Saturday, November 03, 2007

Holiday Home

For the past week, Husbink and I have been on holiday at home. It has been fabulous.


On Monday, we went to Lindale Farm. A petting farm, walk, shops (like a candy shop, a honey shop, an olive shop...and antique-type shops and a cafe or two). We went with our very good friends and their two small children. Child Number One is two and a bit and the perfect age for such activities. Child Number Two is only just over a month old but did admirably considering! Husbink fed lots of the animals (Child Number One was a little scared, particularly of letting the animals eat from her hands, who can blame her?). We got a little too excited by the guinea pigs that they had in one section. I do miss my Loci(McChoki) and Sugar(ly-Boogaly). After we had lunch, I went back round the walking/feeding section with Child Number One. Mostly we fed the chickens and ducks. And a pig. But I was very over excited when a chap from the farm appeared and gave me a bottle so I could feed one of the lambs. So excited. Didn't stop talking about it for the rest of the week...Sadly there was no photographic evidence for this so here's Husbink with a goat...



Tuesday was a bit of a down day, for me anyway. (Mental hormones. More of that another time I expect but for now you are safe.) We had lunch with some of Husbink's colleagues which was ok, but I was not very sociable. We then went to one of my favourite shops to cheer me up (more on this later in the week...) before heading up the valley to the Rimutaka Rail Trail (that of the 63k bike ride some months back) for a gentle stroll (when not biking the whole thing, it is very gentle and pleasant). Sadly, we didn't have the camera with us as it was beautiful and we saw some rainbow lorikeets, not so common here as across the ditch (and by virtue of not being native, are considered pests) but still fun to see. We spent the evening with the same friends as Monday. I had therapy in the form of running around the garden for half an hour with Child Number One before bedtime followed by assisting with Child Number Two's bath. Child Number Two was very unimpressed with my cold hands... The day ended much better than it started.


Wednesday was *probably* the highlight of the week. We went to Rimutaka Forest Park (actually quite a long way from where we went on Tuesday) and did a fantastic walk. We went through so many different areas of habitat: bush bordering on rainforest in density and feel, high meadow, beech forest... The only downside was that it took about an hour longer than expected and we were very ready for our picnic by the time we got back to the car (we'd not taken it with us cos we thought the timing was in our favour). The other less good thing about the walk was that I had discovered a strange downside to living here: not having stairs. The last few times we have done a reasonably uphill kind of walk, I've developed a strange pain in my legs that I've never had before. Husbink suggested that I was getting old...but also said the pain could be caused by having to lift my legs higher than usual. I realised that evening that what has changed is the lack of stairs in my everyday life...crazy!

Wednesday evening was also one of the highlights of the week. We went into Wellington and saw Pluto (ho hum, music fine but no stage presence), Supergroove (oh goodness me, possibly the best live act I've ever seen, so much stage presence, so much fun, so good, so good, so good) and Crowded House (very good but I had two problems with it: first I had meant to get round to getting their new album and educating myself before the gig but I didn't, my bad. second, they did that "wall of sound" thing a little too much - where everyone seems to just be making as much noise as they can and all musicality has gone out of the window, their bad. However, it was still very good, despite the odd moment at the end when they let about eight greyhounds run across the stage. Strange.)


Thursday was rather more low key but did include the return to one of my favourite shops... You see, we went there on Tuesday because I knew there was nothing there that I would be able to justify buying, we didn't need anything from that kind of shop (outdoors) so it was just a cheery-uppy mooch. However. They had a massive sale on tents. And it seems we managed to justify buying a tent after all (our original plan of campervanning round the North Island in January was getting too expensive). Mmm, tent. The rest of Thursday was generally a chill out prior to feeding our home group in the evening.


Friday, we ventured out again and went over the hills (yes, that would be the third mention of the Rimutakas in one post) to the Wairarapa. Where the sun always shines and the wind drops (at least a little.) We stopped off in Carterton at Paua World and enjoyed some kitsch Christmas shopping before driving on to Castlepoint. Which was lovely. Beautiful. We had lunch in the solitary cafe before walking up to the lighthouse. We then walked around the various bits of beach, watching the hundreds and hundreds of birds, paddled, ate cake... It was a grand day out. And finished with a Burger Fuel when we got back to the Hutt before Husbink went to youth group and I watched ANTM...


Saturday was mostly a jobs kind of day until the evening...when we decided to try out our tent so camped in the back garden last night! I was exhausted so we went to bed about 9pm and didn't wake up until nearly 9am (except turning over when the birds started singing and that sort of thing...) So we are pretty chuffed with our tent, sleeping bags and carry mats :) especially since it was raining most of the night and not particularly warm. Hurrah!

Sunday has been absolute down time...as my Grannie would say, it's so tiring enjoying yourself!

5 comments:

Rosanna said...

Holiday at home - I love it. What beautiful photos! I especially loved the one of the lighthouse - that view is breath taking.

Mad Medea said...

What a lovely week. Loved the piccies...

AdventuringJen said...

rosanna - glad you like. we couldn't believe it when we got to Castlepoint, the whole setting was just so gorgeous!
MM - :) it was indeed a lovely week. though I can't say I'm not looking forward to a bit of me time this week!

Kezzie said...

Oh my oh my! What beautiful photos! I want to go to the lighthouse place! It looks amazing, rather reminds me of the beach that the family visit in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, always wanted to know where that was!

AdventuringJen said...

Glad you enjoyed the pictures Kezzie.
Ah, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, you know I'm going to be singing to myself for the rest of the day now!