Time is on my side...

Lots of you have been pointing out that we have been particularly slack with our blogs, so I thought I better write one and explain why. It's the end of the service year and so we've all been working hard to make up for all the trips away - so we thought we'd take some photos to prove it!

So, these days Saturday morning usually consists of a 7am start in Queen Street - it's amazing who you bump into at that time on a Saturday morning!

We're busy trying to persuade/prepare Colin and Jessamy for their move to London so were very excited the other day to see our first pieces of petty crime in Auckland. First of all, we saw a guy steal something from a shop in Queen Street, only to be chased down the road by the shop owner before he gave it back! Then half an hour later we saw him being escorted away in a police car. Then we were in 'New World' our aptly named supermarket and suddenly heard a great commotion going on, mostly involving guys yelling, 'nooooo' and then a thump! Now, I've shopped in Morrisons in Acton so I merrily carried on shopping without paying too much attention, whilst all the New Zealanders looked on aghast and basically it turned out that one guy (allegedly a security guard) had thrown another guy out of the shop and tussled with him until he ended up throwing him over the balcony! (There's about a 2 storey drop to the street below, so as you can imagine - it was gonna hurt!!) Suffice to say, it added a bit of drama to our day!

The other thing to prepare them for London (ministry in particular) is the frequent excuses to pop into shops or stop for coffee. In Auckland at that time of the morning, this is when the market comes in very handy, with some of the best pastries in the Southern Hemisphere - our treat for getting up early! (Don't worry Mum - they're all low fat!)

Of course, we do let ourselves have a little bit of time off, even when we are in Auckland so here are some highlights of the last few weeks...

Winter has been great this year in Auckland, and for much of the time has been blue skies and mild (having said that it is pouring down like there is no tomorrow as I write this!) and so we've taken full advantage to go out and about.

A few weeks ago after the Sunday meeting, the girls (and Clint) all headed to Bethel ('s beach that is). It's about 30 mins west of Auckland - the sea on that coast is traditionally much rougher, with many of the beaches being black sand and a lot more rugged but get them on a good day and they are great - as the pictures below prove!

Clint actually proving himself useful!


So its supposed to say LOL!!

Sadly no 'baywatch' style lifeguard in the tower...

The house phrase makes an appearance....

The great thing about our area in St Mary's/Herne Bay is that we have now become quite a little community with lots of us all living within an easy walk of each other. So Marcelle organised a progressive dinner party, with each house having a theme. The idea of this, for those that don't know, is that you walk around between each venue and have a different course at each. That's the plan anyway - slightly hampered though when it is trying to rain and blowing a gale outside. Fortunately, Dan became the hero of the night when he announced that he wasn't walking and would take his car between the first two venues, so the less adventurous (or to be honest, anyone in heels!) piled into his car to arrive in a slightly more salubrious manner!

At our first venue, we had to try a number of different bottles of bubbles and guess which one was the proper champagne! Guess who won!! (Hayley, you'd have been so proud!) On to Shi's for an Asian themed course before finishing at ours for a spanish/mexican theme! We had the advantage of having Mummy Bousie up for the weekend who kindly brought up more of Einstein for our spread! He's become quite a feature on this trip!

Raspberry mojitos anyone?

Joel takes the slow but steady approach - to mojitos, that is...!

Tim (and Ruth) sitting on the only bit of furniture in our house that he actually doesn't own!

Jessamy and Mummy Bousie - minus Einstein

I'm not quite sure when our house turned into the Waltons but it seems to have become a custom at the end of the evening when everything is dying down for Mel to put in a star performance at the piano and for her and Kz to lead a singalong, so after an energetic few hours of dancing and frivolity, we played out the evening to an assorted array of musical numbers...

Another popular place to visit in Auckland is Cornwall Park - one of the only places in Auckland that you can see sheep in the centre of the city! Housed in Cornwall Park is One Tree Hill, or Maungakiekie, one of many volcanic cones in Auckland.

One Tree Hill is famous because originally it had, you've guessed it, a tree on top! Interesting fact - it inspired U2's album, the Joshua Tree! However, there is no longer a tree on the hill due to Maori activists cutting it down in 2000 as a protest against the injustices that they felt have been done to them by the New Zealand Government. So now, it is affectionately known as

(N)one Tree Hill!

There is an obelisk on top though, which marks the grave of Sir John Logan Campbell, who is often called the 'Father of Auckland' and a bronze statue of a Maori warrior to commemorate his admiration for the Maori people.

It's not quite as exciting as the bubbling lava I once thought I'd see when I looked down into a volcanic cone but it's still a great view when we eventually make it to the top - led ably by Joel, who entertained us on the way up with his knowledge of 'dagging' - don't ask!

It is also interesting because it was the largest and most important Maori pa or village in pre-European times. It was easy to defend because of its steep sides and the volcanic soil was really fertile. They estimate that the cone and its surroundings were home to 5,000. You can still see evidence of the kumara (sweet potato, to those of us that don't speak kiwi) pits.

