change of plans...

Travel plans are on hold for a little while. Jon has a project at work he needs to stay on for so we won't be leaving until end of april or beginning of may. I'm still leaving my job at the end of January but not sure what I will do after that. I'm hoping it won't be too difficult to find a job for a few months, although I have to wait for a change of work visa for that to happen also.

We had a great two weeks holiday. We had the house mostly to ourselves for a week then we went to a friend's batch up in Golden Bay for new years with a bunch of people. Actually, they had two batches right next to each other so we didn't have to camp like we thought we would. We spent most of the time just hanging out, walking on the beach, playing silly card games, and drinking a lot of beer. We even went cockling, which I think is just like clamming. You go out during low tide and find little clams buried in the sand, then leave them to sit in fresh water for a while so they expel all the sand and grit. Then boil them, open and pull the snotty-looking meat out. Al (our host) made pancakes with them. I wasn't brave enough to taste them but Jon did.
It was really nice to get away, even if it was cold and rainy most of the time.

I think that's all the news for now, check out the pics below. the first half are from lochmara lodge and the marlborough sounds, second half from new years at the batch. i got a bit carried away with the koru (the plants that look like fiddlehead ferns):
<--prev pic::::next pic-->