Wednesday 1st September

Hi! Today is the first day of Spring! Isn't that exciting? What a lovely morning it is in Lower Hutt too... sunny and hardly any wind; I even put the washing out. Aren't I chirpy?

Last night Adrian and I went to dinner at Plum on Cuba Street in the city. I really liked the building and our waiter was pretty attentive (you know when they're almost annoying but only just not). We had yummy bread and dips to start, then Adrian had chicken breast (I know, boring, right?) and I had beetroot, blue cheese and spinach salad. Mmmm my salad was so damn good. It also had toasted hazelnuts in it and all the flavours went together superbly. I also had a glass of Nelson (can't remember the label) Pinot Gris which was divine. However, it could have been any other white wine for all I know, because the waiter poured it for me at the bar, not at my table, and that felt strange. Isn't that strange? Aren't they supposed to pour it in front of you? Now that I think about it, wine has been brought to me in a glass before (without the bottle) and I don't think it seemed wrong those times.

Anyway so we finished our meal and waited patiently for our plates to be cleared. And waited. And waited. I think we had our empty plates in front of us for longer than we were eating. I honestly think he forgot about us. He was diligently working on his other two tables, filling water, clearing plates, setting dessert cutlery etc. But nothing down our end. It was a shame, because everything else was pretty much perfect (though I'm not entirely sure what Adrian thought of his chicken).

We decided that ordering dessert from them would be rewarding their forgetting about us so we got up and paid and then went to Ernesto for dessert. I was hoping the dessert menu had changed since we went there early this year, but it was still the same so again I got the chocolate fondant. It was good, though I'm pretty sure not worth the $16 they charge for it since it was pretty small and not any better than other fondant I've had. It was still nice though to go out for dinner in the city.

On the weekend Adrian and I went up to Taupo to meet Mum and Dad and Anna and Rob to celebrate Dad's 60th birthday. Ironic, it is, because if Dad had his way he would have done nothing, I'm pretty sure. As it was it proved rather dangerous to try and pull him away from the rugby on Sky. We stayed in a swish apartment Mum found on BookaBach (I think). It was a nice weekend, first night we had home made roast pork (yum). On Saturday we went to the Prawn Park for lunch and Anna and Rob went prawn fishing (caught 3). Auntie Diane had bought Dad a voucher for a Huka Jet boat ride so he did that and we also hit some golf balls at the driving range thing (surprisingly fun). For dinner we went to Lotus, a Thai restaurant. My entree ("Money Bags") and main (duck red curry) were both very nice.

On Sunday Adrian and I went out for breakfast at Replete cafe. I had muesli and yoghurt with rhubarb (a very yummy and not-done-enough addition) and Adrian had "Assyrian eggs" which he thoroughly enjoyed. Later on we played mini-golf and get this - I won! I'm not sure how that happened. I had a lucky hole-in-one on the very first hole - I couldn't find my ball for a while before realising it was in the hole after my first shot - but otherwise I generally do pretty crappy. Anna came second and Mum came third so it was all the girls in front.

Love xxx