smug in the pic below, he ended up being the over-all winner! I busted out in 3rd place, with Jo coming second.

We were up early on Monday morning to pack-up and clean the place up, before hitting the road to get Will back to work. I had the Monday off, so spent a nice afternoon pottering around the house & doing a few bits & pieces. By Monday night I was feeling fully back to normal after 4 days of doing very little. It was a fantastic weekend away & I'm sure we'll do it again. Who knows, it might even become a Founders weekend tradition...

Tuesday I was back to school, but only for a day of professional development. The kids were back on Wednesday, so it was a nice short week that absolutely flew by.