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Published: October 21st 2010
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Me and my nephews
Levi on the left and Lucas on the right Yes, it seems like the world is growing up around me. I came home for my baby sister's wedding, to meet my two nephews for the first time as well as Cara and Blairs' twins and to celebrate Brendan and Renee's engagement. Thankfully none of that seems to contaminated me just yet despite my apparent marriage and annulment confusing family members. After many hours of flights, I finally landed back home and do you know what the first thing was that I noticed as I approached customs? New Zealanders have an accent. In London on the tube, you can often pick who the New Zealanders are by the way the speak but this was the first time that I had properly noticed it and I noticed it more and more over my week and a half home whether it be in malls or on the radio.
Mum was at the airport to greet me and it was back to her place where I was staying and we had a family dinner as I caught up with the family who I hadn't seen since as little as a couple of months or over five years, and I got to meet my
Lucas and I
Lucas getting his adrenaline rush nephews for the first time as well. Lucas is only 18 months old but has a promising career as a cyber criminal ahead of him. He already has a talent for all things electronic, including a fascination with my laptop, and a very handy habit of picking up wallets if people leave them lying around. Very well trained.
That night I headed out as well to meet up with my friends and as I turned up I said 'Hello', a few started to leave! I knew I should have showered before coming out. The excuse was they had to get the 4 month old twins home to bed but I could see right through that. After a drink or two and some catch up I crawled home to sleep for the first time in a couple of days. The next day I started on my mental list of things to do while in New Zealand, ie NZ food like bakery food and Burger Fuel. I also managed to squeeze in a lunch with Amanda and Sam before Sam flew off to Fiji. That night I met up with Brendan and Renee for the first time since London for a
screening of TopGun in preparation of Brendan's 30th birthday party the following night. Later I was out again catching up with more people before I had to get home for some beauty sleep before my sister's wedding the next day.
I would like to say the day dawned fine and with picture perfect blue skies, but in reality the heavens opened and it poured down for the majority of the day, yet it didn't dampen the occasion at all. Though if Lucas could talk he might have argued that point when he started to turn slightly blue as the icy winds streaked through the awning as the bride walked down the aisle. Thankfully for his sake the ceremony went quickly and successfully and he quickly became the star of the show as every female in the building queued up to have their turn holding him and keeping him warm. For the rest of us, we retreated to the other way of keeping warm - alcohol, as the champagne was passed out. Once we had polished off that, we retreated to the warmth of the reception area for the dinner which was fantastic. My mouth is watering right now remembering
that ham. After the speeches, cakecutting and dances, and after most people were well and truly drunk, I wished everyone farewell and headed off to my second party of the night, Brendan's 30th.
On the way I transformed from the brother of the bride to become Maverick the naval aviator. The party was well under way but I still got to see everyone for a good few hours and got to learn that despite people turning 30 and getting engaged, they never really grow up as the main entertainment of the night was fake poo. The next day was a bit of a recovery day as I joined Clay, Stew, Katie and Claire for brunch and a movie before joining them and Leah and Rini for a Thai dinner.
The next day was a family outing as I joined my Uncle and Aunty and others for a day out at Waiwera. It certainly has gone downhill from what I remember as a kid as half the slides have disappeared and most places need a coat of paint at the least. My other nephew Levi (barely one), also joined us in the pools and loved it. That night I
was out again for a 'farewell' dinner (Indian this time) as Claire returned down to Christchurch after a week or so up in Auckland for work. The following night was a catch up with Alaina and Leah as Alaina was off to Malaysia for work the next day - very nice.
Over my last few days, I went and visited Cara and her twins, Liam and Nathan, had lunch again with a rather hungover Amanda, had dinner with Leah, and caught up for a few drinks with Jess and Clay. Then finally I had a family lunch to finish off (with the star of the show being Nana's delicious pies, which I managed to get a drunken promise from her at the wedding that she would make them for me before I left), and my own Welcome Home/Leaving/Birthday party hosted by Cam. It was in a sport theme - very me, even with a beer pong tournament. Unfortunately I was knocked out in the first round by eventual finalist Renee, but it was a good night. Then before I knew it, I was back on a plane, back to the UK, to work and hopefully a very exciting last
year in London before the real world calls again.
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