In two weeks time...

We will be Mr and Mrs. How awesome is that?!

I really wish I could add more words and photos to these last few blog posts of my 27th year but as you can imagine - there is much to be done.

Tonight we have been making changes to our ceremony and I have been making origami boxes for the wedding favours.

And our first guest arrives on Saturday (Princess Louisa) - I have her airport sign - which she requested months ago all ready for her arrival - complete with glitter glue - it's classy, let me tell you :-)

The picture is of my beloved fairylights in a basket with collected shells and pebbles and the ornament was our wedding present from Graeme's Gran and Grandpa. It seems right to have it out, twinkling next to the lights and ready for our guests to arrive and the big day to take place.

Graeme's Gran

Graeme with his Gran & Grandpa at Loch Lomond, July 2009

I’ve been debating all week whether or not to mention what has been happening these last couple of weeks and have finally decided that it’s the right thing to do.

Graeme’s Gran – Margaret – died on Friday 2nd October.

After the news came that the doctors could do nothing more for her we got Graeme on a plane as soon as we could. He arrived in Glasgow on lunchtime on Thursday 1st October and was able to spend time with his Gran before she died. I am so thankful that he was able to get there in time to see her and so grateful to her for waiting to see him.

There is so much I could say about Graeme’s Gran. She was a strong person with a huge personality. I think the words from her funeral service describe her well so I will let them do it for me:

Margaret was a person of great warmth, faithfulness, encouragement and love. She had a good sense of humour and a quick mind and she enjoyed life. People, especially the family and close friends were very important to her and she went out of her way to support and help them.
She had a great interest in knitting, gardening, cooking and baking - and she had a knack for ‘sorting things’ when people had problems. She loved all sorts of music, she enjoyed travelling and visiting places and finding out about the history of wherever she was.
She had her own ways of doing things and encouraged others to work the same way. She set high standards for herself and others.

One of Margaret’s requests was - that those who are able to - to give blood as she had to have several transfusions during her treatments. So please do so if you can.

She will be greatly missed.

Holiday in Review - Part 2 - Scotland (part 1)

After arriving in Glasgow on Sunday evening (26th July) we got a good sleep but found ourselves awake at 5am on the Monday morning! Isn't jetlag great?!

We took it easy on Monday and caught up with family and visited Graeme's cousins new school (the same primary school that Graeme went to which has been rebuilt on a new site since we were last there). The jetlag was still evident that night because we were asleep by 8pm!

Tuesday was a brilliant day. We headed up to Loch Lomond Shores with Graeme's Mum, Gran, Grandpa, Aunt and 2 cousins. (Hi Nicole and Emma!)

It was reasonable weather and lovely to look around the shops there and take in the sights of the loch. We also took a drive round to Balloch Castle and were surprised to see it all boarded up. But we were still able to walk round the grounds and right down to the loch side to take lots of pictures and admire the scenery! We finished the day off with fish and chips from the chippy and Balloch which we sat by the river and ate before all piling back in the cars to head back to Glasgow. All in all a lovely day.

Wednesday was Graeme's Mums last day with us before flying back to Bristol that night so we went for a family lunch and got some family photos before dropping her at the airport. It was sad to say goodbye but great to know the next time we see her will be in New Zealand when she comes out for the wedding! On the way home from the airport we stopped in at Pollock Park which we used to visit alot when we lived in Glasgow and took an evening stroll to admire Pollock House and the gardens.

On Thursday we headed back up to Loch Lomond with Graeme's cousins to pick up a wedding present that we had ordered on the Tuesday. Graeme's Aunt, Uncle and Cousins had bought us a beautiful print of Loch Lomond in Autumn by Daniel Campbell so we drove back up to collect that and had a great excuse to have an ice-cream by the Loch! We had a great laugh with the girls in the car and after heading home to cook dinner for Graeme's Grandparents we took the girls to Braehead shopping centre to hunt out some bargains!

On Friday we got the train into town and met some friends for lunch (Hi DJ and Craig!) - yummy Chinese! It was really good to see them - felt like ages since last time (December 2007).

I used the excuse of being in town to do some shopping and got a few things. Probably the most shocking thing of the whole holiday occured on this day. I went into Borders/Paperchase and DIDN'T buy anything. I know, crazy huh?!

That night we headed over to Shawlands and caught up with Alan and Lindsey in the pub which was good. I had a big surprise when I bumped into Terry and Gordon who I worked with way back in 2001 and had a good gossip with them about what they've been up to!

So that's the first 5 days in Scotland. Next post will be aboout our couple of days in Dublin and then we were back in Glasgow for a night before heading down to Essex.

In other news - I'm just back from a weekend in Auckland with work. Life is back to being hectic once again! We are currently trying to get a lot sorted with regards to the wedding, tidy up house and garden ready for our guests and work is set to be fairly busy for both of us. Here's hoping for a lay-in sometime after the wedding :-)

Holiday in Review - Part 1 - Getting there

So it's been a while. Mostly due to the fact we were away for almost 3 weeks and it's taken me over a week to catch up on sleep :-)
Before that, my only excuse is too much excitment at the prospect of a holiday and seeing family and friends to sit down in a chair and type a post - pathetic eh?!

