Well done , Son

We were very pleased to see that Simon completed his marathon in Berlin in 3 hours 37mins - a few minutes faster than the last one. We are also proud that he managed to collect 556 pounds for the MS Society. He and Jax are off to Greek Isles to recover. Certainly Duncan never managed to do this after his marathons! Its great to see the next generation - both Jill and Simon have got into the fitness regime that dominated their family life.
We have had budburst on the vinyard, and the record winter rain has finally dried up in the gusty winds we have had. The district has been troubled by erinose mite, but the ground was too wet to put the early spray on, so the vines will look quite disfigured. We may have to drop crop as it reduces the amount of photosynthetic area.
Tomorrow we head off to Tauranga to get our dome TV aerial fitted. Then back to Ohiwa, and hopefully calling into Taupo to get an awning. Then we will be all ready for summer.
I'm sure two weeks of holiday will fly by.

Weekends away

Great to go up to Hamilton last weekend and check on Liz who is going very well with her chemo this time - a little bit tired, but not too tired to come shopping with me. Had a great night with Barry and Liz and Wren and Margaret. Then up to Auckland on Saturday for the Caravan show on Sunday. We got there bright and early and just as well as we spend 6hours, and quite a few dollars! That insurance payout that Duncan got on turning 60 is proving very handy. We were going to look at caravans, but very few on offer, just motorhomes addressing the problem of the lack of transport when you are parked up.

Well, why not take some bikes in the storage area? Or upgrade to the motorbike??
Nah, go the whole hog and take a little smart car along!

Dont know how much this combo cost as it was POA, but we went into campervans with no extra transport which cost up to $530,000. As one lady said to me as we sat in the leather lazyboys (cream) "Its indecent, costing more than our house!"

Anyway, not much new in the way of caravans so we just added some extras to our camping scene - freeview TV, a deepfreeze, and an awning (to be organised when we go to Taupo), A new set of pots, and tablets for the loo instead of liquids. Looking forward to getting set up for summer - heading off next week to get the TV fitted in Tauranga before a few days in Ohiwa.