April 17, 2013

  • Wednesday 17th April

     

     

     

    I woke to rain pounding down outside.

    But thankfully it eased considerably before we had to leave.

    I got the Terrano warmed up and ran in to get the kids soon after 8:15am.

    They were ready but I discovered as they walked out the door that they hadn't eaten  breakfast - duh!

    I know I should've done the tough love thing and let them go hungry, but I didn't.

    I drove down Queen St and stopped for them to run into a bakery.

    Then it was down the street further to find Gough's who had so inconsiderately moved premises since I had last picked up stuff from them, and I didn't know exactly where they were.

    After one false turn I had success.

    It is a huge place now!

    It took a while for the guy I wanted to be found and then it took a while for him to get the stuff I had ordered.

    But finally we were out the door and heading back to One Day School.

    Dropped Azzan off on the streetside to run in, and then took Mahalia up the street a tad further to leave her with her new friend Melanie and family for the day.

    It was a very wet drive in to Nelson.

    I thought seeing as it was just on 9am that I would get a good run into the city, but I met traffic banked up soon after the large Wakatu roundabout.

    Typical when I was on a mission to get to an appointment!

    Then when I got to the carpark the free bank clients parks were all full so I had to use a metered one.

    Didn't have time to zip through to Starbucks so made do with a coffee machine budget hot chocolate at the bank.

    Had a good session with Sarah - but unfortunately it was very rushed at the end as I had to fly off to my 10:15am counseling session.

    I had a list of things to work through after that.

    I hurried through them all and managed to get to Hangar 58 to meet up with Libby and Nathan around 1:45pm.

    It was the first time I had stopped to eat all day.

    I ate a quick lunch while catching up with Libby, Nathan shared my wedges.

    Nice to see him albeit very briefly.

    I had to leave to do a couple more jobs before heading out to pick up Azzan.

    I was working to get there for him at 2:45pm but took longer than I thought and didn't get there till just on 3pm.

    He wasn't too impressed with me but his teacher was fine as she is usually there until 3:15.

    We headed across Richmond to pick up Mahalia and Melanie.

    They had had a great day together and were still bouncing.

    Came back to the house so the kids could have piano lessons and we all could stop and relax for an hour or so.

    The clouds were beginning to lift from the mountains and the late arvo sun was trying to shine though.

    It was really pretty in a greyish sorta way looking over Richmond towards the western ranges.

     

    While Azzan had his lesson the two girls watched a movie.

     

    Then Melanie hung out with Azzan while Mahalia had her lesson.

    At 5:30pm we loaded into the vehicles and headed to Smugglers for dinner.

    Ross & Andrea picked up Sasha & David.

    The kids spotted the large concrete table in the centre of the restaurant was empty so opted to sit there.

    Much more exciting than being relegated to the small wooden side tables.

     

    Mahalia moved across to catch up with David

    Azzan having fun with Melanie on the other side of the table.

    The meals were pretty darned good.

    We all ordered something different which must be a first!

    Ross got his teeth into the Swashbuckler steak, Andrea choose the Tinkers Vegetarian Filo and David had Black Pearl Steak & Scallops.

    Azzan wrapped his laughing gear around a very large Highwayman's Hamburger, and the girls opted for breads and dips aka 'Inn Keepers Bread' and 'Wenches Nibbles'.

    Sasha had a Ship Mate's Mussels and I had Poachers Salmon - it was very delicious!

     

    There was a lot of antics between courses!

     

    And when dessert came my whipped cream was redundant as I cant stand the stuff but I had to ward off the crazy one while I waited to see if Mahalia wanted it silly

    The saner ones of the party happy

     

    Mahalia got a Knickerbocker Glory - which was way bigger than she expected

    And while she tried her best to eat it Sasha was not helping!!

    Cream all over - naughty Slushy!

    Unimpressed Halia!

     

    Finally we were all ready to roll ourselves out to the cars and head homeward.

    We dropped Melanie off and went in for a couple of minutes to say goodbye as we don't know if we will see the family again.
    They are heading back to Paraguay sometime soonish.

    But the couple of minutes turned into a lot later as the kids were having a ball.

    I had a lovely time getting to know Joanne.

    If we didn't have such an early start in the morning I wouldn't have been watching the clock so closely.

    Got this photo in between the craziness.

    Mahalia, Melanie, Azzan, Nicky and Benji.

    It was a very fortuitous meeting on Friday last week - new friendships formed and cemented.

    Finally dragged them apart around 10pm and whisked my two back to the house and into bed.

    I had a pretty busy day so am rather tired.

    The kids had enjoyed their days activities so all was good