Christmas Day... afternoon

It's now well into Boxing Day afternoon and Murray and I have been busy putting the place to rights after the Christmas chaos. We're eating leftovers for the foreseeable future, and chocolate when there's nothing else... Unexpectedly the forecast rain didn't eventuate (yet) and so the washing machine has been working overtime. The recycling has been done, and the ironing is (almost) up to date. The fridge is still bulging at the seams though.

To finish yesterday off completely, we had a nice relaxed afternoon at the end of which Murray, Nui and Brendan went out to the cemetery - but there wasn't much going on out there. We put together a nice Christmas tea - cold turkey roll and cold pickled pork, salad, new spuds and asparagus followed by little mini pavlovas. We listened to the Queen just before 7 pm and around 8.30 pm Murray took Nui home. She'd handled the day well, and was quite happy.

Brendan decided to go back to his flat not long after, so Murray and I had a cup of tea and abit of a 'blob' before bed.

Here's Brendan having a Vietnamese siesta on Christmas afternoon...

Christmas tea.

To refresh your memory, here are the prints (now framed) that we bought in Shanghai. Apologies for not turning the photo!

And on a final note - here's a reminder of a NZ Christmas. This was taken of the pohutukawa tree over our back fence on Boxing Day afternoon...

Right now we're off to see Nui and check how her day has been.

Christmas Day... morning

One of us woke feeling decidedly seedy - but I'm not naming names! We started the day off with breakfast:

By the time Nana arrived a short while later, it was time for morning tea:

Here's the PN version of the Christmas morning tea platter. Murray made the shortbread, I made the panforte and the rum balls, Nana supplied the cake, and the strawberries came from our own garden.

And then came the serious business of present opening. Here's Nana getting a little taste of Vietnam:

Murray's got some group photos of us all in Vietnamese hats which I'll add in a later blog, but for the moment, here's the purely macho version:

Complete with this masked man: Right on cue the phonecall came from Ho Chi Minh City.

Nana decided to try out her new headgear again:

And then it was time for a change of culture. We had a merii kurisumasu from Japan with the opening of Karen's presents:

Meanwhile, Bren was fossicking around in his 'food parcel' for flatters when the 'big package' character caught his eye...

This year we had a departure from tradition, with the meat being cooked on the bbq. Shame it had to rain!

But it was still a very traditional Christmas Dinner. Once again Murray outdid himself!

Some of our cracker jokes:

What is small, red and whispers? A hoarse radish!

What did one eye say to the other? Between you and me there's something that smells!

What has forty feet and sings? A choir

The plum pud and custard came up to expectations, followed by a lazy afternoon. Now Murray and Nui have gone to the cemetery while I finish this blog off. Part II of our day will appear tomorrow.

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas...!!!

Hurrah! We've all finished work and Christmas Day is tomorrow! Brendan is spending the night here; Tam and Niels called in and stayed for a bit of finger food and Christmas Eve cheer, then went home to sleep before getting up and driving through the night to catch their plane tomorrow. Once they'd gone, we had a quiet evening watching 'Love Actually' on tv and drinking too much (at least I did!!!).

It was a lovely evening, and we enjoyed nibbles on the deck.

Here's Tam and Niels heading home for a few hours' kip prior to their drive north.

And some of the pressies under the tree ready for the big day tomorrow...

We had a quiet evening in front of the tv, but enjoyed a few drinks at the same time, knowing that we were organised and ready for tomorrow's festivities.

Only one sleep to go!!!

Saying it with Flowers...

Now there are only three more sleeps until Christmas Day. The long wait will be over, not a moment too soon, though if Christmas fell on Monday or Wednesday we would have more chance of fine weather. As it is, the forecast is for rain so it looks very much as though we will not be able to take advantage of the deck for Christmas Dinner for yet another year. Right now though, it's Saturday morning and I'm waiting to go to work. The sun is out, the sky is blue and it's a lovely day.