Anyway - I have plenty of photos and a few words to share - a review of our time away. I don't want to bore you in one sitting though so thought I'd split it up a little for you.

This time - you get an idea of our itinerary and news and photos from the 30 hour journey.


So we said a fond farewell to the dog and headed round to Palmy for our 6pm flight to Auckland on Saturday 25th July. We managed to get to Palmy just in the nick of time to check our bags all the way through to Glasgow (handy!)



We then had about 4 hours up in Auckland before our international to London Heathrow via Hong Kong.



The flight wasn't too bad. We managed to get some sleep (I think I got about 4 hours in the first leg and none on the 2nd). I watched 'He's Just Not That Into You', '17 Again' and 'Monsters Vs. Aliens' plus some episodes of 'Two and a Half Men' and 'The Big Bang Theory'.
The food was okay, I stayed clear of alcohol and popped my homeopathic No Jet Lag pills every couple of hours.
We were surprised to find the shops at Hong Kong shut when we arrived at about 6am in the morning. Okay, I realise it was 6am but I just figured a busy international airport like that would be open round the clock.
It didn't matter too much though - we sat ourselves down and watched planes and people and the hour and a half wait flew by.

We got to Heathrow about 2.30pm in the afternoon and managed to get through security and customs without too many long lines or hassle.

The coolest thing was being able to switch our mobiles on as we taxied in and my phone beeping with messages from actual friends and family (not just the standard text from vodafone UK) welcoming us to their timezone and checking if we had arrived yet! I called my Mum from a payphone at Heathrow - pleased to call her at a reasonable time for once and we mooched round the shops to kill some time.

Then we headed down to the BMI lounge to wait for our flight to Glasgow. Honestly - that's when I started to wilt. I was half asleep on a typically-uncomfortable airport chair when a message was read out calling a list of names of people flying to Glasgow. I couldn't be sure but I thought perhaps I had just heard two completely new and previously unheard pronounciations of our names so we headed over to the desk. Turns out since we had checked in (back in Palmy about 28 hours or so before) the plane type had changed meaning our seats were invalid.

I thought I reined myself in quite well here because at this point - 28 hours into a journey with about 4 hours sleep - I was ready to scream and cry if someone told me we weren't getting on that flight.

But it wasn't a message to say we weren't getting on. They actually told us they were upgrading us! They must have taken one look at us and realised we needed reclining chairs to get some sleep! An upgrade on the longer journey would have been preferred but I wasn't going to complain and soon we were sitting on big leather chairs that could recline almost to the point where we were laying straight!

Needless to say we slept most of the flight - even declining the free meal (with real china, glasses and cutlery) in favour of keeping our eyes closed.

I did manage to wake up in enough time to get some photos of Glasgow as we landed though. And we managed to wake up pretty quickly at the excitment of seeing family we hadn't seen for over 18 months!

Graeme's Aunt met us at the airport (and it was strange seeing the new layout and security measures at Glasgow - brought home exactly what had happened since the last time we had been at that airport) and we loaded up the cases and headed over to Graeme's Grandparents house. It was so good to see all the family and we sat in the lounge and chatted. And then Graeme's Mum landed (from Bristol) about an hour and a half after us and she turned up too! We managed to last until about 9pm catching up with everyone before we wilted and had to make our way upstairs to catch some zzzzz's :-)

Next post - a summary of what we got up to in Glasgow and Scotland.

And more on Christmas...

I mentioned Christmas briefly in my post yesterday but more in passing and in a I-can't-believe-how-fast-it's coming-round kind of way.



Christmas will be strange for us this year.


It will be the first year that we haven't spent any of the day with our families.



Way back at the start of our relationship (in 2000 can you believe?!) I struggled with the festive season as I was living 500 miles away from my family and friends and felt strange about spending the day with Graeme's family. That year, we decided to stay at home in our wee rented flat in the tenements of Glasgow but had a visit from Graeme's mum.


In the years that followed in Scotland we always spent some time with Graeme's family over Christmas and also flew down to Essex to spend time with my family as well.


Looking back - I wish I had taken as many photos then as I do now as it would be great to have a record of those Christmas'.


In the three years we have been in New Zealand, two of our Christmas' were spent with my Dad and last year we flew back to the UK for Christmas.


So this year feels quite strange. Not bad but strange.


We have had a busy year and I think it will be good for us both to have some time together at home to relax and recharge our batteries. We already have a lot planned for next year (not least getting married...finally!) so it will be good to take some time out and talk about what we want to do and how we want to do it.


And who knows what our future Christmas' will be like. I imagine next years will be low key rather like this year but after that anything could happen....!



So seeing how I am currently obsessed with taking photos and documenting my life I thought taking this class would be an awesome idea! It will be interesting to look back in years to come at exactly what we did with ourselves over the festive season.











I'm really quite excited as I am using this class as the opportunity to introduce festivities into our lives....I have already a few decorations (we haven't had a Christmas tree the whole time we have been in NZ but I had some rather festive looking twigs one year which I will be reusing this year!) but have gradually been buying a few more over the last few weeks.



