Christening

I got a beautiful pair of wellies for Christmas and yesterday they got christened, only on the back deck but they did get wet.

Christmas dinner

Last Christmas I celebrated with a ham sandwich and a glass of champagne sitting on the deck in the sunshine. This year I was back in Sydney for the full traditional feast.

Turkey, ham, veg and all the trimmings...

and pudding that has been flamed and smothered in sugar, brandy sauce and cream and if you are really lucky you strike silver. That is 2 sixpences that will get soaked and scribbed and put into next year's pud.

and in case you hadn't noticed all served on the best china with the best silver and proper glassware. You can also just see the reamins of fresh lychees and cherries - one of the advantages of a summer christmas!

Heading to Aus!

Shopping, baking and presents heading to Sydney tomorrow afternoon! If I'm careful I might also be able to fit in a change of clothes and my toothbrush. Seriously I've got plenty of room, I just hope my packing skills are up to the task of getting it all there safely.

Mega Advent Calendar

We have turned our building into an advent calendar. Each day from Dec 1st a new art work goes up and you can walk around the outside and see the calendar grow.

I have two in my windows including this lovely one from Mimi School

"Summer weather"?

If you take the first day of summer as Dec 1st (some say it's the solstice on the 21st) then we have had 13 days and the weather has been changable - not in a good way.

The count so far:

• fog bad enough to close the airport - 4 days
• tipping down rain - 3 days
• drizzle/showers/general dreariness - 4 days
• proper sunshine - 2 days

Most of this was accompanied by a cold south-westerly, not a gentle summer breeze but don't bother with an umbrella it will only end up inside out type wind. You know when you are in the presence of serious weather when you see trees like this! It's not called the wild west coast for nothing.

Breaking out the tree

Last year I pretty much skipped Christmas, the tree stayed under wraps and I don't think I was really sure where the decorations were. But this year I'm back in the swing. The tree has gone up, I'm well into the shopping, baking is soon to follow and if I get myself totally together cards will be in the post tomorrow. Yay!

What the?

The previous post "Share me" was a test for the new Puke Ariki web site. Clicking the link might not take you anywhere because it's in the internal testing phase but at least we know the share function works!

Share me

Share me

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How do you celebrate?

It's my first anniversary. I've been here a year. So how to celebrate such a milestone?

Work late, ditch the gym, order pizza, have a nice glass of wine and finally the first wear of the colossal squid T-shirt. Honestly, how could I not buy it.