Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Festive times

Well its obviously some time since I did a blog! We have to go back to the preChristmas luncheons and dinners. I declined a few but my walking mates didn't mind me coming along trailing a tube and a bottle of bloody serum.
With Robyn Arthur

Dawn Gretton and Olwyn Black

With the Figjam girls - Gaynor, Alice, Camille and Deb
Fortunately Mr Stiven had taken out the drain for this.
So on the 19th of December we headed off for Ohiwa., I got to try my new bathing suit, but had to take it easy in the surf as getting up with such poor tummy muscles was a problem.
 We had a couple of nice days before the weather turned foul. The water supply and the sewerage also caused problems for the main block - the Eastons were not impressed! We had to have our Christmas brunch in the Haszards tourist flat. I had knitted them all beanies:


Hand knitted Beanies and a secondhand book all round.
 I managed a few walks along the road and did wonder why this little grouping of rocks occured.
Low tide at the estuary

Rat and Stoat traps dot the path

Lots of flax and Tui
 One tui gave quite a plaintive PEEP PEEP PEEP PEEP, almost as though it is mimicing a kingfisher, but probably the better explanation was that this is a territorial call of the tui and once the camping ground filled up this tui was very upset. Often he was upset in the early hours of the morning. He went on and on.
This years jigsaw was Love Letters

No fish this year.

Trying to take photos that I might use in the Fifties Forwards Mag. A Coastal Copper butterfly.
 By New Years Eve the Haszards were gone, Lyn went home so we had Jude and Merv over for the night. Didn't quite make it until midnight, but we came close. It was reasonably well controlled at the camping ground.
Merv minds the meringues.
 We managed to put together a really nice meal between the two groups, but the star was the enormous meringues that Jude had made.
What a whoppa


Heather and I farewell 2018

Jude and I watching the fireworks.

Trying out the camp pool - lots of kids!
 We took a day trip to Te Kaha, and watched them retrieving the cray pots while we waited for our lunch at the hotel
Te Kaha

Another beautiful day
 Chez Louis made pizza in a pizza oven and visited on Mondays and Wednesdays. It was quite disarming to hear them talking french while making pizza!
Pizza night at Heather's unit.

Walking back from Bryan's beach. More and more Variable oyster catchers arrived while we were at Ohiwa

Heather and I managed to make it to the end of the road and back - I'm still very slow.

Blessed on my birthday

Lyn enjoys her flat white at the French L'epicier while we wait for the crepes.

Birthday dinner of nibbles and champagne.
Back home on the 7th, and a great amount of gardening to catch up on.