loads of stuff!

Been doing a lot of stuff recently. As I've said before, we're still having gorgeous weather, so we've been making the most of that by going out on the boat and doing a huge amount of diving. Sharing a boat with Si and Ali really is the best thing!

We've been doing really long dives, about an hour each time because the visibility is just so good right now. We've also got another trip to the Poor Knights arranged for next weekend. Very excited about that.

Just leaving the marina - yep, another crappy day in the Bay of Islands!

Ali getting kitted up for the dive. Lloyd being boat man.

And we're in! it's like a fish tank!

Surrounded by fish!

 After diving, find a nice sheltered spot for lunch - home grown egg mayo buns with a bit of rocket.

Last weekend we hired a log splitter and spent the whole of Sunday splitting wood. Si and Ali came over and between the four of us we split enough wood to fill 5 trailers and then filled up their ute. We've all got enough wood for perhaps 2 winters now, and it was such good fun. We had lots of tea stops and a lovely long lunch.

Excuse the terrible photos!

In the tractor shed - this gives no idea of the huge amount of wood we've got hanging around!

One trailer load down - 4 more to go!

You really can't tell how big or full the woodshed is from the photo, but take my word for it - it's stuffed! And it smells amazing.

After all our hard work we had a take away curry. There's a curry/pizza place opened in Kaikohe - well it's been there a while now - called Smokin' Hot, and it is AMAZING. The curries are authentic and the best we've had in NZ, and how lucky it's opened in Kaikohe!

What else...I'm still going to pottery. Was there yesterday and cleaned up some wee bits and bobs I made last week to get them ready for firing. 

There's another egg dish - this time I measured out the spaces between the holes so all the eggs should fit in nicely. A few wee hearts and another bowl.  I also glazed one of the ready made bowls Sandrine has there. It's the old fashioned Mason and Cash pudding bowl shape, so I'm really excited about that. 

Autumn is well and truly here. Lots of the trees are bare already. I do love this time of year, especially when the weather is still so lovely. 

 Here's Lloyd and 2 of the dogs, doing their favourite thing. ( Bob was with me taking photos! )

Kopi doing her favourite thing - which is nothing. 

We celebrated Simon's birthday. We went over to theirs and had a lovely dinner. I made a lemon meringue roulade as a cake. it was ok! This was supposed to have he cake in it too!

and finally... I am getting old! After years of feeling rather smug, as all my friends succumbed to reading glasses, my time has finally come. I was trying to go for the nerdy, brainy look! Failed miserably!! But man, it's nice to be able to read!

Happy (Belated) New Year

and what else have we been up to?

well, Northland is basking in truly gorgeous summer weather, it's hot, it's sunny, and Lloyd and I are brown as berries.

We've also been really busy making the most of it all.

Hogmany was wonderful. We went to the beach at R&V's and there was a small crowd of the usual suspects. A lovely mix of adults and children ( most of whom are really young adults now!)
The late afternoon started with biscuiting on the water - in case anyone's not sure what this is, you get towed behind a boat (at speed) while lying perched on top of a smallish blow up thingy! Best fun ever!! Especially when you get flung off. Which I did.

Then a game of cricket, lovely food, some fireworks and a Happy New year all round.

As a non drinker it would be fair to say, I feel a wee bit smug on New Years day cos I feel great!!! 

Next on the agenda....a trip over to the Hokianga, to the sand dunes at Omapere/Opononi. We've been over here loads of times, D&P have a bach here so it would be fair to say we visit them quite a lot! However, we've never been over to the dunes, just viewed them from the other side. This time Danny took us all over in his Takacat. The dunes are HUGE from this side! Supposedly some get up to 300m - you can't tell the sheer scale of them from photos.

Lloyd having a wee snooze after his swim. The water might look lovely and calm, but there was quite a strong current. If you swam against it you just stayed in the same place! But not so strong that it washed you off your feet. Brilliant fun!

 Wilson has the right idea - she made a wee home for herself in the shade, under the boat!

After our strenuous day (!) we headed to the Copthorn at Omapere, where we devoured some curly fries!!! Not a bad view to gaze on while we were chowing down.

Then we had a day of rest...which means we got some stuff done in the garden - mowing, weeding, checking the water situation - not much rain up here.

But by yesterday we were on the go again!
The Tall Ships race was on in the bay and Si and Ali took us out on Roxi. I can't really put into words what an absolute treat this was! The day was stunning, and being on a yacht we were right in the thick of it. We'd never have seen the race like this from land.
It was stunning!

it was the best day. Probably one of the best days I've ever had! I really do have to pinch myself often.

