Christmas Day 2012

Christmas Day in Marlborough dawned bright and sunny.  And Hot.  Super Hot.  Thank goodness we were spending it at Liz and Steve's Bach in Onahau Bay in the Marlborough Sounds.  The best place one can ever spend Christmas!

We duly arrived at the public jetty by 9.15am and shortly after we spied a fast boat travelling our way. 

Seemed to take ages to get her though as once around the corner, the speed limit was very slow right up to the wharf..

That's a familiar person on that boat..

Oh no - she spied the camera! Looks similar a scene from out of the Titanic.. Although I have a sneaking suspicion that the Titanic sunk. Thank goodness it's too hot for icebergs today!

Hi Liz!

We loaded up the boat with all our gear - we were weighed down with Christmas presents, booze, cherries, berries, salads, togs, towels, and sunblock. We left the kitchen sink behind though! And then we left Picton behind...

On the way to the bay, we came across this sight, so Steve detoured our boat to have a closer look...

Oh a Costa Cruise.  Visiting the Marlborough Sounds! The water was incredible, flat, clam, and the usual beautiful colour of the area.

You'll have to excuse me but I took a few photos of the boat because it was such an imposing sight!

And I wasn't sure of it's best side.. We took lots of photographs and waved to the tourists, and I mused that we will probably end up on their blogs! As we were leaving, the Cruiseship was turning and then it was heading out of the sounds to its next destination..

  

We arrived at the bach to freshly made breakfast of hot croissants, Ham, cheese, tomato, and beautiful fresh fruit and yoghurt.  Absolutely delicious. It was already 28C, so we decided to do the Christmas Presents while it was still 'cool'. For just eight people, there were a heck of a lot of presents under the tree...

And so after all that hard work of shopping, choosing, wrapping and importing them to the bach, the enjoyment of opening started. Louise and Jeremy getting into the swing of things...

Mum enjoying the book I gave her full of images of her Grandaughter, Anne.

Steve concentrating hard.  I think he was trying to guess what was in there before he opened it. He was Santa Claus, but I'm still pondering the 'try me' on his hat. I didn't take up the offer though!



Liz looking excited about her pressie...

And Alex is hidden by the enormity of his present, and is totally hiding Amanda at the back there!

Oh - and this is our view.  Beautiful NZ bush with flowering Pohutakawa and blue blue sea and sky. I heard it was raining in Auckland and north. Shame!

We then went down to the jetty as it was too hot inside the house. Made ourselves comfortable, and we relaxed, drank, ate, swam, jetskied, fished, and generally had a great time. I should mention that this was my first swim in the sea since arriving to Marlborough three years ago. But it was sooo hot (30C) that one had to. Louise made us champagne cocktail consisting of Rhubarb, Orange, Honey, Strawberries and Champagne. Louise may come and live with me at any time!

While we were relaxing another cruise ship ambled by..

Jeremy and Louise took off to find out what one it was, but it's very unusual to see them go past this bay, as it gets quite shallow. We wondered if the ship would run aground and we would end up with more people for Christmas dinner!

It was the Diamond Princess this time and it went a little way further then turned around and ambled back...

Late in the afternoon we went back up to the bach, made the salads, prepared the whitebait fritters, drank some more champagne, and looked at the view...

This was our view at the table...

After munching on whitebait fritters, we tucked into Christmas dinner. Ham, Lamb, salads, new potatos, and all good things... We finished up with dessert of Christmas Pudding, Lemon Snow, and Louise had made the most amazing frozen yoghurt.  So yummy.

Merry Christmas everyone...

We were dropped back to Picton about 8pm and the moon was in the sky already.

We arrived home to summer heat.  My outside temperature guage read 36C at 8.30pm, inside was 38C!   We opened all the doors and windows but decieed it was still too hot, so we shut everything up and put the aircon on to cool us down.

I gave my poor abandoned puss a can of tuna for dinner - her Christmas special so all is forgiven for leaving her all day already!

At 10pm it was still 27C outside, and midnight still 25C. Pretty warm.

We also skyped Anne for several hours and thoroughly enjoyed catching up with her and Jori. Anne opened all her presents with us while we were on skype so that was really fun. She also gave us a tour of her apartment. I can't wait to get there! 111 days to go!

It's that Time Again..

It's that time again. You know. A month til Christmas (can we skip it this year?). Commercialism, television advertisements telling you that there is only 'n' days until Christmas and everyone clamouring that their goods must not be missed. This means shopping becomes crowded, streets become crowded, and there's traffic jams. Everything takes twice as long to do. It's enough to send me screaming into the hills.

