Happy Festive Season to you all! I hope you had a lovely Christmas and New Year!

We had a great few days, even though we only took a few days off work. We had some visitors over from Sydney staying for Christmas while they are touring around the South Island a little bit. We also invited some local friends and their toddler to spend Christmas Day with us – they also provided us with our first ever live Christmas tree! – so we had a full house!

Luckily, everyone chipped in with helping prepare all the food and beverages during the day and we ended up with a delicious roast with heaps of tasty roast veg! Having a Summer Christmas for the first time in about five years was slightly strange. It ended up being a pleasant but cool day, so while we had the big lunch out on our deck we moved inside again pretty quickly after clearing all our plates.

Summer here is a pretty different experience to Summer in Melbourne – although that’s hardly surprising given we are even further south than Hobart in Tasmania (previously the furthest south I have ever been!).

Then on New Years’ Eve, we had a pretty quiet one as all our guests had left to continue travelling. A cup of tea in bed where we could see the fireworks being held in the Octagon was as exciting as it got!