Rekindle

I've just come across this beautiful video introducing Rekindle, which is an amazing social enterprise based in Christchurch using salvaged wood from the earthquake to make the most gorgeous furniture.

rekindle - waste wood into furniture from Dollarmixbag / Ash Robinson on Vimeo.

It is well worth watching the full video as it tells a truly inspiring story about the types of people and ideas that I think should be encouraged throughout our community.

And, if you'd like to support Rekindle you can either (if you're Christchurch-based) let them know about any wood available for salvage, or buy a piece of their furniture.  If I wasn't a poor student I definitely would!  Their website is at www.rekindle.org.nz. 

Feel Inside (And Stuff Like That)!

Flight of the Conchords (for all those who haven't heard of them, check out this compilation video), have just released a new song raising money for Red Nose Day 2012.  The charity organising the event is CureKids, a NZ-based charity that funds medical research into life-threatening childhood illnesses.

It is one of the funniest things I've seen in ages - make sure you watch all the interviews with the kids and then listen to the lyrics!

You can buy the track from iTunes for only NZ$1.79 (about £0.90) - bargain!

Autumn in Aotearoa

Paying £1400 for a four minute appointment at the immigration office (solely to get fingerprints and a photo taken - both of which they already had on file from a previous application) seems slightly OTT, but that's what it takes to get a UK student visa these days...  Oh, and that's not including the approximately £250 cost of the visa itself - yikes!

But, it made for a great excuse to go home for a three week visit.  I behaved like a proper socialite, with morning and afternoon teas, lunches and dinners scheduled at every available opportunity.  I gorged myself on sushi as it's so expensive and so terrible in London compared to NZ (massive shoutout to Umi Sushi in Takapuna - the best sushi rolls in NZ and only $1 each!).  Big thank you to Mum for supporting my sushi habit too; I was mightily spoiled.  It was great being at home in general - I certainly got used to a life of luxury again very quickly!

Another highlight was going with Dad to a Rugby World Cup game (Australia versus Italy).  We were passionate Italian supporters, but despite going into half-time at a nail-biting 6 all, it wasn't to go our way, with Australia storming home in the second half.

Here's a video of Dad and I at the game enjoying the fantastically temporamental Auckland weather:

It was great seeing everyone as well, particularly the lovely Auckland ladies who are just as gorgeous as ever.  I had a fleeting visit down to Wellington as well which was excellent.  I tried to see everyone, and even though a few people missed out, my bank balance certainly reflected the fact that I saw as many people as I possibly could!  It was so interesting catching up on what everyone's getting up to, and I particularly enjoyed seeing the next generation - little Sonja and Oscar were so adorable.

I hardly took enough photos, but the few I did remember to take are here using this link, so check them out.

A summer story - part two

From Cape Reinga we south on the 1st of January to Kerikeri, with two very important detours. First we stopped for another swim at 90 Mile Beach (which was crazy cold compared to the first swim, don't know what the deal was there) and second, at Mangonui for the best fish and chips in the country. The half crayfish'n'chips option was tempting but slightly out of the price range!

Once in Kerikeri we met up with Bastiaan and Pip and then headed over to Bas' friend Andrew's place (well, his parent's place) where we hung out with him, his parents and their friend and his fiancee Bridgette for the night. The spit roast was delicious and having the chance to have a shower and sleep in a real bed again was great!


After a bit of sightseeing around Kerikeri the next morning we battled the traffic back into Auckland and then went to see Avatar with Dad. Very lame plot but impressive computer graphics skills nonetheless! The next leg was Auckland to Wellington with a night in Taupo at Adrian's aunt and uncle the Hancocks, followed by a few hours at the National Army Museum in Waiouru. It's one of those places I'd driven past a hundred times but never been in - so finally we did! The war medals were really interesting as were the bits and pieces about some of the minor wars etc. that NZ had been involved in. We hung out in Wellington for a bit - well, Adrian hung out, I had to go to work for three days... But after that brief sojourn it was back up to the sunny north. We drove up to the Coromandel on the 8th for Liam and Kelly's wedding in Pauanui on the 9th of Jan.
We met up with all Adrian's St Pats mates on Friday evening and then before the wedding we helped Liam work off his nerves with a bit of a hit around on a tennis court. It was a beautiful wedding, right on the beach and they both looked so happy which was lovely. The reception had great food and we all had a wonderful time dancing around and listening to the great speeches. The song the St Pats boys sung about how Liam and Kelly met was a highlight and I'll try to post it when this website lets me!