Kumara pits



Natalie and I being 'kumaras'

Fortunately, all those early mornings have paid off and by the time most of you read this we will all have finished our hours and be taking a well earned break in Arrowtown to refresh ourselves for September!

Rock the Boat

First things first – apologies for the lack of recent blogging – I blame it entirely on the end of the service year approaching and generally bad time management… but for all you who have been checking faithfully for an update – here goes…

Now I don’t know about you but when I think of pleasure cruises, I get this enormous sense of impending doom – I mean think about all the famous passenger ships that immediately spring to mind – the Titanic – it sank, everyone died (apart from Rose), the Poseidon – it sank, everyone died (ok it was fictional but you get the point), so I began to wonder why on earth we’d signed up to cruise from Auckland to Brisbane in winter…the possibilities for disaster were endless! This was also not helped by Michelle remembering after we booked that actually she gets seasick (this is the girl that feels ill whilst we are still in port!) and Melody proceeded to run through a series of ‘what would you do if’ scenarios that included ‘falling overboard into shark infested waters’ and ‘would you allow Colin to give up his place on the lifeboat for you if we were sinking?’!!

However, we bravely got on board during a beautiful sunny afternoon and kept in focus that at the end of four days we would have the excitement of staying with a very pregnant Salini and Brad in Brisbane!

Our home for the next four days!

I tried to get into the spirit of things with some nautical stripes!

The whole boarding process took some time, providing ample opportunity for Mel to question the general class of people getting on board and find them a bit wanting, but we were reassured when the first major activity that we had to take part in was Muster Practice, which involved everyone getting their life jackets and assembling at appropriate parts of the boat…

I'm not sure we took the entire process seriously...




Getting told off for talking....

However it did occur to me as we were doing the drill that it hardly seemed the most sensible thing in the world for us to have to go all the way down to our rooms to get our life jackets (five floors) and then return back to the top of the boat where the lifeboats actually were...in a state of emergency surely you would remain as close to the escape boats as possible! And I fully agreed with the women and children first rule... so I assured myself that there were enough lifeboats on board, dutifully read the danger warning signs, and then felt I could enjoy the rest of the cruise!

I picked out a lifeboat to aim for!

Just in case someone fell overboard and didn't get chopped up by the propellers! Also note that it contains a handy hint of where to return me to in case of amnesia (like in the film!!)

It was a gorgeous evening as we sailed out of Auckland and we watched the sunset over the skyline and realised that boats can get rather windy....

Auckland's (semi)famous skyline

A selection of windswept travellers

Enjoying the sunset and the 'sail away'drinks

Ahhhh..how romantic

Look who we found on board! (No boys, those cocktails are actually very manly!)

After the first night's adjustment to sea life, we quickly realised that sadly at times being on this kind of cruise was reminiscent of the longest Channel Ferry crossing to France you will ever go on... and could descend into a floating Butlins.... We also found it slightly off putting to be woken up on the first morning by a voice coming over the tannoy announcing 'MAN OVERBOARD' and only then realising that they had also included the word 'DRILL' at the end of it! Combined with further announcements that we were heading directly for a very large storm (and believe me, if I learned nothing else it was that very big waves, rocking boats and wearing high heels whilst walking downstairs was not a good combination!), I began to wonder if this was going to feel like the longest 4 days of my life...

However, we managed to find ways to entertain ourselves...

Relaxing on deck...

Playing deck games (weather permitting)

Having a boogie...

No Maria, that is not how to make a "c"

Dressing for dinner...

Doing martini tasting....

Listening to Larry (best pianist ever... he took requests!)

And watching Davina get robbed in the final of Pacific Sun Popstars by an Elvis impersonator...

She was our favourite...

Davina also managed to find some of the on board 'talent'...

oooh...sailor!!

But we managed to survive the weather, the company and the cabin fever and docked safely in Australia!

Off the boat!

I'm not sure we'll be seeing this boat again!

Getting to Brisbane at last was great - and it was brilliant to see Brad and Salini (who was literally due to give birth at any moment). Michelle proved that her motion sickness really is all in her mind as she proceeded to feel sea sick for at least another 2 days, in spite of the fact that we were on dry land, Colin survived being interrogated by Hayley ('who are your 5 favourite bands - GO') and being beaten in endless games of Monopoly Deal, and we successfully helped Salini purchase a designer leather nappy bag!! We also took a day trip out to the Gold Coast, where it was sunny, but sadly still windy!

Brad refused to stand in the water so that our hair could blow the right way!

We also enjoyed afternoon tea at the Gold Coast's swankiest hotel... the Versace!

There was also just enough time to catch up with the lovely Sarah and Danny, and for a final time with Hayley before she returns to the UK before we headed back to Auckland... ona very quick plane!!!

Mums to be...

On our return home we were pleased to discover that Salini and Brad became the proud parents of a beautiful baby boy - Matthias... we'll have to start finding chateaux with cots!!