A window with a view

On Friday afternoon my GKB and I decided it was

 time for a trip down the harbour and a visit to his sister.

We arrived in time for afternoon tea - good timing.

looking up the harbour towards Dunedin

I took the camera because I wanted to get some shots from her kitchen window.

The house overlooks a small inlet in the harbour near Port Chalmers.

Looking across to Roseneath

And even though it was cold I wasn't allowed to take them from the window. 

The reason? It overlooks my SIL's back yard and her washing was out on the line!

Sawyers Bay and around to the right to Port Chalmers

So while the others sat inside drinking hot tea and coffee 

I went outside and took the shots above

with the clothes line at my back and their bounteous garden in front.

In another city you would pay a lot of money

 for the views they have of the harbour.

************

Not the cup we had at my SIL's but one we had while out and about one day.

I thought it was quite elegant for a tea rooms but maybe it was because 

the tea room was attached to a garden centre.

joining in with:
Martha's favorites
roses of inspiration

That's it for this week.
Short and sweet. 
Keep well until next time.
Diana

A birthday celebration

Last Saturday our middle grand daughter turned 18.

Lovely Caitlin

She decided to go out for an evening meal 

and invited all the family - children excluded.

When she turned 16 she didn't want any 'old' people there

and all the kids got to go. :)

I laughed and told her mother that she would 

either have a very big 21st (which is the coming of age party) 

or a very small one.

Anyway we all duly arrived at the restaurant

 to discover tables being moved and rearranged. 

They had set us up at four different tables if you please.

entrance to restaurant

Eventually we were all seated at two tables, 

'old' poeple at one and younger people at the other.

That was a lot better than 4 tables and we were

 all close enough to interact with each other.

Her older brother and his partner travelled down from Christchurch 

 - and brought the cake with them, arriving after everyone had eaten. 

He had been up until four in the morning making and decorating it,

with an emergency trip to A&E to get his thumb stitched up.

sweet 18

The cake looked even better in person, so to speak, than it does in the photo.

It was beautiful and delicious to boot. Vanilla cake filled with mock cream.

This is what he is training to do, and his other sister is inclined this way as well. 

I'm trying to encourage her to do a course in cake decorating.

Eventually we all headed home after a lovely night out. 

Grand daughter had not been really well and 

whereas she had been hoping to go out for the rest of the evening

 with her fiends she just headed home and went to bed.

She said she had a good night out though, so that's the main thing.

joining in with;

roses of inspiration

And that's it this week. 

Keep well until next time,

Diana

Days of our lives...

As I said last week it is autumn in the south.

Today you'd be forgiven for thinking that winter had arrived.

The temps have dropped and the wind and rain have been howling through.

As usual for Tuesday I went to little mother's group 

and then took her out to do her weekly shopping.

I thought she might decide to stay home by her fire, but no, out we trotted.

Being so cold and miserable when I got home I decided it was time to get out

 one of the jigsaws I kept at home and started doing that.

It's only 500 piece so shouldn't take too long - I hope.

Buuut there's a lot of water all looking much the same, oh well.

When it's finished I'll put it in the library at church with the others.

Of course it was Mother's Day at the weekend 

and my girls and some of their kids arrived out for a visit.

I was given lots of sweet stuff, yum, 

and some smelly candles, yum again.

And my son skyped from Japan just before they arrived 

so everyone had a good catch-up.

I had taken my little mother to church in the morning 

and she had already gone home, so she missed them all. 

She always likes to go home early on Mother's Day 

to be there in time for my brother and his partner arriving.

Our middle grand daughter is turning 18 this week

so we are going out with her next weekend for an evening meal.

We gave her an early birthday present.

You may think this is a funny gift to give an 18 year old 

but she was really thrilled as she is going away this week for the course

 she is doing and was hoping to borrow some of our luggage.

And when she graduates she hopes to be travelling some more.

So what else would we give her? And blue is her favourite colour.

What else have I been doing? 

Well I was given these...

...quinces, apples and pears fresh off the trees.

So I have been peeling, stewing and freezing a lot of it.

Some of the apples and pears I kept to eat, lovely and sweet 

even if they had to be washed or peeled to get the bird poop off. 

I have to admit that I gave most of the quinces away, not all of them though.

Because they are such an old fashioned fruit 

and not seen much I think they are probably an acquired taste,

 especially for younger people.

I gave them to some older ladies I know 

who were really quite thrilled as they hadn't had them for years.

