All packed and ready for the off!

Clocks have swung forward an hour and we’re all set to leave the house at 7am tomorrow morning for our ferry crossing to the South Island and a week’s holiday in Nelson. It’s always a mission getting the car packed with all the essentials and I wish I could be more zen about packing. It’s bad enough deciding what I want to take – let alone thinking of everyone else. Anyway, after having a little paddy in the morning I was feeling on top of the packing by the afternoon. Good friends Steph and Francis came round to take my mind off the suitcases and Dan baked a cake in honour of Steph’s 24th Birthday! Let’s just say it was entertaining to be in the kitchen and watch the chef in action!

After the cake (and before) there were plenty of crazy laughs and antics from all. The girls have discovered stair sledging and have had a raucous time of it all week. Fueled with a ton of sugar from the cake there was no stopping them!

Steph and Francis are kindly house, cat and fish sitting for us whilst we are away for the week. So it was an absolute delight to see them before we head off. We had a great afternoon. The girls were totally fooled by the clocks being wound forward. We did it at 6.30pm, when they were flagging and all of a sudden said, ‘Look! It’s 7.30pm, best be off to bed so we’re all set for our early rise and holiday!’. And to our amazement (and absolute delight) they obeyed the clock. They’ve been going to bed pretty late – 8.30pm for Sophie and 9.00pm for Charli, so it was particularly great that they hit the sack an hour earlier than usual. We don’t anticipate our luck to last though – they’ll soon cotton on to the lighter evenings and won’t want to miss out on the daylight.

Ah, spring is in the air! Though this past week we’ve had a few cold snaps to shake us up. Thankfully, the forecast for the crossing looks reasonable. We’re glad we didn’t sail today – as a mean southerly was blowing through and chopping up the Cook Strait right and proper! We’re packed for all weathers and will look forward to a fab time whatever is thrown at us.

Here’s a collage of Dan’s cooking skills (with a little help in the icing department from Charli & Sophie!):