Fond Farewells

The countdown was on, with less than a fortnight to our departure, it was time to say haere ra to our lovely Auckland friends. Given that our house currently contains just 2 beds and the kitchen white goods, Nickie and Russ kindly volunteered/agreed to host our party at their spacious house in Green Bay. We'd hoped to BBQ and enjoy Russ' big deck (cue Michael McIntyre jokes) but the heavens opened on Friday and the rains never stopped!

Thank you to all of our lovely friends who braved the monsoon weather on Saturday evening and came to wish us bon voyage and hear more about our plans.

Lily & Finn and Alex & Eli were fab and whizzed around reminding us very much of our parentng days!

And we had to take a pic with Liana and her many physiotherapy clients - without her awesome skills and magic fingers, most of us would not still be standing!

Everyone brought a plate to share and we had enough to feed an army! I found myself accidentally making a speech when all I wanted was to tell everyone that dinner was ready!

It was so lovely seeing friends from all aspects of our life in Blockhouse Bay over the past 15 years - friends made when the kids were at primary & intermediate school, friends through friends, neighbours, work & music colleagues and even uni friends from Louis' dim & distant past!

Thank you Fernandi for hosting; thank you Tomkinsons for helping out and creating wicked cocktails; thank you for being our "Like Whānau" here in Auckland - we are gonna miss you on our travels, so you'd better come and find us in Te Wai Pounamu!