A wedding

My dad and his laydee friend of eight years, Angela, decided to get married. They decided this about three weeks before they actually did it. Coupled with it being the middle of the holidays while they were organising everything, it was quite an effort.

Two things made it sensible to get married on January 3rd. Firstly, Angela was very close to getting a teaching job in Doha for a year:


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Apparently it is easier to bring your special friend with you if you are married. I guess we're screwed on that front . . .

Secondly, all three of The Brothers Morris would actually be in the same place (and even in the same place as their parents) for the first time in a long while:



CHAAAAARGE! indeed.

The ceremony was held at Musick Point, a long-time Haszard family haunt. It's a beautiful place, if a little windy that day:



The dudes nonchalantly leaning against the poles are actually struggling to hold down the gazebo and prevent it flying off to sea.

A minor amount of rain, the Angela arrived, suitably late:



She got there in the only vehicle one could reasonably expect:



[insert father-enraging cliche/myth about unreliable French cars making people late]

The girls strew some rose petals (from Springfield Crescent) about the place:





Some bozo signed a document:



. . . and they were married! The vows were quite lovely, I wasn't crying, the wind just whipped some hair into my eyes or something.

All these people were there:



The reception was at the Secret Thai Garden in Otahuhu. Anyone who knows Otahuhu may be gasping here, but this place is nothing short of incredible. Also incredible is the good fortune they had in being able to book the place out at such short notice.

The Brothers Morris were also the best men (obviously), so we had to do a bit of talking as part of this. Barns, in his unruffled, casual way, had taken on the role of MC, which he carried out with aplomb (I don't know where he got a plomb from haha):



As you can see in the photograph above, the sun (or something similarly bright) is in fact shining out of his arse.

The food was superb (and there was tons of it) - including the cake:





A great time was had by all, particularly the kids - I'm sure you remember being a kid at some family event and having a wicked time:











Rach thinks this is a bad photo of her - I think it's a very very nice one. What do you think?



So, now the job in Doha is all set, and they depart on Waitangi Day, leaving their eldest son/stepson with only memories and a Citroen XM.

Here are a couple of slideshows for masochists - ceremony (54 photos):



. . . and the reception (84 photos!):



Thanks to google/blogger for losing the original post and making me retype it.

Actual thanks to 48 bottles of cheap Lindauer and Chang Beer.

Down the O.B.

We went back to Oamaru Bay for our holiday this (last) year. We've been there before, as you can tell by the fact that the Volvo and the Hyundai are visible in the Google Maps aerial photo taken two years ago:


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OH YEAH NICE ONE GOOGLE. It's not like I bloody zoomed in before I copied the link or anything. Zoom in on the balloon to see the cars.

Many "How's the serenity?" quotes - with such a horrible, cliched view from the deck, you can see why:



Aimee, Krystal, and Braydyn came with us, but had the hideous stomach thing that was going around at the time and had to go home after a couple of days.

Alex, Millie, Rua, and Jill stayed down the road at Shelly Beach, and Barns joined them after a couple of days, coming over on the ferry from Auckland. Kendyl took the same route on New Year's Eve, and Russell and Clare also stayed at Shelly Beach on the 31st.

Lots of swimming,



we went on the Driving Creek Railway again,



we went to Driving Creek Cafe again and again:



I boke up Driving Creek Road (this leads eventually to Kennedy Bay on the other side of the peninsula), once in the pissing rain, and again in the dry. Coming down was fun but quite dangerous as I'm faster than cars on a windy metal road.

From the top you can see Kennedy Bay itself:



No proof I didn't just drive up and take this photo, but I didn't.

On the way home we went to the Waiau Kauri Grove, which includes the Siamese Kauri. Kauri are truly magnificent and awe-inspiring:



Here's a slideshow of photos (click the picture ehoa):



Thanks go out to Waikato Air Conditioning for making a Volvo cool again.

Dunedin Rua

As usual, I've left it a bit long between posts, and now my memory is failing me. I have photos, but there may be some chronological errors.

