bliss

the week so far (thought it's been much longer than that since i posted) has been about perfect.

Sunday was the perfect day - drove out of town, after breakfast, toward Wainui. Went over the hills for the view and walked a wee way at the sign of the bellbird. then drove around to little river, got coffee and looked at gallery, then drove up to hilltop to drink coffee, and appreciate yet another spectacular view

onto wainui, where we set up our picnic blanket, on a tarpaulen, and had lunch, then coffee, and talked and just sat in silence, read our books, bibles, i even wrote in my journal. finished reading epic - by john eldredge - reccomend to anyone interested in the heart of things (christian perspective, but totally refreshing).

green tea and more appreciating the view

then it started cooling down and the sun was getting closer to the hills so we packed up and visited the cheese factory at barry's bay. bought ourselves a selection of cheeses, some wine, a few other treaties. then went around to devauchelles for an icecream and more photos. really is a remarkable country...

drove home - well back to luuk's, and sampled the wine, hung out with mike for a bit, got some fishnchips for dinner, then watched serenity, as we'd finished the tv series firefly the day before, and the movie wraps it all up. movie finished at 20 to 9, which we realised at 10 to 9, then bullied mike and merodie into leaving, went to my place and speed changed, to be only 20 mins late to matty's jazz review at sammy's jazz review. great party, despite being on a sunday night, and starting after 9 pm, so quite a late one since the next morning was really early. had work at 7.30, but others, more crazy or dedicated or something, were at the casino at 6am for the worldcup final, and breakfast.

i saw a snippet of it while getting a coffee at work, but by my next break italy had done their beautiful thing and everyone was back to talking about the all black who went on the field. teehee.

monday wouldn't have been part of the perfect week, except for the evening - booked flights for trip up north. going to meet luuk's whanau, visit some of mine in the area, then to see hillary in auckland, and probably my grandparents, before flying home. gonna be a fabulous four days. never booked tickets for 2 people before, very exciting.

then tuesday, had lunch with karla, after my lecture, then to work. lovely email from luuk to keep me going and give me something to look forward to... he picked me up at 8, and drove us round to taylor's mistake, where there was a picnic on the beach, wine, cheese and crackers (the wainui selection of seven cheeses - though we had the strong ones first so the milder ones weren't so impressive) and chocolate and green tea for later, sat on the beach under the high cloud (moonlight and stars would have been more romantic but clear nights mean cold nights and it was nice and mild, and i barely shiverred at all!)

all together a pretty fantastic three days. doing navs study with him tonight, which is always great - gets us talking about important stuff and being honest with eachother - good foundational stuff. but i don't see how the week can improve a whole lot on the last 3 days. if i can maintain this state of bliss, that'll be enough.