December 25th to 27th Xmas and a Remiss Blogger

I have had no time for blogging over the last three days. With Xmas dinner being held here, it was a fairly full on day.  But we made sure we had a group photo from the day. It was a damned good day and made even more special to be able to share it not only with my family, but to have George's family here, all the way from Romania. The thought was strange to them however to be dining outside - this was definitely a first for them

 Moving on to Boxing Day.December 26th. We were supposed to be a hive of activity and packing up Xmas lights and decorations. However the previous day's activities caught up with us and it ended up being a day with very little effort and lots of snoozes.

The March of the Elephants did commence - with some taking the long route to get home. Sometimes life is plain sailing - if the could only find their oars power

 And on to December 27th - that is today  The Santa's started lining up for boarding passes to head back home. They decided to finish off with a little musical get together

And that is Xmas 2015. I have to say from a family point of view, it rates up there as one of the best Xmas' yet. And now it is back to normal. The lounge no longer resembles a Xmas grotto and instead is an elephant hang out - so yes normal transmission has resumed.

December 24th Wishing All A Very Merry Christmas

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas.  Someone, somewhere loves you and Christmas isn't about the gifts but about acknowledging our love for each other. If we are fortunate enough to be surrounded by family and loved ones, bask in their love and let them know that you love them. You don't know how many more Christmas' you will get to share with them. So treat every occasion with them as if it is your last.

December 23rd A Licence to Mow

When you have visitors from overseas, you soon realise the difference between cities. For instance a lawn - something practically every house in New Zealand has. If you have a lawn it needs to be cut, which means you must have a lawnmower - or pay someone to cut it for you.

To us this rates up there on the Chore Level. But for visitors - it rates up there on the Novelty Level (we won't enlighten them otherwise)

December 22nd Raglan By The Sea

Today we headed out to Raglan By The Sea. We thought we had better introduce the family to the Tasman Sea. It wasn't its usual blue, sparkly self but still was beautiful in its abundance.

Time to admire the Sculptures at Wainui Bay 

Introducing Johnny and Felicia to the Kiwi feed of fish and chips

December 21st Busy Bees

We have busy bees in the house, and whilst I feel a tad guilty I am loving it. Both George and myself are working this week, and Felicia and Johnny instead of putting their feet up, are working away. Felicia got stuck into weeding our garden for us, and Johnny decided our deck chairs needed renovating (which they woefully did, but we haven't had time to even sit on them, let alone do them up).

December 18th to 20th Family and Friends

A fairly full on weekend here with much excitement. George was beside himself as his sister Felicia and her husband Johnny were flying all the way here to New Zealand from Romania. A total time of 38 hours including transits, spent on travel. So needless to say we were following their progress every step of the way and keeping tabs on them.

Friday evening we were treated to the pleasure of having two little Princesses in the house to see our Xmas lights Ella had already been with her Mum and Dad, the week before. However this time she wanted her best friend Rebecca to share in the experience as well. We  had to bring the Princess Thrones out for them of course


Saturday was a bright and early start to get up to Auckland Airport. I was glad to be in the Arrivals area but even before Johnny and Felicia came through I was in tears at seeing families and friends reunited. Then it was our turn

Saturday evening and we were delighted to catch up with my younger sister, Lynette who was in NZ for one day before they took off on their annual holidays overseas. They called in with friends and there were paparazzi moments

On to Sunday and we didn't want to travel too far for our jet lagged visitors. So treated them to a day at the Hamilton Gardens (which won an International Best Garden Award in 2014), and a river cruise along the mighty Waikato River, which runs through Hamilton and is the longest river in NZ at 425kms.

All Aboard!

I'm Not Talking To You!

The Indian Garden

Italian Garden

December 17th We Just Need Hansel and Gretel

Look at this, look at this.  George won this beautiful Gingerbread House in a raffle at work. Guess who has always wanted a Gingerbread House, and never got around to making one. Yes me!  I am still totally over the moon and love it, love it, love it!!

December 16th A Hypnotic Trance?

