Some holiday's pics for you...

The sun is shining today in Palmy but it's been a strange week or so of weather. It's been chilly, lashing with rain, windy and there have been a couple of thunderstorms. We have definetly had more then 1 season most days! The grass is finally beginning to look green again (instead of dead yellow!) after the rain. We are enjoying the summer and I have managed to avoid any serious sunburn so far which is good!

And on to some holiday snaps which I promised weeks ago. I have quite a few up on Facebook but realised that not everyone is on Facebook :-)

This first one is Koh Phi Phi Island in Thailand. We got a ferry from Phuket to Koh Lanta and stopped at Phi Phi for a couple of hours on the way. It was beautiful!
This one is a view of Hong Kong skyscrapers taken from Kowloon Park. Hong Kong was very clean and modern.

And finally, some town houses in Malcescine in Italy. I love the mix of colours and sizes!

We had quite a varied itinerary looking back at these pictures! What a mix of places to visit. We didn't get any scenic pictures in England or Scotland which is a shame but we were busy spending time with friends and family instead and it was dark most of the time we were there!

How comes it already feels like so long ago that we were on holiday?!

An audience with Kate!

It's been brought to my attention that I do, indeed, have an audience (waving to Kelly and to Dad!) so I better do my jolly best to keep posting here!

I spent last weekend up in Auckland with work (Thursday to Sunday) so this week has been spent quietly trying to recover from early starts and long days! Wednesday was a public holiday in New Zealand - Waitangi Day - so we had a nice quiet day and took the dog for a long walk along by the river.

Yesterday (Saturday) we spent doing housework (yuck!) as I have realised we need to have a bit of a clearout. It's not my favourite job (far from it) but it's well overdue! So yesterday we had a clearout in the bedroom and I found pairs of shoes and bags I had forgotton I owned! Which is good as I should be able to get some use out of those for a while and forego the need to buy anything new! We finished yesterday off with a BBQ dinner. We had homemade herb burgers (which are yummy) and BBQd corn on the corn and pineapple with salad and fresh bread!

Today, we had a lazy start and met friends for a coffee. Our plan to have a 2nd BBQ in 2 days was almost scuppered as it's been raining today so we were back to our old style BBQ-ing....

Yep, that's right - BBQing in the garage! I'm sure we have used that BBQ more in the garage then we ever have outside!

We are grateful for the rain though as it's been stinking hot lately and we were in need of some water for the garden.

The tomatoes are coming on well - we've already had a couple and there's a few that should be ready this week...

And one last picture....during Graeme's foraging in the garden he discovered some mysterious grape like berries on a bush behind the lemon tree and we are wondering if they are grapes...
...Dad, any ideas? If you can't view the picture - let me know and I'll email it to you instead!

2007 Ta Da List!

Hong Kong at Night, taken from The Peak

Following on from a similar post last year, I decided once again to write a list of what I/We have achieved in 2007 and post it for public viewing. I think the 2006 version will drop off the front page soon so here is a link to the month it was posted. I haven't quite worked out how to link to a specific post yet!

So here we go...

• I wrote a novel...50,000 words in 30 days during the month of November


• I got a new job (at GAP and will have been there a year come the 1st of Feb 08)


• Graeme became self employed and started his own business


• We went to Melbourne, Australia and saw our first Grand Prix


• We visited the UK and saw friends and family (our 1st visit since we got to NZ in June 2005)


• I became a stepdaughter when my Dad remarried


• I joined Curves and got over 50 workouts


• I did a 12.9km walk (& felt it afterwards! must do more this year!)


• I had chickenpox (which I believe is quite an accomplishment, aged 25!)


• I completed my Certificate in Freelance Journalism


• I learnt how to be a book-keeper for work (thanks to Graeme for answering countless accounting questions!)


