Today started out with brunch at a garden centre in Albany, catching up with a friend. As the temperature was already sneaking up I decided to have something refreshing rather than cooked so I ordered the Muesli with yoghurt. A very unusual order for me but it seemed healthy and the right thing to do. Turned out to be totally awesome and I’ll be having that next time I go back there.
After that I went on a couch hunting mission. Yes it was a mission – nothing was as cheap as I thought it would be and because it was a really hot day I realised many of the fabrics I initially liked made me sweat!!!
Finally after driving round all over the North Shore I found one I liked – it’s versatile, comfy and has a really similar layout to the one I have right now – plus it was on special.
But then there was the problem of choosing the right colour!!!
So I got a quote and delivery date and headed off to do some last minute window shopping to be sure I’d found the right one. And then I found this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I could not believe my eyes – it looked like something out of the movie Frozen – seriously it was for sale and NOT cheap.
Eventually I ended up at the cleanest, nicest, flashest Carl’s Jr for some late lunch.
This morning while out in the courtyard I noticed the marvellous almost dead looking hibiscus plant had all of a sudden come back to life was looking all leafy and had flowered. For some reason this got me all motivated to get busy and this turned out to be the busiest most productive day of my whole holiday
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First stop would be to the amazing hardware store that still sold parts to my toilet. Luckily they actually stocked the part I needed and it wasn’t very expensive at all, and the dude who served me was very helpful and didn’t treat me like an idiot at all, this calls for a celebration and almost gave me another lease on life!
Across the road from the fantastic hardware store is the old Corbans Vineyard. It’s now a public park with no wine making happening there anymore, but there are still some cool old buildings and lovely gardens to photograph.
After that with all my new found wealth (not needing a plumber or a whole new toilet) I figured I could splash out and buy a new couch. So I headed back to the North Shore to check out some new couches. Turns out the decent ones are a lot more expensive than I thought, so a new couch would have to wait and I went to the garden centre instead to buy some new plants and a pot big enough to repot the maple a good friend gave me as a birthday present last year.
After all my hard work and shopping I decided I needed a beer and it was such a beautiful evening I could light my fireball and enjoy the garden and Xmas lights.
With all the rain that we’ve been having over the last few days I’ve struggled to get to sleep, because it’s been too humid and stuffy and hot and I can’t open my windows when it’s raining in certain directions because I don’t have any eaves to protect the windows and stop the rain from coming straight in. Because my bedroom window is very high up I’m lucky to be able to sleep with the window wide open most nights.
So Today I set off in search of a new fan for my bedroom that would be quieter than the old thing I’ve had churning away late at night. I also wanted it to to have a remote control and a timer so it would go off after about half an hour etc when I would be fast asleep.
After trawling around all the usual places in Wairau Park I hit the jackpot at Harvey Norman who were having a massive sale – a very quiet sunbeam pedestal fan with blue lights, a remote control and timer.
On the way home I stopped at Mcdonalds for some long overdue lunch and shockingly EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED!!!
There are big touch screens where you order what you want and pay for it. You can even select a whole bunch of stuff like the meat, sauces, fillings and patties etc. It is possible for old fuddy duddies like me to go up to the counter and order the old fashioned way and of course you can still order the old favourites like a normal Big Mac combo.
But… if you do “build your own” burger it gets delivered to your table on a wooden platter and the fries come in a flash metal basket!!!
I’ll have to let you know how that goes, on a different visit – I went the old school way and ordered a basic combo from a person at the counter, paid in cash and carried my tray all by myself to a table.
At last it’s the end of the year and a wee bunch of us decided to spend the last day of 2015 in Kumeu, trying lots of different wines and buying all the ones we liked. Our sober driver picked me up at 9:30 so we could make a very early start and beat the crowds.
We arrived at the first vineyard at 10:00. Matua Valley Vineyard brought back many happy memories as this is where the whole family flew to by helicopter for my Mum’s 50th birthday dinner, funny I should come back here now that I’m 50! Interestingly the Hunting Lodge where we had dinner no longer exists, they’ve turned the restaurant building into the tasting room. It’s still a really lovely venue. It’s here that I learnt Pinot Gris wine is quite pleasant first thing in the morning.
Next stop was the Coopers Creek Vineyard. Even tho it was just after 10:30 I’m fairly certain we woke up the man who ran the tasting sessions. He had a lot to set up and get organised before he was ready to share his wines and vast knowledge with us. No worries… it’s a lovely place to be relaxing in before soaking up more free wine!
I wonder what gets stored in those big shiny silos that are sitting in the sun getting hot!
