The weekend in Wellington with parkrun and rugby and trapline

 Hi,

I had such a social weekend in Mike's absence. He was off down south visiting his mother with Toby and Tessa. Sounds like they had a great time. 

Mike down south, ready for Parkrun.
He says it is chillier than Singapore and they added more hills to Dunedin Parkrun

Saturday saw me up for Waitangi parkrun. I met Lisa and some of her friends. I did my fastest 5k this year - which was weird because I am still not fully over my cold and did blow my nose a few times. But yay!

We drove up to Chillax near our house for brekkie. Then back to our place to get ready to pick up Maureen and head to the rugby.

Iced latte at Chillax after parkrun

Chillax with Lisa

Parkrun

Parkrun with Lisa's friends

Parked on the street near Maidstone Park in Upper Hutt and we went into the Mitre10 for a coffee. Well, I had a hot chocolate because I was a bit cold. Thanks Maureen!

Elly joined us there and then we wandered over to the game. Which had started! Wellington Poua versus Waikato Manawa. Elly has a pass because she is a member of Poua. But she stood with us on the touchline near the 22 anyway.

At halftime Elly took Maureen to the grandstand to find a toilet. Elly was trying to convince the staff to let Maureen up to the fancy toilets (instead of the portaloos for anyone attending for free like us) and they were umming and ahhing about it. When a former Black Ferns and 7s player walked past, heard all this, and gave Maureen her pass.

And who was this player?

Ruby Tui. 

Yes, Maureen got a pass from Ruby and went and checked the facilities. And tried to hand the pass back to Ruby, and she was like: nah, you keep it.

Wow!

Anyway - this was an awesome game. Poua smashed it in the end. 47 to 33 I think. Great skills all round.

Walking to the rugby

Good day for it

Happy selfie

Sunday saw me up for trapline with Maureen. Mike was away and our other weekends are already full. So it was this weekend or never. Mind you, Andrew said he could sneak up and do it all if needs be. Maureen and I have kindly left him some work to do.  :-P

The day was stunning. Maureen picked me up at 9am and we were off up Sunny Grove nice and early. Maybe close to 10am by then?

We only got 1 rat the entire trapline. We did all of SG, half of KAT and the top of UTS. It wasn't cold or wet or windy. Super nice in the bush.

Sunday trapline

In the creek

Lunch spot

What a poser

Maureen dropped me home and I did some housework before going to Kara's place for dinner. She is back from her trip away and put on a lovely meal for me. Nut roast. Roast vegetables. Pilau rice. And some cabbage, leek mix.

Dinner with Kara

So nice to catch up with her adventures and plans. Good to hear about her mother and brother and how they are keeping. We planned a few things.

Then off to pick up Mike. I was there a while because he thought he was getting in at 9pm. But when I arrived there was no flight from Chc at that time. 9:30pm. So I tracked that flight and figured out it was the one he was on. Sat down and waited.

Mike was a little bit surprised to be so late as well when he turned up. He'd written "9pm" on his weekend plan and like me was a bit puzzled why it got in so late. No, Mike was wrong and Air NZ was right. Lucky it wasn't the departure time he got wrong!

He was tired after his weekend too. Tucked him into the car and then into bed. Hahah.

Up Monday for Mike to gym with Quentin. We have a few meetings about the house today. Let's see what they say.

Have a fabulous week.

Love,

Angela

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