Christmas 2020

  By the time Heather arrives on the 22nd I have had a few baking days and stuffed the freezer full of food. She has been consigned to the office sleeping quarters.

Lunch and wine tasting at Milltons

I have winetasting on the Program for Wednesday, but I was caught out by the fact that so many of the wineries were shut, so in the end we did a comprehensive tasting at Milltons - which as you can imagine was very popular with visitors to Gisborne, and enjoyed our picnic lunch. The Rose was particularly good, and the Chenin Blanc is most distinctive.

Thursday  Heather and I went to Supergrans to do some packing of flour and coffee; and also went for a walk along the riverbank to see where the new Supergrans building is being renovated with a commercial kitchen, then along the cut to the beach. 

After our good deeds we manage to wile away the time with reading, puzzles and Heather kindly helped me dead-head the roses which are now blooming beautifully. Heather can also add Nut Spotter to her CV, which was very helpful me as she checked one side of the tree and I checked the other.

Soon 5 o'clock rolls round and it is time for a predinner drink on the deck.

Well always think that Champagne is a prerequisite to present opening on Christmas morning. We're not going to change that habit even though there was only 3 of us.

We had a leisurely day, with new books to read, and the weather was starting to turn.

Jill, Millie,and Rua arrived mid morning on Boxing Day and it was straight into the activities on the Rail Bike Trail.

Jill and Rua are in the rear going out - thoroughly enjoying the view.

The most adventuresome part was crossing the Waipaoa River

One part had no side guard rail which was a bit freeky.

No steering was required, but Duncan liked to just check where we were going.

The guide was Geoff Main. He paced us, and made sure the tracks had no debris on them

Heather and Millie

Bit of a selfie - clouds starting to gather.

Heading back, Duncan and I are in the rear. The rears ahead of us are those of Heather and Millie.

Not that the biking was very arduous, but Sunshine Brewery is on the same street, so we thought we would wet our whistle here before going home. I'd put on a chicken slow cooker and had a vegetarian lasagne in the deep freeze, so dinner got underway. I was intending to have this absolutely spectacular dessert of a pavlova with a pineapple sponge filling, but unfortunately the cream had been left out on the bench and curdled as soon as Millie started to whip it. Frantically googled - does long life cream whip? The answer is not very well.

 Sunday: Time for another champagne breakfast I think - this time with croissants and pain au chocolat.  The usual Christmas games were played - mainly quizzes. I would suggest Jill was the winner. The weather was not great, but we decided to go and view the new sculptures down by the wharf and on Kaiti Hill. A good bit of exercise. Tonight we headed for The Works for dinner - Heather was not feeling so good and had to sit this one out. A good night was had by the rest of us.

Millie and I went shopping so I could shout her a new top since she has qualified for a Queen's Scout Award. She also went shopping with Rua - he bought quite a bit and Millie bought the top she is wearing above. So on Monday afternoon Heather left, and early Wednesday Millie boarded a bus to head to Rotorua (Where Jordan lives) for the continuation of her holiday. Jill and Rua did a trip up to Tolaga, but the weather was still not great. On Thursday 31st Jill and Rua had a winetasting and lunch at the Vines, while Duncan played golf. I dropped them out at the airport for the 4 o'clock plane. 

The place seems very quiet.

I am making my way through the leftovers.

The first ball of the first over. NZ versus West Indies 2019

 With test cricket not being shown on TV there were some complaints from the family sportsman. Duncan likes to see  the teams warm up, the toss and the first ball of the first over thrills him!! So we set off on the early flight on Friday the 11th to Wellington. We got the shuttle to our hotel, dropped off our luggage and walked back to the Basin Reserve. While the R A Vance stand keeps out most of the wind, it also keeps out the sun and so began 3 days of coldness - but enjoyment!

That night we really had to hunt for a place to eat that had spare seats - there were plenty of takeaway bars too. Finally found a Thai place where I managed to slop dark sweet soy sauce down one of my 2 jerseys, but we had a good meal there.

Next morning we were delivering my painting to Rebecca. We meet at a very good little tea shop. I order Lapsang souchong which is our usual. The young oriental man says "good choice" and when it arrives the little card says .The Weight Loss tea. Well that hasn't worked!

Duncan was anxious not to miss the first ball of the second day - and sure enough we made it in time. Kylie Jamieson was facing (great nephew of Margaret Bartram)

Already things were looking very positive for the blackcaps. We sat next to an elderly man who kept a scorebook which added a bit of interest: important etiquette point - don't talk until he has entered the bowler score, the batsman score and the total score for each ball. Again it was a cold day, but we were seated by the aisle where all the celeb broadcasters went up to the commentary box, and also saw lots of elderly blackcap players spinning yarns about "in their day". We took the precaution of booking for dinner, but when we arrived it was more like a bar with fries, so happened to spy a restaurant across the road and headed there. Goldmine had not only suffered COVID, but had a sewer pipe burst outside their premises. Once this was fixed they were able to clean and revamp - but on a very tight budget. The food was very interesting, and there was an array of French wine by the glass.

Next morning it was off down to TePapa to see the WOW exhibition. It was quite small, but then I did find the show swamped me a bit with ideas. The great value was that you could get up close and see some of the handiwork. Some of it had taken years. Here are some of my favourites:

A Moth

Made out of wool (Axminister carpet!!)

Painted Leather

Moulded plastic

Yes there is a place for the hands to come out, and for the eyes to see through. Made out of felted wool.

Hanging Leather canvases

Rather gladiatorial.

You can see that you could go right up close - but no touching!!

And yes, we were there for the first ball of the third day too. The sun didn't even bother to shine today, but the cold wind continued to gust across the ground. We were in the front row of the stand this time so had a little more room to move our feet which stopped them turning into blocks of ice. The West Indians had to follow on, and it was great to see the NZ bowlers do so well, and the beauty of being at the ground is that you see the fielders move to cut off or back up or ready to stop the overthrows. By afternoon tea time we were very cold and I suggested that I would like to go back to the hotel, and was surprised that Duncan agreed to come back too.

We had booked at a "Turkish" place for dinner, but it turned out that this meant they had kebabs - and no wine licence. Duncan went on a bit of a scouting expedition and found we could get a table at Dockside, provided we could come early - so it was very fortuitous that we left the cricket early.

I had the feta ravioli, which was even more delicious than the dessert, and Duncan had the duck. Lovely meal in good surroundings.

We organised the shuttle for the next morning as there does not appear to be an Airport Bus anymore. We had been cooking our own breakfasts in the apartment, so had to pack up some eggs.

Good on yer Air New Zealand - they arrived back in Gizzy whole!

Note to self: Pack more warm clothes when going to Wellington.