Air New Zealand has changed the design of its aircraft so that travelling Premium Economy introduced me to a new form of seating which had been arranged so that the seats were on the slant. In theory, this should have provided more leg room but I found myself feeling twisted out of shape and struggling to find anywhere to fit a full sized pillow and thus had no way of supporting my head for the whole flight. Consequently, the 2-3 hours sleep I usually managed in the 24 hour flight in a normal seat was reduced to no sleep at all and a very bad back.
Arrival at Auckland Airport on Thursday morning was a bit of an early start. It was still dark – even after the 30 minute car journey from the airport to our daughter and son-in-law’s new house in Greenhithe Village on the North Shore. We arrived to a quiet house which began to come to life as the children woke up and came downstairs for their breakfast. Several Weetabix later, we were all ready to start the day and after a luxury spa bath and a change of clothes, we went out into the garden to see to the chickens and feed the fish. After this, we were ready to get Cameron to his kindergarten and then do some shopping in the afternoon. It was great to hit the shops and good to be able to read all the labels easily and stock up on Branston Pickle and Cheddar Cheese – which I had not seen for a few months. I was adjusting to the rapid alteration in outside temperature – heat, heat, heat in Crete, warm summer sunshine in Britain to heavy rain, dark clouds and coolth in Auckland. By 8.30 p.m., I was struggling to keep my eyes open any longer so I took off to stretch out flat and get some well needed sleep.
Sophie apologised that the next day, they had booked for Cameron to go to the Chipmunks Centre for his birthday party which turned out to be a great time of playing inside (very useful as there was driving rain outside) and Cameron and his chums went climbing, bouncing and sliding down cool slides in what was basically a large warehouse painted and fitted out as a children’s indoor play centre. After an hour or so, we were led into Party Room 1 where a feast was laid out and Cameron had a place of honour. As kid’s parties go – it was a great idea and we had plenty of time to catch up with the other parents while the children took off and let off lots of steam. It was the first children’s party that I had ever actually enjoyed and Cameron was having a spectacular day. Still no news from Melbourne about the imminent arrival of grandchild no. 3.
I had been given an I-pod for Christmas and it had been wonderful for photos and playing Scrabble across the globe with other members of the Croziers Clan. It took Sophie to show me how to access my hotmails on the I-pod which had eluded me since I had it. This was a revolution and I rapidly managed to delete the spam which had built up over the previous few days
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The new house is a wonderful space with lovely kitchen, bathrooms and garden with space for children, a hen house and a fishpond which is causing a bit of consternation to ensure that this area of the garden is closed off. On Sunday morning, we spent an hour or two blitzing the house and sorting out the toy box before heading off to the local pub in bright sunshine with family friends for Sunday lunch.
Darren had spent quite a lot of time on the internet browsing sites such as "Backyard Chickens" and "Urban Poultry" to learn how to care for the hens which came along with the new house. Today, we had a hilarious half hour at supper and bath time because we had forgotten to gather up the chickens from the chicken run and put them in the henhouse before dark; consequently Sophie and Cameron armed themselves with a torch while supper was getting cold trying to get already roosting hens from one part of the garden to another. They showed their displeasure by pecking their protectors a bit viciously ... I don't think we will forget them another time!
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