Wellington rain, cold go away!

It took a little longer to update this blog than I thought it would. Gordon got sick and then generously gave his cold to me. I was more interested in sleeping on the couch than updating my blog. No, it wasn't swine flu, it was just a common, garden-variety winter cold. Gordon got it from our trip to Wellington last Monday. Christine and Kylie arrived here on Sunday with pumpkin soup, apples, and more pumpkins. I already have a bag of apples that need to be cut and cooked and frozen and pumpkin too! My freezer is fast running out of space.

They were here to see the Monet exhibit at Te Papa that I had told them about. We took the route that I had previously taken by boarding the station at Paraparam. I also found out that my day rover ticket was good for travel on any train once off-peak hours started. So I could have stayed in Wellington longer than I thought the first time! The weather was drizzly and windy and we had to walk to Te Papa. Gordon had forgotten to pack the umbrella so by the time we got to Te Papa we were all pretty much soaking wet. My butt looked like I had sat in a puddle! I didn't know the bus schedule and Gordon and I didn't have any change to ride it. We thought the rain would let up but it didn't. We were able to drip-dry in Te Papa with some hot chocolate and lunch before we went to Monet.

It was nice to have Gordon with me this time to see what he thought of the paintings. I saw that they now put a line in front the of pictures to stop people from walking right up to the paintings and examining them; I saw that happen the last time. Kylie and Christine were done with the exhibit before Gordon and me. Maybe we took more time to discuss what we thought of the paintings and just admire them. We got lost in the rest of Te Papa for the afternoon and I even made my own squid at the Giant Squid exhibit, which was fun, and I created a category IV earthquake in the Awesome Forces exhibit. I had a good time and I hope that everyone else did. We walked back to the train station via Courtenay Place and eventually found the station without getting drenched because of the store awnings. The train was full of kids getting out of school and onto the bus to go home to the suburbs and outskirts of Wellington. On the way home, we stopped for some dinner in Foxton, Gordon's and my treat, at a cute little diner on the side of the road. I had seen it before previously and thought that would be a good place to eat at one day. It was called 66 on 1 and was supposed to be like those old diners on Route 66, the 1 is the number of the highway that goes through Foxton. The menu was pretty cute to look at and the food was delicious! We even had ice cream sundaes!

The next day wasn't spectacular either and we ended spending a lot of time in Spotlight. I got very lucky and was able to find some fabrics that were 50% off and only had to pay $10 for five meters of fabric. Gordon was off paying some bills so we were left to our own devices and I was able to get us a flannel sheet set that was on sale as well. The house has been absolutely frigid at night so flannel sheets should really help with retaining the heat in bed. We also went to the supermarket to get some lunch and take it to the Esplanade. We sat at a picnic table and were immediately assaulted by sparrows and stray birds. There were a lot of interesting species around the table. There was one that was brightly spotted on its breast and another black, iridescent bird that changed color in the sunlight. Afterwards, we went to the downtown plaza to catch a movie since it was such a miserable day and saw "Slumdog Millionaire". It was a great movie and a poignant piece on the condition of some of the parts of society in India. I think it could also relate to other slums in other countries as well. It made me really sad to know that some people live like that.

I also had book club that night and we had a new member join our group. We are going to try and pick a book that we all can read in about two months, one of our members is a slow reader. We had a discussion on books that are supposed to be non-fiction and the authors that write them. They are supposed to be unbiased representations of events or facts but you usually can't write something without putting your own spin on it. We talked about the sense of trust between an author and reader and if that trust was violated would we read anything else they had written. It all started with talking about the books "The DaVinci Code" and "Angels and Demons" and Dan Brown's use of "facts" interwoven with fiction. It really is great to get together with these women and talk every month. I have a lot of fun each time that I go.

Kylie and Christine left on Wednesday and Gordon stayed home due to his cold. I hadn't come down with his flu yet so I made scones that I thought had to be brought to the church luncheon. It turns out that what I had signed-up for was a roster for church luncheons to be used throughout the year. I had made cheddar scones by mistake! I stayed for the luncheon and talked to some of the parishioners and took my scones back home. I also had to take care of Gordon who ended up staying home another day due to his cold.

One thing that did happen in the middle of my lapsed blogs was ANZAC day. The day before ANZAC day, everyone goes around wearing poppies, fake ones, on their shirts. Poppies are supposed to represent the fallen comrades because "they were killed in the fields where poppies grow". I got my poppy and Gordon got his at work. He was on duty crew so he wasn't in any of the ANZAC parades that were taking place all across New Zealand. It really is amazing that each town in New Zealand has an ANZAC service and memorial to fallen soldiers. Even a small town like Bulls tries to put something on. It's becoming quiet a big deal out here. I also made some ANZAC biscuits to commemorate my first ANZAC day. They were very yummy and easy for me to make.

Cooking is definitely something that I'm starting to get the hang of. Having my bottomless pit of a husband isn't good for my waistline but I'm working on it and we can't afford weight watchers. I'm taking some of Gordon's and mine favorite recipes of our first year together and making it into a cookbook for my family and friends. I came up with the idea because we are going to have to be really cheap this year with presents. Then I thought that something homemade would do the trick. What better than my foray into New Zealand cooking as well as couples cooking? So I'm including most of the New Zealand recipes I've done as well as my tweaked recipes from Kraft.com and Campbells.com. I'm still trying to work out the higher elevations cooking but I'll get there. I have a Crisco website that tells how you should adjust the recipe but it may be hard to calculate from percentage to cooking measurements. So please forgive me if my stuff is a bit off.

Well I hope you enjoyed my new blog installment. At least I didn't wait three weeks to update! I am getting a little bit busier with the cards and embroidery and the alphabet pillows I'm working on so please be patient. Have a great rest of the week and hopefully I'll have some pictures up next blog!