Our next stop was supposed to be Nobilos, but it was closed! This used to be one of my favourites, but apparently it has something to do with the council buying the land for much needed housing – boo!!!
Next stop was Soljans Estate Winery, the restaurant there is one of my all time fave places to eat.
Next stop was supposed to be the Hallertau Brewery but it was closed for renovations (I think).
Next stop was a long drive out to the whop whops where they had NOcellphone coverage!!!!! But the drive was well worth it as the Westbrook Winery was set amongst some beautiful countryside. I’m not sure if it was due to the vast number of wines I had already sampled or just that particular vineyard’s grapes but I wasn’t keen on anything I tried there, according to my friends it was possibly coz the wine wasn’t sweet enough for me.
After all that wine tasting we stopped at the Boric Food Market for a well deserved coffee and then headed home to wait for the evening’s activities.
Every new year’s eve night I try to do something different to celebrate. This year we headed to Devonport for a late dinner at Portofino and then walked down to the wharf just in time to catch the Sky City fireworks display. Portofino was great – I think I’ve found a new fave place to eat on the Shore – best Tequila and orange ever!!!
Today was a very relaxing day at home, mainly building a bit more of the Lego Winter Toy Shop and enjoying coffee from the groovy VW mug I got for Xmas.
Today was a very leisurely day where I got to do a whole lot of nothing.
So I started on some Lego that I was supposed to build before Xmas day to add to the existing Xmas themed set “Winter Cottage”. This set is the toy shop and comes with an awesome Xmas tree and presents.
While building Lego and listening to some music on my way cool new Bose bluetooth speaker (thank you Santa) I got to light a couple of the candles that a friend gave me. The brand is called: The Cookery and they have all these fabulous scents like Raspberry & Lychee which are so delicious I just want to eat them.
Once it got too dark to build Lego I went for a walk up the road to check out the house on the corner. Every year the owner does an awesome Xmas display, well worth the little walk.
I just made a new year’s resolution… to take more photos and do more with them.
Yesterday I noticed a stunning picture frame in a vineyard that had a collection of 12 awesome photos of Auckland. I thought to myself that I too have some great shots of Auckland that I could do something like that with. Not sure how, but the vineyard was selling the picture for $295 so it could be worth looking into. I’m not talking about selling stuff just doing more with my photos – I want to get back into it as a hobby.
After yesterday’s overcast weather I was extremely excited to wake up to this stunning view from my hotel room – it meant I would probably be able to see THE mountain.
As I checked out of the hotel I asked the very friendly lady at reception where is the best place to view the mountain and she said it was just down the road from a bridge called Te Rewa Rewa, so after the gallery that would be our next stop.
Our first stop was at the Len Lye Gallery which I’d wanted to photograph for a couple of months after spotting it on the cover of the Air New Zealand magazine – it was stunning!
I also wanted to go inside the gallery to photograph the gigantic “fibre optic” sculptures.
We were in the gallery a bit longer than expected and received a parking ticket for exceeding the 30 minute limit – wow they don’t muck around in New Plymouth! The gallery was just across the road from the courthouse, so I wonder if that had anything to do with it.
Next stop was the Te Rewa Rewa Bridge to hopefully see THE mountain at last.
I finally got to see Mount Taranaki (Mt Egmont) and the bridge certainly was a great place to photograph it from (thank you Devon Hotel reception lady/Manager), not only was it a great vantage point, but the bridge itself was quite spectacular, especially on a beautiful sunny day – all white against a blue sky.
Next stop was Tupare Gardens, lovely very English style settings with loads of beautiful hydrangeas in unusual colours.
Unfortunately it was the middle of the day, really hot and the amazing colours of the plants just didn’t come out in photos, so we headed home.
We stopped at a place called Three Sisters coz it seemed like a nice place to stop for a toilet break.
Next was Te Kuiti which I’ve decided is not somewhere I want to go again – I got out of the car and stood on some chewing gum – yuk! We didn’t stay long after that.
Next stop was in the middle of nowhere to buy Strawberries from the PioPio Berry Shop – there were loads of cars parked out the front so my friend figured it must be a good place to buy fruit. I decided to buy a drink, but to pay for it you had to join the same queue as the fruit buying people so I had no choice but to stand next to big punnets of sweet smelling strawberries which of course made me want to buy some. They were flying off the shelf and I’m sure I waited in the queue for about half an hour! At $25 a punnet they must be good.
The last stop on our journey was at a brand new mega shopping centre in Hamilton called The Base where I had McDonalds for dinner and watched thousands of people frantically trying to do very last minute Xmas shopping.
New Horizons 