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Before ..... After

17 June, 21 July, 28-29 July 2007

25 August 2007

21 March 2008, 19 May 2008

Annies 50th birthday

Spent Saturday making Annies 50th birthday chocolate cake - for about 130. Cake was of a tennis court with model of Annie on top. Sunday spent icing the cakes and birthday in the evening.

Trip to Paris & Macaroons

Trip to Paris to continue Service Delivery handover and also process workshop with Jacqueline.
Flew Bristol - Paris in morning. Day spent at Issy le moulineau.
Dinner at Le Petula cafe in StGermaine - down a quiet side street. Friendly service.

Upgraded room at Meridien again :-)

Wednesday 21st at Issy again in Process Workshop with Accenture.

Bought macaroons at Laudree for Jo as thankyou for doing model of Annie for her cake. Had to queue out the door.

Dinner at Chez Clement in Opera. Fab profiterols with hot chocolate sauce. Lots of tourists there but over all food was good and not too expensive.

Evening flight from Paris - online check-in was definitely worth doing!

Trip to Paris

Trip to Paris to start handover of my activities to Marie-Jo.

Caught train & bus from Bath to Bristol Airport. Good service.
19:00 flight from Bristol.
Dinner at Le Plomb du Cantal - sausage & cheese - excellent. Pouring with rain.
Stayed at Meridien Montparnasse and got an upgraded room - pity I was there so late.

Thursday morning & afternoon was spend on handover.

Wandered back to airport via St Germaine, seeing lots of lovely shoe stores.

Lunch with Clint & Theresa

Clint (from Worldcom in Colorado Springs) and Theresa were over in the UK for a few days. Had luch with them at Marlborough Arms tavern and then gave a quick tour of Bath. Beautiful weather

Back from NZ

Fairly uneventful trip flying back from New Zealand. Luckily plane was not full so had two empty seats next to me - luxury!
Caught the afternoon bus from Heathrow to Bath.

Rain again & Kingsland

Raining today. Went into Kingsland and bought necklace & earings for Jayne & George. Had a coffee in busy cafe - "Roasted Addiction". Bought pies for lunch at excellent deli - Fridge. back home worked with Dad on Ruby photo presentation.

Murawai beach

Nice fine day. Drive up to Murawai beach (just past Kumeu). Stopped first for a coffe at Bees Online Honey Centre for a coffee and cake. Murawai was amazing, completely full tide covering all the sand, lovely rolling waves about 5-6 ft. A few people out surfing
Drove back, stopping at Lincoln Rd, Henderson to try and find some Vita Stout for Mum - no joy. Emailed Andy D.

Went to Prego, in Ponsonby Rd, for lunch of pizza. Quite nice place with wood-fired oven, although service was slow and pizza dough tasted a bit stale. $85 for lunch.
Called in to Lynmall for bit of food shopping and then into doctors surgery to get disabled badge organised. Doctor will call Dad tommorrow.

Spent late afternoon with Dad on the computer going through pictures and music.

Evening was spent at Andy Daniells & his wife Shelly with some old friends - Barry, Ken, Derek, Nancy, Tim. Lots of reminiscing about the trip to Europe in '84. Next year it will be 25 years! We should start recording the memories. Andy & Shelly coming to Ireland, UK & Italy later (Oct/Nov?) this year

Stone chips & Queen Street

Beautiful fine day. Spent morning at home laying stone chips at bottom of stairs.

Lunch at home and then went off by myself to Queen Street, looking for sunglasses & beads. First stop was Jervois Rd to book restaurant for Saturday night. Tried Pure but was full. Ended up booking Andiamo. No luck with buying anything, dispite looking at Victoria Park Market, up & down Queen Street and New Market. In Queen St there were more Aisans than kiwis and all shop assistants were Asian. Very american manner as well (grating). Slow trip from New Market to home at 5:00 - took an hour. Called Faye in evening

Kaiua fish & chips

Improvement in weather and we headed off to Cleavdon. Looked around The Wool Shed but no purchases. Had coffee and muffins there. Drove the scenic coast route to Kaiua for another excellent lunch of fish & chips. Back via southern motorway and stopped at Aunty Aida's in Howick. Pasta & sausages for dinner.

City Council, Devonport, Paving Slabs

Went to City Council first thing to sort out Code Certificate for bathroom. Then headed to Devonport for coffee at Stone house? cafe. Quick look around shops but no purchases. Stopped at Hilaries briefly on the way back. Lunch at home.

In the afternoon relaid paving slabs. Pork with carrots & rice for dinner

Rain & Tim

Weather forecast was right! Went to Placemakers first thing to get some sand, cement & bark chips for a couple of little jobs in the back garden. The rain started so it will have to be a later time.

Went and saw Tim in the afternoon for a few hours - good to catch up. He has just started a contract with Air NZ. Swapped stories and photos. Hope to organise a dinner with various people for Thursday night.

Did some stuff with Dad and the computer and then early night

Matakana farmers market

Early start - up at 6.00 as we had decided to go to Matakana farmers market - about 1 & a bit hours north. Weather OK although very changeable between sunshine and showers. Easy drive up - very glad we left early as later there was loads of traffic. Matakana is just east of Warkworth and is a small place that has been regenerated with nice shops and a weekly farmers market. It was starting to get busy when we got there and people continued to come. About 20-30 stalls - not unlike Bath market, selling veg, honey, nuts, pickels, bread, olives, whitebait fritters, smoked mussels, cheese, a little meat, olive oil etc. Bought some veg (Kale for dinner) and some bread.Had a lovely coffee and muffin at a great place - Matakana Patisserie, which is run by some very enthustiac bakers. Lots of cakes, breads, savouries to choose from. We bought a couple of pies for a later meal.

Another excellent shop along the high street was - Stubbs Village Butchery, wher I bought a lovely sirloin roast for dinner (about $25 for just under a kilo). They had all manner of meat related bit and pieces and also run a regular cooking school. Excellent place. Left mid-late morning heading back to Auckland. Loads of traffic now on the road - never realised the highway was so busy. Drove through Warkworth - another pretty place. Stopped at a vineyard (there were plenty along the way) and got an unoaked chardonnay and rose.

Ended up at Puhoi Cheese factory/cafe for lunch. Food nothing special but nice outlook.
Continued towards home and stopped off at Albany - Mum had heard of a shop (Icebreaker) that sells merino wool clothing. After driving around and then getting directions we finally found the place - next door to some shops we went to last time. A great selection of wool tops and I ended up with a thin jumper and navy wool coat for me. Excellent value - 3 items about $300.
Carried on home getting there mid-afternoon.

Cooked Roast Beef for dinner including a yorkshire pudding - George would have been proud of me. Another early night however still not sleeping well. Forecast for tommorrow (Sunday) is for rain getting worse during the day