Birthdays with Friends

Shona and Jan the birthday girls

Harry and I joined two ladies, and some friends from church, as they celebrated their birthdays.
We tend to be a group of people who really enjoy doing things together and as most of us no longer have children at home 'going out' is now just for us to have fun.




First we went ten ball bowling and I managed to be last in both games in the team I was in.

That's OK someone has too. 















But it was so interesting to see the way some acted as they willed the bowl to knock down the pins!! or maybe if it missed make faces!

Harry choosing the 'special' bowl

Harry checking the right spot

Harry found that he did better with out his glasses and that there was one bowl that seemed to be a lucky one for him. So by the end of the evening he won his second game in the team he was in.









After the games we went for dinner at Restaurant on Alma, part of the whole Novotel complex.

Restaurant on Alma offers ... beautiful A la carte dining in the evening. Under new management since July 2011 when the “New Zealand Service Professional of the Year 2011″ winner, Manu Rosier, joined the team as Restaurant Manager! Restaurant on Alma is located on the ground floor of Novotel Tainui Hamilton.

Sesame & Garlic Prawns

Harry chose an Entree

Sesame & Garlic Prawns, served with
avocado & lime puree, pistachio & pine
nut crumbs and micro spring onions

Steak Frites

and for a mains 



Steak Frites, 200g Savannah rump steak with 
shoestring fries & watercress, finished with
caramelized onion aioli

Chicken Breast

I chose a mains (I had already eaten a bit of the broccoli before I took the pic)

Healthy Options

Chicken Breast with mushroom & Parmesan cheese 
risotto cake, steamed broccoli, spinach puree & lemon oil


And then for dessert!!!

Rhubarb Eaton Mess

Oh so delicious

Rhubarb Eaton Mess vanilla poached rhubarb 
with strawberry coulis & almonds

All and all a thoroughly great night out with very good food and friends.

The Lollipop Shoes

 

The Lollipop Shoes is the second in what is now a bit of a series by Joanne Harris. Five years have passed since Chocolat, the story of Vianne Rocher the chocolatier who, with her six-year-old daughter, Anouk, blows into the stuffy little village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes and opens her chocolate shop at just the wrong time – and in just the wrong place – incurring the wrath of the local priest and pitting Church against Chocolate.

Since then, things have changed. We find Vianne in a subdued mood, she no longer wants to blow along on the feckless breeze; she now wants to settle down, to conform.  The wind has always dictated Vianne's every move, buffeting her from the French village to the crowded streets of Paris. Cloaked in a new identity, that of widow Yanne Charbonneau, she opens a chocolaterie she rents courtesy of their brash, rich landlord Thierry. She lives above the drab chocolate shop, determined to still the wind at last and keep her daughters, Rosette soon to be four, and Anouk (eleven and now called Annie) who has started secondary school, safe.

On the surface, life seems good; Vianne has finally found a niche for herself. Life seems peaceful. She is accepted within the community. She has learnt to conform; to blend in. She no longer makes her own chocolates and now orders her stock, just like everyone else and is seemingly content to sell the confectionary of others.

But security has a high price, and Vianne has made some heavy sacrifices. She has given up her mother’s ways; the magic that she and her daughters shared, her identity and even making her own chocolates – the demands of motherhood are just too much. Most importantly, she has given up true love – in the person of Rosette’s father, Roux – and is considering marriage to her reassuringly conventional landlord Thierry, who promises her financial security and a home for her children. Thierry is bemused by Vianne’s technophobia (she doesn’t know how to use a cell phone) and her youngest daughter, Rosette, who has yet to talk and has both physical and behavioural problems. She also has uncanny and disturbing Accidents…. Anouk, a misfit and loner at school and is having some trouble setting in, she hates Paris, resents the “new” Vianne, and desperately misses the intimacy they once had together. Thierry is besotted with the poor "widow" and wants to take this seemingly weak clutch of females under his broad masculine wing.

The wind has stopped blowing – for a while.

