Wet Wet Wet

The holiday break started off with the colours being of summer – sunflowers and sunshine

A Christmas Eve Egg Nog night with some wonderful people and lots of laughs!

The sunshine continued over the next few days, I got to spend some time, around work, with my Gran baby!

My friend Trudi was also working through but we both decided to vacate Waiwera and head to the West Coast for our day off! Little did we know this would be the last of summer we would see for the next two weeks!

Muriwai and Māori Bay, my childhood, teenage, early twenties, stomping ground! The tourist attraction here now is the Ganet Colony….

These “Smelly” birds have moved to the mainland, from that small island offshore, affectionately known as birds#it island in my youth! I’m guessing Department of Conservation fencing off all the cliff edges from humans has encouraged them to move inland! The day included a small hike over this hill, a lie in the sun reading our books, a swim in the West Coast sea, with its usual rips and undertows, and a not so flash burger from the beach shop where Kevin (my brother) and I started our careers in retail at the ripe old age of 13!

The facade has somewhat changed but the vibe is still the same! humans chilling around in the sun outside waiting for their takeaways, only to be disappointed if they have expectations of the food they used to get here in the 70s and 80s!

After a day of exploring my old backyard, we headed to another haunt ….

The Huapai Pub – as children we spent many hours in the car park (along with other children) while our Dads socialised therein! We were thrown the odd bottle of Fanta and packet of chips every hour or so! This time the experience was much more pleasant, and they even have my low alcohol beer on Tap!

In hindsight, we are glad we took this time out…. New years Eve was a fizzer, we made the wrong choice – should have hit the pub with the other locals! And it got cold, in more ways than one! We were tucked up well before midnight!

1st January 2023, and the flowers were blooming – these shots taken just before the storms hit! Two storms back to back, gates blown off, pots over, leaves blown off plants, chairs flying around the section Outside tables blown over….,and now 14th January 2023 – it looks like summer may be creeping back!

During this time, I had Dad at the cottage for a week! His babysitter sleeping overnight and me working and him reading at the table during the day! Cooking their tea and coming home at night to clean up the storm carnage, sleep and back to cottage during the day!

The sun is yet to peep over the trees, but looking at the first dry day in a week – it’s washing and lawns morning!