The Bag

Today I caved and bought The Bag. The Bag is something that I've been looking at every time I pass this bag shop on Lambton Quay for over a week now. In fact, I do believe it'll be a fortnight tomorrow that this sorry affair began. The bag was in a sale. It was half price. But I still felt it was too much. I went back regularly checking to see if it had been further reduced. No. Today I checked out some other bags (I specifically want something for hand luggage for my trip back in March) but no joy. Popped in to the shop again. Even put my MacBook in it... perfect size. Sigh. Hummed. Hawed. Brought it up to till and asked if there was any chance it would be reduced further. He looked at tag and said nope, it's half price already. We're losing money on it already (not sure if I believe that!) I mentioned that I'd been looking at this bag for a while now to which he said, "I know" :) Anyway, I bought the bag. Here it is...

The holiday...

I don't know where to start on this.
The Cook Islands consist of number of islands. Big coral reef. We spent first and last night on Rarotonga (main island with the "international" airport) and intermediate 5 nights on Aitutaki (aparently that's also an international airport... em right...)
Rarotonga resort... so so. Room first stay bit shabby. Second stay - definitely better. Large resort.
Aitutaki - beautiful from the air! Not much to do there but relax. It's lovely...

Aitutaki resort... so so so lovely :) Met at airport. Given bit of run down on resort on arrival there (involving 20 sec boat journey across to resort as it's on its own little island). Escorted to bungalow where luggage waiting. Bungalow on beach with view of water - v lovely.
We got some lovely sun and we get some rain. But it was pretty much always warm and as we were just there to relax it wasn't really a problem.

Bit of snorkelling combined with lagoon cruise last full there. Warm but not too sunny so no sun burn. Fantastic... even if I was a bit, well, hesitant, in the water! The coral was beautiful and as for the colour of some of the fish...
Our last day on the islands (back on Raro now) was a Sun so went to a CICC (Cook Islands Christian Church) service. Not like anything I've experienced before! Singing. Conducted in Cook Islands Maori and English. Members of congregation preach or talk as well. And all the guests, that was us tourists, invited in for a big spread in nearby hall afterwards.
Everybody is just so friendly over there... half the time I couldn't tell if everybody just knew everybody or everybody just talks to everybody... i believe it's the latter :)

Christmas Day in the sun...

is very odd! Okay, so it wasn't as warm as Christmas Eve but still very different to at home!
I flew down to Christchurch on Christmas Eve to spend a few days with some friends. I arrived to a beautiful afternoon where as soon as we got the house (after buying some beautiful fresh veggies) I was out in the garden in the sun with my book. So lovely. Christmas Day dawned bright but not as warm. To be honest I'm not sure that I feel like I've had Christmas as yet but that's okay! We ate Christmas dinner in the sun in the sun in the back garden (very odd that one!) and late afternoon we went down to the beach for an hour or so. Karen, Kaye, Karen's Dad and the kids went in to the water... I didn't :) It wasn't that warm so I actually just wandered down the beach snapping some pics and just trying to get my around the fact that I was on a beach on the 25th Dec.


Stephens Day was definitely cold... and wet! But wonderfully, it brightened up in the afternoon so there was a bit of a Texas Hold 'Em competition with Kaye and her Dad against Karen and her Dad with the losers having to cook dinner. Karen lost... badly. Sorry Karen but you did! In fairness we all ended up prepping the dinner - Kaye was on the barbie with Karen, Connor and myself in the kitchen. We had Robbie Williams - Sing when you're Winning, on and what I didn't realise was that as Karen and myself were bopping about the kitchen while preparing dinner, Connor had the video camera going! Oh well... :)

Friday was a scorcher so lots of lazing and reading in the garden before I flew back to Wellington last night. After a week of less than great weather in Wellington (or so I've been told) today was/is beautiful! I guess tomorrow i iron and pack before early start off to Cook Islands on Mon morning :)

Brrr...

For those of you who think that I'm currently enjoying lovely sumer weather think again! Last weekend was indeed lovely; as was Monday. Tuesday started off warm but dull. By lunchtime it was bucketing down and it sort of continued to rain for the rest of the day. Today it's just cold. I believe the met service site said something about it being 13 degrees but the wind chill meant that 4pm this afternoon it felt like 8 degrees and by 6pm it was down to 7 degrees. That might explain why when I came home I immediately changed into merino wool top and then fleece on top of that! It was said to me this avo that it was a "refreshing" change from the clammy weather we had been having. I agree that it's change, but a "refreshing" change it is not! Here's hoping forecast for weekend doesn't change from the high teens that are currently predicted. Having said that, forecast is more than welcome to change from the cold southerlies that are forecast for tomorrow :)

How Apt!

This is, I believe, one of the most apt birthday cards that I've received in recent years. Definitely made me smile :)
... not that I could ever wear a shoe with a heel that high!!

Route map from Tramp few Weekends Back...

This is the route that we took for our tramp in the Tararuas a few weekends back (yes I am now fully recovered - physically at least :-) )

Route photo is taken from a book that does tramp in 3 days so ignore day markings a we did it in 2. Afternoon 1 was from Holdsworth car park to Powell Hut (6km) and Day 2 was Powell Hut back via Jumbo Hut and Atiwhakatu (16km & 1200m descent)

Postage dates for Christmas...

Ooops... turns out that the date for posting stuff to Ireland to ensure guaranteed delivery for Ireland was Sat 1st December. What's worse is that I knew this for about a week before the last post date. But, well, I was busy and tired and just, well, lazy.

So Saturday it dawned on me that i had no cards and worse, no presents sorted! Both my sisters have been away for Christmas before and managed to get presents home for Christmas so it would pretty bad if I let the side down (and my God would I get grief over it). So, I headed out and about Wellington searching for presents. Well, here's the thing, New Zealand just isn't a shoppers haven. To make it worse one of the sisters lives in Philadelpha which is only about an hour south of any shoppers dream location, New York, and the other lives in Dublin which is pretty damn good in comparison to here! At least my brother, reliable as ever, sent on link to exactly what he wanted but these two decided to go for a "surprise" this year. In fairness, this years "what do you want for birthday/christmas present" email went along the same lines as every other year -
"Hi, how you? Any thoughts on what you want for Christmas/birthday? If you want a surprise that's cool".
The problem is I'm not sure I expected both of them to say "surprise is good". I guess my brother's response would be along the lines of "you reap what you sew" (which was his response when I told him I was ditching the Dell for a MacBook :-) )

So after a couple of hours shopping on Sat I'd bought one part of one present for one of the sisters and

Two ice breaker tops

One pair of shorts

One string top

One natural cotton tunic top

Not bad, except that everything in the list above there was for myself. Well I did finish purchasing a birthday present as well but that wasn't for anybody at home so doesn't count. Ooops.

Sun evening (pre dinner cooking) contained some desperate Amazon browsing and brain racking. Discovered some non book site so purchase there as well. As I type one christmas card has been posted and beside me on the table I have big padded christmas envelope with santa and sleigh (like you'd need a sleigh here in summer.. but then Santa is in the sky so maybe that's why it's okay...) containing the one present (wrapped) and some kiwi tack (also wrapped) for the beloveds to fight over (the fight being who'll have to take the stuff :-) ) on Christmas Day. Oh, and the cards. Well, decided it would be better if everything is late or everything is early. No dribs and drabs.