La Boheme

I have no idea how many times I have seen Puccini's La Boheme on stage and on DVD and I have listened to it countless times as well. This evening we went to a superb and, for me, moving performance at the Napier Municipal Theatre as part of the  City's Art Deco Week.

Café Ahuriri

Today we celebrated a friend's birthday at Café Ahuriri. When I first came to live in New Zealand I used to cycle right around the seafront of Napier from the first place I stayed to Ahuriri and there I used to have breakfast and coffee and do the crossword before cycling home again. It was a good distance but a 6am start would see me home and showered ready for croquet at 0930. I was fitter then!! At that time the café was in the 'village' centre. In 2009 Cheryl who has the café acquired a largeish old property out of the centre (which was a movie theatre from the 1930s) and converted it into the new Café Ahuriri. It has lots of shelter and an outside walled area as well as inside space but many, me included, thought that the move was a big mistake. However we have been proved wrong. It's lost none of its old homely character and home cooking but it now also has a lunchtime chef and new dishes for lunch each week. It's also about the least expensive place to eat in Napier. I absolutely love it and am delighted that it appears to be as strong and successful as ever.

The café with Bluff Hill (Napier Hill) behind it

The Hills of Hawkes Bay

In March 2011 I wrote a post The Hills of Hawkes Bay on my other blog.  They have always had a very strong emotional pull for me. When I did that post the hills were unusually lush and green for the time of year. Today I decided to drive up Te Mata peak once again and take some photos of the surrounding hills. The temperature was nearly 30℃ and the wind strong and warm although the rains were visible in the distance.  

 

 Looking to Napier

 I enjoy paragliding but off this? Never!

A Journey Home

I'm 'home' again in Napier. It was a wonderful few days away and I'm very glad that Judy invited me to play at the tournament.  The second day of the Open Championship Singles wasn't as successful for me although it was just as enjoyable as the first day. I managed a respectable 5th out of the 14 of us playing. The winner was an old friend who often stayed with me at The Cottage when he played in Napier: Mike Crashley. He only had two losses (one of which was to me!). 

Kate also took me to visit a mutual friend (whom I first met at Aftermas some years ago)  which was wonderful.

This morning we set off for 'home' down the dark blue route. 

One might say that roads are roads whereever one is in the world but New Zealand is a country the size of the UK with a population (about 4.6 million) only 2/3 the size of Scotland and about 7% of the UK population. The roads we travelled today are the main arterial highways of this country with its scattered population. Vehicles were relatively few and far between and although ships transport goods into the country at many ports those goods still have to make their way inland on heavey lorries with their trailers, and logging trucks take logs throught the country to their ports of export. To that can be added the dairy tankers which supply the dairy factories and the lorries taking the finished products (principally dried milk products, butter and cheese). The Fonterra Co-operative Group Limited is a New Zealand multinational dairy co-operative owned by around 13,000 New Zealand farmers. The company is responsible for approximately 30% of the world's dairy exports and with revenue exceeding NZ$19.87 billion, is New Zealand's largest company.