“The boys are back in town!”



 59 hours after leaving home, the 4 weary travellers have arrived in the UK.  I’ll be seeing them today, but I expect they’re pretty exhausted, if my own body clock is anything to go by.  It’ll be a great story to tell in the future,  but I’m guessing it wasn’t much fun at the time.


                                                               Sam, Will, Maddie and Zoe 


Yesterday was a happy, relaxed day.  My mum always used to tell me I was born during a heat wave - hard to believe, during a winter freeze - but if the UK forecasts are anything to go by, this year’s celebration has fallen between 2 anticipated highs.  It was a very relaxed, happy day - culminating with home made enchiladas (and Happy birthday banner) at Richard and Sarah’s and a home-made, VERY tasty, iced chocolate cake made (and hidden out of sight all day) by Ray.  As his accompanying card stated - “on the plus side of growing older, more candles required a bigger cake”.  It was delicious and I think there’s still a slice waiting for me downstairs … beats toast and jam for breakfast any day.  So I’ll go and investigate.

 OH, AND… Sarah managed to sort out my phone quandaries last night - the UK phone number I posted in my second blog, is now up and running.  My NZ card is not.  I kept getting warnings about “incurring heavy costs” using my NZ one and, thanks to Tracey, I now know to only use Messenger and What’s Ap.  I don’t remember it being so complicated last time (11 years ago, admittedly).

Ray’s just brought me in a cuppa!  The cake is still safe.  This is the life!!

Popular posts from this blog

A number of friends have asked me whether I will be writing a blog while I’m away. I guess this answers your question…  Well done if you’ve got this far … my lovely techno whiz neighbour has got ME this far … I hope you have similar assistance at hand if required. I collected my tickets last Wednesday and realised that I had miscalculated my flying times.  I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong date - it should have been Tuesday, 24 June at 5:55 a.m. NOT Wednesday 25th. The very next day, I realised at about 5 pm, that I had been wearing my jeans back to front, all day.   Should I really be let loose, on my own?  You may well ask!! I have borrowed a second phone to bring with me and have asked “2nd cousin in law” Sarah to get me a UK SIM card so that English family and friends can make local calls if you need to get hold of me.  My NZ phone is a Samsung but my UK one will be an iPhone … forgive me if I cut you off for the first few days!  It won’t be intentional...
Read more

Oh for goodness sake

 Having nagged poor Sarah to get me a British SIM card, I then forgot to send the details in Blog No. 1. I WILL have my NZ phone and iPad with me, but I’m not sure my NZ phone will connect once we leave New Zealand shores.  My email address will still be in use and I guess WhatsApp will still be available.  Time will tell.  I’m sure it was much easier, when I did this 11 years ago. My British phone number will be:     074752.96413. Hopefully it will be up and ringing by 26 June.
Read more

It’s been that sort of day!!

 What should have been a quiet(ish) day turned into chaos of reasonable proportions … mostly of my own making. Thinking it was Matariki today, I reasonably assumed that the bank and shops wouldn’t be open - only to be told mid-morning, that Matariki is being celebrated next Friday.  Matariki celebration changes every year, based on the Māori lunar calendar, but always on a Friday.  Don’t blame ME - it wasn’t my idea.  So it was a late start for some rather rushed last minute shopping and banking … especially when I phoned the little man who was supposed to be fitting an automatic blind in my kitchen as a cunning deterrent for anyone thinking I was not at home.  He thought he’d told me he was coming at about 12 noon (he hadn’t) and that it would take an hour.  Long story short, he was still here at 5.00pm suggesting that because he was going to Bali on Wednesday and he couldn’t get the remote to work, I might just like to leave the blind down for the 3 month...
Read more