NZ2 - First Week

We hit the ground running. On the first morning we had the privilege of taking the girls up to school.

The rest of the day was spent unpacking and organising our room. Since we came last time the room now has a double bed and a nice chest of drawers and a lower unit has been added. My main task was setting up a space for our devices which now includes two tablets and two mobile phones.

At three o’clock we met the girls and I had a pleasant chat with Zoe’s teacher, Mr Young. In the evening we went supermarket shopping with Sally. It was nothing like Friday night shopping in the UK, that I remember doing. The place was very not-busy.

On Saturday we began operation Christmas. For me this meant untangling and hanging strings of lights. For obvious reasons Christmas lights are not really a Kiwi thing. However, times are changing as I was to see some days later.

Apart from putting up lights I also went shopping with Ian. Mostly this was for Ian to get stuff from the DIY shop, but I was able to get my phone set up and buy some presents. At lunch we had Mexican which, for me, was a large juicy burrito. We had this food in Botany village with the Salvation Army band providing accompaniment. The trip ended an ice cream shop where we tried the mince pie flavoured type. It really tasted of mince pie.

I decided to treat the family to breakfast. This we had at La Fourchette’s down at St Heliers. I had the full English breakfast. Then, despite the chill wind, we had a brief sortie on the beach. After this we returned to the house to continue with Christmas decorations.

Late in the afternoon we all went back down to St Heliers. This time it was to Vellenoweth Green to join the population of the town for ‘Carols on the Green’. It was a good community time with groups of family sitting around there blankets with their picnics. We had fish and chips from the local shop and then it was time for the girls to take the stage. Emily was in the cheer leaders group and Zoe was in the school choir. They both performed well.

 On Tuesday we had a Skype call with Paul and Mary. The girls were excited about this. We did attempt a walk along the beach, but the wind was too cold so we walked up to top of the town and explored a place known as Dingle Dell.

The Christmas Trees are Starting to Bloom

St Heliers Police Station

The next day was much busier. We went, by bus, into Auckland. However, we got off at Parnell Baths with the objective of waving to Emily. This was their class’ Christmas outing. It was a bit different to ones that I enjoyed which usually involved walking through the rain to the bowling alley. I was determined that we would walk into the city from there. All walks around here involve hills or steep flights of steps and this one was no exception.

 The first place that we came to was the cathedral. It is a beautiful building and worth another look. They had two quite small Christmas trees and a crib scene, which I guess was made from kauri wood. Eventually we made it to the Art Gallery. As always there is a mix of good and not so good. One artist had been commissioned to paint something for the exhibition. Her work consisted of a large, pale covered canvas on which she had brushed on the outline of two blue ducks. Why not?

We went down the main shopping street; Queens Street. Apart from a gigantic Santa on one department store I can’t say that it was very Christmassy.

The day continued busy as Ian and I escaped the Tupperware party. Our first port of call was a pub near the docks. It’s claim to fame were the ceiling lights. There were groups of lights on the ceiling with no lampshade the same as any other. 

From there Ian drove us to a shop in Ponsonby which had an amazing range of ice-cream, sorbets and frozen yoghurts. Then Ian drove us through ‘Christmas Street’. All the houses and business were covered with Christmas light. Compare with the comment above.

We got back to the tail end of the Tupper Ware party and I enjoyed the homemade ‘Baileys’ and ‘Ferrero Rocher’

On the last day of our first week here we were mainly at home with a trip to bay shops. Then we walked along the shore but then the cool wind once more drove us inland. This time Irene did accept my offer to buy her a mince pie ice cream. The evening ended watching ‘Master Chef’ and finishing off the liqueur and chocolate from last night.