A way to keep in touch: Winter is coming

These are the last glorious days of summer. I've lost count of how many people have commented to me that 'Winter Is Coming' in a voice laden with Capitals. Is Gisborne simply filled with Game of Thrones fans or are they just very preoccupied with the seasons? We have heard that there's not much to do in winter here. Given that the town is famous for surf, beach, and vineyards, I can see their point. Still, time to drink all that wine accumulated over the years eh?

So these are the last days of summer.

We went to Auckland again over the weekend. I had an ophthalmic meeting in Hamilton, which was heaps of fun - really very very nice to meet registrars my own age or just a bit older and to chat to them about careers, eyes and non-related silly things. I shadowed Graham in clinic then did acutes, and then we had a very relaxed lunch out, an afternoon of presentations, and then quite a riotous dinner afterwards on the little kids' table (translation: the registrars' table. Reg1: "come sit with us!" Reg2: (waving a bottle of wine) "we have little kids' juice!"). Lots of laughter and fun and exceedingly frivolous chat in contrast to the adults' table followed (translation: consultants' table. Reg3: (raising her voice) "hahaha! Yes, we are laughing, but we are just having a good chat about the latest ophthalmic trials.")

Auckland was lovely - saw Rich and Kiri again, now all moved in, and we ate a lot of delicious baked goods on the way over to Waiheke on Saturday (see above) in preparation for our bike around Waiheke.

Mistake.

Tim and I have biked around a few vineyards in our time. Napier. Martinborough (we didn't even bike Martinborough - we just walked). Marlborough. I bike around Gizzy (though not to vineyards) and around Palmy (ditto that) for work. Everywhere we've done was pretty flat, and we've become old and lazy in the face of NZ's exceeding flatness. We were dimly aware of all the volcanoes and hills around, but 'surely nothing is as bad as Headington Hill' as we said to ourselves, blithely picking out a bike for our tour of Waiheke.

Hideous.

Waiheke is basically one big hill, studded all over with little hills, up and down and up and down and up and bloody down all over the place. I was clearly far too self congratulatory about having done Headington Hill at one point in the dim and distant past, conveniently forgetting that I hadn't cycled a proper hill for about 2 years. I was destroyed.

Luckily we had a lot of wine and delicious food to comfort us, and then beer and delicious dessert, and then more wine and more food, and then eventually we ran into the sea in our underwear as we were just too bloody hot, and that was the best thing ever, until we had to put our clothes back on again.

Me and Rich

underweared

beautiful Waiheke

Auckland gets a bad press really in NZ as it's almost a real city, but it was very beautiful in the sunset, with the Sky Tower on the horizon. I love the summer light and night in NZ. It's sad it's starting to fade.

One more day of blue sky

We also thought we'd document the last days of Gizzy summer to remember it all by. Here's the railway bridge we cross all the time, with some kids sitting on - there are always kids sitting on the bridge daring each other to jump off. I've been saying I'm going to jump off for ages but never have yet. Maybe this week.