The weekend in Blenheim

 Hi,

Huge weekend - I packed and drove into town on Thursday night after work to meet Mike.  He and I both were saying goodbye to Dion from work at Rosies.  So sad to see Dion leave - but I reckon he will be great at his next job.  And I have told him to ping me when he is in town so we can go lift heaving things together.  :-) 

I had made banana bread during the day and Mike suggested I take it to Blenheim - so I did.  Packed that with my gear.  

Made banana bread with the recipe Tessa sent me

Mike drove me to the airport and we grabbed a quick bite of sushi before I wandered down to the Sounds Air gate.  The 7.30pm Blenheim flight was running late.  They boarded at 7.40pm.  But our 8pm flight boarded straight away and we left at 7.50pm.  Hahahah.

Quick flight over and Iona met me at the airport and took me home.  I met Twigg for the first time.  She is a gorgeous dog.  We watched some TV before I was too sleepy.

In Blenheim

Meeting Twigg

Up Friday for a bit of a walk with Iona and Twigg to Taylor river which was still recovering from recent floods.  We watched the workers raking out debris stuck under the walk bridge.  I thought that would take days - but later in the day I saw it was all cleared.

Mike ended up with a migraine Friday afternoon.  Poor guy.  Maybe he was pining for me too much?

Then off for a coffee catch up with Mandy at Catalyst.  Always a good place for an iced latte.  Then we wandered to an open home at the start of Iona and Col's driveway.  Tiny wee house.  Nice and tidy but they did want $600k.  Wow!  92sm house.  Lovely first home for a couple. Or someone wanting a small place with low maintenance.

Iced latte @ Catalyst

Iona and I wandered around town before going to see the latest Thor movie. I laughed my way through that movie - comedy gold in places.

Back home for tea and a movie and then bed.  The movie we chose was a harrowing epic about a young Irish woman in Tasmania and genocide of the local population.  Abhorrent content to watch about an awful bit of Australian history.  And although it was fiction, history speaks for itself and these sorts of things must have happened.  The movie was well done though - good characters and acting and lovely moody forest scenes. 

Up early for trapline day.  We left home at 8am and were at the cafe at Pelorus by 9am.  We were just tucking into an iced latte and scone when Allan and Jean arrived.  

Saturday sunrise

Driving to Pelorus

Cafe at Pelorus

Without mask

After catching up with news (Ashley is 9 weeks old now and Jacob is a good big brother) Jean and Allan picked up the low trap lines and Iona, Col and I started on K line with U line to follow.

10am getaway from the cafe all loaded up with bait and replacement traps as needed.  Including gas canisters for any A24s.  11am saw us at the bottom of the hill.  And we got to the top around 12.20pm.

K Line trapline

Happy Iona

Col checks out the roots of a massive tree

At the top of K Line

Yep

Looking back down the valley

Lunch at the top

Quick lunch at the top and we got some views as the mist cleared. Enjoyed my egg sandwich - thank you Iona.

Mist clears

Selfie

Fungus

72 traps later we finished K line and started back up the track to the top of U line.  U line is off track and we enjoyed that part of the bush bash.

Fern and sun

Cool shelf fungus

14 of those traps later and we walked out of the bush at 3pm.  So a 5 hour wander around in the bush - quite a lot of fun.

Back home and Iona got tea ready for us while Col and I took Twigg for a walk and we picked up provisions at Countdown for the rugby.

Kiwi pear meets lemon mutant

Saturday night rugby

Yeah.  The rugby.  Ireland smashed NZ.  32 - 22.  But the All Blacks were not even in the hunt. Ireland deserved it.  Totally.

Up Sunday for a walk before brekkie.  Off to the beach to pick up rubbish and enjoy being outside in the brisk conditions.

Sunday beach cleaning walk

An afternoon of hardware stores and second hand sales. Great fun. Also dropped into a lovely open home of some sort of mansion.  Wow!  Huge section.  Lovely house.  Col and I could live there happily.  Hahah.  Iona was like:  No!

Admiring the colour of my iced latte

Cheers!

Then a lazy Sunday afternoon before tea and then a drop off at the airport for my 7pm flight home.  Brilliant weekend.

Mike was at the airport to pick me up.  We wandered home and I unpacked and got ready for my week ahead.

Awesome fun weekend.  Mike was up early for his gym session with Quentin.  And I am working from home.  Mike has a run with Janine after work.  Woot!  I will go to spin and meet him in town to take him home.  Hopefully that all fits in.

Have a lovely week.

Love,

Angela