The Trip Begins

The day started off with a heavy frost, but fortunately the roads were clear, and we had no real trouble getting out to the airport. The plane went off on time, after we'd said our last lot of goodbyes. A couple of guys who saw us hugging a son and a daughter and a daughter-in-law and a grandson said they wished they had someone to hug them goodbye. I offered, but they seemed to think that was going a bit too far.

By this time the day was beautiful and we had a smooth trip. There was some concern on the part of the hostesses early in the piece about a petrol smell that was obvious around the area we were sitting in. It turned out that a guy accompanying someone who looked like a wrestler (his name was Big Boy, apparently, and one of the hostesses said she was a fan of his), had some petrol on his shoes, and had to go and wash them. Celia noticed that the hostesses had a partly-finished crossword on the bottom of their drinks trolley, and said she had our crossword machine with her. They told us that they were trying to finish the crossword before the pilots, so we offered to have a go, and in due course got it done - after some making some false starts.

Libby picked us up from the airport after we'd left our two big bags at a storage place in the International section, and we drove out to her new flat - they only moved in last weekend. It's a two storey unit, one of about twenty identical attached ones, and it's very nice: lovely big open plan living room/kitchen, three bedrooms upstairs, three toilets (one downstairs in the laundry, one in the bathroom, and one in the en suite next door to that!). There's a garage, and an outside area at the front, but no grass. Although along the back of the units there's a long stretch of (very wet) grass, and a path leading down to the marina. Hundreds of boats moored, almost as far as the eye can see. Beside the pier at the end of the path there were dozens of little sprat-like fish leaping up above the water level and vanishing again. Further along there was a dredge digging great slabs of mud out of the water, and further along still was a curious device that took boats out of dry dock in the boat-builder's yard, on a kind of sling slung from a crane-like machine that slid along a track on wheels. Very cunning.

About four Libby took us to our friend's place, where we stayed the night. She managed to get a bit lost - although she's doing very well in the Auckland traffic - and while her trip there took nearly an hour, her trip home took about ten minutes!