Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Constant Rain

Well Mum arrived for her big trip to NZ on Friday around midnight. She saw a little bit of sun on Saturday morning and since then it has been raining - constantly! There is a crazy amount of rain happening here!
Our garden is no longer a garden - it's a series of lakes, the dog hates wet grass and refuses to step out on it and anytime we go anywhere we get soaked!
Lovely! Welcome to Beutiful New Zealand Mum!

Here is a picture of once of our new lakes:


We have still got out and about though and it's been fun. We did some serious shopping yesterday which was great and managed to find all sorts of bargains - including a free pair of shoes when we bought 2 pairs!

We had a BBQ on Sunday for my birthday and of course it was raining! So Graeme BBQ'd in the garage and we set all the food up inside. It was a great evening and Helen baked me a huge chocolate cake - it's yummy!

Not too sure what we will get up to today - I am hoping for a little strip of sun to come streaming from the clouds at some point to warm us up and dry out the lakes!

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Friday, October 13, 2006

Sunburnt? In October?

Looking at the title of this blog, I will forgive you all for thinking that it's me that is suffering from lobster coloured, burning, stinging skin.
I imagine you will be surprised to know that it was actually Graeme that got sunburnt last Sunday! I was a little pink but relatively unscathed whereas Graeme had a very attractive red neck line come Sunday night.
He did spend a little longer outside then I did as he was cutting the grass on Saturday but it was Sunday after we went for a walk with some friends and Rhett that we noticed he 'had caught the sun' (what a euthanism!)

Here is some evidence of how we spent last Sunday afternoon:

We took a stroll beside the Manawatu River and then went into Victoria Esplanade and flaked out on the grass with some cool icey refreshments. As you can probably tell from the photo, the dog is rather partial to a raspberry flavoured ice lolly (or ice block as they are called here) and especially enjoys getting splinters on his tongue from chewing on the wooden stick once he has finished!

Here's hoping for more of the same weather over the next few weeks as Mum is due to arrive next Friday for her first stay in New Zealand, first look at our new(ish) home and first meeting with the mutt himself!
I am really looking forward to her visit - it will be great to see her again (after a year - the longest I have ever gone without seeing her!) and it means I get to play tourist again as we show her the sights of NZ. We have plans for a trip up to Rotorua and plan to go here, here (although I won't be wearing a lime green swimsuit thank you very much!) and here. Graeme is especially looking forward to the luge and I am wondering if we will be able to convince Mum to have a go at zorbing. What do you think?!
So hopefully I will have plenty of photos and news to show off over the next month so you might hear from me a little more often!