But the wind will always catch you when you least expect it… 

Into their lives enters Zozie de l’Alba, on the Day of the Dead, the woman with the lollipop shoes, to shake up their world. A free spirit with magical powers and an appetite for other peoples’ lives, a witch and a stealer of identities, whose methods are as likely to employ the internet as a crystal ball to find what she needs. Unlike Vianne, Zozie developed her magical powers without the guidance of a similarly empowered mother. She culled a "system" from the occult books in her ineffectual mother's New Age London bookshop. She is practical where Vianne is whimsical; greedy and independent where Vianne is domestic and tied to her children. Beautiful, passionate, bohemian and fabulously indifferent to convention, Zozie befriends Anouk, moves into the shop, seduces half the neighbourhood with her effortless charm. But Zozie is not without an agenda. Little by little her influence grows - over Vianne, the customers, but most of all over Anouk, who sees in her an echo of her own mother, without all the fears that inhibit her.  little by little, helps Vianne regain, not only her skills, but her life.

And as Christmas approaches and Zozie’s “help” becomes increasingly more questionable, it becomes clear that behind the charismatic façade there hides a cold and malevolent being, her power immense; her greed insatiable; her ultimate goal – Possession.

Vianne was finally forced to confront both her enemy and her fears. She is terrified that their blooming supernatural abilities will put them in danger and set them apart from their peers. She accepts Thierry's ring. But Zozie wants even more from her than Thierry does. It is cold-hearted Zozie who encourages Anouk to explore the powers her mother suppresses and tempts Vianne back into making her own irresistible chocolates.

A postcard suggests that one of Vianne’s old loves may soon be on the scene. Vianne is battling something more insidious than just an institution. She’s struggling with herself; her past; her guilty secrets and small betrayals. Most of all she’s fighting her worst fears – in the face of which we are all alone.…  But will it be Vianne or Anouk who is carried off by the wind at the end? 

The book is written in three narratives, that of Zozie, Anouk and Vianne

"Ta - Da"

A few ladies from our church started an "Aunty Pearls" group a couple of years ago. They are the Three Duchesses and they organise activities/outings for ladies (mainly from our church but others are invited to join us) over 50 who are interested in what is organised.
It is not a regular event as it depends on what activity may be coming up in the local communities. 
The one condition is that we have to wear our pearls.

This week we had a get together that was a High Tea type morning tea and a hilarious video.

Its a time of being women together and enjoying each others company, news and laughter.

One of the ladies had just come back from a winning trip overseas to Argentina and shared some sweet "treats" that were available over there.
Theses were a light wafer type biscuit sandwiched with a caramel filling and then coated in dark chocolate. They were each individually wrapped in a foil wrapper. Although quite sweet they were rather light and lovely!

At the end of the morning the hostess gave each of us a beautiful gift that she had made. They were packaged in a pyramid type gift box and inside were, a card saying "A Woman of Inner Beauty - Proverbs 31:31" a little envelope of sweet peas seeds, and a small box with three homemade chocolates in it. All the gifts were hand made by her including the gift box.

 













The video was
 ”Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Have I got news For You”.
 A-Z Faithlift for your sagging Self Esteem 
 By Liz Curtis-Higgs. 

I have never laughed so much in a short space of time. 
Liz encouraged us to see ourselves as God sees us and that tomorrow morning when we have woken, showered, dressed and put on makeup that we look in the mirror and raise our hands with a "Ta -Da" moment rather than staring at all the bits we don't like. 

When I woke this morning I did as she said and looked in the mirror saying "Ta-Da' .
And do you know that I actually saw a woman with a beautiful smile smiling back at me.
I was affirmed that I am a Woman of God, wife, Mother, Nana, daughter, sister, Aunt and the person that some people may be the only one they see with a smile this day so I went out making sure I smiled at all who caught my eye today.

Recipe for Life

This was a book I chose from an author that was suggested at our book club. We were challenged to find one of Nicky Pellegrino’s books to read and bring to the nest month’s book club night. I checked on line at the two libraries I belong to and put this one on hold not really knowing what I was going to be reading. 

Once I started I just found I wanted to keep reading. It was such a feel good book in a way and one I would highly recommend you read in the summer! 

On a basic level, it’s a wonderful and enchanting read, not to mention beautifully written. Pellegrino has a fantastic gift for subtly bringing a world to life so you can see it vividly in your mind – and almost smell the incredible meals being cooked up! I just loved it, but initially I couldn’t work out why. Maybe it was because I needed to just read a good chicklic book or something that feed me in more ways than one – and that’s exactly why Recipe for Life is so magical. 