This week Nana was surprised by a delivery of flowers. They arrived from Vietnam (courtesy of 'Forget Me Not' Florists) unannounced and unexpected, and she was naturally in tears by the time she phoned Murray to tell him.

Nana has found the run-up to Christmas this year very long and frustrating and she'll be glad when it's all over. The flowers provided a happy moment in an otherwise tedious month for her.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas wherever you are in the world and hoping that your Christmas Day is as relaxed, fun and happy as ours.

T'was the week before Christmas...

I'd just like to report that at this moment, about a week before Christmas Day, we are well and truly on track, all things organised, all boxes ticked, all presents sent (or arranged to be en route) to their various destinations, cards written (and sent), and food pretty much sorted. I've even made panforte, cleaned the oven and rearranged the contents of the fridge. This was in part due to having three days off last week (they didn't want/need me at work). However, it's a different story this coming week as I'm due to work every day, including at this stage, Christmas Eve. Today Murray's work held their Children's Christmas Party and Murray was heavily involved in the running and organising of that. Fortunately he didn't have to be Santa as well! By all accounts it went off like clockwork and everyone was most appreciative of the effort put into making it a success. At this point, a week or so out from the big day, the weather is glorious (if you can describe hot and muggy as glorious) - but we wait with bated breath to find out what's in store for us on the 25th. Hopefully it will be more of the same - we really want to enjoy our Christmas dinner under the gazebo on the deck! Last night I went to a barbeque with my fellow workmates which was really enjoyable. Murray has the flu and has been a bit miserable - certainly he wasn't up to a bbq last night! But for now, that's all the news worth telling, and I'm off to bed to get a little 'Beauty Sleep' - something I, quite frankly, need quite a lot of! Good night to you all...

Christmas comes early

We'd always planned on having Tam & Niels here for a pre-Christmas get-together and farewell before they headed off to Vietnam, and Sunday night was the night for it. Of course, the weather packed a sad. Although it was raining, it was very warm. We had a clayton's Xmas dinner - steak and salady bits and pieces followed by peach/meringue tarts, icecream profiteroles and strawberries. We have just enough Christmas decorations around to give the impression of Christmas, so it was all very nice. We enjoyed it. Nana held up well, though I think she was very tired by the time Murray got her back to C Street where they were just about to send out a search party.... it was 9 pm!

Tomorrow Murray is putting on lunch for his staff, and next weekend they are having the kids' Xmas Party. We are having a 'Secret Santa' at work next Friday, together with a breakfast BBQ. It doesn't quite match up to the festivities you are enjoying in the Ho Ho Ho city, but we'll make do - after all, we can only handle so much excitement here!!!

A little bit of China comes to PN

Today we ticked off one of our projects still outstanding after our visit to China. Having bought some red lanterns in Xian as a souvenir of China where they are not only ubiquitous but picturesque and uniquely Chinese, we finally got around to hanging them and lighting them up. Hopefully we are advertising tea and not anything else, but in any case we love the effect!

Again it was a beautiful day and we had Nui to sit under the tree with us. Here's how we spent our afternoon...

Later on, after dinner, Murray and I went for a bike ride along the river to Albert Street. The daytime blue has gone out of the sky but here's proof that 'clean and green' is still alive and well in the Manawatu!

Finally, we came home and had the pleasure of lighting the lanterns to see their effect in the dark.

Putting all the pieces of the jigsaw together, we expect to open a tea shop imminently...

It's been a great weekend. Looking forward to more glorious weather and more days sitting under the tree finishing off projects...

Changes

Nothing in life stays the same for long... here are some of the latest changes we've made since Brendan went flatting. We think it's a huge improvement.

But wait, there's more... (as well as the new tv, if you look carefully, you'll see that the Wellington Phoenix are playing LA Galaxy at the Westpac Stadium in front of a capacity crowd and David Beckham is the star of the show!!!). Unfortunately the Phoenix are coming second at this stage...

