The weekend in Sydney with Abby's birthday

 Hi,

What an awesome weekend. After work we headed to Tallawong and went to Enzos. Great fun like usual. We did order 3 burrata dishes - and the puffbread also came with 3 burratas. So we ate a lot of burrata.

It was Tessa's birthday so she got some presents. Thank you Karen for making her day special.

Birthday dinner at Enzo's for Tessa

Excited

Jamaican coffee

Desserts

Up the next morning for burrata fuelled parkrun. It was hot even at 8am. And I was 500th across the line out of 960 punters. What? How are that many people even possible in suburban parkruns? I was only a few seconds shy of my best 2026 parkrun time. Which, given the slow funnels caused by so many people, is not too bad.

Post parkrun pics

Corner cafe iced latte

Back for a quick coffee and Karen made us all eggs for brekkie. Then all changed and ready for Abby's brunch that was at 1pm. And officially called a Long Lunch.

The parkrun fun

At Bella Vista hotel

Toby and Tessa

This is what we're getting

Abby is the birthday girl

I enjoyed the long lunch. Huge venue and they looked after us. Good food - they even gave me my own courses. So - awesome!

Secured a karaoke place for 1.5 hours. $500 later. There was a wind storm on our way to Castle Hill and Karen's Uber got to the carpark as a tree fell over onto a parked car. Wow.

Storm knocked this tree over in Castle Hill

Me and big Mic

Karaoke

Then we all sung up our own storm. Huge effort on the karaoke mic. Everyone had a great time! So good.

Back home to watch some footy. Saw the chap with MND run out for his 100th game and there was not a dry eye in the house or stadium. Watched the Swans demolish their game and further into the finals.

Off to bed. Up for Fathers Day and a nice brekkie over the road.

Father's Day brekkie

At my gate

At 2.30pm we got dropped off at Quakers Hill train station and caught the 3:04pm train to Central. Switched to the airport line and Mike, Toby and Tessa got off at Green Square for their stay overnight ahead of their flights early Monday. And I stayed on and got to the airport for my flight to Wellington.

My fave snack

Easy flight home for me. It was late taking off - 1 hour late. But it made up time and we were only 30 mins late into Wellington. 12:40am arrival instead of the 12:10am. I was nodding off on my flight. Uber reservation worked and I was home by 1:15am.  Straight into bed.

Up to rain and cold this morning. Thinking about Mike's uncle and their family this morning. Robert passed away late last week. The funeral is today. No flight could get me to Dunedin early enough. Sending them all the strength to get through this hard time.

Love,

Angela

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 with a catch up with Jane and a race for Janine

 Hi,

Not sure I can capture all the weekend's fun. Mike, Janine and I got up early Saturday to get away by 7am so we could get to Nepean River for their parkrun. And how worth it was that? Such a good parkrun. Two loops. We did lose the car on the way back. Parked it a bit closer than we remembered so we walked past it. Hahah.

Nepean Parkrun

Mike's post parkrun selfie

Drive to Conservation Hut cafe in Blue Mountains

We then continued to Conservation Hut cafe for brekkie int he Blue Mountains. Such a good spot. Great views and walks. Mike and I had a granola with acai on top. Bit of banana too. Scoffed that down and left Janine to explore while we went to visit Jane.

She has lived here for close to 40 years. 37 maybe I think she said. We caught up with her news and she heard all about our news. This house she's been in for 17 years. We hadn't seen this one before - we have visited her once here and once in Bathurst.

Jane's house for a catch up

Showing photos

Out for lunch to a wee French cafe

We caught up with Karen, Scott and Abby here as they collected Janine on the way through. And off to a cafe in town. A French one near Coles. Very delicious galette, thank you. Everyone liked their food.

Back to get Jane her boots then off to Minnehaha Falls for a walk. It was flat for a bit then a steep down section to the valley floor where a waterfall squirted down a cliff and into a beautiful pool. People were jumping in.

Minnehaha Falls walk

Looking through the trees to the river

Banksia, maybe?

Abby negotiates the rocky path

At the waterfall with gorgeous pool

Me and Abby on the way back up

Almost there

Back up and dropped Jane off and headed back to Sydney. We were not up very late. Janine needed to be on the 5am Metro to start her half marathon by 6.48am.

We also had to pack because we needed to head directly to the airport in the afternoon. So come 4.45am Karen got up to say goodbye as did Abby and we climbed into the Uber for the $40 ride to Tallawong. Scott had sorted out a bag drop with a friend of his at Martin Place in town. Thank you for that Scott because Deb was a lifesaver. So much easier all day with only one day bag on us.

Race morning

In the chute

Perfect day for a run. Little wind. Light hazy cloud cover. Janine and 30,000 other people got lined up for the course around Sydney's waterfront. 

At 7:09am she crossed the start line. We tracked the same route I did last year following Mike around. 

With everyone else

Sunrise over the Opera House

Cityscape

Waiting for coffee in an old alleyway

Got a bit of brekkie and a coffee in The Rocks up behind the MCA. Ate it looking at the harbour. Then over to a turnaround point at about the 15km mark. We waited to see Janine there. So was looking strong.

Turnaround point

Back to the finish line where we lost her completely in the crowd. But eventually found each other. She picked up her special medal for completing 4 of the marathon/half marathon in this series.

To fill in time, we went to Cockatoo Island. A UNESCO heritage site. It was a former penal site for the convicts that offended after landing in Sydney. So it must have been a rough place. Caught the ferry from Circular Quay. And 15 mins later we stepped onto the island. Got a map and visited the highlights before catching a ferry back an hour later.

Ferry to Cockatoo Island

Entering the island

Rocky hole

Dog leg tunnel

Turbine shop

Look at that!

Dog leg tunnel

Dog leg tunnel

We loved poking around on this island. Lots of old buildings to peer at and guess what they were used for originally. Plenty to see as it is still a boat storage place with dockyards.

Back to the mainland and collected our bags from Deb with a small latte with 2 sugars as an appreciation. So good to have Deb lined up to do that for us. Thanks again.

Then off to the airport. Janine got off at the domestic terminal to fly to see her brother in Perth. We went to International and checked in and went through to airside to wait for our flight.

On our way to the airport

At the gate

Mike slept well on the plane. I watched a documentary or two. Jane Goodall was good except when the chimps had a fight it woke me up with all the noise. Hahahah.

Taxi from Wellington airport because Uber had nothing to offer. Cats were happy - thank you Ange. And off to bed. Hard to wake up after 5 hours sleep.

Working from home today. Hope no one asks me anything super hard.

Have a great week.

Love,

Angela