• I went away on business and talked to large groups of people (I'm really not keen on public speaking so this was HUGE for me) as well as driving and finding my way around towns and cities in New Zealand I had never been to before


• I went to the cinema all on my lonesome (to watch Music & Lyric's whilst in Melbourne by myself for work...I felt grown up enough to go on my own!)


• I had my colours 'done' - I'm a summer apparently


• We went horse trekking which was awesome (Graeme's first time on a horse and I hadn't been on one for donkeys!)


• We made out wills (a little morbid but it's good to be prepared!)


• We saw 2 sets of my great aunt and uncles when they were travelling around New Zealand

I wonder if there is anything I have forgotten! I am pleased with what I/we achieved in 2007 and the start of 2008 has already been busy and filled with new experiences. I am going to write down some goals for 2008 over the weekend and may post them on here as well.

I think it will be good fun in years to come to look back on these lists and see what I achieved at certain times in my life.

And now, I am going to go and enjoy the weekend! I didn't make it to the gym this morning (there's a surprise!) so need to try and get there twice next week before going away on Thursday. We didn't get to make tattie scones last night either as we were both too knackered after 4 days back at work and still fighting with our sleeping patterns! I have the ingredients at the ready though so will get to them!

Technically minded? Plus Back to Work

Koh Lanta Beach, Krabi Province, Thailand

Well I think I just successfully updated the links bar at the side of this blog. All seems to look and link fine from here anyway. If anyone notices any problems or links not working please let me know.

I deleted some links that weren't working and pages that weren't really relevant anymore and added in some links to blogs/journals I read regularly at the moment. I am pleased to see Dog Blog is still up and running and recommend a look if you like dogs and have a strange sense of humour like me!

So that's the technical side of things dealt with for the time being!

As for being back at work, it's not so bad really.
I suppose it's good to have structure to your day and a sense of achievement from crossing things off the ever-expanding list of work to be done! I'm fairly up to date with the book-keeping side of my job after today so now I just need to start getting ready for this years 'campaign' of bringing in the applications and getting them processed. Plus we have 35 (or so) incoming gappers arrive next week so I am up in Auckland from Thursday to Sunday at orientation...not been to one before as I missed the August one when I got the chicken pox (yes, you are reading that right, a childhood disease at the age of 25!) So I am busy on the work front.
Graeme seems to be settling in well back at his clients too although we both still have the leftovers of the colds we brought back (thanks UK!) and are trying to shake it off.

Plans for this weekend? We are thinking about making a big batch of tattie scones to celebrate Burns Night on Friday and then maybe hire a DVD to watch or maybe go and see Sweeney Todd at the cinema. I'm hoping the weather will stay fine (but not too stinking hot!) so we can take Rhett for a walk along the river and I really should get back to the gym this week and it's likely to be Saturday morning now before I get there.

So nothing too stressful then...back to relaxing Palmy life!

I am wondering if people are still reading this blog and think it's not likely after my abysmal journal keeping in 2007. If you are around, please leave a comment or drop us an email to let us know! I will keep updating though as I quite enjoy having a ramble on!

2 posts in 2 days....crazy!

Before I launch into more stories of our trip and provide some photos from that I thought I would show you what we came home to....I spoke yesterday about the agapanthus being in bloom (a gorgeous colour blue) so here's a picture of that:

And also, back in November (I think it was around then) we bought some veggies to plant out. We got some spring onions and lettuce after successful growing last year and branched out into something new...some tomato plants.
We peeked at the veggie patch once we got home and were amazed at what we saw! We had lost the letture (R.I.P) but the spring onions are doing okay and the tomatoes are crazy!
Here is a picture to show what I mean:

This is after we spent a while trying to get them caned and tied up to wire along the fence. To begin with they were just a mass of leaves and green tomatoes on the floor of the veggie patch.
Now Graeme doesn't like tomatoes so methinks if these babies ripen up I will be living on tomatoes for a very long time!

