Great weekend

Taken on Sunday afternoon - the magnolia grandiflora perfume was intoxicating and clearly the bee thought so as well, as it was struggling around the flower.

For once we had fabulous weather the whole weekend - quite windy on Saturday but very hot Sunday. I spent Saturday morning at work but I didn't get as much done as I thought I would, for two reasons. The first, I just couldn't drag myself into work on such a brilliant day but the second is funny.

I. came in with me as he'd forgotten to take his boat keys with him on Friday, so thought he'd come in and ride his motorbike home. He headed off and about 20 minutes later I get a phone call - "Hullo" says a sheepish voice and it was him. I thought time had got away from me and that he was home but no. "Can you bring some fuel out to me on the side of the road half way home?" He'd been so excited that the bike had started on the first kick that he didn't stop to see how much fuel he had and just raced off. So I had an hour round trip to rescue him which really cut into my work time.

I got home about 2pm and we headed off to Lake Lyndon to meet up the D. & A. and the twins. D. has a large, old jet boat that he shares with his brother and has never used. As they're coming up to the Classic Boat Show at Lake Rotoiti with us next weekend, they were very keen to drop it in the drink in private first in case he wouldn't start. We took our boat up as well to act as a coast guard boat if necessary but everything went very well.

After we'd all blatted around the lake a bit, we drifted around in the middle with the motors off so the 3 boys could jump in off the boats and thrash around while wearing their life jackets. Then the blokes went off for a blat in the jet boat to see what it could do whilst A. and I. sat round in the sun, watching the young boys play in a mud wallow they'd found. They were thrashing around in there up to their hips like hippos and then one of them stripped right off and wallowed up to his neck!! Typical boys - the dirtier the better as far as they're concerned. I'm sure that if I was 7 I would have been right in there with them. It took a bit of sluicing in the lake afterwards to get the mud off and their clothes had to be hung on the line and blasted with the hose before being washed!

A. & I then left the blokes at the lake to do a little fishing, while we went back to their house at Castle Hill and sat round in the sun talking. It was fabulously warm - at least 25 degrees but as soon as the sun disappeared behind the mountains the temperature dropped by at least 10 degrees. The boys gave up fishing quite quickly because easterly cloud rolled in over Porters Pass and they froze.

Barbecue tea (venison - yum!) and a bottle of vino finished off a fabulous day. We headed for home about 11pm and because I was all tuckered out, I kept dropping off to sleep. Good thing I. is always the driver on these occasions. It was a slow trip home because we were towing the boat but went relatively quickly for me.

The most annoying thing about the day? I forgot to take my camera with me! I felt I carried it with me at all times but obviously not. Hence the tame flower photo.