I have already turned television OFF, as there is nothing but repeats of old series already watched, which they play year after year. I bet you Die Hard will play AGAIN this year! As much as I like Bruce Willis I have no hankering to watch that movie for the 10th time! It became boring after the first three!

Then there's the food. My local supermarket put the Christmas Chocolate display up a whole month ago. I was taken aback at that. Yesterday I saw the Hams and Turkeys already selling, and I've already been rung by a local winery with a Christmas special on bubbly. As much as I like Bubbly, I can't see myself drinking a whole 12 bottles of it with my Mother. We would both need to book into the addiction services by January 1st!

So, this year I'm going to do Christmas lightly. As I'm an atheist, I'm not into the Christian bit of Jesus's birth, and as I don't like commercialism, presents will be kept to a minimum. Food will consist of a nice dinner with my mother where we will sit down, drink, and solve the worlds problems, which will mean that World Peace will reign shortly thereafter.

We'll do local forays around and about, and explore Marlborough Nooks and Crannies. If it's fine we'll go for a picnic at the river or at Whites Bay, or pop over to the Abel Tasman for a days walk. We'll eat healthy food and lose 5 kilos instead of gaining it.

If anyone wants to join us, you are welcome. Just let me know.

The Hunters Garden Marlborough Christmas Tour Recipes

I had no sooner than put the blog up about the Christmas tour when I got an email from one of the homes with the recipes we got to try. So I'm putting them up here. I really really really recommend the fig slice, but not sure which one it is - so you'll have to make both!!!

Faye's Christmas Cake

500g butter
500g sugar
10 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp lemon essence
1 tsp almond essence
2kg mixed fruit
500g Flour
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp mixed spcie
1/2 tsp Nutmeg
Slosh of Brandy

Cream butter and sugar; add eggs one at a time.
Add all essence and brandy, sifted flour followed by fruit, mix well.
Cook slowly 130 deg for 5 hours.


Craisins and Almond Biscotti

2 cups sifted (300g) plain flour
¾ cup caster sugar
½ cup Craisins
2 ½ tsp vanilla
1 1/5 tsp Baking Powder
3/4 Cup Blanched Almonds
4 Eggs

Place all in a bowl and mix to form a dough.
Turn out onto floured surface, Shape into two 25cm x 5 cm logs and press to flatten.
Bake for 35 minutes until golden.
Cool and slice into 5 mm thick slices and bake a further 20 mts or until crisp.
Preheated oven 160.


A Slice of Spice

100g pitted prunes
100g dried apricots
100 g natural almonds roasted
300g mixed dried citrus peel
1 TBS chinese five spice
100g dried figs
100g pitted dates
100g dark chocolate chopped
100g plain flour
icing sugar to dust

Chop fruit into pieces slightly smaller than an almond, add all ingredients and mix well.
Stir in 180ml water till well combined.
Line 18cm x 27cm slices tin. Press mixture.
Cover sheet baking paper and bake in 160 deg oven for 45 mts.


Spiced Fig Roll

375g dried figs roughly chopped
50g glace ginger finely chopped
40g pistachio kernels finely chopped
½ tsp mixed spice
150g pitted dates chopped
45g blanced almonds chopped
70g dark chocolate chopped

Process figs and dates until a rough paste forms, then transfer to bowl process the rest of ingredients and mix.
Roll into two logs 23 cm long.
Wrap in plastic wrap and put in fridge 6 hours.
Cut 1cm slices.

Blenheim - Day 3 - The Hunters Garden Marlborough ChristmasTour

It's taking me ages to get through my trip to Blenheim - Heck - I'm only up to Day 3 still, and I've been back several weeks already. I have processed 93 images so far, and still have 575 to go. It's going to take a while. The good thing about doing the blogs and the images, is that it forces me to delete more photos, and be ruthless, only saving the best.

Anyway, after the daytrip to Kaikoura, grabbing a bite to eat, and saying bye to Alexandra - Nikki, Carol and I headed back into town for the first tour we had booked. The Hunters Garden Marlborough Christmas tour.

This tour encompassed 5 houses that had been dressed up especially for Christmas around Blenheim. Some were out in the vineyards, and others were in the suburbs. There was a real mix.

