The weekend away for ANZAC day in Blenheim

 Hi,

Mike will need his own blog post to do his long weekend justice. He went into Cow Creek hut in the Tararuas with Janine. And Blue Range hut too. 

But I had my own adventures. And we are super grateful to Jason (and Chelsea) for looking after the cats (and the house) in our absence. Especially when on Sunday evening our neighbour reported on the street WhatsApp chat that they had attempted break ins over the weekend. Jason was definitely needed! To defend both home and cats!

My Sounds Air boarding pass

Anyway... I got an Uber to the airport on Wednesday after work. Well, Mike got it for me when I realised by Uber app had my old credit card in it and I was not sure if I had time to fix that and order my Uber. So Mike sorted it - and I sorted my end of it too.

Got to the airport with a good 20 mins up my sleeve. Woot! Checked in and boarded easily. Bumpy out of Wellington but we flew into a gorgeous night in Marlborough. Sunset in the west. Clear skies. No wind. 

Tony and Nicola picked me up from the airport and whisked me through to the quiz night. Iona and Col were there - with their friend Robyn. And we promptly crashed and burned in quite a tricky quiz night. Solid middle of the table performance.

Off home and straight to bed because it was dawn service the next morning. Sweet!

Had a good sleep. Up at 5.15am to throw clothes on and jump in the car with Iona and Col. Col had already been up for ages, walking Twigg! We headed to Picton for their service and it was so good. Few hundred people. Lovely memorial service. Mayor spoke well. St John was a bit busy. During the British officer's speech, the mayor had to butt in and ask for them to come to the podium. Immediately. And that happened twice.

The chap that was to read to Ode to Remembrance in Māori sheepishly admitted he did not have the words (I surmised they were still sitting on the table at his house). So the wahine that previously sang a lovely hymn jumped back in and sang again.

After the normal service, we walked down to the pou on the foreshore and had a Māori battalion service. Very good to participate in that.

Picton service

At dawn

The pou

After the service we headed back to Blenheim and saw wee Todd and Sue. Sue was staying overnight in her campervan in the driveway before catching the ferry over to Wellington. Todd is a wee cutie! So friendly and curious.

Todd! You wee cutie!

I helped (okay - I ate!) Iona harvest all the remaining grapes on their vine. These grapes are the most delicious! I must have had a kilo of them! But they had so much!

Harvested the grapes

Walnuts galore

We wandered down to the Wairau river and collected walnuts from huge trees down there. Got 3 big bags full.

Walnut in situ

We also got the bikes ready for our training day on Friday. Degreased and lubed the bike. And got the gear sorted.

Training ride

Friday saw Nicola arrive just after 9am and we headed off. I used her daughter Charlotte's very nice Merida bike. Iona on her old mountain bike. Nicola on her very nice, but older, bike. The day was sunny and very nice down lower. Our walk up into the Wither Hills was far windier!

More of the walnut harvest

We rode down south on the Whale trail to the southern end of Blenheim and then into the hills. Then it went a bit up and down. I ended up having to push up a lot of the steeper farm tracks. But now I have #goals!

After about 12km of riding, we parked and locked our bikes and walked up to the trig (well, close enough to it). Had lunch tucked out of the wind. Then back down to the bikes and rode over to Taylor River and back to Iona and Col's place.

Walking

Windy

Iconic views

I had such a great day! And it was still only about 2pm! Hahahah. 

Up Saturday to do park run. It was 1 degree and frosty. Brr. Iona knew I needed motivation so she walked to town with me and left me to it. I am so glad she did that. Loved the run. 35 mins. That was ok as I checked and it was a month since my last one. I need to run more. Especially after the training session yesterday and my lack of cardio fitness to get the bike up hills. 

Park run

Rose garden

Love me some roses

Walked back to the house. Then off to the gym for some fun there. Bench for me, mainly. Then off to Nelson on our roadie for Iona's Aunt Jean's choral event. We had a great drive over. With a stop at Pelorus for the best iced latte I have had in a long time!

Nelson choir venue

East St was delicious

Iona had reserved dinner for us at East St (which is on Church St) - all vegetarian food. Mmmm. Iona's quesadilla looked (and tasted) so good. Mine was good too - but all a bit much on one plate. Bean balls. Salads. Mash. Hummus. Beans. Mushrooms.

Anyway - we did some shopping in Nelson in the afternoon. I got boots from Torpedo7. Lowa Batia. For $383 (down from $550). Iona got some Salomon shoes for trail running. We went to a book shop. Then we read books in the gardens. Looked at the cathedral grounds and then headed to the Nelson School of Music venue. Met Allan and got in and then enjoyed Mendelssohn, Faure and some locally composed piece for the next few hours. It was beautiful. Lovely huge room with great acoustics. A conductor with panache. And such beautiful voices.

We left Nelson just after 9pm and got back home and fell into bed. Read until after midnight. And slept in to 8.40am!

Home made iced latte

Beach rubbish walk

I visit the tree again

Someone's wee house!

Then we went for our beach walk to pick up rubbish. We walked 5km and picked up 3 huge rubbish bags of junk. Plastic bottles abound.

We saw a dead shark. An entire deer leg - with hoof. A wee house someone was surely sleeping in over summer. Two men with 3 wee toddlers that caught 5 huge snapper. 30 cans of Double Brown. And out out a huge, smouldering fire someone had left.

More iconic Marlborough views

Airport

Back to chill at home. Then off to the airport for my flight back to Wellington. It is always a pleasure to spend time with Iona and Col. They look after me so well. It was like a holiday. An active holiday. Thank you. xx

New boots

Mike met me at the airport after one of the smoothest flights across I have experienced. I told him about my weekend and he told me about his huge tramp. We looked at each other's photos. And then put on washing and went to bed!

Hahah. Great fun all round!

Have a brilliant week ahead.

Love,

Angela