Monday and Tuesday!

So Monday came and I had been busy on Sunday calling people up so I could start making some connections with locals. I had arranget to meet Lynda Lucas and Liz Fulton. They were both friend of friends and I had been packing all morning in order to leave the following day before I set out to meet Lynda (Gail Penny good friend) and we went for lunch at a spanish resturant very near to both my hostel and her work. It was the first decent meal I had in what had felt like a long while and I tried not to look too delighted when the tortillia with chorizo amd salad arrived. She was very nice to me and explained how her daughter had just been traveling about the country with some swedish friends of hers and that she would be a good person to talk to. She paid for lunch and told me that she would pass on her details to her daughter.
Next I went in search of a bus that would take me to somewhere called Remuera or Newmarket. I eventually found the bus station and was told which stop I could catch the bus there. I hoped on and I asked the driver if he could let me know when to get off for Newmarket. He didn't really understand me and so when I tried to repeat myself I exasserbated the situation by excentuating my british accent! The woman behind me told me not to wory and she would let me know when to get off. We began talking and I fould out that she had over the years traveled the worls and lived for a long time in many countries even though she started out as an English woman she had now lived for more years in NZ than she had in the UK. I had an address but no real sense of where I was going so she suggested that I find a bookshop and search out a street atlas and make my way from Newmarket for Remuera was a fair way on from there.
I did exactly that and I was concious of the bookshop staff one of which was lurking nearby while I was hovering with a mobile phone poised ready to take a few pictures of the relevent pages. I pretended to text until he has left me along long enough to snap the map and bolt with the illegal copyright infringing images!

It was about 40 mins of walking before I ended up where I needed to be Liz's house was large and impressive, modern and slightly intimidating as I walked up the long flight of steps to the solid, wooden front door. I rang the bell and within a few moments she opened it with 'you must be Helen!' It was airy and light and very slick and art was hung about the walls and placed on tables strategically. The kitchen was dominated by a large worktop island the length if the kitchen area and it was marble topped and shiney. At the end of the space there was a seating area with black leather sofas and a view into the garden on the right and the pool past the patio area directly infront of the glass doors that separated the seating area from the patio. Liz explained that the pool had once been a tennis court but served them better as a pool for the children of which she had three two boys and the youngest was a girl and she had to be taken to her tennis lesson soon. The girl had had a birthday the day before and would I like some banana cake with lurid iceing? ...silly question really. After the tea and banana cake (which I was kindly given some to take away with me) We - Liz, her daughter and I- piled into the car and they dropped me at the bus stop before heading off the the tennis lesson.

I had arranged to meet Penel the next morning at 10.30 after I had checked out of the Base hostel and walked up the short but steep hill to the bottom of Sky Tower. She was lovely! She greeted me with a big kiss and bundled me into her car. Salt and pepper tight curls topped her smiling face. she was very chatty and I felt myself warm to her at once! We arrived at her house and I couldn't believe my eyes! I was to stay in a fairy house! It had one main pointy roof which came down to near the ground and pointed gothic arched wooden frame sash windows. The place was terracotta in colour and behind the garden fence there was a the low patio it was covered in vines hanging from a covered frame and it was surrounded by pots with palsms, ferns and succulents.

After we had arrived we had a cup of tea and then were off again! Her middle daughter Suzie was ill and had been going through hours of d and v! erk! But she was feeling a little better and just to make sure she was ok she was going to the doctor to get looked over for she was due to give birth in 6 weeks! So we picked her up and took her off to the doctor and then to the supermarket to do some food shopping for the rest of the week. This was the first time that I had seen an abundance of fruit and vegatables! I was in heaven! Once we got back I unpacked and settled in and already felt more human.