Two long weekends in a row, friends visiting and a lemon cake.

We've had a long weekend for Easter and another one now with Anzac day. And summer is still hanging on in there. Well, not really, it's most definitely cooler in the evenings, but still lovely and warm during the day. So warm, in fact, that I am having a second asparagus season, which is just crazy. It all ended in December, like it was supposed to, then lo and behold a whole lot of spears are coming up again now. Six months early! Rocket and lettuce seeds I sowed in summer are coming up now in the wee pot I put them in!

odd.

For Easter Chris and Dan came over from Melbourne. We had a very relaxing time, and it was so lovely to see them.

The sun even came out so that we could have Easter breakfast on the deck.

We went over to Russell for dinner and the sunset was truly beautiful.

Chris, giving Rachel a last apple before they headed back to Melbourne.

Today I baked a lemon cake, we're going out diving tomorrow and it's always nice to have a wee treat when we surface.
My Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook arrived yesterday, so I had to christen it!

This is the nicest lemon cake I have ever made, and there is something wonderful about going to the garden, picking a couple of lemons off the tree, wandering in to see the chickens and collecting some eggs, then coming back inside and using them immediately.

Lemon Loaf Recipe

Ingredients 

• 320 g caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• zest of 2 lemons
• 350 g plain flour
• 1½ tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 250 ml whole milk
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 200 g unsalted butter
• juice and zest of 1 lemon
• 50 g caster sugar

Cream together the eggs, sugar and lemon zest until light and fluffy. Sieve together the flour, salt and baking powder. Separately, mix together the milk and vanilla extract.   You need to combine the dry and wet ingredients with the butter/sugar mixture. The recipe recommends doing this by adding the wet and dry ingredients in thirds and mixing well in between. I didn't! I did it gently, all in one go.

Melt the butter, and pour this into the mixture. Beat well. This makes quite a runny mixture. Don't worry, it works!

Grease a 23×13 cm loaf tin. Pour in the mixture and bake for about 1 hour 15 minutes at 170°C.

Lemon Syrup

 Now, make the lemon syrup that is to be drizzled on the loaf. Gently heat the juice and zest of a lemon with 50g caster sugar and 100 ml water, until the sugar has dissolved. Increase the heat and boil the liquid until it has reduced to a syrup. This takes around 15 minutes or so. 

When the baked loaf is still hot, pour the lemon syrup all over the top and leave to cool.

This finished cake, and it is beautiful and very lemony - yum!

Mum's Here!

Last weekend mum arrived! Lloyd and I picked her up from Auckland then headed straight to Waiheke Island for a 2 night break. Mum had never been before so we thought it would be a nice treat.

Lloyd managed to get a wee sneaky pic of mum arriving! I think it would be fair to say we were happy to see eachother!

We visited our friend Rhona, this is her dog, Baxter.

Mum and Lloyd had to sample the local wine - it would be rude not to!

Outside Man o' War Winery

A 'selfie' taken by Lloyd - Mwahahaha!

Then it was my birthday - which was really lovely. I made myself some cakes! Well, I ate one and mum and Lloyd had one each too.

Big Yum!

Since arriving home we've been doing stuff every day. Today we went out with Nick and Sara on their boat and met up with Simon and Ali who were out on Roxi. Here we all are - having a rather lovely time.

Lots of lovely things and one bad thing...

First the good things!

We bought a boat! We wet halves with Si and Ali. It's an old malborough hull nippy wee thing. Their neighbour was selling it, so we got rather a bargain. It's been amazing. We only got it a couple of weeks ago, but have already been out diving like crazy people. It's just great for the 4 of us to have the freedom to go out and dive whenever we want. 

And yes, it is called Le Coq. Already this has generated hours of endless amusement!

So to look the part I made myself a striped top to wear :) cos I pretty much know nothing about boats! However, I did manage to get the anchor up, well my friend Darlene, and I together, got the anchor up and drove it over to the guys who surfaced from a dive a wee bit away. That was an achievement!

My stripey top!

We've also had friends Darlene and Chris staying, who are over on holiday. I went to school with Darlene, so we've known eachother for more years than I care to admit! We had an absolutely brilliant time with them, packing in as much as we could. We went down to the Poor Knights Islands for a days diving with Yukon Dive ( who are absolutely brilliant) and did 2 of the best dives I have ever done ( and I've done a LOT!)  Si and Ali came too and it was amazing.

Me going through an underwater crack.

 A Moray Eel

Simon pointing something out

Teeny, tiny nudibranchs. These are one of my favourite underwater thing to find. They are very, very small.

And as if that wasn't enough, the following day we went out on Le Coq, Si drove, Darlene and I actually didn't dive, but just chatted all day on the boat while Chris and Si went for a scallop dive. Then they went for a wee snorkel at Black Rocks and picked some mussels. We had scallops and mussels for a starter that night!

We knew that the forecast was for heavy rain on Chris and Darlene's last day so we made the most of the three days of sun. We went for a drive over to the Hokianga. Which is always stunning.

Land surfing?

Happy to be here!

So we have been very busy, and thank goodness ( and thank goodness for good friends keeping our spirits up) because Bob has been ill. He had our own amazing vets a little stumped so we rushed down to Auckland to see some specialists down there. He's had every test known to man and xrays and ultrasounds. After a lot of results they think he has/had a kidney infection. His last urine test was all clear so this is great news, but this morning his temperature was up again. He seems on the mend though, but I really don't know. It is incredibly stressful for us. Not having any children, we lavish all our love on our dogs. They are our family, so when one of them is ill it's awful, and awful not knowing exactly what to do. I'll keep you posted.

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!!

Mission Driftwood

A crowd of us got together to go on a driftwood hunt. I want to make a driftwood christmas tree and R&V want a lot of Driftwood for a new venture, so we all piled into various 4 wheel drives and took an off-road trip to a very secret beach where lots and lots of driftwood washes up.
It's a really gorgeous place.

 We'd only just arrived when we started making little piles of wood to collect on the way back.  While the adults searched out the perfect pieces, the kids all went for a swim.

 I made a little art installation on the sand!

 There really is some totally beautiful bits of driftwood here. I managed to get enough to make the tree. More about that later, once I've actually made it!

We managed to get so much, that we couldn't carry it back very easily. So we rigged up a sort of stretcher malarky and balanced the wood onto it. It worked really well.

Once the girls had finished swimming they worked their socks off carrying pretty large bits of wood back to the trucks.

Here's our haul. It's going to be exciting seeing what this will be turned into.

I love how the roots are all weathered and silvery. 

So, watch this space! In a little while there will be a simple driftwood christmas tree in our house!.