hello bloggerees,

writing from an art deco street in art deco Napier …. so far in the past 9 days in NZ I have … swum, beached, swum, eaten fresh terakihi, swum, loved Wellington, eaten with old friends, coffeed with old friends, wined with old friends, swum, visited the old house in Martinborough, wondered again what Nana would make of her pub now being the fancy Martinborough Hotel, wedding guested and danced my feet and knees broken, been to the bach built by my grandfather and kept lovely by the uncle & cousins (in a very wild def NOT ‘beach home’ kind of way), swum, sung, watched one cousin teach my wife to shoot (target practice only!) and another couple of cousins teach her ukelele, eaten fresh crays, climbed to the Cape Palliser lighthouse, swum, eaten more fresh caught fish, swum, fetched sea water for cooking the crays (not an easy carry), loved being with cousins, watched the sun set behind the Southern Alps (from Cape Palliser), loved being with more cousins, remembered being the baby cousin still (at almost 50) involves getting the piss taken quite a lot, swum, beered, wined, swum. Now we’re in Napier before Gisborne and the East Cape, then Tokoroa and more old friends, old family, and no doubt a little more wining.

I guess if you don’t have a proper holiday for a decade or so, it’s good to really do it when you’re doing it. We’re really doing it.

the view from the aforementioned bach