According to all my records (i.e. Flickr), I didn't take any photos on Friday 7th November. Pretty sure that's the day Rua and I picked up SoNic Smith, Jess, and their daughter Bella (god I hope I have that right)[Edit - NO, I have it wrong, her name is of course Stella].

We bought and made our spacesuits (paper overalls from the safety place with homemade stickers on them) and just generally hung out (hanged out?). Oh, and I also made Le Mon Chicken.

BAM! I guess this was the day I went and did my out-of-electorate vote too!

Saturday dawned especially bright and early (6:30 according to the picture data) because IT WAS MILLIE'S BIRTHDAY:



. . . which meant PENGUIN WAFFLES at the NEW TABLE*:



We went off to go ice-skating at the Dunedin rink, but IT WAS CLOSED. Some tears from Millie before we went through some suburbs and hills to the tenpin bowling rink/arena/building. It was only just opening, so we had the place to ourselves for a while, which was kind of strange but cool all the same. Here are some people doing bowling things:









It was all a load of fun.

We went to Robbie's in South D. I still want to call it The Robbie, but I know this is wrong. I had whitebait, which was surprisingly cheap, and completely delicious.

Rua and I were then delivered to the Radio One studio for that week's instalment of Energy Flash. This normally two-hour show was reduced to a single hour because of the Radio One Election Special.

SoNic Smith joined us towards the end of the show, and we walked up to the North Valley to someone's flat (another amazing Dunedin student flat). En route we picked up some hideous drinks.

We were crammed into a car and ferried nice and early to Sammy's for the Willy Wonky and the Southern Lit Spaceship party, at which Rua and Nic were both playing. I got no pictures of this, but there are many on the Haszari Facebook if you are able to see them.

It was a great night of spacesuits, dancing, Green Man Beer, and election coverage on a TV in the foyer.

As a side note, all the people I met that night (most of who were younger than me) were very politically aware, and almost without exception horrified that National won the election.

Rua and I got home about 5, after stumbling through the freezing Dunedin gale. Luckily our spacesuits kept us warm (also booze).

Sunday morning dawned bright and early again NO IT DIDN'T RUA AND I WERE MAX HUNGOVER. Lay on the couch for quite a while, snoozing, watching The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and eating pizza if I remember correctly.

That afternoon (or possibly more like evening, I dunno), we went out to Tunnel Beach. The gate was fully shut, we weren't going to miss out after travelling so far (at LEAST 10 km), so vaulted it anyway, dodging various types of animal faeces.

The track down to the beach was pretty steep, although these photos don't really show it that well:





. . . but they do illustrate the quite low temperature.

The beach is only reachable through a tunnel, dug in the early years of last century. It is a beautiful beach, with towering cliffs, squeaky blonde sand, and a rock formation similar to that at Cathedral Cove (you know, the hole in the rock deal).

Here's the tunnel, with a trepidatious Jillian:



Here is the beach, with some silly poses:


(Alex is in this photo, but is completely obscured by his showboating mother).

Here are Millie and Ella having a rest on the way back up:



We had some good sarnies there, can't remember if that was dinner or not . . .

We belatedly let off some fireworks that night:



Here are the kids - either they are running to school, or they are evilly flaunting their youth and fitness outside the old folks' home:



On the Monday, Ella and I went to the South D. shops, then the museum, then ate too much at Governors's's'. The only photo I have from this day is Ella frolicking about in the 70s dress in the non-sequitur sun and heat:



We had a great trip, A+++ WOULD TRADE AGAIN.

Our plane was an hour late leaving Dunners, because, without a word of a lie, they had to reboot it. Seriously, they shut off all power to the plane, waited three minutes, then powered up again, all to fix some unspecified piece of navigational equipment. It worked, as you can tell by how happy Ella is:



* In this post I am experimenting with SHOUTING IN CAPITALS. People think it works selling cars on TardMe/Ebay/Craigslist, so why not here?