Wellington

We had four nights and three whole days in Wellington. One of the priorities on some people's list was to ride around Oriental Bay on a "crocodile". I don't know why a five-person pedal-powered vehicle should be called a crocodile but there we are. During our expedition we didn't drive into a single pedestrian but we did bump into (figuratively) a former colleague, NZSO violinist David Gilling, his wife Pascale and their son Dominic.

After safely returning the crocodile we visited Jenny at Te Papa. We forced our way into her office and looked at lots of treasures in the shop. She told us that the Pacific Island display was going to be redone so we went upstairs for a farewell picture of the girls with that portrait.

We spent the first two nights with Alex and Jane. It was great to hang out with them like the old days. Alex took the girls and me to the Karori pool for a night dip. (Sorry no pictures, too busy soaking in the spa pool.) The next day we made our pilgrimage to Makara Cemetery and visited the graves of Mum and Dad and Lenny.

Later, David Chickering came over with two plates of his famous chocolate chip cookies and his son, Luca whom we were meeting for the first time.

At some point we met Jenny, Nat and Coco at Nigel and Jo's place for cocktails and a play with the new baby but unfortunately I must have forgotten the camera.

By this stage we had moved to the Intercontinental Hotel downtown where I had gone to some trouble to make sure we had a high room with a harbour view to watch the New Year's Eve fireworks. Alas, there were no fireworks this year. However, we made good use of all the facilities. On December 31st the girls and I popped in on Rowan, Hamish and Iris then Elaine and Bill Steadman, very dear friends of Mum and Dad's. We had a great afternoon reuniting with Stephanie and Juliette, two of Jessye's preschool friends and their mums, going out for lunch and then taking over the hotel pool.

Later that evening the Jenny lot joined us at Alex and Jane's for New Year's Eve. Anna (who looked after the girls for a while when Faye was away) and her son Lomani who coincidentally happens to be the girls' third cousin and his friend Hudson also popped in which ensured that the noise level was right up there with our best efforts. We didn't quite make it to midnight and sadly waved goodbye to Jenny, Nat and Coco till next time because that was our last night in Wellington.