The weekend in Auckland for hockey

 Hi,

What an amazing weekend. Mike walked me to the car at 4.30pm (parked at the early bird car park by Bluebridge for $18) and I was off to collect Jill from Paraparaumu very soon after that. Easy drive out there. Found her house and then we were off up north.

Filled up in Levin and then got to Taihape and found the Gretna Hotel. It is an old building on the corner where the SH1 does a 90 degree bend as it goes through town. We found reception in the public bar and got our keys. The rooms were all upstairs with shared bathrooms.

Gretna Hotel in Taihape

My room for $59

We grabbed our gear and dropped it in the room. Checked the bar food out - but not a lot of vegetarian options. So off to Roast Cottage for a roast veg dinner.

Roast Cottage for tea

Back to our rooms for bed. I was ready for a good sleep. The room was clean and tidy. There was a big blowie in the room - but it settled down and didn't cause me any headaches. At 9pm there was a lot of noise as punters left the pub and chatted below my window on the footpath. They all then revved their cars as they left. Hahah.

Bye wee room

Up for a shower (good shower - with a front door as the shower door) and then met Jill and we left Taihape nice and early.

Iced latte

Great view of the maunga as we passed Waiouru. Good route up the Desert Road. Brekkie in Turangi. Where I had an iced latte.

Then into Auckland up SH32 and then SH1. Found the hockey stadium and enjoyed a great game against Germany with Erin's team finding their mojo in patches of good play. But it was 7-0 to Germany in the end.

Go Scotland!

Erin's team takes on Germany

Selfie

We chilled while Erin took an ice bath. Hahahah. Looked - cold. Then headed to our AirBnB in Browns Bay. The place was a wee self-contained flat under the main house. And at the end of their steep driveway, was a 150m walk to the beach. Across the road was Woolworths. And the wee town itself had a lot of outside pubs and cafes. So nice. Great spot.

View from Browns Bay

Shadows

Nice Air BnB

Relaxing evening eating and reading. Had a great sleep. Up for an early game for Erin's team against Australia. Erin was on fire! The sun was shining. The rugby was on (All Blacks v Ireland in Dublin). Magic day.

Erin's team lost 3 - 0 to Australia. But they kept them under wraps for huge passages of play. And the goalie was amazing. The Alliance team even had some close scoring opportunities.

I might need to crop this

Saturday morning v Australia

Roz and Oaklin

Roz turned up as we watched the kiwi men. I met Oaklin. She is a gorgeous wee pup in the Roz Guide Dog puppy training programme.  :-)  

She is so good

Watching with Erin

Anne turned up later too. So we all watched games together - really good to have Erin's expert commentary. Jill and I spent a lot of time wondering why penalty corners were given before we at with Erin to understand it more. Seems as though people's feet get in the way a lot!

Such a great time. Good to catch up with Anne and Roz. Erin and her team will continue to worry these other teams and they might get some upsets in by the end of the week. Woot!

Roz headed away after Oaklin was so good sleeping under her seat in the stands. Wow. What a good wee dog. And we milled around watching some games before Anne decided to brave the traffic to get all the way back over to the south eastern parts of Auckland. Good on her for getting there!

Said goodbye to Erin too. And headed back to Browns Bay for the evening. Relaxed again with some food from the sushi place and Woolies. 

Good sleep. Up early and away by 7.30am. Easy drive to Pokeno. Met up with Kaustubh and Arapita and wee Aaria. Aaria is a wee cutie. I got an iced latte from Kaustubh. Mmmm. God to catch up with them. They are off to India soon for their summer holiday.

Nice home made iced latte

Rumbly tums in Tokoroa

Our AirBnB in Browns Bay

We headed away at 9.40am and stopped for lunch at Tokoroa. And then nothing but petrol at Waiouru to stop us from getting to Wellington.

Dropped Jill home. Got home and heard about Mike's adventures with his half marathon Sunday morning on Kapiti coast. And laundry progress with Lewis.

Yay!

Mighty weekend.

Go Erin! Smash the teams this week.

Love,

Angela

The weekend with my birthday

 Hi,

Happy birthday to Scott for today.

What an amazing birthday weekend, thanks to a lot of organising from Mike. Friday was my birthday and I headed into town with Mike for a quick iced latte together before he headed to his usual Friday brekkie. And I went to Urban to meet James, Ed and Celia.

