Merry Christmas!

This month has disappeared in a puff of smoke! Christmas has snuck up on me! Our little travelling Xmas tree has been pulled out yet again; I am rather fond of it; have to say 🙂

Luca’s 17th birthday came and went. Seventeen for some reason seems so much older than sixteen…

He will miss his friends while we are away, they have been hanging at our place over the last month a lot, staying up until the early hours and getting up late. I want them to make the most of this time, soon, they won’t have the freedom to be able to do this quite so much, and will be nice for them to be able to look back on these days ❤️

We leave on Boxing Day and away until mid-January, all of us looking forward to the adventure that awaits. Work this year has been rather tumultuous, I am looking forward to getting into the bush and taking time to reboot. This will be the longest time Rich and I, have ever spent apart from Luca, he of course is fine with it; it is us that feels the anxiety 😂

We have another Kiwi House Sitter looking after our place, we hope she likes it as much as Marika and Daniel did last year. It is looking rather appealing of late….

These two will lead the way on showing her how to relax and enjoy the surroundings 😊

Over the last week or so Rich, with a little help from Luca, has cut back our rather overgrown trail through the bush and out the other side. The last time it had a good cut back was during Covid, it was definitely time to do it again. It was hard work, but such a good job has been done, and it is much nicer to walk through now, far less scratches from blackberry and the like. So pretty with the wildflowers springing up…

Our first stop after we leave home is the wild west coast! We are going to Punakaiki, Rich remembers this area from when he biked through NZ in the 90’s and wanted to go back. We love the west coast, it took no convincing at all, it looks very enticing indeed, as you can see below.

These two however, will miss their regular nightly routine. Every night without fail, Vida and Rich fall asleep together watching TV ❤️

The below flowers were given to me by a friend for Christmas, gorgeous, aren’t they?! We are having my brother, and our houses sitter join us for Christmas dinner, then will pack in the evening and leave early the next day. The next blog post will be while on our travels, so exciting to hit the road again.

Merry Christmas everyone! xx