Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Queen's Birthday weekend

It truly has been this long since we last trekked north. April was taken up with our daughter's wedding (last weekend of that month) and for the two middle weekends of May I was suffering from one of the worst bouts of whatever (cold=flu=whatever :) ) that I have had for a very long time.

In the meantime, we have arranged Dene to mow the lawns on a regular once a month basis. Good idea that as one will soon see...

Queen's Birthday Weekend is one of the "picnic days" in the NZ calender. It is not Betty's actual birthday, but just one day in the calends set aside for commemoration of the event whoever may be the Monarch for the time being. When we become a Republic (well off in the future if only because Queen's Birthday sounds eminently better than "Republic Day", or "Bill Bolger's Birthday". But that aside, we had three days instead of just two.

Even then the trip was under threat as it fell smack in the middle of the preparation of end of month reports at work. Reports due Tuesday - Wednesday morning early NZ time if I really get stuck. However, thanks to the boss's management and some excellent planning and preparation that threat came to naught.

Saturday, up at five for coffee and pack the car. Usually the car would be done the night before but getting home at 10.30 is not a good thing to pack a car on... Very heavy showers, strong SWer. Winter in Auckland weather. Good drive right through.

Saturday night - to the pub to the pub. Lions (those moth-eaten funny costumes) and Barmy Army vs the BOP Steamers. This is rugby, not necessarily at its best. Ya go to Ruatoria, or Featherston, or Awanui, or Stratford for that. This is "Britain and Ireland" (the Lions) touring NZ for the first time in about 12 years. There are a few old scores to settle out there as well...

The game? The Lions won by 2 points. But then what do you expect when you pitch a team of professionals like the Lions against a bunch of locals whose training comprised a run on the beach at Mount Maunganui and then waiting for the coach to arrive back from Christchurch. Oh there was speculation that he had stopped off to feed the dogs on the way as well. It was a good game but... As they say, "Rugby was the winner on the day".

Dinner accompanied the rugby - nice homekill sirloin, definitely grass fed because you can just about taste the kikuyu grass in it. Home to bed.

Sunday, still showers but further apart. Invaded the garden. Removed some weeds. Removed part of a dead tree. That kind of stuff. Locked the compost bin down so that it can't walk away.

Spent the afternoon with a good book. The rain and wind went past outside, we were good and snug.

Monday, packing and getting home again. Most places are shut but we grabbed lunch in Kaiwaka. Again a fairly leisurely trip of just over 4 and half hours including stops. Very light traffic really.

And that was about it!

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home