The day arrives…

Leanne's sister's wedding was today. A lovely time was had by all. We all scrubbed up rather well, I thought. Maisie and Leanne were dressed by Cris Roberts of Pearl, and Rachel wore World Man with Reject pants. Maisie managed to eat most of the meringues provided at the buffet style high tea.

Shark Bait Hoo Ha Ha

Eating so much sushi inspired a trip to Kelly Tarlton's underwater world adventure. We saw sharks, rays and more fish than you can shake a stick at.

We had a great time chilling with the penguins, we didn't take them the herrings we'd managed to smuggle into the country; they were snapped up by friends with the Swedish heritage - poor penguins. They had to make do with the fresh dead herrings.

After seeing all the fishes, there was just time for a penguins do martial arts impression - phew!

Caption competition

What is going on with Rachel? Not so butch today! A chocolate fish for the best caption…

Winning entry, supplied by Julie S, was:

"Hang on a minute...I was going to get a NAIL GUN, not get my NAILS DONE!!"

Congratulations, Julie.

Hallelujah it's Sushi

Maisie had sushi at the very first opportunity she got. Sushi review: "delicious"

The diet coke was to combat the jet lag- it didn't work particularly well as we have been waking at three in the morning, until last night (small fanfare).

We have been staying at our dear friends place in the wild west, Tititrangi, which was just lovely. Charlie the dog was delighted with our nocturnal wanderings, every time we opened our bedroom door he was there running round in circles expecting biscuits. When he started the cat would feel left out and start meowing for his biscuits; it was like our own personal early morning circus. The pay-off was having an excuse to go to Kakamatua dog beach, which was one of our favourite spots to take our dog.

Hello Lady, hurry hurry

Dodgy in Dubai...

The drive to Manchester couldn't have been easier and as we were so early, there was no queue at the check in. We got there before a school sporting trip to Australia, phew. Wandered round the duty free, and settled on giraffe burgers and water, we know how to live.

Flight uneventful, weird seeing our hostess in the Arab emirates gear, and talking with a strong scouse accent. Arriving in Dubai, off the plane and into a wall of heat (6.30 in the morning and 40 degrees) wow! We were all very dozy.

I was particularly amused in the queue for the toilets in Dubai airport. Typically there were only 3 cubicals for the ladies. One was a 'squatty potty', as we like to call them, and not that pleasant as people dont know how to use them properly, so it was being ignored by the ladies. BUT one of the cubicals was being occupied for a very long time, and the queue was getting longer and longer. So, much to our surprise, the woman in charge of the loos, started knocking on the door, shouting "hello lady, hurry hurry". The poor woman in there was probably too traumatised to come out after that!

Shuffled onto the plane, we were seated in the middle block of 4, and I was next to a spare seat - result! A small, very quiet woman took the seat. Unfortunately, she negotiated a swap so she could join her family, and I found my sellf sat next to a large Aussie bloke reading a book about pineapples. I was amused when I saw his movie choice was Snow White, and relieved when he didn't make a fuss when the hostie and I managed to spill a glass of water over him.

All in all, not a bad journey.

Pleeeease can I come with you?

The dog has taken to sitting by the luggage with big eyes. He know's something is up. He's dearly hoping we wont leave him behind…well I have news for him, and it's all bad.

A call out for friends to request English treats has left little space for our clothes, never mind the dog.

We have more Shredded Wheat than shreddies; its the largest exodus of penguins from the northern hemisphere EVER (fortunately only the biscuit variety.); to keep the penguins happy, we have some weird mushy Swedish herring stuff, which I'm not convinced will be allowed in the country (at least people will be able to see us featured on 'Border Patrol'); and enough tea bags to keep all the ex-brits in NZ happy for a year.

Only one sleep until we start our journey, all pretty excited/nervous all at the same time.

Hope we don't forget toothbrushes...

Lupin loopy

Well, the weekend started off really well with a trip to the Little India Restaurant at the Lovers Leap in Stoney Middleton. What more could a girl want, beer and a curry on a Friday night.

I really like going out on a Friday after a week at work because it feels like stealing some extra weekend.

Saturday was taken up with vampires and seeing the new Twilight movie 'Eclipse'. Here's our review:

Maisie says "Amazing, loved it, magical, surprising"; Leanne says "Strangely erotic, nice touches of adult humour, fairly faithful to the novel, will see again"; Rachel says "loved the shots filmed in the forest, wasn't convinced the werewolves were real, and I want some red contact lenses".

Sunday - yes, you guessed it - Chatsworth. The lupins have taken over from the tulips. Maisie thought they looked plastic, Chess was unimpressed and more interested in seeing if there was any ice cream left. Discovery of the day was the gate-like sculpture, it reminded me of my sewn artworks only in wrought iron.