One was going to make jelly and the other was going to stew them whole.

Everyone has different ideas about what to do with them and how long to cook them.

I just stewed the ones I kept and froze them with the other fruit.

My little mother gave me a teaset a week or two ago. 

She had already given me one she knew I liked, or what was left of it...

she used to have tea parties with some of her great grandchildren 

and I rather think they were broken then. 

So I am on the lookout for replacement pieces for it.

Anyway  here is the newest one. A Yamato fine china.

It's black, white and silver and I think it is rather elegant and unusual.

 

Unfortunately I'm not too good at taking photo's at night

(something I'll have to try and remedy) 

and the trim looks gold here rather than silver.

Oh, an update on Mack, eldest grand daughters wee dog.

He is standing on all fours again to everyone's relief

 but still has to be confined to his cage for a few weeks yet.

So no drastic decisions have to be made :)

joining with:

roses of inspiration

Martha's favorites

 Well I think that's it for tonight,

 so until next week I will say goodnight.

Diana

Autumn ... and some Aussie visitors

Autumn is here in the south - but the trees haven't been told.

There is a little bit of colour change but not a lot.

Today was a lovely warm day, 28 degs C. 

so my GKB and I decided  that we would try 

to take some photo's of the plain in all it's autumn glory.

We headed up to the bridge over the motorway to see what we could do.

We were looking not quite into the sun which has resulted in the pictures

being a little hazy. 

Looking north across the plain toward Mount Allen, 

lovely, green and lush.

Part of our little town in the foreground.

Further around toward the west, where our warm wind was blowing in from.

Not a lot of colour. On the whole I think it has been too warm

 even though we have had snow on the hills a couple of times.

Looking west to Mount Maungatua. 

Now what has this got to do with Aussies you may ask? 

Nothing really, except that my little mother's 91 year old sister, 

her daughter and grand daughter came over for a surprise, flying visit.

And flying it was.

They spent a week in New Zealand,

 flew from one end of the country to the other, and back again,

visiting various relatives on the way and tomorrow fly home again.

We all went out for dinner last night, 

girls only as the men had other things happening. 

Three cousins, grand daughter took the photos.

We had a lovely meal together made all the more enjoyable

 because it was a spur of the moment thing.

We all enjoyed the visit, its a long time since we have caught up,

in one case about 40 years.

joining with:

Roses of inspiration

Have a lovely week, 

till next time.

Diana

Two boys on Anzac Day

Saturday was April 25th, Anzac Day.

The day New Zealanders and Australians around the world remember those
of our countrymen and women who have taken part in conflicts around the world since WW1.

This year our youngest grandson was taking part in a small parade

with his cub pack so of course we went out to watch him.

His big brother and a mate came to watch as well.

Jack

Being a boy with ants in his pants he couldn't just stand 

on the footpath but had to find a better vantage point. 

Good on him.

His father did stop him from getting up on the roof of the bank though,

 we didn't want him being hauled off by the local bobby, haha.

Anyway we didn't have to wait too long before we heard the bagpipes 

and the little parade came down the street led by the army cadets.

our cubs

There weren't many people there watching 

but we discovered later that the main parade was after the church service

 when they marched down to the war memorial and laid wreaths.

We didn't wait around for that but later went out to the cemetery 

for the service there and see the cubs put poppies on the soldiers graves.

Danny

Looking for a place to put his final poppy.

It was a big day for some of the younger boys 

because they had met at the Scout hall at 9:30am 

paraded down the street twice, had a church parade, 

bussed out to the cemetery and back again.

I went with his mother to pick Danny up just after 1pm.

joining with:

roses of inspiration

Wake up Wednesday

I hope you're all having a good week,

it's wet and miserable here today, 

so I'm inside doing 'inside stuff'.

Have a good week,

Diana

Winter is a'coming...

Autumn is here and in the last week 

the temps have dropped considerably.

There has been a lot of this happening today,

in fact this was when it had begun to clear a bit towards evening.

I'm hoping that it will be nice at the weekend when we commemorate ANZAC Day,

and 100 years since the Anzac troops landed at Gallipolli

with such awful loss of life on both sides.

I'm hoping to go into the city for the Dawn Service

and I think it will be pretty crowded.

Granddad and Granma 

I love these photos of my grandparents 

and this is hanging up in my lounge all the time.

They were so young. Grandad came back from the war 

 and they lived to a good age, 

bringing up six kids as well as having various grandkids 

living in their home over the years.

