The weekend that was Matariki and in Chc for me

 Hi,

What a huge weekend over Matariki. After work went late Thursday, Toby and Tessa picked me up after Tessa had changed our reservation to be a bit later. They did have to sit in the car park at work and keep warm for a bit.

But Lillies was really good. A big open space. Good pizzas from a big oven. Unusual combos. We had buttered cabbage and speck (bacon) and cheese. Gouda I think. Speck just on one side. And what was the other pizza? Can't remember.

Got some "non-pizza" food too. Bitter leaves salad was one. Nothing bitter I could taste. And two desserts.

Phew.

Thursday evening at Lillies

Friday morning we met at Table for Monks. Had a lovely brekkie there. Toby watched Obsession (creepy movie from Quentin's recommendations) the night before and told me about. Yuck.

Table at Monks for brekkie

Outside so needed puffer jackets

View from my room

Matariki iced latte at Table at Monks

Confused daffodils

Toby at Table at Monks

We walked back to Worcester St and then drove out to Kaiapoi for the market there. Oh - that was a cute wee market. Lovely stalls. Chai to dai for (or something like that - Tessa loved it). We also bumped into Steph! How funny.

Snow on the mountains

Kaiapoi  market - we bumped into Steph

Wee bush walk by the market

Sunny!

Did you get the pic?

Keep modelling, Toby!

I am done now

We went to Toy Story 5 at Slinky Otter in the afternoon. Good movie - I liked it. Then to the gastropub next door for some light food.

Movie time - Toy Story 5

Kaiapoi fireworks

Back to Kaiapoi for fireworks and a light show. Great fun! We walked a lot and the place was packed. Huge traffic jams when the fireworks finished. But we avoided all that - the light show took up some time and it took us a while to walk back to the car.

Light show

Awwwww

My feet

Me looking at the spacewoman

Some planets not to scale

Awwww

Selfie time

Toby and the trees

Toby and me

Is that a mushroom?

Tessa takes a closer pic

I got dropped off back at my accommodation. And I was asleep very quickly. Up early for parkrun. It was cold. I walked to Worcester and Tessa kindly got up and dropped me and Toby off at Riverlution for our run.

She went to Little Poms to secure a table for us. And timed our coffee order perfectly so it was waiting for us as we got to her.

Walking to Worcester for Parkrun

Start of parkrun

Crispy morning. Toby did just a few seconds over 30 mins. And I did better than last week. But still not good enough to make me happy. Just under 36 mins for me. I am still a bit chesty from my cold.

A volunteer had his electric guitar

Post parkrun

Someone took our pic for us

Beautiful light walking back to Little Poms

Iced latte at Little Poms

Back for brekkie with Tessa at Little Poms. Great, as ever. Got me a special badge from Garmin for running with temps below zero. Hahahah.

Frosty badge

Concrete breeze blocks does not a mansion make

How to get this old lock off?

We got Tessa's old bike from Steph and Sam's garage and bought stuff to get it back up and running. Gears are mostly ok. Back brake is a bit sticky. We got lights and a new helmet. New tubes. Changed out the old presta tube from the front as we had to pump for that.

Tessa rides her bike

We had a late brunch at C4. I like that place.

C4 for brekkie

At the ice hockey - women's match

We found out the women were playing ice hockey, so we went to that. Queenstown were up to play 2 games back to back over the weekend.

The other 2 teams in the league are Auckland based.

Inferno lost to Wakatipu Wild. 3 to 1.

But it was so good! I loved it. Bought a jersey to support them!

At the night market in Ferrymead

You have no idea how cold I am in this pic

We went to a night market at Ferrymead for dinner after the hockey. I was full on shivering and could barely work my phone. Luckily some dumplings warmed me up enough. The night market was so cute. Lots of stalls. An indoor bit with a huge bouncy castle for kids. Very nice.

C4 earlier

Sunday I was up early to go to CityFitness - about 100m from the Break Free hotel. Toby walked over and we did some running and weights. Bench 40kg. I did 3 reps and Toby did 6 reps.  3 sets of that. Tried out deadlift form. Toby's form was good. And did some woodchoppers.

