Back in Maraetai

After the journey from hell it was such a relief to land in Auckland and make my way home to Maraetai, where I had about 30 mins to get showered, changed and then I was out the door again to get down to Scarlett’s hangi lunch at Maraetai Beach School, which was so good after a couple of days in travel limbo eating crappy airline food. After picking Frankie up from kindy and lovely reunions with both of the girls we spent the next day relaxing and taking Bella on as many lovely beach walks as we could before we headed off on our now traditional staycation adventure at the Cordis in the city. It was yet another fantastic 24 hours at our favourite hotel in Auckland – lots of roof top pool swims, snail showers and the girls also discovered that they loved saunas too. We had our regular competition to see who could guess what colour the sky tower would be at night and gorged ourselves at the afternoon tea and canape buffets in the club lounge. The girls really enjoyed the library this time and Mum and Dad got to chill and enjoy a couple of cocktails. Breakfast the next morning is always much anticipated and the girls start planning what ice cream they are going to have and what they are going to dip in the chocolate fountain about a week before we get there. Another perfect break at our favourite hotewol (as Frankie calls it).

The next morning the girls and I packed ourselves into the ute and headed down the road to Hawkes Bay to see the whanau, while Joan jumped in her car and headed to Raglan for some sanctuary and a much needed break. This past 12 months has been incredibly stressful for Joan with me being away, Ernie passing away shortly after I left and then all the stresses that come with packing up the house and getting it ready to be sold before Joan and the girls relocate to Northern Ireland for a while. I will never know how Joan managed all of this by herself but she is an incredibly strong wonderful wife, mum and human being in general and we are so grateful for her being the rock in our lives. A few days of peace and quiet and being on her own schedule was very overdue and I was more than happy to have the girls all to myself for a few days so everyone was a winner.Read more