Just a wee update

I recently had a couple weeks off work and boy was it good.  Did I do much with my time off, ummm no not really but it was wonderful all the same :)

It started with me heading to mum and dads after work one Wednesday (Wednesday’s are now half days for me, for health reasons as I was tired of being tired, run down and sick all the time so we are trialling me having a pause mid week.  From my point of view it is going wonderfully and I didn’t need any sick days over winter which was amazing, esp as I had none left to take lol).  Then the next day (Thursday) I headed to Tokoroa to go to institute with mum.  The activity was indoor bowls and pool, turns out I quite like indoor bowls and might even look into joining a club over here at some stage.  Mum and I were teamed up for both activities, no idea who won the most indoor bowls games but mum and I won both games of pool which was cool.  

Pretty much the rest of my stay with mum and dad was just chilling and catching up.  We went through to Te Awamutu one day, and then on the Monday when I was heading home we had lunch with bro at the gardens in Taupo which is always a lovely place to chill in, was a bit cool that day though which meant we didn’t really wanna just hang out for too long.  I also went for a couple walks with pa which was lovely.

I don’t think I did much with my days at home… well other than reading, cross stitch, crochet, sewing and watching tv/dvds.  In other words I chilled out very well hehe.

Then I headed back to mum and dads for a night before heading to Inglewood for a friends wedding on the Saturday (21st if anyone is looking for a date reference).  I stayed with Aunty Susan which was, as always, very nice.  I arrived in good on the Saturday so I did the Windsor Walkway, all fully paved now which while nice was a bit weird.  There is something about walking on the road and watching for cars/vehicles that made it a fun walk.  After lunch I headed off to see Bridie and Paul get married, it was a lovely ceremony and very nice to catch up with everyone I knew (from both sides as I went to school with Paul, Bridie was my flatmate in NP).  The reception was through in NP and it was also a very good chance for me to catch up with my old workmates.  Great conversation was had, and no dancing cos we were chatting too much and I called it early as was tired.  Though in saying that Aunty Susan and I chatted till about midnight so I wasn’t exactly early to bed lol.

Sunday saw me catching up with friends in NP, then had dinner with Aunty Susan followed by watching a movie.  Headed home on Monday then just chilled on Tuesday.  Work on Wednesday was pretty good, I think going back on a half day is brilliant.  More than one person asked why I was going back for only 4 hours and why get up for that, personally I think its genius.  A full day is soooooo long when you have been off for a while and a half day is plenty of time to go through emails and respond to the important/urgent ones and catch up with goss you missed out on.  Then its home time and you can go chill.  See perfect planning hehe.

My friend Jo is visiting from the UK for a few days now so its been a good few weeks :) sadly she goes home, well back to Auckland then home, on Wednesday but I am sure she will be back again.  We have done all the important things so far, out for lunch, winery for a tasting and to read for an afternoon, Te Mata Peak (where we discovered we are not as fit as we thought we were), chilling and catching up.  Will go out for dinner tomorrow night, to my fav Indian place, and that is also an important to do thing I think hehe.

Hope you are all doing good, and yay for good sunshine weather :)

Sometimes the quickest route is not the funnest route

In the weekend I headed to Ohakune for a friends baby shower, mum and I decided to make a weekend of it so we stayed the night.  On the way over I took the quickest route, the Napier/Taihape Road.  And while there is nothing technically wrong with this road (well not by NZ standards I would say... its pretty pot holed but where isn't these days) it was not the funnest drive to do.  There are very few cars you will meet so its a pretty lonely drive, and I am pretty sure if anything happened you would be screwed as there is also likely no cell reception.  Not tested this as I was driving lol.  Got to Ohakune in pretty good time though, and then met up with mum and we headed to the baby shower.  Nothing wrong with the baby shower but I don't think I have been to one I have actually enjoyed yet, they are definitely things I attend out of obligation and nothing else.

On the bright side though, our accommodation was quite nice and we went to the most amazing place for dinner.  It was an Italian restaurant and they squeezed us in which was very nice of them, we didn't have a booking and I think we probably should have.  But wow did they do amazing food, and were very aware of the difference between gluten free and celiac which was great.  I also didn't think it was too expensive, was middle of the road I would say which was nice. It was called Osteria and I would highly recommend it if you are in the area.

After discussing it with mum I decided to go home via a different, longer route.  I was going to go via Taupo but then we realised that going via Fielding wasn't that much longer so decided to go that way.  I've done the Napier/Taupo Road enough recently and have a few more trips on it coming up, so no need to add another one in.  So South I headed on Sunday to get home, and it was such a wonderful trip.  Fred and I just chilled and followed our noses to figure out our way back to Hastings (no googlemaps needed for us hehe), we had good music cranked up (thanks Billy Joel, Dolly Parton, Taylor Swift and Imagine Dragons), and had no time we had to be back by so could stop whenever/wherever we liked.  We took some pics to share with you guys, and just cos we wanted to :) so I would say the longest route was by far better than the quickest route, atlst for me in the wknd it was.