After the wedding we spent two nights at the campsite at Hot Water Beach, further north in the Coromandel. That place is excellent! Supposedly one of the top ten beaches in the world as voted by Lonely Planet, when the tide is out it uncovers some natural hot springs which you can dig into and make your own natural hot pool. We checked it out on the first evening, just to see what it was all about, and then in the morning we went down again trying to get a spot. It was pretty packed in the morning with all the kids (low tide was about 10am) so it was difficult to get a spot but we managed to get our feet into the incredibly hot sand for a bit! During the day we headed up to Hahei and Cathedral Cove which was beautiful, and then it was back to Hot Water Beach for our third attempt at making the perfect hot pool. Our reconnaissance mission paid off and we had the perfect hot pool which was nearly too hot to sit in! It's a fight to constantly build up your sand wall against the incoming waves but it's a good workout all the same!
From Hot Water Beach we did a small tiki tour around the Coromandel peninsula on the way back to Auckland - complete with hokey pokey and goody goody gumdrops icecreams, yummmmm. Once back in the big AK we did a walking tour (one of Adrian's most favourite things...) of North Head and had a fabulously extravagent dinner at Kermadec (extravagent because we completely forgot to use the Entertainment Card, d'oh!). And then it was over! Adrian hopped back on a plane to London via Singapore and I went back down to Wellington after a few more birthday celebrations with Mum, Dad and friends.


A holiday to remember - here are all the photos!

A summer story - part one

We're all going on a summer holiday, no more worries for a week or two (or three, or four...) Adrian and I have just finished up the most excellent summer holiday tripping all over the North Island and staying in some of the most beautiful places I think you'd find anywhere. It was so great to get out to the beach and laze around in the sun - and even though I didn't really deserve a holiday after only a month back at work, it was very much appreciated! Adrian turned up back in NZ in mid-December just before Veronika and Phil's wedding (which was lovely).

After the wedding, the whole Mazur clan headed up north to Paihia for Christmas while I worked from the Auckland office and then had Christmas at home. We cooked our ham Nigella Lawson styles which involved boiling it in coca cola of all things - and before you wrinkle your nose up in disgust it was actually really delicious! On Boxing Day I headed up north to meet up with Adrian (stopping, of course, at the Bendon outlet shop on the way up...I love that place) and then on the 27th we started our road trip in earnest. Stop 1: the supermarket where we bemoaned our lack of organisation (already) by not taking more food from the family coffers and thus having to spend nearly $100... Ah well, you can only live and learn can't you!

Stop 2: the Department of Conservation (DoC) campsite at Otamure Bay (Whananaki). We headed off full of hope that depsite the time of year, it couldn't possibly be completely full - but yes, after a long, twisty turny drive that's what the sign said... But, ever optimistic, we smiled and insisted that our tent was absolutely tiny (which it was) and they, very kindly, managed to find us a half site to inhabit. Yay for DoC! The campsites were incredible! People had brought everything from: full gas burner BBQs, tomatoes still growing in buckets, fridges, double layer air mattresses - and a group not far from us had even set up a kitchen area using industrial strength scaffolding! It was camping, but definitely not as we were doing it...

The place was absolutely lovely though; white sandy beach and even enough waves to do a spot of body surfing. Adrian was over the moon to discover that across the road they were showing movies in the woolshed - $3 and bring your own chair! It was Transformers, which wasn't the most appealing choice, but sitting in the shed definitely improved it! After a couple of days lazing around by ourselves, working hard on our tans, and appreciating all the absolutely beautiful stars we could see every night, Lisa came and hung out for a while. It was great fun to see her and chat about Oxford times.
From Otamure we headed right up to the northern-most campsite in New Zealand at Tapotupotu. It was completely different to Otamure - as the DoC ranger said, "things are a bit rougher up here"... One thing which was immediately obvious was the wind - after setting our tent up using every single guy rope available, it became quite clear that we were going to have to move it from our prime seaside location to a more sheltered spot back from the beach. It was just as well we did because even after having moved it it still was so windy it flattened the tent right over our faces several times throughout the night!