Celia is so sweet - I got a present from her. A Lego rabbit and a giant zucchini. She always makes me feel special on my birthday. Awwww. Thank you.

Urban let us down with their customer service. Their wait staff person was new - but she did relay our order back to us. But a full hour after Celia and James were here we still did not have our food. And when it came - it was all wrong. Like - all of it! I did not order a salmon stack. Hahahah.

But they fixed it fast once they realised there had been a huge mess. And I got to my nurse appointment well ahead of the 9.30am time.

The nurse at my doctor's practice was a little bit hopeless. And when I called her out on it (why would I let anyone near me with sharp tools if they are muttering about how they do not like doing this and why would they need to do this ) she said she was just processing through what she needed to do. 

Hmmm. That should be her inside voice.

Anyway - she was also the nurse that had no clue when I went there about my ears. And I certainly hope I do not get her for anything else I need with the nursing side of the practice.

After she got a consult, she was good. And to be fair, it all went fine once she "processed". Mind you, it was also as easy as you might get. No issues with the cuts to worry about. Just - take out the stitches.

The outcome was good. My foot looks good. My arm was a little grumpy at the stitch getting taken out. But as of today (Monday) it looks super good.

This is dessert!

A corn and pickled asparagus course

Potato features here

Birthday dinner @ Hillside

Moxley wants at my puzzle

Birthday iced latte #1

Birthday iced latte #2. Thank you Celia

On our way to town

Machete birthday iced latte #3

The photos are all out of sequence. But I caught up with Mike and Andrew after the stitches were removed. For the third iced latte of the day!

Then home on the bus. Into the car at home and off to visit Maureen. She was WFH as she was getting a new couch delivered. Grabbed a toastie sandwich from Chillax on my way to hers. We ate that. Finished the last wee bit of planning for A2O. And then her couch arrived.

Back home. Then out for 6pm dinner at Hillside. Sally was meant to be late (7.30pm ish) but actually arrived at 6.30pm. So she was slotted in by the excellent staff and only missed two courses. 

So delicious and such fun. I love Hillside. Drove Sally and Andrew home afterwards and into bed. Mike got a migraine late at night. Boo! He took some meds and went to sleep.

We slept in. And Mike felt okay - but he did sleep a bit through the morning. I got the time wrong for the hockey - I thought it was 4pm. But that was for Shakespeare on Sunday. The hockey was 3pm kick off. So we rang Andrew and he jumped in the car and came in to collect us. Google sent us down back streets to the National Hockey Stadium. Good call. We got to a car park of sorts and to the fence above the ground as the national anthems rang out. Glad we got to see them.

Gorgeous day for the hockey

Selfie at the hockey

Hockey!

The weather was superb. Erin came over (with Pippa) at halftime to say hi. The hockey itself was so exciting. Fast-paced. Had no clue what was happening. But the skills on display were amazing. Turns out there are 4 quarters of 15 mins each. Good to know.

It was BlackSticks women versus USA.

USA got a goal in the first quarter against the run of play. But that changed the game and NZ was playing catch up until the last minute of play when they got an equaliser. Then to penalty shoot out. Which is actually not a static shot off a mark. But a one on one with the striker and the goalie. So exciting.

NZ women got none past the American goalie.

America got 2 by the NZ goalie.

NZ lost.

Andrew dropped us home and we went to visit Ryan for his birthday tea (19th Feb for him). Had a lovely pizza dinner outside on their new deck. Then watched Matilda the Musical.

Ryan birthday pizza

Mike and I walked home and atched the end of the movie together. Hahahah.

Up for a coffee date with Jo and Rex. Saw Juliet in with her Mum - then Greg from ANZ days came by. Good to see him. We saw all the pics from Rex and Jo's visit to Africa.

Bike t shirt iced lattes

Happy iced lattes with these guys

Back home and then a pick up from Andrew for The Tempest. Shakespeare in the dell. With a picnic. Great fun. Slightly windy. But it went from 4 - 6pm and I enjoyed it.

The Tempest - in the Dell

Chocolate roughy biscuits

Home to make biscuits for work. Off to bed.

Up for a big week at work.

Have a good week.

Love,

Angela