My youngest brother looks very much like my grandfather.

Mack

My granddaughter's wee dog, Mack. 

He is a sweetie and a real little guard dog..

but at the moment he is not well.

He has lost control of his back legs and also his bowel and bladder.

After having x-rays it seems he has a slipped disk 

which has calcified and now it is pinching the nerves to that part of his body.

He's had a couple of nights at the vet and is now home in a little cage,

on bed rest. He has to have a harness on when he comes

 out to do his business and needs help standing as well. 

Currently he is at my daughters home 

because there is someone home with him there all the time.

They hope to know this week whether he will improve or not.

I hope so for granddaughters' sake.

Winter time means jigsaw time to a lot of people, me included.

I have suggested that we start a jigsaw library at church this winter

and up above is the pile Mum gave me to sort out, name and mend to go in it.

So that is what I have been doing this evening 

- it didn't take long though, most of the boxs are in pretty good nick.

Mine are already down at the church and one other lady is putting some in as well.

I think we'll have about 50 to start us off. 

Just to finish off here is a teacup I gave my mother in law for Christmas one year.

When she died it came back to me and is in the china cabinet with my other teacups.

It is a Regency English Bone China trio.

I thought it was very pretty when I bought it and I haven't changed my mind.

joining with:

Martha's favorites

Roses of Inspiration

That's it for this week,

see you next time. keep well,

Diana

Aorangi Mount Cook

Yesterday and today have been a real shock to the system.

The Snow Queen decided to let us know winter

 is just around the corner by sending snow, wind and hail. 

The temperatures dropped to 3 degs F yesterday afternoon.

I decided it was a good day to stay home

 in the warm and read a good book, so I did!

hail on the lawn

And this reminded me that I hadn't done a post
on our trip last August to Aorangi  Mount Cook.

Well that's not quite true, I have written about some of the trip here

and said I would write more but it must have slipped my mind.
Which is quite remiss of me seeing as the whole point
 of the trip was to go to the mountain.

So here is Part 2 of Day 2 :)
We left our motel in Fairlie early in the morning
and drove inland, heading for the Southern Alps.

high country farmland 

We stopped at Lake Tekapo and after a hot drink from the thermos

 we went into the little Church of the Good Shepherd

and after a time headed on our way again. 

 The freezing fog had burnt off by the time we reached

 Lake Pukaki and the Southern Alps were ranged out before us.

Lake Pukaki 

It was a beautiful day and we stopped here 

 on the way back for photo's. Stunning views.

You can see the size of the boulders on the lakeside,

 they were huge, that is my son near the lake.

We had to clamber over them to get good pics, 

or stand on top of one if you weren't up to the clambering.

And that was mission. But it was fun.

Now this is something I love, every time I see it.

You're driving along and come to a bend in the road. 

The scenery is already quite spectacular and 

you round this bend and there is the mountain - 

dead in front of you.

Aorangi Mount Cook aka Aoraki Mount Cook

The lady at our motels had said to us that 

Aorangi was 'performing beautifully this year'.

And it didn't disappoint.

Covered in snow from top to bottom

 I thought it was quite breathtaking.

We drove on and arrived in time for a bit of a walk around the village,

three intrepid explorers :)

before heading  into the hotel restaurant for

a welcome coffee and some lunch.

Our DIL wanted a meat pie, she loves our meat pies,

and couldn't understand why I wouldn't have one as well.

I prefer something lighter when all I'm doing is sitting and travelling.

number one son and his wife (Aorangi to the left)

After lunch we decided to take our drinks

 out onto the balcony  while we relaxed, 

chatted and enjoyed the view.

larger than life statue of Sir Edmund Hilary,
the first man to climb Mt Everest

After a very enjoyable afternoon at the village,

 and a little time in the gift shop, we won't mention what we spent,

we climbed back into the car and headed for our motel again.

If we had thought about it earlier we could have done a round trip

 as we were actually closer to our caravan in Cromwell 

than we were to the motel - but they were in opposite directions to one another. 

Oh well, up top for thinking so they say.

Eventually we arrived back at the motel, 

about 12 or maybe even 14 hours after we had left.

Anyway 'twas a long day by the end of day 2 of our road trip.

We had a wonderful day out, took number one son

 somewhere he had never been before 

so he and his lovely wife were able to discover it together. 

joining with:

Roses of Inspiration

Enjoy your week, 

keep well and 

I'll be with you again soon,

Diana