Part 18 – An Autumnal Update

Is it just me or is this year flying by?? I cannot believe that it's almost mid May (and I'm only updating you on March!) and we're talking a leisurely stroll back into winter. But winter in Auckland should be quite dramatically different to winter in Invercargill – warmer but more drizzly so I've been reliably informed. Autumn has been treating us very well indeed so far, we had 2 days of torrential rain and strong winds last week and I thought that was going to be the start of autumn but it's been gorgeous again today and rather warm. It does get dark quite early (it's now 5:40pm and it's getting dark) but the mornings are still quite light.

A quick update on the rest of the OH's (Other Half) parents trip: they experienced Howick's Saturday morning market – full of yummy food treats as well as arts and crafts and other random bits 'n' bobs. Then we finally made our first ever visit to Auckland night market. It is absolutely amazing! Loads of stalls with everything you can think of – fruit & veg; clothes; make up; massages; trinkets; computer and phone accessories; jewellery, etc etc. THEN when you think it can't get any better you just follow your nose and the final aisle is the food aisle. I felt like I'd been transported to an Asian food festival. It gets so busy with people and the food looks amazingly fresh – from sweet churros with chocolate sauce (ALWAYS the longest queue) to an impressive paella; pad Thai; squid legs on sticks; quails eggs on sticks, loads and loads. It prompted me to promise never to cook on a Saturday night EVER again.

'The City of Sails' - Auckland

Sunday we headed to Mount Eden and walked around the Mount and headed into the town for lunch in a café, it was absolutely gorgeous! We were only expecting cafe style food and yet it was quite gourmet when it was presented. I had a beautiful felafel salad and the others had lamb shanks (when in New Zealand...) and tandoori chicken sandwiches. Sounds normal, looked and tasted amazing!

View of the city from Mt Eden

Following the weekend, the OH's parents headed off to Wellington – they flew down for a few days to see the sights and then got the Overlander train back. It's a 12 hour scenic train journey so it's a nice way to take in the scenery. They had a bit of trouble when leaving Wellington as their train was leaving at 7:30am. So they left the apartment they had rented at 6:45am and there were no check out instructions...so they went outside to call the out of hours number and the door closed – and locked - behind them. The out of hours lady told them to just leave the key in the box outside...but then they had to explain that they couldn't do this now as they were outside...but their cases were locked inside! Just as the lady (grumpily) came down in her night dress to unlock the door they realised the card attached to their key opened the door so they opened it themselves as she was walking towards them! Needless to say she was NOT a happy lady...but it made for a great story to tell us upon their return :)

The following weekend there were headlines in the papers claiming 'Tick tick tick STORM TO HIT' and news stories were encouraging people to stock up on water supplies, etc so we didn't make big plans to go anywhere. As it happened it didn't really hit us so Sunday afternoon we headed out to show them Maraetai and Beachlands. They are 2 gorgeous areas not too far in the car from where we live. We just relaxed with a coffee and collected shells on the beach. Those of you who know me, know that I HAVE to collect shells each time I venture to the beach – which is lots - and this has resulted in me having to cull my collection on a regular basis.

For their final week they headed down to Rotorua which is an amazing place to visit. It's a geothermal area where there are lots of bubbling mud pools, smoke coming off the floor and geysers that go off regularly - it's generally a great tourist place. They went to Te Puia Cultural Centre which is fantastic – I'd definitely recommend a visit and be sure to include the cultural performance too, it's money well spent. Listen out for the traditional New Zealand love song 'Pokarekare Ana' which made me cry.

The OH then met his parents in Mount Maunganui (another great place) where they stayed at a friend's gorgeous bach (pronounced batch) in Whangamata (pronounced fong-u-mat-ta). They headed to the lovely Hahei and Hot Water Beach where you can rent metal spades and dig yourself a hole in the sand, with the geothermal activity underground the water seeps up into your little pool and it is BOILING HOT – literally I couldn't sit in it when we went. We had to wait for the sea to rush in to cool down our very own beach spa. It's quite entertaining watching everyone digging holes in the sand. Check the tide times if you're planning on doing this as you don't want to be caught out! On the way back to Auckland they all went to Whitianga (pronounced fit-ee-ang-a) and Waihi Gold Mine which they enjoyed.

