My friend Darragh is exactly 10 days younger than I am.  Every year on my birthday I get an email letting me know just how old and decrepit I am. I love it ;) Darragh was always the smart one in school – and has gone on to be a doctor in the US. He’s now not entirely sure about the direction of the US and was doing a little recce to NZ to see what the story was over here…

Anyway, he came and stayed for a couple of nights which was absolutely lovely. We went for a nice walk out to Taylors Mistake, had lunch at under the red verandah and then did an escape room (aptly enough, school themed, we did very well at the puzzles!)

He very kindly gave us a new game called genius square which we’ve been enjoying. It’s extremely quick to play (just a minute or two) and it’s a bit like tetris. Lots of fun and a very nicely made game.

Looking forward to the next visit.

Castle hill is a lovely “alpine village” about an hours drive from Christchurch. Our friends Sylvia and Colin have friends with a bach up there, so, we headed up for an Easter of games & chocolate & walks.

The weather did not exactly play ball, but, it was dry enough to get out and fortunately it was dry for the village-wide easter egg hunt! (one of the people in the village throws a hunt every couple of years! very generous & the kids obviously loved it) It’s so funny watching the kids just completely miss the eggs and then get into the groove of it. Anna did quite well once she learned to look up in the branches a bit!

And we were treated to a show… I never remember putting on shows as a kid.. but.. definitely all the rage now.

Mid-term break.  It’s tricky for two working parents, fortunately there are holiday programmes which are (not cheap) but do provide a range of options.  We don’t put Anna in for an entire week because she needs a break as much as anyone else!

I also made some half decent hot cross buns, and certainly enjoying crumble season (ok, when isn’t it crumble season?)

I took Anna to see the Bluey stageshow. It was excellent as always. The story revolved around Bluey’s dad being wedded to his phone and the kids just wanting to play. A lesson for us all. Until Anna was three I really tried to never be on the phone around her. That has slipped a little since then, but, I still try to generally not be on it around her. Probably should just go back to leaving the addictive time-wasting device in a different room…

First off – finally got around to trying the sushi maker that Maaike got me for my birthday (no self interest I swear ;))

Actually worked really well… Anna was completely convinced that we should do this all the time.

My Aunt came down for a visit. Lovely to see her. We mostly chilled out. Going to the Lyttelton market and picking up some passion fruit was a highlight! I love passionfruit.

Also took my cheese scone recipe for a spin…

RECIPE: FEDERAL DINER CHEESE SCONES
Makes 12
Preparation 5 minutes / Cooking 15 minutes

500g tasty cheese, grated
600g buttermilk
½ teaspoon salt
pinch of cayenne pepper
600g self-raising flour

Preheat the oven to 180°C and line a large
baking tray (or 2) with baking paper.

Absolutely yum fresh out of the oven.

And, took a picture at this months’ Ruby meetup… the meetup has just been running nicely for the last few years, it’s always a highlight of the month.

Woolshed creek really is a lovely little hike with young kids (which is probably why we do it so often!). I was most impressed – this time we walked in & out the more difficult route (it’s not that much more difficult, but, still, nice going)

At the hut, kids chilled out and then put on a show – mainly driven by Quinn who was determined to put on a magic show. He rounded everyone up, hiked in his box of tricks all the way… it really was a most impressive effort. Then the kids did a waiata (song) too. The applause was thunderous.

Slept pretty well in the hut.. I’d bought along my anti-snoring device and apparently I was nicely quiet! Next morning, cleaned the hut, quick trip down to the wire bridge (because those are super exciting!) and then back out. All in all an excellent weekend.