Birthdays

It’s that time of year again where the pre-Christmas preparations are augmented with a couple of birthdays. Claire had a good day in the Deep South, with celebratory lunch and lasagne later. Nicky and I had an excellent time yesterday.

We started the day with mugs of tea and card and present opening in bed. The weather was dull and there was some moisture in the air, but the forecast offered a dry if cloudy afternoon. Jancis came over and the three of us headed up to The Block for breakfast. This was excellent. Nicky and Jancis both had avocado on pumpernickel which also included pork belly and poached egg. I had a giant (thin) hash brown topped with bacon, caramelised onion and poached egg. Tea and coffee accompanied as did very good and prompt service. We didn’t rush and enjoyed strolling back home afterwards. 

We finished putting a picnic lunch together (of cheese and lettuce rolls, crudités and humus, fruit, and sparking red grape juice) and headed off to the museum. There was a strong possibility that we would have to pay for parking under the museum, as last night was Christmas in The Park which was in the domain so I thought all the free parking round the museum would be gone, but it wasn’t. We found a spot on George Street and had just a short stroll over to the museum. The aim of our visit was to see the exhibition celebrating 75 years of Air New Zealand. This turned out to be brilliant, both in content and presentation. I particularly enjoyed the way they depicted the timeline, and the interactive displays. Nicky enjoyed the the uniforms. Jancis and I were feeling a little jaded so had a seat in the atrium while Nicky finished the exhibition. We then had tea and coffee and a wander over to the gift shop.

It was much warmer when we came out of the museum and we were welcomed by sunshine and blue sky which was ideal for our picnic on the grass. Restored, we pilled back into the car and drove over to Upper Queen Street to find more free parking. Our aim here was to walk along the new Nelson Street Cycle/Walkway. A no longer used motorway slip road in spaghetti junction has been converted, coloured with magenta hard surface, and opened to the public last week. It is just over a kilometre of the planned cycleway at the moment, but it is quite an experience walking through a busy motorway junction and feeling quite safe. There are some good views along the way too. We walked to the end, turned round and came back. We got very warm as I guess the temperature in the sun was in the mid-30’s and we could have been more suitably dressed, but were expecting cooler weather. All the same, it was a great experience.

We journeyed home and Jancis had a pot of tea with us before departing. Nicky and I then changed into glad rags and drove over to Orakei. Cheryl, one of my fellow Deep and Meaningful group members, had invited a few of us for a pre-Christmas dinner. We took Nicky’s birthday cake for dessert (salted caramel malt cake) in which I had halved the sugar, and Cheryl served us stunningly succulent steak with kumera and green floral salad. It was a fantastic meal and wonderful company, but our evening wasn’t over yet.

We knew the Nelson Street walkway was illuminated at night, so went back for another (much cooler) walk. The lighting was terrific - it seems to be motion sensitive, triggering colour changes as you walk past. It also does “ripples” as this animation hopefully conveys:

Just as we got to the walkway, Nicky’s birthday fireworks went off (everybody else thought they were for Christmas in The Park, but I know better…) so we stopped to enjoyed them.

After thoroughly enjoying these light shows, we headed home through Ponsonby to take in the lights on Franklin Road. The traffic was very heavy in Ponsonby (a couple of other folks had had the same idea), so by the time we got home it was almost today. Jaded but feeling the day had been just brilliant, we headed for bed.

The rest of the week has been far less exciting. I have had another quiet week with work, though I have not been completely bereft. This has enabled me to make four Christmas puddings (I plan to share one of them) and negotiate with the changeable weather to get the laundry dry. We seem to have days with cloudy starts and sunny afternoons. It is not regular December fare. Nicky has been busy at the library, though some periods have been less manic, and they had a very good visit to a retirement home this week. On Friday night we watched a brilliant DVD which she brought home about CERN and the Higgs boson.

Nicky's birthday cake - the morning after the night before

Today started dull and wet, but was sunny by the time Nicky got home from church, though half the congregation had preceded her and I was distributing tea, coffee and cake. Jancis also joined us, then just as the party was breaking up, Stella and Steve arrived for Scrabble. Later on the grass was cut and Luna was washed, before the telly box spent time be starred at. Ah, the blissful glow of the phosphor tube.

Take care, Rick