Tauranga and Australia in winter!
Monday 21st. Two years today since dad died! Incredible changes to our lives since then." I didn't think I would ever take a picture of you pruning grapes!" ............famous quote from Lynn yesterday.
May 22nd. 6 month visits to Doctors for pills to last while away in Aussie completed this morning. The fruit trees are in abundance and the grapes are trimmed for next season.
Mandarins and lemons.
Grapes all done. What a work of art!!!!!!!
Sue and Rick came after Rick's appointment and we decided to go out for lunch at the Mclaren Falls. It is so beautiful up there. The autumn colours were amazing.
Friday 24 th May. Happy birthday Flo..... talk later! My................... what a good looking bunch! Many Congratulations.
Off to see Dave and Vrons to arrange lunch next week with Sue and Rick before we head off to Sydney.
Quiet weekend before Sydney. We have never been inside the Opera House in all the times we have been to Sydney so vowed this year that we would do a tour or something. I have just found that they are doing Last Night of the Proms in the Opera House while we are there, so just booked tickets for Lynn and I to go and have a truly Pomp and Circumstance night, remembering all things great about our country of birth!!!! Not the current Brexit shambles!!!!! Dearie me! Spoken to Patsy, Marshie about the current situation and both say it is pretty bleak in the UK at the moment. Good to keep in touch with our friends. Marshie and Helena caught up with us and each other!
Sydney 12 th June
Flew to Sydney. Meet ups with Sarah, Ant and family and Simon, Tamara and girls in hectic pub in Glebe. First week consisted of a mixture of meetings with family, Lachie's birthday, pizza party; golf with Simon at Northbridge (with AB getting two birdies on the par threes), followed by Last Night at the Proms in Sydney Opera House. It was also in the middle of Vivid, a laser night show, so it was pretty spectacular. Watched Lachie at football on Saturday and went to Turkish restaurant for Oli's birthday. A flavour of the week here.
Time to head out of Sydney and take Jill on her mini break. We hired a car and got an upgrade to a Mitsibishi Pajero Sport. OMG how high off the ground was it for three old ladies? It had only 2,600 k on the clock so a bit nervous about driving it through Sydney!!!!
We drove to Palm Beach where Home and Away is filmed. Lovely stay, nice accommodation, great lunches to mention a few. A trip on the Harbour Ferry. No-one did get on with their goat but you could imagine that might happen as we visited isolated hamlets to take people to their homesteads!!!!! Jill loved Palm Beach and we had a great little mini break away.
Lunch at Barrenjoey House with the Prosecco girls. Whale Beach where they actually film Home and Away but they heard we were coming and packed up early!
Home via Manly for lunch and week two over. No pictures of our dwelling in Sydney as was quite dark and quite cold in the evenings. Had to borrow another heater from Sarah so Lynn could get out of her bed and watch tele in the evening. However, have secured much better accommodation through Simon and have booked to return on October 12th for two weeks. Just booked flights from Tauranga to Auckland and then Auckland to Sydney. We did the Luxury Shuttle Bus this time which D and V recommended and it worked out great. Door to door..... what more could you ask .
Talking of Simon and family, we had a fantastic Chinese meal out with them on the North Shore. They have left Australia today on a mega tour to England ( Simon has got a ticket to Lords on Sat for the Aus v NZ match with a member!!!!) then travels around England..... Poland to visit friends....... France for a week and then South Africa and home. Simon then has three more weeks to chillax at a friends house in Balmoral to finish off his eight week long service leave. Why didn't we ever get that?
Just booked and e mailed Patsy's rail ticket for 23rd December from Auckland to Hamilton as she has booked in for Christmas. Simon and family may come in January, Sue and David early Feb then Jill Late Feb to end of March. How exciting to have so much to look forward to. On to the more mundane.......
Greerton's latest display called Yarn Bobbing we think. The High Street featuring different themes. This one was Around the World, how appropriate. Greerton is our local shopping area, doctors and library.
Well that just about concludes our blog for June. If any of you are sick of seeing nice empty beaches and do not wish to receive messages of good cheer, just leave a note in the comment section and I will remove you from the mailing list. If I don't hear from you, Blog 14 will be out when something newsworthy has happened................ excluding Brexit!
Bye for now,
The NZ retirees.
