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!

1 month to go

Wow - this time next month it will be Christmas day...crazy huh? How can it almost be that time again when it feels like last Christmas was only yesterday? !

I have a lieu day from work today as I was working on Saturday (and will be the next 2 Saturdays too) so I am trying to get my ducks in a row....as usual I am finding myself hugely distracted by other more interesting things though. So far, I have put the dishwasher on but not unloaded it, put the washing on but not hung it out and washed my hair but not dried it. Could this be the day for getting things only half done? I hope not!

Had some extremely warm weather here - yesterday was actually horrible because it was ridiculously hot and humid and there is no air conditioning at work which makes me very grumpy! Today isn't so bad as there is a strong breeze. This is what our HRV thermometer was telling us on Sunday afternoon....I am so glad I don't have to live in my roof space!

And here are the windmills from my last post taken from a different angle...from a plane on Saturday afternoon...

I have had a request to post my 27 things @ 27 list which I will do...maybe later today but right now I have to get my hair dried as Graeme just called and we have a lunch date.

Ciao!

Just a quick one

I really did mean to do a longer post today with a few more photos but we just had a complete computer scare. I logged on earlier this evening ready to download my latest photos from the camera and blog with them when I couldn't access our Shared Pictures file - aaaah! Cue full panic! We did back this file up a few months ago but I had a major fit when I realised that we hadn't backed up any of the latest Australia or South Island pictures.

Luckily after Graeme had a long look and tried various things he managed to restore the folder but now he needs to get on the computer to do some work plus we need to run a back up of our photos!

So - if you are reading this - please learn from our panicked lesson and back up today :-)

I'll leave you with this...some stormy clouds over the wind turbines at Ashhurst on our walk with Rhett yesterday.....

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

Still on the road...

Just a quick one today and I'm afraid to say no photos because I am typing this from an internet cafe. Tried to get photos off the camera onto the laptop last night and the battery on the camera went meaning none of the photos came across - argh! I will try again later so keep your fingers crossed!
I am writing this from Gore which we are visiting for a few hours. The whole week has been good so far. Mum has been enjoying the travels and seems quite happy milling around when I am at meetings. It's been good to catch up with people workwise and see they are (mostly) doing okay and enjoying NZ!
We are driving back to Dunedin this afternoon and have a big weekend planned! I have 3 days off and we are going to be proper tourists!
Highlight of the trip so far...taking Wednesday evening off (my birthday) and going to see the blue penguins at Oamaru - highly recommended - was amazing!
Hope to be back with photos soon!

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!

Beautiful views

There are 101 things I should be doing right now (sleep being one of those) but all I really want to do is keep looking at this photo...

...and think about how gorgeous New Zealand is.

Can I also make a reading suggestion? Everyone should read this book which I did today and it was amazing. I am feeling very inspired right now.