The world Pellegrino creates isn’t perfect, and nor are the people who inhabit it. They’re just like us – sometimes confused, sometimes unhappy, and struggling to find the right career choice and the right person for them. And because of that they’re characters that you can really understand and like or want so much to win in life. 

Alice is right at the beginning of life. Just graduated from university and traumatised by a burglary gone wrong she flees to London, determined to pack all she can into every second. Discovering that cooking fulfills her, she throws herself into work, shutting out all that’s happened to her. As her life moves ever faster Alice feels that she’s losing control and when her friend Leila asks her to come and stay at her mother’s house in Italy, Alice gladly accepts. 

Babetta’s body is telling her that she’s coming to the end of her days, although she doesn’t feel ready for it. She has spent a lifetime tending her tiny garden on the Mediterranean coast and keeping the garden of the big house next door in good order and, with her own daughter long grown up, and her husband struggling with life, her life has fallen into a slow and gentle pattern. 

When Alice and Babetta meet they are drawn together by their shared love of cooking and food, despite not speaking a word of each other’s language. In the heat of a Mediterranean summer love affairs begin, friendships crumble and the lives of the women are changed. 

The story of two women, at either ends of their lives, who meet at a crumbling Italian villa tucked into the cliffs above the pounding sea, it’s a novel about what we run from, and the places that make us stop and reconsider. Drenched in sunshine, it’s about friendship and growing up, food and love. 

A recipe for life should be a simple thing: love and happiness, family, friends and a little food. But life is rarely straightforward...Alice wants to make the most of life - after all, she knows how fragile it can be - and knows she never feels more alive than when she's cooking. But life's lessons are not learnt easily. RECIPE FOR LIFE is a novel about discovering how life never stops surprising us, and about how, with a little love and courage, its flavours can be richer than we ever imagined.

Ah-ha Moments

Do you know what it’s like to have one of those Ah-ha moments? When you have been struggling with something or trying to sort something out. Maybe it’s not even something you are aware of but suddenly something comes to light and you think “Ah-ha, that’s what it is!”

Well I had one of those the other day.

I didn’t really know I had been living in a state of mild depression for the last 18 months. We had had some things go on in our marriage that had knocked me sideways and I thought we had come through it.

But now I realise, I hadn’t.

Over that time I was trying to live up to someone or something I didn’t even know, but desperately wanted to be someone different. Someone who would measure up to what I thought I was supposed to be. I am not really sure what the changes were but one in particular was losing some weight and for this I have greatly benefited but everything else seemed to actually make things worse. I was asked what were the changes and the problem was I didn’t really know, I just felt I had to be this someone else. One of my daughters made a comment the other day about how I don’t clean anymore and it hit a sad note, but I did realise she was right. Its funny now that I look at it as it was said at the right time, just a few days before my ‘Ah-ha’ moment. At a ladies home group the other day we were watching step 9 “How can I have great relationships” in a ten step DVD by Dr Grant Mullen, “10 Steps to the New You”. This program is designed for personal or group study. Different groups within our church have been watching it.

At the end of each step Dr Grant leads the viewer in a time of prayer and this one he was asking us to recall a time when we had been hurt by something someone had said.

For me I recalled the words of being “second best” and how that had really hurt me and I wanted to do whatever it took to be the best – not second.

Dr Grant took us through a time of forgiveness to the person who had said it and ourselves for allowing it to hurt us as well as being healed form the hurt. Part of me struggled as I wanted to forgive but felt I needed to hear that I wasn’t second best, that I was the best.

But God spoke in the midst and said that I am the best and that not letting go of holding on to what was said, was not actually going to let the forgiveness and healing take place.

I shared with the group of friends and was encouraged to take hold of what God had done to me then.

I feel like a burden has been taken away. Dr Grant talks of us carrying around baggage – stuff that interferes with us being able to function – and I know that some of that baggage has now been taken away from me.

John 10:9-10

9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

All scripture is from  New International Version 1984

The North Wind Doth Blow

Actually the wind is coming from the South as we live in the Southern Hemisphere and its cold and wet with snow falling in the lower parts of the South Island. Our weather here in New Zealand is the opposite to those in the Northern Hemisphere. 