I also have a huge thank you!
Without the lovely Bella and Craig, who are staying at The Acorn just now, we wouldn't have been able to have these 2, long, days out; because we would have had to be back for our dogs. But they have looked after them for us, let them out for wees, taken them down to the Acorn to play with their own dogs, Mollie and Luna and generally been totally brilliant! We cant thank them enough.
We collected up some garden bits and bobs and a wee bottle of Lloyds newest chili sauce to say thank you.

Bella emailed me a couple of pics - I think it would be fair to say our dogs didn't miss us one bit! And I think Luna and Mollie may have enjoyed their company!

Brodie certainly enjoyed theirs!!

So, all that remains to be said is, happy 2014 everyone. May it bring you happiness and a good time!!

Yesterday..

Best. Day. of. Summer

 This is why I love living here.

A busy few days

On Friday Dan and I went for a dive. It's winter now and we didn't see another soul out on the water - it felt like we had the whole bay to ourselves!
The water is colder, but my fandabby new wetsuit is amazing and keeps me nice and toasty.

On the second dive I heard weird clicking, whistling noises. I've never heard them before and couldn't work out what they were. When we surfaced I asked Dan if he'd heard them. He had - Dolphins!!! So we were swimming around in earshot of dolphins - we didn't see them, they could have been far away, but it was an amazing thing to hear! I won't forget that in a hurry.

I call these underwater daisies!

Me, being an air head!

 

I know this is all fuzzy, but I like it - When I'm underwater I feel totally at home, I love it. I sort of feel all serene. 

 ( which I pretty much never feel on land!!)

Then on Saturday my friend Claire and her daughter Amber came down from Kaitaia and the three of us went to a roller derby! I went to one once before down in Whangarei and it was fun. This time it was one of the same teams and they had a match up here. It was a right laugh, and totally makes me want to get a pair of skates.
It was absolutely freezing, though, and I didn't really thaw out until the following morning!

On Sunday Lloyd and I drove down to Auckland - Flight of the Conchords were playing at the Vector Arena. They're terribly funny, talented guys. They'd played a lot of smaller venues throughout NZ, but hadn't made it very far north and also the tickets were like gold dust. So they decided to see if they could fill a huge stadium. They did - almost three times over! And what I loved was that they kept the ticket prices low so that at a push anyone could afford to go. Our seats were shocking - way up in the gods, third row from the top - but they were right in the centre. ( admission time - I am totally terrified of heights - I tried to send my friend a text and my hands were shaking so much it was utter nonsense!) However once they came on stage I almost forgot about how high up we were. They were brilliant. Real laugh out loud brilliant. It was also great, cos we met up with a couple of friends we hadn't seen for years and had an absolutely lovely time with them.

Terrible picture, sell out audience, very high up!

We got home later on in the afternoon yesterday and really didn't have the energy to do much! So, Lloyd got some soup he'd made out of the freezer and I made some dough, and made it into sort of garlicy bread roly poly, pull aparts. And I have to say they were way nicer than any bread I've made!! I'll most definitely make them again they were absolutely yummy with the soup.

A fishy day out.

We were lucky enough to go out on our friends boat at the weekend. It was a lovely day spent with friends, lazing around, 'catching' fish and eating delicious food.
We went out to the Cavalli Islands and moored up and fished for hours. It would be fair to say that the fish had us well and truly beaten! I think it's Lloyd and me - we are bad luck for anyone trying to fish!

Liam, the youngest and tiniest person on board caught the best fish of the day, that it was also his first ever fish was rather lovely!

 I think he enjoyed himself!

So the guys thought they better catch up and get some fish too! They did get about three snapper that were legal size, but they were still pretty small so we put them back. ( which secretly pleased me as I always feel so sorry for the fish)

Wilson - the dog - was keeping a close eye on proceedings!

We got back to shore as the sun was setting - all tired and happy after a totally gorgeous day out on the water.

Also I want to thank everyone who has wished Banana lots of healing thoughts. They must be working as he is coming on so well. He can walk a lot now, even though he's still pretty uncoordinated.   He hasn't drunk anything on his own yet, so we're still having to syringe water into his mouth. But he is eating, just wee bits. Little and often. He is on special cat food from the vet, but he's also allowed some cottage cheese, which he loves and some boiled chicken. It'll be a long road, but we are just so amazed by his progress, so thank you all once again, all your well wishes really mean a lot. Banana thanks you too - he feels very loved and pretty famous!