Friday — and a Long Weekend Ahead!

Okay, EVERY weekend is a long weekend for us, but this weekend is a special weekend for the New Zealanders.

We opened up our big double front doors as soon as we woke up; it was going to be hot today, we could feel it already in the early morning air. Sue was busy working on booking a place for us in the Cook Islands for the last week of March — she’d found a place and booked it, but now realized that we leave here late afternoon and arrive there THE DAY BEFORE WE LEAVE! Oops! And so we actually needed a place for the day before we leave here. And it took a lot of emailing back and forth, cancelling our booking and then re-booking. Anyway, Sue got that done. We didn’t move out of the shade of our place until after lunch. We skyped with the kids — it’s finally a little colder at home so at least they don’t have to negotiate on icy roads for a while. Max seems to be enjoying his swimming lessons — he’s growing up too fast! 

Rudy on the 18th green at Napier Golf Club

Mid-afternoon we drove into Napier city centre and found a print shop so I could print out my James Taylor concert tickets for Sunday night. Then we drove down to the Napier Golf Course; it was 3pm, still quite warm out there. We sign on for 9 holes — and that was enough fun for one afternoon. We golfed the back nine and both played better than earlier this week — but it seems no matter how good a game I have going, invariably at some point I’ll blow it on at least one hole and there goes my score. Oh well, apparently Tiger Woods, Jason Day, and Dustin Johnson all missed the cut at Torrey Pines this week, so at least I’m in good company.

After golf we headed back into town and went grocery shopping at the Pak’n Save. Another BIG shopping trip — Sue says we’d BETTER stay at our apartment here for another two weeks just so we can get rid of all our groceries! Filled up the car with gas on the way home.

Sue on our patio for ‘happy hour’.

Whoa! hot and tired and thirsty! We were GOING to go out for supper but by the time we’d had our happy-hour G&Ts and cheese and sausage snack and cooled off on our patio… Well, with all those groceries we just packed away we don’t really need to go out anyway. Not when Sue is just as happy to cook something up!

After supper I built a MASSIVE playlist on my phone and we sat around and drank some New Zealand wine and listened to music and Sue played Scrabble on her iPad while I wrote my journal. Mmmm… it’s good to listen to our music again for a change; cleanses the mind and the soul, and no matter how many close putts we missed today or how much we miss little Max, music heals and makes all things a little better!