Happy walking

I'm back!

Back from the hikoi and back on the air. I spent all of last week doing a travelling family reunion. Descendants of my G G Grandparents Kotiro Hinerangi and Alexander Gray gathered from all over the country and overseas to visit places of significance to the family. We started in my backyard, Normanby down in St Taranaki then travelled up to Rotorua, on through Auckland and up to Waima and Russell in the Hokianga/Northland. It was a fabulous week and I now have a whole tree full of cousins and aunties and uncles that I never knew about before including this lot. The photo was taken at the rugby club where we stayed in Rotorua which was turned into a temporary marae for our stay, if you look carefully you can see the mattresses and pillows stacked in the background.

We stayed on marae the whole way and I can tell you that I come from a family of champion snorers including some juniors aiming for the 'best new talent' award. God bless the person who invented ear plugs!


Our last stop was a day trip to Russell where Kotiro and Alexander are buried. The quickest way to get there is the ferry from Pihia and on our way back we saw these waka that were practicing for Waitangi day celebrations.

Artists outdoors

The stone carvers are back and this time with friends! Carvers from all over New Zealand and some from overseas are here for the Stone Symposium - 3 weeks of carving on the foreshore then an exhibition and auction.

The stones get trucked in from a local quarry and lifted into place by forklift then the carvers get stuck in. There is an enormous amount of noise and dust but the results are stunning and the best bit is you can go every couple of day and watch the progress.

I'm not so sure about working outside on some of the days we've had but on a good day there can't be many better place to be.

New Year's (+ a week) resolutions

Make better use of my gym membership

(that little red line is waaaay too close to the 7)

Get serious about the garden

untidy is one thing but I have to confess this is probably closer to feral

Blue Moon

We saw the new year in with a blue moon

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!