Sunday morning gym

Woodchoppers with Toby

Back to the hotel to shower and check out. Then down to Black Betty for brekkie. A great brekkie place.

Black betty for brekkie

Over to The Tannery for a poke around.

The tannery

Tūranga  - Toby tries a Penny-farthing

Then back to Worcester where I fell asleep watching YouTube. Story of my life with YouTube. Up for a walk to the Antarctic exhibition in a refurbished brick building by the Avon in town. But they had packed up and the building was empty. So we checked out the library and walked to Poms for some dinner.

He's on it

Toby and Tessa dropped me at the airport and I figured out the ticket with staff at AirNZ (Mike booked it but wasn't travelling).

Got to Wellington at 21:00 and met Mike. Yay! He whisked me home and I was not long out of bed. 

Thank you to Sally for feeding the cats while we were gone. Mike was back Saturday after his work trip away. So the cats would have been very happy.

Up for work this morning. Me from home, Mike from town.

Hope your week is a good one.

Love,

Angela

The weekend with Mike off on Friday too

 Hi,

What a lot has happened since the last time I blogged. We had our Matariki celebration at work on Thursday evening and Polly came up mainly to visit this event. We had such a good time. The hangi was so good this year. Yum! Mine was roast kūmara, roast carrot (hmm), roast pumpkin, a lot of stuffing. 

Matariki at work - sharing kai with whānau

Wandering around the waterfront afterwards

From there, after tidying up, we walked around the waterfront, checking out the things on display. A lot of light shows depicting Matariki importance.

Mike and his mother check out the lights

Love it!

Ubered home and then Mike and I dropped his mum off at her unit in Epuni. Back to bed and Mike was up early to drive into the gym to meet Quentin for his PT session.

He ended up eating Maccas after that - and brought me home some. Hahah. First time I have had Maccas in years.

Readers - I quite liked it. I thought they had moved to unsweetened iced latte by default because Mike forgot to ask for no sweetener - but it wasn't sweet until I got to the last wee bit. So lucky it was not stirred up. Tasted good until the last few cms.

Friday morning Maccas!

I did not leave the house the entire day on Friday. There you go.

Saturday we were up early to get ready to meet everyone at Catchpool to go and do Callan's new trapline. We are all invested with him. 

We got a lot of punters.  We picked up Maureen and Andrew.  Ange and Danita came over. And Callan picked up Caitlin.

On our way to Catchpool to check the new trapline

Caitlin and Mike

Ange is there

Crossing Midway bridge

Fast walk into Turere Lodge. The new traps start at the stairs just after the bridge and the toilets.  Double ones.  DoC 200 and 250s.  The line is BB - for Big Bend. And there are 16 traps - with 2 in each. We get to about 500m beyond Haurangi Hut I reckon when we hit trap BB16.

We had lunch there.

Resetting traps

Note taker

Crossing a stream to keep dry

Callan resets more traps

Then Andrew and Maureen decided to head up the Whakanui track. It was only about 200m further ahead. A heard grunt up to the ridge - and then a good walk along the top to the junction at the top of Sunny Grove.  They got there just as we all got to Midway bridge.  

On our way back to the car

Punga 

In the punga

At the bridge

Back to 40WLW with Maureen and Andrew - and Mike's mother walked over from her place. And Sally cooked up a storm. Delicious roast veg with haloumi. Mmmmm. And the guacamole was so good as the starter.

Dropped off Maureen and then home. Up Sunday to a fairly lazy day for me. Mike collected Christine from the airport and came home with her. We had a good long chat about her holiday and the next plans with the flat. Mike had to work so once Christine headed home, he got stuck in. We did get some house work done. And the cats got to play outside.

Dropped the volcano papier mache effort off at work for this week's fun and games!  

Up this morning to kick into the push ups.  220 for today. Yikes.  Done about a quarter so far.

Busy week. Planning week. And we're off to Nelson this weekend coming. My parents are between Mauritius and the African continent according to the cruise line stalker. Woot!

Have a good week!

Love,

Angela