Weekend away.

We just spent the weekend in Papamoa at the Page family's beach house. It was a lovely getaway from the day to day routine and so good to feel the sand under my feet and grit in my teeth! Yes, the wind was up, so we sadly didn't spend a lot of time on the beach, but still, just looking up and seeing the waves, hearing them, smelling the sea air and not having any duties or demands, was just lovely. The children loved it, despite the fact that they were indoors a lot of the time - they amused themselves quite well for hours, until Ben's mum took them to her cousin a couple of doors down for a mini adventure. They came back all elated and showing off their newspaper trees and ladders they'd made along with their button necklaces they'd carefully constructed. It turns out Colleen has a huge collection of buttons put aside for exactly such an occasion: to amuse and occupy small children! We had an impromptu visit from Kushla from further down the beach who heard we were all staying the weekend, complete with freshly baked muffins. NICE! No shortage of cake and muffins, tea, coffee, chocolate and laughs.

On Saturday night we had a go at playing Trivial Pursuit (how long has it been!?) - girls against boys (4 vs 3). Girls got whipped. Then we divided into different teams with me pairing up with Ben and his dad. It was a close game but in the end, I was the ultimate loser, losing both games, while Fraser was the ultimate winner. I had had a glass of wine around 4pm which truly had me melting into my chair and giggling at the daftest things - SUCH a cheap date! Ha ha. I collapsed into a fit of giggles when I had to read the question:" Does Uranus have an aurora?" - it was extremely funny (for me). Yes, it turns out, it does.

Sunday night I opted for a beer with dinner, which was much more sensible. There were 4 of us on Sunday night (not including the kids) and we all spent it sitting in the lounge, listening to the surf, reading a book. Hours went by in a comfortable silence, broken occasionally with a yawn. At 8.30pm we were all ready for bed, but hung in there till about 10pm until lights out. Hardly a word was spoken and it was fine. Comfortable. Brilliant.