Adding a splash of awesome: 12 days off and what did I do?....

My Christmas/New Year holiday started on Christmas Eve, about mid-arvo when Ken and I escaped from work. I had collected Jo from Taupo on the Sunday before so she was already in the Bay just chilling and doing her own thing while I was at work. Our Christmas Day was rather uneventful, as we had planned. We woke up when we felt like it, unwrapped pressies when we wanted, went for a walk along the waterfront in Napier and sat on the rocky beach to enjoy a cup of tea and some shortbread cookies and we chatted to Ben who was spending Christmas in Germany with his family. We then headed home for lunch, an amazing meal cooked by Jo, all I had to do was tell her where to find the equipment she needed, keep her company and keep the tunes playing, all things I am good at so it worked well. We then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening watching movies as the weather forecast was for rain and we decided that was a good enough reason hehe.

Jo stayed till Sunday and while she was here we went to see Cats, such an awesomely terrible movie, we were both super impressed with how terrible it was and since we were hoping for it to be bad we were happy lol. We also went to Jungle a couple of times, they are a gluten free café in Havelock North that also do dairy free (and vegan) food, all very tasty. Actually I think we may have gone more than a couple… oh well its good food so there is nothing wrong with that.

We also went on a wine tasting tour with Shura (she was visiting her parents for some of the holidays). That was a great day and we tried some very nice wine. I tried less than Jo and Shura but that was because I was driving and I also knew that some of the wineries I’m not so fussed on lol. We had a very chilled out time and just spent most of it relaxing in the shade (me and Jo) or the sun (Shura) chatting about all sorts of things. We ended the day at Three Wise Birds cidery where we had some yum cider (I am a tad biased cos I can walk to that one so go there the most) and dinner.

Jo and I also went for a wander along the walking tracks around Pakowhai Country Park. Turns out this is a popular spot for taking dogs and we both decided there is basically no way you could go there in a bad mood and not end up in a good one unless you were a broken person. The dogs were so playful and there was a river there for them to splash around in. Many found nice big sticks for their owners to deal with lol, good doggies those ones. We even did the dog agility course (total surprise rounding the corner and seeing that, awesome surprise of course). We first read the rules so we know we did it in the right direction. We may have skipped going through the tyres (we weren’t sure if we would fit with our bags on) but I did go through the tunnel. We made a friend there for a while as well, he wanted us to throw him his balls about 3 times each then he ran off back to his owner. As another surprise there was a throne seat and a heart cut out of tree trunks, so of course I had to have my photo with them hehe.

Am sure we did more than this but it feels like a long time ago now, and the main thing we were doing was hanging out and having fun and we achieved this very well each day.

After saying goodbye to Jo the next few days of my holiday basically involved me reading my way through The Night Angel Trilogy (very hard to do this when work gets in the way hence the reading over this break) and emerging every so often to do some jigsaws. I did start the trilogy when Jo was here and finished today, so it is possible to fit life in and around it, but it can be hard to pull yourself out of Midcyru at times.

I didn’t do anything special New Year’s Eve but I did take the boys to see the sunrise on New Year’s Day which was fun. Not the best sunrise ever but atlst there was a small gap in the clouds at the horizon level so we could see when the sun was rising, and had risen. Then later that day Jenna and I went to the races. It was Jenna’s first time and my first time over here. We did not enjoy how long there is between races, mostly cos we weren’t betting I’m guessing but still there was almost an hour which seemed like a bit too long. Still was fun to catch up with Jenna and a good chance for her to have a break from her kids over the break hehe.

On Thursday I painted my shed. It reminded me of how much I hate painting and even if I was desperate for a job and almost homeless I think I’d rather sleep in my car than be a painter (sorry Uncle James, I have no idea how you can stand it lol). Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a terrible painter, I’m not a great painter either but it’s just super boring and dumb and stupid and just not fun. The main thing I was thinking by the last coat was that being an independent female is overrated and watching someone else paint my shed would have given me the same result but a much more enjoyable experience lol

On Friday Doffy, Bro and me conquered Rainbow Mountain, no it’s no relation to Rainbow Road but if anyone finds a real-life version of that please let me know (Nintendo comment there if anyone is confused lol). I say conquered to make it sound super impressive but really it’s just a hill with some steep parts in places. It did have some great views, and the power to make Doffy speechless though which is something pretty impressive lol. After that we met up with Mum for lunch, then Bro and I just chilled and did me and Bro stuff for the rest of the arvo.

Yesterday (Saturday) I went to Abbey Estate Winery for Samara’s birthday. David and Michael had a gig there which was pretty cool, I think Samara liked it all except for when Michael told everyone it was her birthday and pointed her out as she tried to hide lol, gotta love Michael when he does stuff like that. We are going back on the 6^th Feb as they are doing an Elton Tribute, and they do Elton very very well so it should be an awesome afternoon that one.

In the evening Steph, Nigel and I went to the outdoor cinema at Black Barn Winery to watch Bohemian Rhapsody. It managed to pour with rain btwn me getting home from the first winery and being picked up for the second one, but it had stopped by the time we got to Black Barn. I quite enjoyed the movie, it took me about 5mins to realise that I only the names of two members of Queen lol. I don’t think the movie was as good as people who raved about it implied it was, but it was still interesting. It was a rather cold night even if it wasn’t wet, and when I got home I made myself a hot water bottle, the first of the year. I feel like I was allowed though cos we dropped below 10 degrees overnight, so it was like winter cold lol.

Today I have done not a lot, which is what I wanted. I finished my book, did some baking, watched some dvds, cut out some stuff for sewing and did some gardening, oh and wrote this blog update for all you awesome as peps. It’s back to work for me tomorrow, not sure if that’s a yay or a boo. I do love my job, but it is still a job which means I can’t sit in my gorgeous beanbag and read a book with a cup of tea all day long. Life is hard ain’t it lol.