However at winter time when I watch the weather and hear of the cold southerlies approaching this rhyme always comes to mind.

The North wind doth blow and we shall have snow,
And what will poor robin do then, poor thing?
He'll sit in a barn and keep himself warm
and hide his head under his wing, poor thing.

This nursery rhyme is referred to as either the North Wind doth blow or The Robin.  'The North Wind doth blow' is British in its origins and believed to have originated in the 16th century history. The purpose of the words to this poem is to ensure that a child associates security with home whilst empathising with the plight of the robin.

A child will be thinking of the ‘telling’ signs that when it’s cold and wet with the wind coming from the North, it may well bring snow. But a secure child would know they would be safe and warm in their home as the wood supply will have been bought in over summer for the cold winter. They would also know that there are 'winter' and 'summer' cloths but does a bird change its feathers? 

The poor Robin, who may well have flitted around in their garden would appear to have nowhere to go, especially as a lot of birds will have already migrated south for the winter. Because the Robin appears to be quite tame and having made almost a friend in the Robin, a child would be perplexed at its plight. This therefore accounts for the confusion as to whether the poem should be called 'The North Wind doth blow' or the Robin.

Well known to British and Irish gardeners, the Robin is relatively unafraid of people and likes to come close when anyone is digging the soil, in order to look out for earthworms and other food freshly turned up. Indeed, the robin is considered to be a gardener's friend and for various folklore reasons the robin would never be harmed. 

Most birds use the old "wing tuck" method. Actually, birds don't tuck their heads under their wing. Instead they rest their heads on their backs while they nuzzle their beaks into their back feathers. Sleeping with their head tucked on their back allows birds to rest their neck muscles and also makes for better heat conservation.

Outback Heart

This was an interesting book and one that I hadn't known of the story. Written as a sort of autobiography it is also about the Authors first husband and life in outback Australia.

Outback Heart

by Joanne van Os

Joanne Van Os was 19 when she first met the handsome and charismatic Rod Ansell, later known as 'the original Crocodile Dundee' (Rod was the idea behind the character ‘Crocodile Dundee’). At twenty-three Rod was already a legend in Australia and around the world, having survived alone for two months without supplies in one of the harshest and most remote parts of northern Australia.

To Joanne, Rod was a god, a genuine hero who could do anything, could make anything out of nothing, told the funniest yarns, had a philosophy on everything. She married him, and they had two beautiful sons who idolised their father. Together they lived the tough life of outback mustering wild cattle and buffalo and living a 19th century lifestyle in remote parts of the Northern Territory,

But as time went on Joanne came to realise that Rod was both a complicated and deeply troubled man. Ultimately, however, their marriage broke down, and it was then that Rod's life started to go off the rails. For the sake of her sons she never gave up on Rod, even after their divorce, but just how far he'd gone only became apparent when his life was tragically cut short when: out of his mind on drugs, Rod became involved in a shootout in which a young police office was killed. 'How does someone, whose extraordinary story of survival in the wild inspired so many Australians, become a psychotic, drug-crazed gunman?' Joanne asks.

Containing wonderful colour photographs, OUTBACK HEART captures the Territory outback life on paper: the dust, the heat, the struggle and the larger-than-life characters that will keep you reading till the last page. Joanne captures the outback life but she also tells a deeply personal and powerful story of a love affair and a marriage, and the pain when it all falls apart. It's the story of Rod Ansell, but even more it is Joanne's story, of how a young, naive woman grows up the hard way, and has the most exhilarating and the most heartbreaking times doing it.

 

Joanne van Os was born in 1955, and grew up in Melbourne. She moved to the Northern Territory when she was 20 and has never looked back. Her first book, OUTBACK HEART, is a best-selling memoir about life with her first husband, the 'Real Crocodile Dundee' Rod Ansell, and his tragic end in 1999. She followed this book with three children's novels, all set in the far north of Australia and written for the 10 - 14 age group. A keen photographer and illustrator she lives with her husband Lex Silvester and daughter on a yacht in Darwin, NT, and continues to write. Her most recent novel, THE SECRET OF THE LONELY ISLES, was published in February 2011. She has two adult sons, Callum and Sean.