Shortest Day

Yesterday saw the shortest day pass. Unfortunately, the saying goes 'the days get longer, the cold gets stronger'. The southern half of 'the mainland' has been hit pretty heavily by a polar blast, and our minds are consumed pretty much completely by thoughts of insulation and heat pumps.

The shortest day also saw us standing in the pouring rain watching the grand opening of the new lights on the New Brighton pier. These actually turned out to be pretty impressive, the lights sort of pulse different colours along the columns, hard to explain but quite impressive.

On the home front, the nesting hormone (ikeadrene) appears to be taking over Annie's life. Evidence of this includes

• Coming home each day to discover a new curtain has appeared over a window, portal or cubbyhole
• Your house is now home to around a forests worth of paint swatch prints, and you are expected to have a strong opinion on the merits of the colour 'oatmeal' over 'Autumn Husk'. Failure to do so will see you regarded as the emotionless caveman that you obviously are.
• Your spouse proudly announces 'today, I hoovered the hoover'

Mum and baby are both well, with the latter doing regular impressions of 'Alien'.

Got another visitor on the way this Sunday, Tim is staying for a couple of nights en route to a season doing ski tuition in Wanaka .. lucky bugger! Also congrats to the Simmersons and Jacobs on getting NZ residency .. awooga!

Stay warm, and hello to all the Glastonbury goers, have a nice swim!

Malc & Annie

Home from home

We've arrived home safe and sound from Blighty. Think it will take at least a year to convince us to fly again, the world may be getting smaller but it's still pretty big when you have to fly half way round it.

Hopefully everyone has now heard our biggest news, if not your about to! At the end of October we will be parents. We had our second scan today, and all looks good. They gave us a pretty good idea of the sex, but we won't blog it for those of you who don't want to know! Annie is starting to look bigger now and getting a regular kicking, obviously stretching those surfing legs.

A huge thanks to everybody who made an effort to see us while we were back, and apologies to everyone we didn't manage to catch up with. It was lovely to see you all and catch up on the gossip. Special thanks go out to:

• Nigel and Carole for letting us mess up their house and putting up with the 'old codger' jokes.
• Dax, Mary and Isaac for helping us survive in the woods.
• Carol H for letting us mess up her house and putting up with the 'old Nana' jokes.
• Oli, Linda and Imogen for inviting 'The Family' to converge on their house (brave souls), and to all the Bells for coming.
• Fern, Will, Harry & Boz for the exceptional company, hospitality and risotto.
• Chris, Jo and Dylan for pizza & 'Spaced'.
• The Jacobs and Simmersons for rainy parties & bbq's.
• The Mill Hotel Bar for becoming our second home.
• Brett and Rachael for tea, biscuits and 'fat pants'!

And all the rest of you!

We are settling into the depths of winter, trying to turn into tough Kiwis. It's running up to the ski season, so all eyes are on the mountains and regular snow dances are being performed. Annie will unfortunately be grounded this season but will be compiling reports of the best on-mountain cafes.

More news soon, take care all,

Malc & Annie