Hiya!

Pasifika was fab as were the fireworks and fire display!

It was a swelteringly hot, hot day and we set off excitedly with our bottles of water to Western Springs for the Pasifika festival first.

It was GREAT! We were immediately greeted by grass skirted dancers shaking their hips etc along to very Pacific Island type music. Here you go....



Isn't it all so very colourful?!

These girls were very good - really enjoyed watching them. They came all the way from Tahiti:


Had to drag husband away from this very stunning young lady - Miss Pacific Islands something or other:





Very pretty young lady.



Lovely Tongan art.



Some more Tongan art.


Tongan lady making the tapa cloth from the bark of the mulberry tree.



Tongan man roasting a very yummy pig! Very popular stall this was.....



Remote controlled dinosaur - what this had to do with the Pacific Islands I do not know- but it was really fun!

After an exhausting afternoon of visiting the variety of islands around the Pacific (consuming huge amounts of roast pig, chop suey, chicken drumsticks, ice-cream, pineapple, coconut milk fresh from the coconut etc etc), we boldly ventured onto the Domain and proceeded to further stuff our faces with a yummy picnic and bottles of wine.

The display was FANTASTIC! At one point, the fireworks were so bright that we saw blue sky instead of dark night and stars! Here you go:









What a lovely day! My friend Helen was at the firework display too! And once again - completely free (the day's events I mean)! Apart from the food and drink we bought and petrol of course! It was so lovely to enjoy it all with friends whilst sharing our picnics and wine - great!

This weekend, was much calmer due to being VERY tired from all the other weekends - I just pottered about, visited the market, caught up with friends and generally chilled out - very nice.

I read the local paper tonight and have decided to venture out and meet (being a new immigrant) friendly New Zealanders in order to chat and improve my English. Should be fun!

Hope you all had a fabbie St Paddy's Day (thanks for the card) and (for all you UK mums) an even better Mothers Day. I did.

I love the CD Cossa!

We're having Duffy Day tomorrow at school - a famous New Zealander will be visiting and handing out free books to the kids. (Reminder to myself - 'must look professional'). I'm sure we'll give her a rousing sing of the Duffy Song!

Have been eating lots of cape gooseberries from plants that look like weeds in my garden - very yummy - just growing madly here - much to daughter's disgust (she loves them and they're quite rare and expensive in the UK).



They are called physalis - I have finally found out the name! Kept calling them the syphallis fruit cos I knew it sounded something like that, but couldn't quite remember it correctly!

Well - on that note, I'd better go and eat more!

Tara.

x Sue