And the first month of Spring has nearly gone ...

Not sure where the time has gone.  Had a trip to Auckland in the middle of this month and spent 3 days with Amy, Matt, Kate, and Mark!!  Didn't know Mark was coming (they all managed to keep a secret!), and apparently my face was interesting when he appeared at my elbow in a menswear (of course) shop in Newmarket on the Friday afternoon.
It was good to spend some time looking at appliances and carpet.

We saw 'in the flesh' the cooker that will sit at the end of the Kitchen - once we get into the renovations!

 And Stuart fell in love with a hand knotted mat made in Nepal. Lovely and thick. So have a quote on that for an insert into our Living area in front of the fire to go with some Leather chairs and 2-seater.  We found a 2.5 seater to try out for comfort:

No luck with Lounge carpet yet, all the patterns available are not great colours!

 We all went out for tea on Friday night to Meredyths and had a 9 course degustation menu.  These were the first courses - Kate and I chose a non-fish option as you don't get choices in what is served up :)  Ours were the chippy starters and that went down just fine.  Mark's oyster which he tried cutting in bits went down and up and down again I think...

Some very interesting dishes ...  beetroot macaroons, salmon with sorbet, radish &  caviar, poached egg for so long at so many degrees (can't remember!) with bacon bits, semolina and other interesting things ..

The lamb and beef with horseradish fluff was lovely.  Two striped souls deep in discussion at one point.  Looks like it was something to do with numbers as Mark was counting with fingers :)

 Matt gave Mark a couple of lessons on how to tie his tie properly, and Amy had some lovely lillies perfuming the house while we were there.

 And, back on the farm... saucers for eyes!!  Redbands and mixing up milk .. week old calves... the year old ones are growing well, and clipping chooks wings to prevent flying away.  We picked up the second half dozen calves yesterday, so Dave & Stacey & Isaac have their work cut out for the next couple of weeks :)

There was no stopping the smiles on a beautiful Sunday in Nelson this week!
That's me for today, it has taken a while to load all the photos, and I've made a batch of biscuits, the salads for lunch, picked flowers and done a load of washing in between all this!!  Now it's time to get ready for work.