A strange occurrence with tonight's visitors. I don't know if they were in a hypnotic trance from the effects of all the Xmas lights and totally transfixed, didn't want their photo taken or maybe our company was just that bad, and they were giving us the bum's rush.

Nah to all of the above!  We have decided a Xmas tradition was necessary and as well as the nice photo, we would once again (as we did last year) take a back view photo.

So here is the annual Xmas photo of Cristina, Crae, Daphne and Joanne.

I had better include a nice photo or I may lose some friends

Finally, an apology to Daphne The lighting did not allow the best result of your Poinsettia plant unfortunately

December 15th This Is What Makes Xmas So Special

When we start having people call in to see our display (and us hopefully), everything becomes absolutely all about Xmas. The look on children's faces is just absolutely magical (and the look on adults faces as well).  I wish there was a way of photographing feelings! Although I couldn't encompass my feelings into one photo

Tonight we had Ruby and her Mum, Ramona, come to visit. This beautiful, and very smart little girl, made our evening. I am still totally wrapped up in warm fuzzies.

December 14th A Boxer Double

When George lived in Romania, he had a Boxer dog, Mina, that he still misses deeply. There was no choice but to re-home her and leave her behind.

Today I visited our Dog Groomer, Adrienne.  She is off work for 3 months at least (anyone know a good dog groomer we can use temporarily), due to smashing her leg in not one but three places. She spent days in hospital and is obviously immobile, so I paid her a visit. Minnie stayed home as I thought the thought of an excited dog, seeing Adrienne in entirely different circumstances, too risky

Let me introduce Bonnie to you, a Boxer owned by Adrienne. Bonnie would not come in the room as she is nervous of strangers. So I spoke to her from a distance, and then eventually she came up to me and offered her paw She didn't like being patted on the head, but loved having her chin stroked, and would keep lifting her paw to shake hands with me.

Returning to the subject of Mina,  I have seen photos of her and was pleased to see that Bonnie looks like an exact double. I had to take a photo to show George in the evening, and you can imagine his delighted reaction!

December 12th - 13th Candy Canes and a Budding Picasso

This weekend was home based. On Saturday we were joined by family for dinner, so the granddaughters could get to see the Xmas light display, with the oldest staying the night, which is just as well as she helped me cope with the large wave of visitors. I was that busy I didn't get a chance to take any photos.

Before everyone arrived however, I did manage to snap a photo of how Havana artfully arranged the candy canes. My previous display was just a large dropped pile - so this was a vast improvement.

Sunday dawned and Havana decided the focus should be on Elephants. We have a budding artist in the family - one elephant was traced and the other was drawn free hand. No need to say which is my favourite

December 11th A-Maize-ing and Amazing!!

During the day I was treated to an a-maize-ing day.  Fields galore in the country are filled with Maize, as farmers grow stock feed

And the Three Wise Men may not be around to see our Xmas lights, but we had the finest substitute and had three wise children instead!

December 10th Walks With Minnie

Today was our 10th Wedding Anniversary. However that doesn't mean the household Diva gets ignored. She still requires her walks.

Today we encountered a natural bridge (ok a collapsed flax flower across the path)

The Agapanthus are coming into flower. As much as I hate these plants - extremely hard to get rid of and self propagating to the nth degree, the flowers are quite pretty, especially when they start opening. However you will never, ever find these anywhere on our little section of earth

December 9th Peek A Boo I See You

December 8th A Busy Bum....

Today I spied a busy Bum...well a busy Bumblebee to be exact

December 7th A Room With A View

Today I thought I would share with you my view each evening, as I sit and watch TV (or entertain guests of course) in the build up to Xmas

The above is the nice version of the background to the photo. The reality of the photo is that I finally had my feet up, it was late in the evening, and I thought Holy Mother Beatrice, I haven't taken a photo today!

