My Christmas in New Zealand

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Well it did not really feel like Christmas. We had no decorations in the flat as we knew we were only here for a year it was just too much of an expense and well we were happily spending the money elsewhere. Quite often with the type of work that I do I am working at Christmas time but now I had the Christmas free we were definitely not going to spend it stuck in our tiny flat on our own. Yes it would be a quiet Christmas with just hubby and I but it was going to be one to remember! When I finally managed to drag hubby to the supermarket it was the Christmas eve eve and we had just decided, well I decided that we would be cooking a turkey for Christmas Day. I would cook on Christmas Eve and then we could take a picnic with us to a beach...any beach...if the weather was nice. I managed to find a huge frozen turkey at the supermarket which only meant that we would be eating turkey for a few weeks. Hubby was not too convinced but at this point he just did not have any choice in that matter.

Christmas Eve

On Christmas eve hubby popped into the office which suited me fine as I had some last minute organising to do. I got wine for Christmas eve and Christmas day and the Italian tradition is to eat fish on Christmas eve so I headed to the fish market to get us a beautiful whole snapper. I will just diverge a minute to mention that Auckland's fish market in Westhaven is well worth a visit for fresh fish! There are also restaurants there and they have a market which sells what can be best described as 'deli' products. Shopping done now it was time to get some cooking done.

I was doing turkey, a bacon and egg pie, a chocolate and blueberry cheesecake and the fish for dinner so I had to start early. Hubby got home late afternoon and immediately opened a bottle of wine. After I finished the pie and dessert and got the turkey in the oven the only thing I felt for was a cold beer. So he had already got halfway through the bottle of wine but I evilly sent him out to get me some cold beer! After a refreshing break it was already time to put the fish on! I am not one to brag but damn the fish did taste good! On the side was roasted kumara our first experience of and it won't be our last. Kumara is similar to sweet potato and I have now unfortunately just discovered it is great with mustard and honey. Of course once a cake is baked we are not a couple who wait till the day after so we tucked into some cheesecake as well! So after successfully stuffing ourselves with what I believe was a kilo of fish and dessert we vegetated in front of the TV before heading to bed!

Christmas Day

Merry Christmas. The sun is shining and we are up early and head to church. We have decided to spend Christmas Day at Tawharanui Regional Park only about an hour or so from Auckland. Picnic packed off we head. It is a smooth drive all the way until the last few meters when it is an unsealed road.

Being part of an open sanctuary makes Tawharanui that little bit extra special being home to a selection of birds and native bush. You first pass by a lake where I glimpsed a couple having set up their table and chairs for a quiet meal....how romantic! We were not being romantic today....we were beaching it! We headed to Anchor Bay where there were the majority of people. Another of New Zealand's beautiful white sandy beaches. It was quite busy but as usual there is more than enough beach for everyone and we managed to find some shade by some rocks and settled down for our picnic. It was a lovely affair if I do say so myself! Our bottle of wine slowly went down as we nibbled on turkey sandwiches and bacon and egg pie. The sun was hot and the water was very inviting so this was also the day we chose to have our first swim in the Pacific Ocean and boy it was COLD! It was quite funny as I was being rather dramatic about getting wet and a lady actually asked me where I usually swim and I automatically said the Caribbean sea...she kind of said 'Excuse me'. It must have sounded rather posh and I did not have time to explain that it was the land of my birth!

Unfortunately as usual every good day must come to an end and we dusted off the sand and headed home.

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