Tapotupotu is only two bays over from Cape Reinga and is in the middle of a wonderful area of national park. We did two walks, one south towards Spirits Bay, and the second, on New Year's Eve, to Cape Reinga itself. It should supposedly have taken us five hours but we monstered it in only three and a quarter - legends! It was a pretty full on walk, all up and down (mostly up...), but we distracted ourselves with reminiscing about the highlights of the previous decade (each other, obviously...). It was Adrian's first time at NZ's northernmost point (well, not exactly the northernmost point, but the legendary one!) and luckily it was a stunning day so we could see the meeting of the seas and the pohutukawa tree that has never flowered...
Not content to only do one bit of sightseeing that day, after the walk we went to the Te Paki giant sand dunes. They are absolutely awesome! You rent a boogie board from the guy at the bottom, and then after some muscle-trembling hikes up the dune, go as fast as you possibly can down! I'll try to get one of Adrian's runs from his camera so we can upload it here. After the dunes I was all, let's go for a swim, it's not far... Walking in our togs, barefeet and towels, it finally took us (at least) 30 minutes! Whoops... But, luckily, Adrian's first swim at 90 Mile Beach was everything we could ask for - it was so warm and the waves were huge! Definitely one of the best swims I think I've ever had. And then, thank goodness for Remuera Tractors because one of them picked us up on the way back and took us all the way back to the car...

New Year's Eve night was excellent; especially considering I thought we were so exhausted it would be a miracle if I saw 9pm even... We spent the night chatting to the friendly folks (from Hataitai!) who had parked up next to us and then headed down to the beach to listen to about seven different countdowns to midnight. We launched our sky lantern off into the ocean (finally, a prevailing wind that suited us!) and saw off the decade in one of the most beautiful spots I could imagine.

Part two coming soon!

Where's Wally?

Well, Wally #1 (Amelia) is back in Wellington (a Wally in windy Welly, how appropriate...) for the time being (see photographic evidence) and Wally #2 (Adrian) is staying in London to rake in those ££££s...

Ah, the long distance relationship, how fun. Not.

But, until the visa fairy decides to bestow on Amelia (a) a European passport of some kind (b) a whopping great PhD scholarship and a student visa or (c) a working visa to the UK, that's the situation we're stuck with... But, to make things more interesting, we've decided to have all sorts of holidays in exotic locations to make the year go by just that little bit more quickly. Holiday #1 is going to be held in the beautiful region that is Northland, followed by a quick jaunt to Wellington and the Coromandel, while Holiday #2 at Easter time is tentatively planned for South America - I can't wait!

So, while the spendthrift and the miser are apart, these blog posts might become a bit sparser as each of us stays in lock-down, saving money mode, but there will still be hopefully at least a post a month whenever the urge to spend $$ becomes too much! (And chances are very, very strong that that will be Wally #1 rather than #2...).

So, to get things started as we mean to continue, I've got some graduation and London photos that I'll put up soon, look out for them before Christmas!

Wisiting Welly

It was like I had never left...

While Adrian was making the big bucks in London, I decided to make a short sojourn down to our nation's capital to see how everyone was doing. And I had a great time! Big ups to Kate and the (current and ex) Hataitai massive for welcoming me back; I would move back into that flat in a second if there's ever a room going and I'm in Wellington!

Kate and I went on an 'urban safari' to Cape Palliser to check out the seals (and the lambs, hawks, black cows, fat sausage dogs etc.). It was a gorgeous day and the fush and chups at the Lake Ferry pub rounded off the adventure nicely.

I also went back into work to say hi which was rather random - it was so similar that it felt as if I should be sitting down at a desk rather than just sitting in the kitchen drinking wine, but there were definitely lots of new faces that made me realise just how long I'd been gone. It also made me appreciative of my current job title, 'Lady of Leisure', and all the fun that having no plans on a Thursday entails...

The rest of the week was filled with wining and dining at various locations around town (including an absolutely delicious cassoulet, and tips on what the best thing is to order at yum cha, courtesy of Andrew). My bank balance is looking a bit poorly compared to my stomach!

Other highlights were the Rita Angus exhibition on at Te Papa at the moment and the swing on Mt Victoria that I had never known about! It was about time it was discovered though - it was absolutely HEAPS of fun (as Mark, Tom and Kate are showing).

Here are the rest of the photos.

Wet and wintery

After however many days of brilliant sunshine and nearly 40 degree heat, it’s back to winter for Amelia. (Although it’s only about four or so degrees colder than London I might add).

