Saturday 30 May 2009

Flights and fairy bread

This time next week we'll have just touched down at Heathrow. It's beginning to feel a little bit real now. We're so looking forward to catching up with people.

At the end of each month at work, on the last Friday, each team in the office gets a turn to organise the end of month drinks. Sometimes there's pizza. Sometimes there's fish and chips. On Friday the HR department organised mini savouries (what little meat pies are called over here), cheerios (small pink sausages like cocktail sausages but pinker, bright pink) and fairy bread.

It's the last of these particular delicacies I want to talk about this evening. I can guarantee that no-one British will be able to guess what fairy bread is. Imagine this - slices of whitebread, buttered, scattered liberally with hundreds and thousands. No really. It's a kids party staple. Whereas I grew up with pineapple and cheese on cocktail sticks stuck in a foil-covered baked potato, kiwi kids grew up with coloured sugar on buttered bread. No really.

I was trying to visualise the process that led to this cullinery extravanganza. Picture this - mum goes out leaving dad at home with the kids. He's told to make them some sarnies for lunch. Bread is all laid out. Bread is buttered. Open cupboard. Hmmm, out of jam. No marmite. Peanut butter is running low. Er, hundreds and thousands? Er yeah, that's it. Just cover the bread in hundreds and thousands. Genius.

Only it's not.

Monday 25 May 2009

Wet weekend

It's been raining pretty much non-stop for the past week. The ground is flooded so football was cancelled and it was grey and miserable so a nice weekend cosy at home beckoned.

We'd made plans to see Si & Bek in the evening but when my footy match was cancelled it meant that we were able to see them in the afternoon too. The Tactix were at home this weekend so we decided the four of us would head along and catch some netball. It was quite a good game too, see-sawing this way and that. And the Tactix won aswell, which was a bonus. We're not big fans or anything but you have to support the local team, eh?

The day was wrapped up nicely with a dinner trip to Nandos for four and a movie back at ours in from the cold, sat infront of the nice warm fire. The only thing wrong with the day was the choice of film. Tropic Thunder. Oh dear.

Sunday was another day with friends too, which was nice. Church in the morning, quick bite for lunch, obligatory Sunday supermarket trip and then home in time for Kallie-&-Jo-from-over-the-back-fence to come round for a games afternoon followed by hearty ham and vegetable soup, warm crusty bread and apple crumble.

Ah, winter weekends...

Sunday 17 May 2009

North Island cities

Has it really been so long since I've had a chance to update anything here? March? Ouch.

Well, in that time we went to Auckland for Easter. Two days with Len & Val and two days with Shirley & Tom. It was great to see everyone. It had been quite a while so it was good to have that time with family, just hanging out and stuff.

And then this weekend just gone Joanne and I had a weekend away together in Wellington.

Joanne's not been to Wellington for at least 20 years and I've never got further than the conference room in the golf club across the road from the airport in four attempts.

In summary, Wellington deserves its reputation - it is windy. But we had fun nonetheless. We wandered round a bit, got a feel for the place, went up the cable car, enjoyed some tasty food, went to Te Papa, and watched Star Trek. I think I like Wellington. I wasn't sure quite what to expect, but I think I liked it. I did like the art deco architecture. Sure, it wasn't to the degree that we'll find in Napier when we eventually go, but there were buildings here and there. I do like art deco.

We also had the opportunity to catch up with Elizabeth (Marvin, Melanie & Monika's mum) as well as Sarah (Anthony's sister) for a cup of coffee and a slice of cake. It was good to get to say hi to family of friends who live in Wellington who we've met a few times.