Sunday

Jon was feeling much better today and we took Totty for a nice walk on our little beach in the park, the tide was in so she couldn't go far but it was lovely and sunny down there.

We went out for coffee and to buy a new light bulb for the cooker hood. What an interesting life we lead! We then went over to Bayfair Shopping Centre and had a look round the shops.

Nothing much to do today as the weather was not looking good so we went back and I read my book and we had lunch.

It is Mother's Day here in NZ seems odd to be able to buy hyacynths for Mother's Day - don't they come out at Christmas?

I put the computer on in the afternoon and there was a message from Amy, my friend's daughter who is now in NZ. She was coming up to Tauranga on the bus via Hamilton to see us and also to look around and go to Rotorua. As her bus would not be in until 8.40 Jon suggested we go and pick her up in Hamilton which is about an hour from here and Jon was happy to give his new car a test drive over distance!

We set off and only got a few kms out of Tauranga and there was a traffic jam on the Hamilton road, there is only one road to Hamilton! We crawled along for 45 minutes until we got up to a policeman and a sign that said road closed. He was handing out leaflets and instructions on how to get to Hamilton going on really small roads, and the really small roads here are 'really small'. By this time it was raining and nearly dark so we took the decision to go back and we called Amy to say she would need to get the bus as planned but we would meet her at the bus stop and hopefully her bus would be able to get through. No Radio 2 Travel News here! We eventually got back after over an hour and had only done a journey that usually would take ten minutes!

We finally had a text from Amy to say her bus had left but that was 7.20 so goodness knows what time she would be in. Anyway she decided it would be better for her to stay at a hostel in Tauranga as she wanted to go to Rotorua on Monday and at least she would be near the bus stop so that is what she did and we had dinner.

All in all it was a very up and down day and we didn't achieve very much. Hopefully I will be able to meet her for a coffee before she goes back tomorrow.