December 5th and 6th Arm Wrestling Champs and A Xmas Party

Saturday Evening we were treated to a visitor we did not expect. Little Olly advised us that he was the World Arm Wrestling Champ George of course had to test this assertion, and whilst it was touch and go there for a while, little Olly did win - not once but twice. I don't think we will discuss this any further (for the sake of someone's pride)

Sunday dawned, and it was time to travel up to Orakei, Auckland for Fine Travel's Xmas party get together. Whilst the weather gods were fine to us, the health gods weren't. Daniel, the Manager, who organised everything was unable to attend due to ill health striking down his entire family. A hasty change of venue eventuated. However one could not scoff at the view that resulted and seeing one of the Celebrity Ships in Port, in the distance.

Time for Secret Santa, and everyone waited with much anticipation. We were advised with this particular Secret Santa that the next person whose name was drawn, could claim your gift That is if they preferred it to theirs.  I think I may have gone a tad overboard threatening anyone who tried to take my liquer truffles and Xmas fruit mince tarts - both absolute favourites. You always have one person who spoils the game don't you - and today it was me!!

December 4th More Visitors From a Faraway Land

I may have to do a mileage check to see who has travelled the furthest to see our Xmas light display - or realistically been in NZ coincidentally for Xmas.

Tonight's visitors are Marius' parents, who are here visiting for the Summer months from Romania.

December 3rd In the Small, Small House

People that know us well know that our house isn't particularly large - by Western standards anyway. Someone living totally away from westernisation, may brand our house the size of a mansion - but it isn't. The Garage - also small - only houses one car.

Where the above is leading, is that when we are setting up for Xmas light displays - the garage is a storage facility, a let's put that here for now facility, because we can't put it anywhere else, etc. And any spare surfaces within that garage are covered.

One of those surfaces is our chest freezer. So can you imagine when the top is totally covered - the contents of that chest freezer are inaccessible for a few weeks.  For some reason the inside freezers seem to be stocked well - with chicken, and ice cream, and frozen veg and blah blah blah. However the meat is chicken. Which is all well and good but starts to get mundane. To combat this, at the beginning of the week I spied the top of the freezer was empty (for a very short time span). So I dived in (not literally) to retrieve some meat other than chicken.

One of the ingredients was Pork Mince. I had no idea what I would do with it, but I thought Pork Mince would make a nice change from chicken (the previous evening was fish if you are wondering). One of my Pork Mince dishes is a Pork and Eggplant Stir Fry  I had no Eggplant, and no time to shop for any today, so thought frozen Asian Vegetables would be a good substitute in my stir fry.  After a hard day's work I went to retrieve my Asian Vegetables and there was zilch. Maybe they are residing in the freezer now totally covered up again and inaccessible?  So instead of having Pork and AsianVegetable Stir Fry, which was supposed to be a Pork and Eggplant Stir Fry, we ended up having a Pork and Spinach Stir Fry. Which actually was so good,  with rice on the side as usual, I will be making it again. The photos do not do the taste any justice believe me!

December 2nd No Willy Wonka In Sight...

Today lunch was at a wonderful Chocolate Cafe, which is also home to a wonderful Chocolate Factory, home of yummy NZ Chocolate, Donovans, which is manufactured right here in my fair city

The ironic thing, apart from there being no sight of Willy Wonka, is that I have never indulged in chocolate on the premises here. I have purchased chocolate from the Gift Shop. However my meals have never included chocolate in them (great Eggs Benedict by the way). If we are sharing a cake as Wendy and I did today there is no chocolate (great custard square), and even my drink is a long black.

But I can confirm that they do make wonderful chocolates!

December 1st A Visitor From Far Away

If we had a competition as to who was the person who travelled the furthest to see our Xmas light display, tonight's visitor would have to be a winner. Although I guess it is early day's yet :)

Caroline is here in NZ all the way from Tumba, Sweden. It would be nice to say that she came specifically to NZ as news of our Xmas lights has hit far away shores, but not so. She is the Global Training Manager for George's workplace, and was here with a colleague to run a training program.

During which, as you do, George mentioned our Xmas lights, and as Caroline loves all things Xmas (which gave her a big tick of approval from me immediately), she came and spent the evening with us.  It was wonderful to meet a lovely lady from a lovely country.