So I plucked some spring onions out and got some fresh lemons from our lemon tree which magically produces lemons whenever I want them....I feel very country kitchen! Who would of thought I would be raving about home grown fruit and veg!
Of course the benefits to our own lemons includes an amazing lemon drizzle cake I can make and also lemon meringue pie - yum, which should I make first?

I'll be back soon with holiday pics and stories. In the meantime, I will bore you with yet another Rhett photo!

Good to be home...

First of all, I want to wish everyone a belated Happy New Year and I hope 2008 has found you safe and well.

Secondly, an update on the last month. We are back in NZ after our 'Not-so-NZ-adventure'.

Malcesine Castle

Here's a brief rundown on our itinerary:
We left home on Thursday 20th December and flew from Palmy to Auckland, had an overnight in Auckland before boarding our Cathay Pacific flight to Heathrow via (a 9 hour stop) in Hong Kong.
We arrived in Heathrow morning of Saturday 22nd December and spent Christmas in Essex with my family.
We then flew up to Glasgow on Friday 28th December where we caught up with Graeme's family and spent Hogmanay.
On Wednesday 2nd January we flew across to Milan Bergamo in Italy with Graeme's Mum and met my Mum there. We then spent a full day in Malcesine (pronounced Mal-chesney!) looking at the place where we plan to marry in 2009 (see photo above).
From Italy we said goodbye to Graeme's Mum who was flying back to Bristol and my Mum and us flew back to Stansted on Friday 4th January. We then had all day on the Saturday in Essex before departing Heathrow on Sunday headed for Hong Kong.
We met my Dad and his wife in Hong Kong on arrival on Monday 7th January and stayed there until Thursday 10th when we flew down to Phuket in Thailand.
We had an overnight in Phuket before ferrying down to Koh Lanta (in the Krabi province of Thailand) for our friends' wedding. We left Koh Lanta on Monday 14th, had another overnight in Phuket, flew to Hong Kong where we had an awesome overnight at Novotel Citygate (complete with free upgrade on our room - woo-hoo!) and then left Hong Kong on Wednesday 16th January, arriving back in Auckland morning of the 17th.
We then got a flight down to Palmy and we were home by 1.30pm.

So there you go...it's no wonder we are both sleeping and eating at strange times and that we both have colds!
Picked the dog up from the kennels on Thursday evening and it was a joyous reunion - apparently he was the life and soul of the kennels and everyone (humans and dogs) loved it. It's good to know. Of course, I have been fussing over him heaps since he got home because I really missed him.

And so now we are back and it feels like home. I didn't realise before but I was worried it wouldn't feel like home.
The agapanthus are in full bloom (I'll try and get a picture and post it), the sun is shining and the house was clean and tidy (for the 1st time ever...I'm so grateful for the effort we put into tidying before we left now!).
And I don't go back to work until Tuesday so I still have a relaxing couple of days left.

I will try and post more soon...
Ta ta for now, K x

It's been so long!

This blog has been utterly neglected this year. Maybe because we are settled in NZ now and it's not as much of an adventure although we love it!

I don't even have the time to write a long post now because I am heading out to the pub with a friend who is getting married in less then a month!

On the news front - we are heading back to the UK for a holiday in less then a week. In fact we will be very close to Heathrow in a week's time. It will be strange going back for a holiday and seeing how things have changed or stayed the same. It is also very exciting because we haven't seen some people in 2 and a half years and I have a niece who was born since I've been in NZ who I am very much looking forward to meeting.

I have been considering lately creating a personal blog for me and my boring (!) life which I may do in the new year to make me accountable for some of the goals I will be setting myself for next year. I don't think this is the place for it but I will also try much harder to do at least a monthly if not fortnightly update on here too which will be more NZ orientated!

Well, I will try hard to leave you with a picture (if I can get it to work!) before I go an tart myself up for a night on the town!



Merry Christmas and all the best for the festive season to anyone reading this!

And here's another as that one seemed to load fairly straightforwardly!

The Thinker

Testing, 123

Melbourne, at dusk, March 2007
hello? can anyone see me?