For their final weekend in Auckland we had tickets for 12 of us to head to Diamond Day at Ellerslie racecourse. It was a fantastic day where we all got dressed up and had an absolute ball trying to bet on the 'right' horses. Not an easy task but great fun all the same!

Action shot: Diamond Day, Ellerslie

They left us on March 14 and we had new visitors the following weekend – friends of ours called Andy & Heni who live in Tauranga. They came up to stay with us on Friday night and we headed downtown for a night on the tiles in Auckland city. The three of them met me from work and we had such a great night – we didn't get home until about 2:30am which is our latest night out since we emigrated I think! We spent a lovely Saturday at Mission Bay eating fish & chips, then they headed home.

On the Sunday morning a fantastic Welsh rugby team beat France to WIN THE GRAND SLAM in the 6 Nations!!!!!!!!!!! We woke up to the news having not got up for the match itself at 4am because we were running the Round the Bays fun run (along with 70,000 others!) at 9:00am. We ran it in our Welsh rugby shirts as a display of pride and actually met another Welsh couple who were sporting a Welsh flag in their backpack. As you can imagine with so many people taking part the starting pistol goes off and....you don't move...you have to wait for the movement of the crowd to catch up to you. For the initial 3kms or so you're walking and dodging the walkers and the people with prams - after that you can get into jogging! It was a great day and we had a massage after the race as well as lots and lots of chocolate from the Cadbury people who were stocking everyone up.

The crowd behind us, walking to the start line

The start line

After another busy week in work we headed to Rotoroa Island (not to be confused with Rotorua). I won 2 return ferry tickets so off we went. Rotoroa Island is a gorgeous 82 hectare island in the Hauraki Gulf which used to be owned by The Salvation Army: alcoholics were sent there to dry out by court order. It was an absolutely fascinating place. No food is sold on the island so we put together a lovely picnic and caught the 8:45am ferry there followed by the 5:15pm ferry home. It was beautifully sunny and we spent the day walking, reading, sun bathing and swimming. When the OH went into the sea in one of the bays on the island he was only waist high when a stingray swam right past his legs. It was awesome!

Rotoroa Island

The welcome hut on Rotoroa Island

The hole in the rock, Rotoroa Island

One of the many bays

Simple beauty

The Chris Booth sculpture on Rotoroa Island

All in all it was a pretty hectic February followed by a pretty hectic March – soon to be followed by a very hectic April - IN WALES - which I'll update you with next time...

Part 17 - Trudi Nangle has arrived!

The end of January saw a couple of bank holidays for us here in North Island. We had Auckland Anniversary Day on Monday January 30 (the actual anniversary date is January 29). So with a long weekend ahead we decided to head to Tauranga to spend time with Allan & Tracy. We were going to head down on the Friday night and go to a house warming - but it was called off as they had some rubbish weather plus the traffic was quite heavy from Auckland so we headed down on Saturday morning. Allan was going to be working at the 'Classics of the Sky' air show refuelling the old planes so we were headed there for the trial day on the Saturday afternoon with Tracy to watch him at work (and to see the planes of course!) We didn't get there until quite late in the afternoon but it was just in time for the grand finale. I get quite excited by air shows and I absolutely love watching them so as we were driving in I kept saying "ooh look at that!" and "wow! That's amazing!!" which wasn't good for the OH (other half) as he was driving - oops!

After the show the boys went out for the night at the Mount (Maunganui pronounced morng-ga-new-ee) and although us girls felt like we should be going out we actually went to Video-Ezy and hired some arty films, grabbed some snacks and settled in for the night - just perfect!

