No gin required after all!

I am pleased to report that I found the solution to all my troubles – a weekend away with the girls is the cure to all problems!

Especially when the weekend is in Hawkes Bay, the home of some of New Zealand’s very best food and wine (what more can 3 girls ask for?). 

Our original plan to hire bikes and cycle around idyllically in the sunshine tasting the wines at all the local vineyards was quickly abandoned after we found a very lovely tapas bar by the quayside on the first night and drunk multiple bottles of very nice wine....

....leading to my first hangover in years and an absolute desire NOT to be riding a bike around. Or to be tasting any more wine.

Instead we got in the spa.

Walked along the beach.

Went for coffees.

Went up a hill to admire the view. 

Wandered around town looking at art deco buildings. 

Watched  beautiful sunsets and sunrises from our deck. 

Ate fresh strawberry ice cream at a farm. 

Watched a live band playing down by the ocean (who were completely brilliant, I must give them a plug here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN2I9VHid60&noredirect=1 ) ) 

And when we felt a bit better we went to some vineyards and tasted some wine!

Will somebody please pass the gin...?

The holiday period is over and it’s back to work – boo! – and things are incredibly chaotic in the Hughes-Downing household at the moment.

I’m the second to admit (Jake’s always the first!) that there’s a long list of things I am no good at. My lack of spatial awareness and poor map reading abilities being amongst the most frequent causes of arguments in our household. But I have long been renowned for my thoroughness and attention to detail.

Not any more!

With life at the moment containing far too much in it for one person to properly manage, things are no longer getting done to our usual standards. Hence the very dirty kitchen floor, the lack of balanced meals for the family, dirty children, late invoicing to my clients, late birthday cards (sorry Dad!), library fines, the grocery shopping not being done until 10.30pm last night (thank goodness for the modern retail environment and long opening hours!), the overflowing laundry basket, and the huge pile of overdue paperwork at the moment (a big sorry to our accountants and to our British bank – although I doubt you are going to accept a formal apology through this blog?).

Not to mention the fact that there are still a rather large number of things to do on the wedding planning front (148 on the To Do List at the last count). 

And to top it all, Molly’s flower girl dress arrived in the post last week a size too big for her due to my poor skills with a tape measure.

AND - there is no gin in the house!

So, if there are any blog followers out there who are expecting phone calls, birthday cards, or anything else from us, please bear with us – we are either just running late with it or we have more likely completely forgotten and we are very very sorry!

Having said all that, Nana Jenny has now arrived to stay for 2 months, so we have childcare for the rest of the school holidays which is a HUGE, massive bonus – so big thanks to Jenny for easing some of the pressure!

The kids are loving all the adventures their Nana takes them on. Meanwhile, I am trying hard not to ask what they are currently doing in our garden with two car tyres (where did they find them??), a piece of rope (again, where did they get that from?), a very large bucket of water and my new luxury handsoap.

Anyway, given the above circumstances, I am temporarily checking out of the blogging world until the Government officially changes the length of each day to 54 hours long....

Camping at Paekakariki

Our third trial at camping with small children took place in the last few days – and we’re pleased to report that now they are both a little older it is starting to work pretty well.

Having seriously considered a range of Dept of Conservation campsites (which are located in stunning places but don’t come equipped with playparks, jumping pillows and ice cream stores), we ended up taking the easy option and drove up the coast to a very lovely holiday park at Paekakariki instead.

Cheating, I know, but it made life much easier!

Paekakariki was a major US Marine base during WWII and I believe there were over 20,000 Americans stationed there for training and recreation purposes. It’s hard to envision now, as these days it’s just a very sleepy, little coastal town (with a population of less than 2,000).

We had an incredibly lazy time, the hardest work being the 15 minutes required to put up the tent. Other than that, we played tag on the beach, had coffee at one of the best cafes in NZ, hung out at the play park, visited Pizza Hut for dinner (aaagggh, yes really, we did), and read lots of books and magazines.

At night the kids were allowed to stay up late and take their scooters out around the holiday park and go on the jumping pillow – oh ,what fun they had! (Oh ok, ok, so did we!)

Beach Bach

Our exceptionally sunny Christmas was followed by a very rainy few days..... starting exactly on the day we left Wellington to go on holiday, and continuing until exactly the day we returned home!

Ah well. We enjoyed ourselves hugely anyway, regardless of the weather.

We spent the week in a little Kiwi bach (beach house) in rural Wairarapa. Please don’t ask us the name of the beach as neither of us could remember/pronounce it most of the time! All we can say is it was about a 3 hour drive north-east of Wellington, in a small settlement of about 20 houses with nothing else in sight except a long coastline, lots of mountains and trees (and a lot of clouds!).

We didn’t let the rain spoil our time though, and managed to get out collecting shells, surfing (Jake in his wetsuit and Alfie in nothing but his undies but he did a great job, better than his dad), paddling and running up and down the sand every day. The sun even came out a couple of times (briefly!).

Thinking about it, this is in fact pretty much what we’ve historically done every single year for our NZ Christmas holidays – ie hired a bach and chilled out in a remote spot for a few days – and it is SO worth it! We have all come back completely refreshed, relaxed, well slept (yes, really!) and very happy.