Ahhhh... isn't it pretty! That's wellington by night. The city keeps giving us more and more opportunities to go "aaahhhh isn't it lovely", especially now it's finally decided to be summer here. The last week we have had some really beautiful weather and managed to take a trip to a beach about 40 minutes up the coast. We had a picnic and slept in the car, all very romantic until the 15th time you wake up with the steering wheel jabbing in the side of your leg. Then you wake up in the morning feeling like you're in a greenhouse and in my case with extremely puffy ankles and you think maybe next time we won't be so lazy and we'll put up our tent! Check out the pretty sunset though...


We also decided it was a perfect day for kayaking, so we hired one of those big flat double ones that seem impossible to turn, until Katie gets in and apparently I lent WITH the wave instead of AGAINST it, or something, anyway, it turns out it is possible to capsize those bad boys!

So, in other news, Katie has quit her job at the pub as the kids went back to school last week and has already secured 2 days a week regular relief work at a posh all girls school down the road, see http://www.qmc.school.nz , which is all very exciting. I taught in a little year 1/2 class for a couple of days last week, and I'm in with some scary Y5/6 children tomorrow! All very good for the teaching experience but not so good for the nerves!

Seb has decided he needs to take up at least three new hobbies a week, has a bought himself a kick-arse fishing rod (which he hasn't got a clue how to use), has taken to doing some serious mountain biking, when he's not playing golf, or football or taking pictures with a passion! And of course he works a bit in between, so he's pretty busy all in all! We're both running a 7km race next weekend, so we are trying to get fit... we'll let you know how that goes.


Had a lovely weekend with Laura Crossley (an old school friend of mine who's working in Auckland at the mo) and a friend of hers Vic, who flew down to see us. Went to some wineries in Martinborough again and pretended to know some thing about all the wines we were tasting rather than just enjoying the free alcohol, did all the sights in Welly and generally ate lots of food and drank lots of wine, woohoo!

That's about it for now, keep in touch all of you,
loads of love,
Katie and Seb