Sunday saw 2 very hungover blokes and 2 (quite sprightly!) lasses lazing about - despite good intentions to head to the air show for the day. Allan & Tracy's home is in a flight path and it just so happened that the planes were often flying over so we had a great view from the lounge! We headed into the garden to watch them fly over and one spitfire (I think?!) was flying around and then it disappeared...all of a sudden it came whooshing over the top of the house! It was so low you felt like you could have touched it if you were on tippy toes (I know you couldn't have!) The OH swears that the pilot saw us watching and thought "I'll have them!" It was seriously like something off Independence Day - so loud and invigorating!

Later on in the day we went on a merry jaunt to Papamoa beach where we could continue to watch the planes who were flying over the beach in a loop. We were going to head home on the Sunday night but Tracy lured us to the thermal pools at about 9pm where we relaxed in the hot pool until closing time and then we headed back to theirs all relaxed and tired. It was lovely.

We headed home on Monday and were back to work on Tuesday for a nice 4 day week. Only to be greeted by another long weekend the following week! Monday Feb 6 is Waitangi Day - if it falls on a weekend you don't get the Monday off, you only have a day off work if it falls on a weekday. It's an important day in New Zealand as it marks the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. The Treaty made New Zealand a part of the British Empire, guaranteed Māori rights to their land and gave Māori the rights of British subjects. There is quite a bit of controversy surrounding the document and it's translation but I won't go into that as I am certainly no expert.

From the Friday before Waitangi Day we were cat (Molly) and house sitting for friends for a week. It was lovely having a house with outdoor space and a balcony to ourselves and such a delight to have a cat again - if only for a limited time. On the Monday we headed out to Mark & Debbie's on the North Shore for some lunch. After lunch we went for a nice walk along the beach - it was a lovely day with stunning weather.

The gorgeous Molly

As we were house sitting for the whole week I had to master another form of public transport...the bus! To be fair, the website for public transport out here is brilliant. You pop in your starting point and your end point and it uses Google technology to show you the options you have for getting there, prices, etc etc. Being used to commuting by ferry it was quite hard to get back into bus routine...you see - the ferry doesn't stop to pick up more passengers from other places on the way - it goes from A to B via nowhere. So the bus was supposed to take me 40 mins from the house to work but it always ended up being an hour or more. It was fine though and I still wasn't driving which suited me perfectly :)

It was the first time that I had really seen Auckland traffic in full swing - it's crazy. OK, it might be nothing compared to traffic in the UK on the M25 or whatever but it seemed manic. One of the good things they have is that on the way onto the motorway they have traffic lights which continually turn red-amber-green-amber-red-amber-green to slow the flow of traffic onto the motorway. One car goes per green light and it stops the eejits that you usually see trying to overtake people to get nowhere - faster than everyone else. They do have some good bus lanes on the motorway though - which cars with 2+ people in can also use. If you are driving a car and don't have 2 people in it the bus drivers know how to use their horns!! They toot like it's going out of fashion...and glare at you as they drive past. As they should to be fair.

The first day that I caught the bus I was waiting at the stop with a few other people when I saw the bus coming...'fab' I thought...until I saw the 2nd bus behind it. Both pulled into the bus stop and I had to make a quick decision which one I was going to commit to. I knew I needed the 07F and the first one was the 079 and the second was the 07. I jumped on the first one and asked the driver "what's the difference between you and the bus behind you?" ... he didn't really know, except that the other one went on the motorway but "there's not really much difference" so I got on. Handing him $20 was a bad move but I didn't have any change so he said "I'll keep hold of this until I get some change" so he did. As we pulled away I turned around to see the bus behind us now said 'Flyer' on it...that would be the 07F then...bugger - I was on the wrong bus.

We drove along - not going on the motorway - and after about 45 minutes there was a load bang on the side of the bus...the driver had driven into a sign on the side of the road! Admittedly he didn't purposely drive INTO it but the side of the sign went into the road a bit and he just didn't dodge it. At the next stop he got out to check the damage on his bus - which I assume was fine.

