Day Four - Wellington

It is so lovely to wake up to blue skies and to see the sea.  Lovely shower to get me stared and some coffee.  I still fill out of sync food wise as when I woke in the night I was quite hungry.  But fortunately I had some cereal bars in my case and had one of those and that was it, back off to the land of nod again.

So we finally got out and went for some lunch at a restaurant called The

Botanist which is a vegan restaurant.  It is a five minute walk from Jackie's 

house. We had a lovely lunch and both of us had a burger which was delicious. It really was a lovely restaurant and it was so good to be able to have absolutely anything from the menu.  We then walked up to the shopping retail park. Now this was quite strange because slap bang in the middle of it they are building

the new traffic control tower for the airport! Yes you did read that correctly.  I did have to point out to Jackie what about security and terrorism. Nothing like that over here she said. I could not believe it. How crazy.  The shops were interesting and it was good to have a look around.

In the evening we walked but into Kilbirnie which is the local 'town' as we were attending a vegan cheese and wine event at the local organic shop. It really was good and some of the cheeses were so tasty; other however were not.  However, it is good to try these things and the wine and bread were so good.  We bought some cashew cheese (yes you did read that correctly) which was amazing. It was very soft and come in a jar, like a cream cheese. Very rich but lovely.  We also went to the supermarket which is always an education.  My observations were as following:

New Zealand Fact: the milk is different.  Green top milk is skimmed, dark blue

top is full fat (same as UK), light blue top is semi skimmed, yellow (yes that is a new one) is calcium enriched and red is cream.  I mean cream. I have decided I am living in topsy turvey land. However, I like it as it shakes you out of your comfort zone. Also, wheatabix is not wheatabix, it does not look the same. Goodness knows what has happened to it but I did not like the look of it so had some lovely yoghurt.

It has been a lovely day. It was great to walk down by the sea and I could not really believe that it was November. It is a total 'head fuck'. There I am in summer clothes, flip flops and looking at Santa stuff. It really is crazy and an odd feeling. But I guess it is just what is 'normal' for us is different to others and that is what makes the world go around.  And as many of you know, I do like difference.

I will leave you with some photos of the bay, which is literally a three minute walk from Jackie's home. How lovely is this to be so near to the sea. She really is very lucky.

And yoghurt in cartons!

As always, with my love x