It's a perfect night in Wellington for the game, as it has been here today - all day, and for the past week as well. Summer is here right now. Don't know about the week after next, but for the moment we are all happy!!!

Nana is especially happy. Not only did she get to have a whole day out enjoying the fresh air and sunshine, she got to play hookey too. Here she is avoiding the annual CS Christmas party...

Before she went home, we treated her to 'real food', again out on the deck. She went home worn out but full and happy.


And, in news of other changes, this photo caught my eye in the paper last week. PNGHS is revamping it's summer uniform and 3rd formers will begin wearing it next year. Apparently it has had positive feedback so we'll wait and see. It appears very traditional to me (and a bit reminiscent of the Carncot uniform) but we'll see soon enough what the girls can do with it... There's no change to the winter uniform. Any comments???

Farewelling Jane & Visiting Whanau

This week I have been to Hamilton to farewell Jane, our neighbour in Turangi, who died last week. The funeral was on Monday morning, at Hamilton's Anglican Cathedral, and was a fitting send-off with many of Jane's friends and family attending. Since Murray was away in Sydney, I drove up as far as Turangi on Saturday after finishing work, intending to spend most of Sunday relaxing in Turangi. Unfortunately, I managed to score my first ever speeding ticket (over the Desert Road). Bugger!!! First thing Sunday morning I spent an hour in the river, fishing. The weather was perfect - blue skies and very little wind. However, in spite of my plans to do nothing but fish, read and relax for the rest of the day, early afternoon found me in Hamilton catching up with my sisters (and their other halves and offspring) in Hamilton.

I stayed the night with Jenny and Chris at their new house, and met the other members of their family:

This is Gracie:

This is Russell:
And this is 'Dorothy':

As you can see, they live a 'Green Acres' type lifestyle.

As things turned out, I ended up staying another night in Hamilton so that I could also catch up with my brother (who, ironically, had been down to Turangi overnight). But I got back to Turangi in time for another flick in the river and I also made time to mow the lawns before heading for home. Needless to say, after Saturday's close encounter with the constabulary, I drove with one eye on the speedo at all times!

Who would ever have thought????

For those of you who are interested in Palmerston North goings-on, I thought this was a gem you'd enjoy (from Manawatu Standard of Tues 13 November):

I apologise if the print is too small to read. Apparently the NZ Institute of Architects, in awarding the prize, described the clocktower as "an elegant and memorable focal point for Palmerston North by both day and night". Yeah, right...!!! The people of Palmerston North have labelled it as everything from an "abomination" to a "total disaster" since its renovation.

And then I found this:

To be fair, I think this photo is the nicest depiction of the clocktower that I have seen. But photos can be 'twiddled' - and I have never seen the clocktower look this good 'in the flesh' so to speak.

Darby & Joan

Another weekend over - and things are now completely different in the household. Brendan has moved on - he's gone flatting with his mates. Not only that but having sold his car a week or two ago, today he bought himself a new (used) upgraded shiny bright red car. This is how it looked when he brought it round to show it off:

This means we now have another room to spread out into, and we are making plans. Brendan has yet to take the last of his bits and pieces so we'll give him a few days to do that before we put them in a bin bag out in the garage... To be fair, until today he has been limited to what he could carry on his motorbike (the biggest part of his shift he did with a van borrowed from work).

In other news, we spent a quiet weekend fiddling in the garden which now looks better for the TLC. The weather has been fantastic for the past 4-5 days and everyone is much happier for it. Nui came for the afternoon both on Saturday and Sunday - we took her for a spin through The Warehouse and she is still reeling from the experience...

After we took Nui home, we had our second barbeque of the season out on the deck. In case you were wondering, this photo was taken by a friendly 'park bench' which explains the strange angle. We're also eating in this corner of the deck because that's where the last of the day's sunshine was.

And after dinner Murray and I went out for a walk - we've just started the regime again - three nights so far. Here's a photo of the Manawatu River taken around 8.30 last night. Great time of evening for a walk...

So that's the latest gossip from the folks back home. Over & out!