Its party time, or it was .....................

This year is mine and Peter's 50th birthday, which we had to celebrate - it is half way to a whole century. The planning has gone on for months. There has been manic gardening tidying by me, to no avail, because as soon as I finished one border I would notice another full of weeds.
A quick garage makeover to tidy it up. I hated the yukky cream colour it was painted originally, and love the new black garage.
Since this was a significant birthday we thought it would be a good idea to celebrate the decades and asked everyone to dress in clothes from the decade they were born in. Peter decided to tie dye his own t-shirt.
Keriann lent me some of her beautiful red and white bunting for the marquee and I made some of my own, too tie to the mail box instead of balloons.
We had it all planned for a lovely evening - hoping that we could leave the sides of the marquee and have the lights rigged up outside. The weather did not cooperate - it was cold and wet. We had to abandon the light and put the sides back on the Marquee.
By 6:30pm we were all ready to go. Peter I think is Shaggy from scobbie doo, I was attempting to be Sandy Shaw with my bare feet. Peter did suggest instead of going as Twiggy I would have to go as Trunky - he is still being punished for that suggestion.
Despite the rain, I think everyone had a good time. I did. A lot of hippies turned up for the event, along with Lulu and Cher, and a generic 80's girl.

More peace loving hippies.

Another bunch of celebs John Travolta from Grease, Sonny and Anchor Man. At least thats what they told me.
No party would be complete without Austin Powers and a groovy chic.

There was also a young lady from the French Resistance who would say things only once and managed to avoid getting her photo taken. This has given me an idea for our next party in 10 years time, it will have to be a spy party.

There was even a very young Jedi running around drinking Sith beer, I think he needs to brush up on his spelling.

From the looks of the debris from the pary it was a great night. I hope all the guests enjoyed themselves as much as we did.

All the food disappeared - thank you to Justine for taking over and serving our guests.

Thank you again to Keriann for the use of the bunting.

Finaly the garden back to normal as if nothing at all had ever happened.

A Sunday afternoon stroll in the park

This Sunday afternoon I went for a stroll in the park, well not really a stroll more of a duathalon, with a team of my work collegues.
As this was meant to be a fun family event, we decided that it would be a good idea to dress up. I was very certain we would not be winning the race, infact I was pretty certain that we would be last. None of us had done any training, well hardly any training. So we decided to go very all out on our costumes.
Our team was made up of three software developers, it was suggested that we should be the bugs and dress as spiders! We thought for a while and came up with the Ladybugs, after we walked into the shop and the first wings we found were red spotty ones.
Don't you think we all look amazing. The duathalon was a 5km walk by Linda on the right, 23km bike ride by Vicki in the middle and another 5km walk by me.
Just thought you would like to see the reverse side so you could see the full costume. We made the tutu's ourselves from quite a few meters of tule, some buttons, ribbons and a feather boa. We were ready to strut our funky stuff.
Linda, first up, arriving back at the end of her lap at high speed, looking as fresh as a daisy.

Vicki looked amazing speeding along on her bike wings flapping in the breeze.

Linda and Vicki joined me for the big finish and we all walked over the finishing line together, 33 minutes faster than we had anticipated. Strangely enough we were not last, there was still another walker a minute behind me.

There was a bit of competition from some dodgy looking pirates for the best dressed prize.

They did not stand a chance, the Intersoft Ladybugs were the best dressed team. Our prize was a bottle of Hawkes Bay wine each, yummy.

It must have been a lucky day for me I also won a mug tree with a set of six mugs. Excuse me while I go and check my lottery ticket, just in case.

Lunch time walk

No snaps of daisies on my very short lunchtime walk today. I have a bit of a fluey virus and felt a bit wobbly so went back to the office early. I did manage to snap a butterfly and a beautiful orange aloe.

Today's Handbag Daisy

This is the remains of the lining of my handbag. Slowly over the last year it has disintegrated and became more holes than lining. I wanted to reline it but have been putting it off because I thought it would be difficult. Amazingly, it was much easier than I imagined. I was even able to add lots of little pockets around the sides for my bits and pieces - even my umbrella has found a space of its own. And to top it all, without realising, I choose a fabric that matched my wallet. There will be no more half eaten biscuits stored for not so small children in this handbag.

Celebrating half a century of Peter

This weekend Peter was a whole half a century old. Something worth celebrating I think.
What he decided he wanted to do for his birthday was to go to Waimarama and eat fish and chips on the beech.
A very good choice I thought. Unfortunatly, it seems that fate was perhaps working against us.
First of all the weather - seemingly a storm the size of Australia was about to throw all its force at New Zealand, with sea swells of 18m and hurricane force winds, and weather warnings telling us to stay away from the beeches this weekend. As you can see from the snaps - it was a little wild but not to bad.
Then getting the fish and chips was the next chore. The local shop that provides the fish and chips takeaways in Waimarama was closed for this weekend, the only weekend in the year that it is closed. Luckly the local cafe Jarks was able to provide us with a couple of scoops of chips to take down to the beech. Where we ate chips, walked along the beech and roasted marshmallows over a fire.

In the evening our good friends Keriann and Ian came over for a light supper. Bringing with them some lovely armenian street bread and an absoulutly delicious chocolate and hazelnut tart, as a birthday cake. Yum, yum, yum. I have to admit it was me that pinched the roasted hazelnuts that you can see are missing from the tart. In case you are wondering it tasted as good as it looks. A perfect end to a perfect day.

Today's Exuberence of Spring Daisies

Thanks to Napier City's planting schemes, I spent another lunch break wandering among the daisies, with the sweet spring scent of wall flowers wafting by me. Bliss.

Everywhere you look there are daisies and more daisies, and who am I to complain.

The sun was shineing and the breeze was warm.

This riot of overplanting colour, shouting look at me, I love it.

Daisies, daisies as far as the eye can see, close up and in reflection.

And just in case you thought it was all daisies - here are some glowing euphorbia. I have been trying to get a snap of a euphorbia for ages, I love their shape and colour, but usualy I can't capture that perfect snap. The pic below is getting closer but still not quite there.

And just to finish things off yet another snap of Cape Kidnappers. This time through the cabbage trees of the miniture golf course.

My own Cheshire cat

While I am working in the garden the cats are never far away. Ranna likes to water any holes I dig - don't think you want to see a picture of that. And Buffy likes to sit in the cabbage tree watching and occasionally chasing her own tail. This can be a bit a little dangerous and often ends up with her falling out of the tree.

Spring is in the air

Spring is well under way here in Hawkes Bay. With a promise of summer fruits to come. Tiny little fig buds on the fig trees.
Blossom on the plum tree. And at the end of a wonderful day working in the garden, the golden light filtering through to light up the plum trea.