Christmas in Wellington

Jan & I had a lovely time in Wellington - the company and the weather were both fabulous.

We had Weinachten (Xmas Eve) with Jeremy, Tina, Brigitte, John, Tanja, Otto and Lara at the Nelson's in Karori. Everyone had made so much delicious food, it was terribly tempting to eat until we popped! A great night, and everyone was very good about us boring them with our German photos :-) 

We had a lovely, low-key Christmas day, starting with a wonderful brunch with Hartmut & Uta. We peacefully drove home the slow way down Stokes Valley & through Hutt City, with Jan giving me a tour of places he used to go, and where his friends lived. We had a walk along the Petone waterfront. Very relaxing and peaceful. Then we caught up with some friends at the Intercontinental Hotel & had a light meal for dinner there, which was perfect.

We were asked to do some extra activities (eg going to the European painting exhibition at Te Papa, and, while I would have loved to have gone, it would take another three hours and would have cut down on our time with friends & family), which after some discussion on various ideas, we declined all extras. 

On Boxing Day we went to see Doug & Morv who were preparing for their Boxing Day BBQ, before heading back to Karori to Tina's Boxing Day BBQ. Tina had along some people we already knew, and some we didn't. Hui-Ping came, and then some other friends unexpectedly arrived to pick her up - Ella & Alenas with their son Nikus - whom Jan & I hadn't seen for several years as they had been in the US, and we had a good and unexpected catch up. 

So we had a lovely, low pressure Christmas, thanks to learning to say "no"! And we left our camera at home, but hopefully we will get some photos off the others. 

More news next week :-)