New Book Shelf

John has been his amazingly creative self again and built us a book case for the landing.

I managed to get the painting of the banisters and the new book case finished today and now we can start enjoying the area as our reading corner. With our big comfy chair its a wonderful place to just tuck up and relax.

Ronan Keating in Napier

For my Christmas present, John bought me tickets to go and see Ronan Keating at the Church Road Winery in Napier, so this weekend we headed down there via Taupo.

Once we arrived, we checked into our wonderful B&B accommodation on the hill in Napier and then went down to the winery.

We had seated tickets with an amazing view of the stage and Ronan was excellent, with a beautiful warm summer evening and surrounded by grapevines, it was a perfect!

On Sunday, after a full cooked breakfast we headed out for a drive around the local area. I can officially say that I have fallen in love with Napier, full of beautifully kept villa style houses and art deco buildings and all the surrounding area is full of breathtaking scenery and vineyards, it's just heaven. We drove up to Te Mata point, which felt like you were on the top of the world and then found a lovely winery (Trinity Hill) where we had a antipasto basket in their gardens listening to yet more live music, the weekend couldn't have been improved.


We came back on Monday feeling completely refreshed and relax, just like we'd been away for a week.

Jousting Tournament

Today was a day filled with merriment and competition of gladiators, knights and viking warriors at the Taupo Annual Jousting Tournament. You really felt the part surrounded by medieval tents and markets and people dressed up in period costume. They had every competition from sword fighting, jousting, archery, battle reinactment, jesters and people in the stocks to throw soaked sponges at. My favourite was the horse jousting with lances (tipped with balsawood, so they didn't do too much damage). The whole day was great fun.

Trenching

To allow Mum to have a phone line in the bach we had to dig a trench the full length of our drive 450mm deep for laying the cable underground, no mean feat. The cable has now been put in and connected so the phone and broadband is now all up and running, hurray!

Hot Pools - Lake Rotoiti

It was a gorgeous evening last night so we decided to take the boat out and find the hot pools on the waters edge of Lake Rotoiti.



We found ourselves soaking in the lovely hot water looking out over the lake and the amazing view behind, complete bliss..... it's a hard life! x

Boating on Lake Rotoiti

It was another gorgeous day and we persuaded mum to come out boating with us. We had a lovely motor around, nosing at all the lake front properties around the lake and trolling for fish. A lovely morning out on the water.

Beaching Around

It was a day off from the garden, as the sun was still shining, after a delicious breakfast in town at Capers, we headed down to Nudics beach for a bit of R&R.

We even braved the chilly waters to do a bit of boogie boarding in the waves.