Certainly surreal.

 We left Heather to catch her flight at Wellington and headed to our hotel. They had no record of our booking - or payment - but we had an email saying we had done both, We got a pretty run down room, but it had a good view of the Harbour, and since it was only for a short stay we put up with it.

We had a few hours to fill in before going out for dinner, so we went to the Sketcher Shop. I had a lovely young girl serve me there. I told her that I wanted a pair of white shoes and a pair of black sandals - while I was clutching a pair of sparkly sandals. She disappeared out the back for quite a while, but soon we saw a pile of boxes on legs moving towards us. "The courier's just been - lets have a look at these!" At this point I sent Duncan out to walk the streets for a while. Yes I bought these 3!

That night we went to Pravda. Duncan had a $150 voucher from buying so much wine in lockdown so we really enjoyed our night in one of Wellington's best restaurants.

Next morning we were off to the Surrealist Exhibition. Being the first day of the school holidays there were quite a few children there. I suspect the parents/grandparents had not done their research as the little ones were to low to look at the pictures and displays, and maybe they didn't realise that the aim was to poke fun at the conservative mores of the time - and meant that many of the artwork had pornographic overtones!! Much sniggering by the pre-teens.

Just as you are coming out of the exhibition there is a large installation that you walk through which reminded me of my dreams sometimes, when I am trying to do a sum in my head

A string maze of numbers and symbols

After a short sit in the sun we met up with Gwyndyls and Tony at St Johns for lunch.

There are very few people there - except for a film crew making a beer commercial! A good lunch and a very good stream of conversation. Gwyndls works a couple of days at BoxHill which is a ladies clothing store which was on my list of places to visit - if I hadn't been clothes and shoe shopping already. Next time.

We had to be up bright and early next morning so got packed that night  - and we only needed a small bite to eat for tea after our sumptuous lunch.

Southern Excusion

 It was 30th Sep before we could make our trip down to Dunedin instead of the 3rd, to celebrate Alex turning 18. I felt quite nervous travelling after all this time, and once we arrived in Dunedin I found I had packed rather poorly - like putting in a dirty skivvy, and one pair of knickers too few. We only just connected up with Heather  before our flight from Wellington to Dunedin where Jill picked us up and delivered us to our Air BnB. The instructions on the email on how to get in lacked a vital phrase -"Go up the ramp" but we eventually made our way in.

Dinner that night was at Gourley St with a belated (second) birthday cake for Alex.

Adding to the occasion was Jordan and Millie's flatmate Emily.

Next morning we had the use of Jill's car and went into town. I bought a few things for summer, but these days we don't need to buy any thing very dressy. We met Jill at Joe's Garage for morning tea/early lunch.

Then we went to the medical school where Jill has one of her offices. The other one is more on the main campus. I think she is waiting to see how the university gets on with student numbers after COVID.

That night we were off to the Press Club for a posh meal - and to help the hospitality industry - there weren't many people out and about, so we spent up large courtesy of the funding of the occasion by Heather. Millie and Jill sampled a few cocktails.

We think that Jill got the pick of the desserts!

Our waiter was an Italian called Bruno. Waiters in Italy think of it as a vocation, and he was certainly excellent at his job, as well as being very entertaining.

Because no-one down there is a non drinker now we got the bus home - fortunately the bus stop was right outside the restaurant, and the stop right at the end of Gourley street one way and the St where our air BNB was.

Next day we headed off to Kaka Point.

Sadly at that stage not a lot more had been done, but a tank was in, and a daffodil was flourishing! So we signed in with the QR code

We went for a walk along the beach, around the back of the pub and then went to NEUX, the cafe there for lunch.

The cafe is built in the old school there which we were able to wander through - lots of memories and fortunately adult height toilets in the Girls and Boys.

The French Toast was exceptional as it was made with brioche, not bread; and Duncan enjoyed his poke bowl. Heather had the seafood chowder - but it did not rate as highly as our dishes.

Time for a nap before dinner at the air BNB which had some curios features which included this large painting, and the elephant in the loo. I did a tapas theme  for dinner. 

Sunday was our last day there and we went to Starfish for lunch. We've all been there many times before. By now you can imagine we are absolutely stuffed with food, and ready for a light tea as we packed up ready for our early start in the morning.

A great winter getaway.