The main thing about this winter, after the brilliant, best in 60 years NZ summer, has been the vast, copious, massive amounts of rain. Auckland has had 10 wet weekends in a row and here’s what that looks like:

And if you thought the puddle looked bad, here’s what it looked like a mere five minutes later:

This weekend coming is supposed to be fine - bring it on I say!

Tulip Sunday at the Botanic Gardens

Tulip Sunday happens once a year in the Botanic Gardens in Wellington. All the tulips are in bloom, there are lots of new sculptures, and a whole Dutch-themed thing as well. Al, Danny, Mary-Jane, and Anna-Marie and I spent a lovely day in the sun.

In the hot-house.

All the tulips! Tulip close-up

Karaka flowers

Checking out the NZ section

Snowdrop - symbol of spring! (and believe it or not, this is only a tiny sample of the number of photos I took - digital cameras are genius...)

Night out in Auckland-town

Headed out to dinner in Ponsonby with Caroline, Lisa, Kelly, and a friend of Caroline's. Much wine was consumed, random photos were taken and texts were sent, and a good time was had by all!


Mwah!

Nicci's birthday/Bastiaan's flatwarming

To celebrate Nicci's 26th birthday and Bastiaan moving in, a soiree was held at Palmer St on the 20th of June. It was the day before we moved flat, but Dave's party music mix was so good I couldn't tear myself away until about midnight. Good times!

Bastiaan's not afraid of the camera Arte! Why should you be...

Mid-dance photo of me and Bronwyn

Jeff and Jesse

Pip and Jeff doing the Egyptian!

Tammy showing off the new fashion of the season - ties are back!

Au Revoir Adrian!

Adrian left NZ in early July for the World Long Distance Triathlon Championships in Brittany, France. That's a lot of gear you've got there!

He ended up placing really well in his category and has been in France ever since - I am so looking forward to heading over there as well!

Duathlon at Scorching Bay

Adrian and Emilia entered a duathlon at the end of June. Adrian won - which was excellent and about time considering how many other races I'd watched! ;-) Emilia did really well too, making it look easy. It was a freezing cold day - check out the gloves! Nice farewell for Adrian from wintery Wellington.

Marathon!

So, after months of training, the big day was finally here! A freezing cold morning on the 24th June saw me up at the crack of dawn, eating my porridge and raisins, before heading down to Wellington stadium to join a whole group of other crazy folk to run 42km around the waterfront.

It was incredibly hard - more so than I thought it would be - but I did it! I did it in 4 and a half hours which was an ok time. I walked quite a bit on the homeward stretch - into the wind it was a bit of a tough ask!

But, I feel great that I finally achieved my goal and when I'm 80 I can say that yes, once upon a time I was fit enough to do a marathon!

A big shout out to my wonderful support crew too - Adrian you were fantastic!!

At the start - go #9087!
At the 3km mark, just heading around Waitangi Park into Oriental Bay.

At the 7km mark, nice tail wind!

At the 23km mark in Seatoun, starting to feel the burn...

35km mark, running around by the airport.

At the 39km mark in Oriental Bay - putting on a smile for the camera!

Coming into the stadium, there was no way I could run up that ramp...

Homeward stretch

Finally finished! I look much, much better than I feel...blisters, cuts, incredibly achy muscles...the list goes on!

Weekend in Auckland

Before Adrian and I went to Vanuatu, I took the chance to spend a few days in Auckland, just catching up with everyone. Alexandra was actually over from Sydney for the weekend too, as was Karl, so we had dinner at home with him one night where some pretty interesting versions of creme brulee were tried. Everyone that was there would have to say that mine was the best (I do have photographic proof but don't think I need to brag too much - hehehe), but they all tasted pretty good.
Then we tried some pretty delicious passionfruit and berry parfaits on the night that Adrian was up for dinner - they were yum!!

Hannah was here for a while over the US summer, so we all went out to dinner at Vivace - lovely seeing all the girls!

Kristin doing a sweet smile for the camera :-)

Lovely Lisa.
Coquette Caroline! ;-)
Me, Amber, Lisa and Kristin.

Seymour at 6 months

When I was in Auckland in June, I spent the afternoon with Loretta, Seymour and AJ. Seymour was aout five months old - the first two photos are from when I visited, and the others Loretta sent about a month later. Isn't he a cutie! AJ reckons Junior All Blacks at 16, then fame and total domination as an All Black not that long afterwards - and judging by how good he is at practising packing down into a scrum, I can completely believe it!