A beautiful sunny morning invited us across the harbour for a day in the city, or more specifically we headed to the Union Jack bunting bedecking Queens Wharf, where we discovered an English garden party in fully swing. Charlie was very enamoured by her homeland's pastimes, stopping at the bowls, and grabbing a quick game of badminton on the way past the Mini and on to the cream tea and scones at the wharfs end. A quant way to spend the morning! In commemorati...

Today we finally hoisted the Christmas tree into position in the heart of the living room, it having sat outside on the terrace overnight in the pouring rain while we worked on a strategy for getting it to stand up. The initial approach of steeling some sand from the beach didn't pay off, and instead Grandad Paul managed to procure some stones and soil [ which looked suspiciously like concrete ] to fill the base, which did the trick. Festooned in new lights a...

Fishy fishy,

We headed to the art gallery today, as the weather wasnt up to much, and we are starting to run out of wet weather activities. The recent refurbishment and beautiful extension has left Auckland with a fantastic place for such a day, and Charlie loved the large spaces and brightly coloured art, especially the inflatable flowers adorning the foyer ceiling,

We headed to two markets in the morning. Firstly the Devonport craft market where there were lots of lovely but expensive gifts no one really needs. We bought a $1balloon on a stick for Charlie who was delighted and kept showing it to everyone! Then we drove on to Hobson Ville Point a new area Harry had some across in the course of his work. They had a farmers market on, a very attractive play area based on all the native NZ seeds and a popular cafe in an old ...