Wednesday and Thursday

Katikati Museum is a little museum that Jon and I had been saving for a rainy day as the lady there had told us you could spend up to three hours there. Well it wasn't a rainy day but it was cold and dull and I wanted Heather to see the murals in Katikati so I took her to the museum first telling her we would only be there about 40 minutes or so as Jon and I would go back at a later date and then go for lunch - WRONG!!!!!!

What the lady did not tell Jon and I was that she gave you the tour of the museum showing you the things SHE thought were interesting and treated Heather like a 10 year old. She showed us the downstairs and kept trying to make eye contact with Heather and saying 'I try to explain this to all the young ones but it is hard'. To cut a very long and funny story short with her showing us old gramophone players and magic lantern shows with all the different voices and accordion sound effects we finally finished the downstairs and she told us to go upstairs where we thought we could look around at our leisure. Oh no! Her husband (who was about 90) was waiting to show us an 8 minute VIDEO of an old man talking about his first job working for the Forestry Department starting when he was 16. He told us it was a beautiful video that we WOULD love!

After that I would have liked to look around at all the old things that were mostly brought out from Britain a hundred years ago when the settlers came out but he wanted to talk about the things that interested him. I politely told him we were running out of time and we moved on to the 'milking parlour' where there was a plastic life size model of a cow being milked. He gave me a ball of, what looked like dirty play dough and asked me to guess what it was. I told him I had no idea and he so he eventually told me it was a hairball that was taken from a cow's stomach!!! Ugh! By this time Heather and I were finding it hard to keep a straight face - that or cry I thought. After seeing a one hundred year old washing machine, which he switched on for us and an old kiwi fruit grader we managed to make our escape.

It was by now 2.00 and we were very hungry so went off to find a place to eat. Jon had said he would like to visit the museum and what a shame he had to go to Melbourne. I rang him at the airport and told him he had had a lucky escape.

After lunch and a walk around Katikati we went to Omokoroa beach to have a look at the ferry that goes across to Matakana Island which is the big Maori settlement.

It was then back to the house and out with Totty for a walk dropping in on Bronwyn on the way back. She has just had three heat pumps installed in her house and it was so cosy and I am very jealous. We hope to meet up with her next week for coffee.

We had Domino's Pizza tonight and I had one with a puff pastry crust and it was very good.

Jon called to say he had arrived safely in Oz.

Thursday. What a beautiful day again.

Totty was smelling pretty bad after her confrontation with a wave on the beach the other day so we took her over to Kiwi Pets for a bath and now she smells much better.

This afternoon we went over to get Alison to walk up the Mount it was a beautiful clear day with not a cloud in the sky and quite warm, 14c. Alison is a lovely lady and very interesting and knows all sorts about NZ and the Maori people and Heather really enjoyed listening to her. The walk up the Mount is steep but we all made it and Heather was very impressed with the views. It was really warm and Alison said this is the sort of winter day they are more used to than all the rain that we have had.

Back down at the bottom with very wobbly legs we sat in a cafe and had a nice cup of tea before going home.

Walking up our drive I met my neighbour Kim and we had a chat as she has just come back from her mother's in Auckland. The phone was ringing when we got in and it was Alison to tell me that she had found a bag of cat biscuits and a note from Bronwyn to say that her daughter had had a baby girl this morning and they had gone up to Auckland and could she feed the cat please - just as well Bronwyn didn't come up the Mount with us. She is calling her Gabriella Sophie.

We went into Taurang to try and book Harry Potter tickets but they are not on sale until Saturday, Heather wants to see it on the first day so she sees it before they do in UK by 12 hours.

We had our dinner and then watched Sleepless in Seattle which I had recorded a few weeks ago. I enjoyed it but Heather was not impresses but then it is an old film.

And now I am writing my blog as I am two days behind and thought I had better get it done.