Christmas 2012!

Our second week was split once again between spending time in Standlake with Will's parents, and spending time in Reading catching up with friends. On the Thursday night we spent a night on our friends Karen and Paul's boat 'Cyanara'. We had a lovely cosy night drinking red wine and port and playing cards until late into the night.

In the morning we went for a wander around the marina and took a few photos before driving back to Standlake.

On the Friday night we had a lovely evening catching up with Will's brother Andy and his family, then we drove back down to Claire and Mike's place for the weekend as Nicola was coming back over. Will made himself scarce on the Saturday night and Mike had his work do so we had a lovely girly evening catching up over lots of wine and a very good indian take-out. Claire and Mike have adopted a rescue greyhound Dylan who is a lovely dog.

On Christmas Eve day Will and I took Ellie, Andy's oldest, out for a spot of shopping in Witney, followed by hot chocolate at Costa Coffee as part of her Christmas present.

Our Christmas Day was very relaxed. Before the main lunchtime meal Will and I worked up an appetite on a walk. There has been a huge amount of rain in the UK and a lot of the paths we came across were badly flooded. In the pic below I'm standing on a main walking track, not a stream as it might appear!

We also stopped to pose for photos at a boat on the bank of one of the gravel pit lakes that was a lot higher than what it usually is...

We had a very nice Christmas lunch, turkey with all the trimmings, followed by Christmas pudding with brandy butter. Hugh wore his 'special occasion' jumper which we got him several years ago in Bolivia.

On Boxing Day Andy and Jo and family came over and we did Christmas all over again. James had a very cool flying UFO which he had been given. It lifts itself up when it senses peoples hands underneath.

We had another lovely day, it was great being able to spend a lot of time with the kids. Katie enjoyed her pink 'Glump' we gave her. Apparently it is a Moshy Monsters baddie, so she spent a fair amount of time beating it up!

Yesterday Claire and Mike, plus Dylan the Greyhound came out our way for a pub lunch followed by a walk. Dylan enjoyed having a gallop around Will's parents very long large garden. Tomorrow we have more of Will's family coming to visit, then on the 30th we fly to Singapore to meet up with my brother Warren and his Singaporean girlfriend Norshidah.

UK Trip

We had a good journey to the UK. We left Wellington (rebranded as the Middle of Middle Earth, complete with 'Bag End') for Auckland and had a couple of hours to kill there before our 1am flight to Singapore. We put the time to good use sampling a couple of fine NZ ales...

We loved Changi Airport in Singapore, it is my new favourite airport. It's not often you wish you had longer in transit, we only had an hour or so. Will took advantage of the free foot massage chairs which were dotted everywhere, and we enjoyed the free wifi. We also paid a visit to the Butterfly garden.

Once in the UK we spent the first few days with Will's parents in Oxfordshire. We then spent some time catching up with friends in and around the Reading area, complete with lots and lots of babies! Some friends of mine have 12 week old twin baby boys, Xander and Otis, who are very very sweet. Xander is in the bear suit, he was thrust into my arms almost as soon as we arrived, and spent the whole visit fast asleep. I like the photo of Will with the both of them, a twin with twins...

We also caught up with Ric and admired his newest addition, Anya who was around 6 months old.

 Steve and Kate have also had a kid since we were last over two years ago, so it was good to meet Ethan

Scottie and Sarah have also had a new addition in the last two years, young Will who is on the right below, with his sister Elsie.

At the end of our first week on the Sunday Nicola came over from London for a pub lunch, along with some of her and Claire's other Reading friends. Unfortunately she still had another week of school to teach, so had to return to London that day. It was great to see her though.

School's out for summer...

Once again it has been just over a month since I last posted, so a fair bit of updating to do...

On the 4th November we saw Mumford and Sons play the Wellington Town Hall. It was an absolutely awesome gig, up there with the best I've ever seen. The acoustics in the Town Hall are amazing, at one stage the band unplugged and played a couple of acoustic numbers that were absolutely brilliant. I took some video footage on my iphone but it was taking forever to upload, so here is one of the songs that I found on YouTube.

The other gig we went to in November was Greg Johnson playing the San Fransisco Bathhouse for his 20 year anniversary tour. I love a bit of Greg. We managed to get right in the front row and it was another very enjoyable show.

The weekend before Greg we had a good night out on the town with Geoff and his friend Kelhi who was down for the weekend from Auckland. Kelhi is who Geoff and I stayed with when we played the Masters Badminton Nationals earlier in the year. She had actually bought her rackets down with her so Saturday afternoon we had a bash around for an hour. That night we took her on a tour of some of Wellington's cool pubs and bars. We started at the Fork and Brewer, followed by Little Beer Quarter, followed by Fidel's, then dinner at a Malaysian place on Cuba St that I can't remember the name of, then we finally ended up at Havana. It was a great night out. I was the sober driver for the night, but Will and the others certainly enjoyed the best craft beers that Welly had to offer...

Kelhi had an early evening flight, so in the afternoon we went to Carlucci Land for a spot of mini golf. It was loads of fun, far better than what Iexpected. The guy has built bit of a sculpture park and mini golf course out of, essentially, junk. The mini golf course was surprisingly well designed and good to play. It would be a cool place to take any out of towners... After the golf we had time for coffee and cake at Lido before dropping Kelhi off at the airport.

The garden is growing like mad at the moment. I have planted 50 or so tomatoes into the greenhouse. The peas and broadbeans are also going crazy.

 

 

My fantastic husband has whipped me up a couple of covers for the raised beds to keep the chookies out. So far they seem to be working well...

Last week was the world premiere of the Hobbit movie in Wellington. The whole city went a bit Hobbit mad... I walked down with my friend Hiria on the Wednesday after school to check it out. There were big screens up so that you could check out all the action on the red carpet, the place was buzzing.

This week just gone was my last week of school for the year. I spent Monday and Tuesday on Year 10 camp, helping train the girls up before we take them to the Abel Tasman National Park for 4 days early next year. The girls were awesome and did really well with their camping, cooking meals and walking.

Prize-giving was on Thursday night, then Friday we pretty much just had the Carol Service before the kids left at around midday. It was then time for our staff Christmas party. Fantastic food and plentiful booze made for a fun afternoon. I was in bed by about 8pm though, it's hard work starting drinking at lunchtime...

Tomorrow evening we fly to the UK for about 3 weeks, followed by Singapore for 5 days and Phuket, Thailand for 5 days. Will and I are looking forward to a Winter Christmas and catching up with lots of friends and family.

I will leave you with a photo I managed to catch of one of our chooks walking up the ramp in her coop and taking herself off to bed, as they do every night once it gets dark. It really is rather cute...