It was freezing cold that night, so we dressed warmly, and casually. I was still hobbling on crutches. On queueing up for the bus, we noticed we were the only casually dressed people on our tour, everyone else had dressed up to the nines. Oh well. We were dressed for comfort and warmth.

The Blenheim and South Island people on the bus that we met were lovely. I wish I could say the same thing about the Waikato Group, but unfortunately they were so up themselves, their behaviour almost came across as rude. I can't stand uppity and unfriendly behaviour like this, it's pointless and unnecessary. It really doesn't hurt to smile and be friendly.

We were hoping that we might get some hot mulled wine on the tour, but apart from half a glass of wine at the first house, that was the only drink we got offered during the whole of the tour. That was disappointing considering the tour itself was $80 each.

However, the Christmassy decorations, and the people opening up their homes were fantastic. Friendly, and informative I can't fault them. I'm not sure if I would want to put a tour bus load of people through my house at any time!! They all had gone to an incredible amount of work.

I took some photos but because I had no tripod, and it was evening, not all of them turned out well.... But a few i was pleased with...



The images above and below are actually the image. The above one is the original, of Christmas lights in a star, which looked fantastic above the mantelpiece. This particular decoration was in several of the houses we visited. I think it looks stunning. The image below has just had the levels in photoshop pulled back to make the background darker. This in turn made it more red and christmassy.



Christmas would not be christmas without cake. At each house there was a Christmas cake made and beautifully decorated giving me ideas for my own cake that I hope to make sometime before Christmas. This one I really did like - and the decoration doesn't look too hard...



This one below is more traditional, and is very similar to what my Mother makes. I live in hope that she makes one for me each year so I don't have to slave over the oven!!



These candles were a centrepeice of a beautiful table set up for Christmas. I was really pleased how the image turned out. I did ask the owner if this is actually what her table looked like on Christmas day. She said yes - but there was always more food on the day!!



Lastly the below image were of little wooden toys against a white wall in the house. It looked really effective.



We got back to Blenheim around 9.30pm, very cold and dying for a hot chocolate or coffee. Unfortunatey, Blenheim is a small town, mainly rural, and doesn't have a cafe culture. In other words, nothing was open so we headed straight back to the farm to warm up in front of the fire.

Hearing Blips at Christmas

Christmas 2007 is over thank goodness.  I unfortunately had to hit the shops this morning to return a present I had doubled up on, and got caught up in all the Boxing Day Sales at the new Albany mall.  You would think that people would have had enough of shopping by christmas, but no, people were out in force today again. Crazy!

Anyway - we had a great Christmas day with friends and family, starting with the traditional breakfast at my place, opening presents, then having a dirty santa.  No one played dirty this year, we were obviously all very happy with the gifts we opened, and no-one stole presents off anyone.  I wore my Santa Hat all day that had the words 'Ho Ho Ho' on them, even though it's meant to be derogatory to prostitutes and might scare little children!




After the usual midday xmas day walk, then snooze, we went on up to my brothers, and had too much champagne, and more food.  Guilt free for me as I did that 30km walk on Sunday so was allowed to eat and drink what I liked for one day :)

Then we decided to play cards.  My daughter told us we were going to play dump!  Weird name for a card game, but picked up the gist of the game quickly.  Basically, the idea was to 'dump' as many cards as you can, and the winner was the one who got rid of all their cards first.  I vaguely remember playing something like it years ago, but couldn't remember it ever being called dump. When a person won a hand they were given the title of  'president', and the one who came second was 'vice president'.  The person who lost was 'dump', and the person who came 2nd to last was 'vice dump'.  I still found this strange and  I even lost one hand and said I'm 'dump' - but no one said anything. They most likely thought I had said 'I'm Dumb'!!!  Nobody refuted it !!

Copious amounts of alcohol was drunk, many many laughs, screams of joy from the presidents and vice presidents, groans from the dumps and vice dumps!  

Driving home I mentioned to my daughter that I really enjoyed the evening and that we should play dump again soon.

"Dump?"  she said cracking up.

I looked at her and said - "Yes - the game was excellent"

"Dump?" she said again laughing..

"Have I got the name wrong?"

'it's SCUMMMMMMM"  she said laughing even more

"I mumbled under my breath something about being deaf etc..."

Makes sense - scum, vice scum.  Damn my Cochlear Implant not working properly though.  I obviously need to improve my lipreading a bit more, although I guess when everyone has been drinking, the words look similar on the lips!  I remember playing Scum before now too.  Sigh!  I want to hear properly again!!