Body & Soul

I went to my fitness class this morning and the leader, Diane, welcomed me back and everyone said hello and it was really good. We had a really good class with stretching, dancing, exercises with a ball and with light weights and ended with some relaxation. I stayed for a coffee after the class and Diane told me she organises lunches every so often and a Christmas party so it is all very social and good fun

After a quick trip to the supermarket to get some bread and where I started to chat to a lady who happened to be English and we had a conversation about ready meals coming into the shops over here. They don't have many at the moment so I am not sure if it will become a as popular as it is in UK.

Jon called at lunchtime just as he was going off to Tauranga airport for his flight to Auckland and then he will fly from there to Melbourne.

I took Totty out for a walk this afternoon and the sun was still shining, the rain they forecast hasn't arrived.

I have had no water all afternoon so I called Alison to see if she had any in case it was just ours. She says she has a bit but there is no pressure. I hope it is back by the morning as I would like to have a shower.

I read four of the books from Alison and they are very interesting. One was about a railway bridge that was washed away when part of the crater wall on Mt Ruhapehu gave way and gallons of water and rubble crashed down the side and washed the bridge away just as the Wellington to Auckland train was approaching. It was pretty awful and over 150 people died and that was on Christmas Eve 1953. The others are about the Napier earthquake and Cyclone Giselle in which one of the Cook Strait ferries was pushed onto the rocks by huge waves at the entrance to Wellington Harbour. Many people were saved by some very heroic people who came out in their pleasure boast to help. Of the 735 crew and passengers 51 lives were lost. And the last one is about the last time White Island (this is an active volcano island just a short drive down the coast) erupted in 1914 when ten sulphur miners were killed. I enjoy reading about these natural disasters and hope we don't have any earthquakes or volcanic eruptions while we are here.

I need to make sure I cook myself some dinner tonight - I hate cooking just for me. I think it might be a long night tonight.

Nearly bedtime and it has been an OK night. Jon called to say he had arrived and had a good flight but had a very big lady in the seat next to him. She had a cottage pie for her dinner and asked for another one!

The water finally came back on at 8.00. My neighbour, Margaret, had called to tell me there were some emergency repairs going on.