Our updates

Well we held out for a white Christmas – but alas winter so far has been quite mild and our hopes of seeing any snow were dashed. We spent Christmas day and night at Helen Maytums, someone I used to work with at BNZ. I can honestly say this is the first year that I can remember that I didn’t over eat with all the xmas goodies on offer. In fact it was the opposite, we drunk more than we ate throughout the day. These brits sure know how to put it away!! However, we did have a yummy traditional hot dinner – no pavlova and strawberries though!!

We hired a car over xmas weekend as trains weren’t running over that time and Helen lives a good hour out of Leeds. We too the opportunity drive up to Whitby which is a cute little seaside fishing village on the east coast. In fact some history for you – it’s where Captain Cook left on his journey when he discovered little old NZ. We came back via Scarborough which is a popular seaside holiday location. The beach it’s self is about 700metres long, so not a patch on anything at home! It’s quite strange, the main roads in all the little seaside towns throughout Wales and England are just covered in amusement arcades, all rowed up along side each other. Being winter of course Scarborough’s all seemed empty so not sure how they all seem to stay open when they are all in direct competition with other and all have no customers!

Even though it was quite cold standing up on the cliff looking down over the beach and waves it was really nice too see and hear the sea again. Makes you realise just how good we have it at home, particularly in Auckland with a handful of nice beaches within an hours drive.