A bit random: Sal's Pizza - that's not  childs hand, it's mine

When I got off the bus he gave me my $20 back and said "don't worry about it, just have some change next time" but I really wanted to pay so I asked if I could pay him on my way home or the next morning to which he replied "no, I won't be driving it" which sounded a bit ominous! I was worried that he was thinking he'd get sacked for the road sign incident! But nevertheless thankfully a few days later he was back driving the bus. The journey took just over an hour so I was sure to catch the Flyer for the rest of the week! On that first bus trip as we were nearing downtown one of the other passengers was talking loudly into her phone (think Dom Joly) saying "no, I'm still on the bus. Yes it's the longest journey in the world! I'll be there in ten minutes." It's always nice to know when the longest journey in the world is going to end.

On the final day of house and cat sitting the following Sunday Ursh & Dan came home from their holiday looking all relaxed and sun tanned and they cooked us a BBQ to say thank you. We had lovely Kingfish that they'd caught on their holiday - it was delish!

February has been completely manic in work - we take on 100 graduates each February and their induction is arranged by our team so you can imagine that it's all systems go! The girls in work have given me a nickname too...it has stemmed from one of the partners who seems to have got stuck on my name being 'Trudi' - you know what it's like when you assume someone's name - or get it wrong once, it's hard then to rectify it in your head. So the girls now call me Trudi - and having heard that my nickname in the UK is Nangle (don't ask!) thanks to the Ooooodex girlies, they have ensured that my new name is Trudi Nangle. I came back to my desk one day and we have proper name bands on our desks - well mine now says Trudi Nangle. It's cause lots of confusion - with people looking for 'Trudi Nangle' on the phone book to see who she is! I have decided that Trudi is my alter ego, she's the naughty one and I'm the good one.

My desk....hmmm what can you see...? 

That's right - my new name!

We had our delayed Christmas & New Year function on Friday just gone. The organiser decided we should go and do lawn bowls after debating paint balling (too many pregnant people in the team) - it was brilliant fun! We split into 6 teams and 2 competed against each other - our 2 teams were surprisingly good! It was quite satisfying to get your ball close to the jack and we all had a good night.

Our bowls

Last Wednesday the OH's parents arrived from the Welsh valleys for a month. His mum (it's mam in the valleys) has been like a trojan in her resistance to jetlag - it hasn't affected her in the slightest! We were sure it was going to hit at some point but no, she's fine. They spent their initial few days at ours in Auckland and this weekend we spent Saturday at Auckland viaduct where we walked around and had food. Then Sunday we headed to Bees Online to get some honey, Coopers Creek vineyard to do a wine tasting and have a cheese and fruit platter while sitting in the summer sunshine listening to the jazz band they had playing there, then we headed to Piha to look at Lion Rock and then on to Karekare beach (where they filmed The Piano).

It's so lovely having them around - I was in tears when I first saw them - you really do underestimate how much you miss seeing faces that you know in your everyday life. This morning the OH has taken them up to the Bay of Islands for a few days to see Paihia (pronounce pie-hee-ya) and Whangerei (fang-er-eye) among others. It's grand timing for them to come out as summer has well and truly arrived (albeit late - but we're used to untimely summers!).

The pretty NZ evening sky

I have a bit of a random request to end on. I am trying to find out where the name Scroggin comes from. It's used out here for trail mix (nuts, seeds, etc). If anyone knows where this name comes from PLEASE leave a comment informing me. The request has even baffled Google who could give me no answer so I am relying on REAL PEOPLE to answer me now and I'm sure we can do it!! This is soon to become a thing of the past as the Internet becomes the harbinger of all information. We should relish it and be the ones to inform Google...who's with me?? No making up answers now...

A final hello to all of you from SuperTom. He's fed me well for the past few weeks - and the OH and his parents too. He grows THE BEST tomatoes ever! Check out his new frame :)

The emperor has new clothes