I have made a head start on my Christmas journal so I am all ready to go and I will hopefully get round to posting some more photos of it on this blog as I go along.

So watch this space...the class starts next Monday and I am hoping that despite a busy couple of weeks I will be able to keep up and come out on the 6th January with 37 journal entries all prettied up with festive paper and photos!

Bye Mum, see you in less than a year!

Wow - was it really over 2 weeks ago that I last posted?

The time while Mum was here just flew by but we really did have the best time ever. The travelling was great but in the end it felt really good to get home and then spend another week with Mum at home.

We did lots of cool stuff but at the same time it just didn't feel that she was here long enough.

We dropped her off at Wellington Airport on Friday afternoon and as always, it was horrible. I hate saying goodbye. But it's really great to know that we will be seeing Mum plus other close family and friends in less than a year when the wedding rolls round. And I really should be busy enough between now and then that the time should just fly!

After my last post I took the weekend off, Graeme flew down to Dunedin to meet us and we had a wonderful 3 days of travelling and playing tourists. Queenstown is quite possibly the most beautiful place on earth! I LOVED it and can't wait to get back and explore some more as we really didn't have long enough there. Here is just a taster of how gorgeous the place is (and yes I do want to try that parachute gliding thing next time I'm there!):

As part of my 27 things I want to do aged 27 I decided I wanted to take at least one photo every day. I have been keeping up so far and had a rather difficult task today of picking one photo to represent each day since my birthday. I am now all caught up. Not sure if I want to post all of them but I will post some every now and again. This one is the first one for the year taken on my birthday....

Anyway, will try and get on again soon with some more beautiful photos. We've had cracking weather today and if the kiwi summer continues like this I will be spending HEAPS of time outside so you might not hear from me very often!

Take Care x

Blogging on the road...

I am writing this post from a motel in Wellington. I am excited because my Mum is due to fly into Wellington just after midnight tonight! It's been over 9 months since I last saw her.

We are staying overnight in Wellington and then hit the InterIslander ferry tomorrow across to Picton. I have to go over to South Island for work and Mum is coming along for the ride! It's going to be great! I will have some company for all the long driving and Mum gets to see a lot of South Island for a fraction of the price it would normally cost!

It will be weird being away from home and Graeme on my birthday but I have booked Mum and me to do something pretty cool to try and make up for it. We are going to be in Oamaru so we are going to see the Blue Penguins which are gorgeous! I had my photo taken with one on my lap when we first arrived in New Zealand and it will be even better to see them in their natural habitat!

I am also keeping my fingers crossed that we see some seals in Kaikoura and some snow capped mountains as we drive around!

I will try and post as we travel round... so watch this space!

Of course - there was a certain someone who didn't look happy when I started packing my suitcase....

Have a good week!

Spring = Sprung

October has always been my favourite month...due in part to it being my birthday month (hint, hint!). I used to love it because of the Autumn colours and now I love it because it's slap bang in the middle of New Zealand spring.

Everything seems green and lush and new (the green and lush coming mostly from ALL the rain we've had) and it makes me want to slow down a little and enjoy my surroundings.

In preparation for my 28th year (how did that come around so darn quick?) I have come up with a list of 27 things to do aged 27. It's a mix of serious and frivulous and a lot of it has to do with slowing down and enjoying my surroundings. If I'm feeling particularly brave maybe I'll share the list on the blog over the next few weeks.

My Mum leaves the UK tomorrow for her trip down-under. She's got a few days in Aussie before heading over here. It will be GREAT to see her and I have a few things planned to keep her busy including a whirlwind tour of South Island. I hope to take lots of photos and will try and get some posted while we are away. Graeme has to work so will be staying at home but we are catching up with him for a few days in the middle of our trip.

I've got a pretty busy week on the lead up to Mum's visit but all is good!

Aussie

We went to the Gold Coast in Australia for a few days. The weather was lovely, we had lots of fun and it was really great to catch up with family (Thanks for letting us stay The Kelly's!). Here's a collage of some of our photos.




Lots of bright colours. We spent the day wandering around Brisbane, went to O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat, took a walk along Surfers Paradise, visited my Auntie's new barbers salon and spent some time chilling by the pool. Very relaxing!


On the way to Wellington to catch the plane to Australia we also visited a wedding venue which we are in the process of booking a date with (more on that later!).

Craziness

I cleaned the pantry tonight. I pulled everything out, chucked away anything that looked old or we didn't use, wiped down all the shelves and put everything back in a tidy fashion. I even got the step ladders out so I could reach the top shelf to clear it out.

This is so not me. I loathe cleaning and will use any form of procrastination to avoid it.

But this is what happens when I know Mum is coming to stay...I have to at least pretend to be a domestic goddess and that I remember everything about cleaning that she ever expected me to learn.

So I have 6 weeks to get the place tip top and ready for motherly inspection :-)
I am so excited she is coming to stay and at least this means the hosue will get cleaned once this year!


And in other news - my new phone has a dent in it after only 4 days...what is it with me and dropping electronic equipment? !