In My Shoes: Where in the world is Nell...??

Here I am! In Westport, New Zealand, which is where Jo's family lives! And Lordy is it cold. Thankfully as i write this i am sitting by the fire, two kitties purring next to me, feeling very cosy indeed.

So what have i been doing, apart from freezing my butt off? We started with 4 days in Christchurch, where Jo's Dad and his Niece Kayla live at the moment, because Kayla is attending a music college down there for a couple of years. On Wednesday afternoon, after a pretty smooth plane ride over the Tasman, we caught up with them for a little while before dashing off to dinner at Sezn, which, let me tell you, was absolutely delicious! We had such a great dinner, all organic ingredients. and the greatest service - we were both greeted by name as soon as we got there, and were presented with menu's with out names on them too, saying "Jo and Nell, Welcome to Sezn"! I thought that was pretty cool :)

Anyway, so was stuffed the gills afterwards, so we headed back to the hotel to sleep it off before our tasting tour in the morning. Thursday was clear skies all around, yay - so we headed off with Mavis, who runs the tasting tours, and she took us to some great places, including Dux De Lux which is a brewery (beer tasting at 9am? awesome.), a walnut farm, a winery and Mona Vale homestead for high tea! It was all yummy of course - in fact it felt like all we had done thus far in NZ was eat. But hey - as one who can be heard mumbling "I'm hungry..." at approximately 4 hour intervals throughout the day, it suited me.

On Thursday evening, Jo's brother Matthew and sister-in-law Rochelle joined us - they drove across cause we were all going skiing on Friday, and also, lets face it, someone needed to cart us back to Westport at some point. Jo, Matthew and Rochelle were helping Kayla with a college project she had to complete, which was to record a song in a studio, so we headed over to the college to practice. Kayla kindly allowed me to feel like i was contributing by showing me some notes to play on the keyboard, so even i had a job to do - the song was Last Kiss by Pearl Jam, except i found out it was originally recorded in the 60s by some other band, so there you have it. Anyway, let me tell you - those Hursts are great music players, but they frequently got carried away "jamming" (I believe that's the technical musical term) and not practicing for the recording at all...

Friday it was up at 6am (totally gross) to head to Mt Hutt to go snowboarding! It was very exciting for someone who has only seen snow once before (that's me), and never in such enormous quantities! Snow snow everywhere, and it was lovely. What was disturbing though was how hard it was for me to stand up straight on the snowboard at all, nevermind actually riding it, while other little kids put me to shame by whizzing by as though they were born on the board. Needless to say my bottom was aching by the end of the day, along with other muscles in my body that i didn't even know existed...still, it was great fun, and i did end up being able to fly down the hill without falling down more than once or twice. Jo and Matthew did really well though, they really got the hang of it! The views from the top were stunning too, NZ really has the most amazing scenery and landscape I've ever seen.

Were were so tired by the time we got back that night into Christchurch, but we struggled on and went to dinner and a movie - we saw Transformers 2, which was WAY too long, and frankly a bit too cheesy for me, especially the last 40 minutes - typical Michael Bay. Not as good as the first one, but still enjoyable enough, and funny too.

On Saturday we had the official recording of Kayla's song, so we headed off to her college to do that. Since i wasn't actually playing, i went up into the recording room which was interesting. And that night - we went to watch the All Blacks play Italy which was great! Well, the game overall wasn't that spectacular - actually i thought Italy was playing really well, and were definantly not as dominated by the All Blacks as i thought they would be! But it was exciting to see all my favourite players in the flesh *beams* We all gathered back at our hotel room to watch the Australia vs France match afterwards too.

Sunday we were up and at em again pretty early, because we were heading to Westport which is a 4 hour drive across the South Island, eek! We said our goodbyes to Kayla and Jo's dad (but not before engaging in a lively discussion about drugs and the music industry...) and then headed off. It was evening by the time we got to Westport, but the kids - Jacob and Lauren, Jo's niece and nephew - had been waiting all day for us to get there, and had made a huge sign welcoming back "Mummy, Daddy, Uncle Jo and Aunty Ornella", which was rather cute. Lauren has changed so much since last year, she is talking like an absolute pro, and is really quite hilarious. We showed her some video of her when she was a baby, and she kept saying "Is that me??!! Is that me??!!" over and over again in this incredulous little tone, like she really couldn't believe she'd ever been that little. Jacob is as curious and engaging as ever, and loves to ask questions about anything and everything - "What did you have for dinner Aunty Ornella? Did Uncle Jo have the same dinner as you? What about breakfast? Is there porridge at Nana's house? Can i use the camera now?" Etc etc.

And so here we are, Monday all of a sudden, and we've spend the day lounging around, reading, watching TV and generally recovering from the 4 day whirlwind of Christchurch. Tomorrow we are due to pick Jacob up from a playgroup he goes to at 12, and then hang out with them for the rest of the day - which means i better rest up because those two have plenty of energy to spare.

Two important shout outs before i go - firstly to my good friend Sue and her husband who is living over in London at the moment and is pregnant with her first baby! Congrats guys - I can't believe you didn't tell any of us until now, GRRRRR - better not let that happen with baby number 2 or there'll be trouble.

Secondly to my brother Andrew and my soon to be new sister-in-law Ashley - because they officially got engaged over the weekend! Congratulations guys!!! Ashley - welcome to the family, you poor thing. You have no idea what your in for *winks* Don't let us bully you too much...

Phew, what a long post, i will leave you finally with some pictures that we've taken so far....goodnight from the land of the long white cloud!