One of the nice routines in Blenheim is the daily walk – dogs and child need to get out for some air, and obviously does us all some good, especially those of us spending our lives in an office. This weekend in Blenheim we took a route around the block that took us by a house where a very friendly cat saw us and ran across the grass meowing, tail in the air and jumped up on the fence for a smooch and pat. He was so friendly! So we took that route every day and managed to catch a photo of him today. It took a bit of luring to get him to come for a pat today though because he was out on the porch with the ladies next door who were knitting and gossiping and providing plenty of pats. But in the end he came for a big cuddle

Another stunning day during our weekend visit to Blenheim. It’s amazing how you can just sit around and do practically nothing for an entire day when you’re not at home.

Made good progress on the second of the cardies by the time we left.

Batch of date scones – always interesting in someone else’s kitchen, and we haven’t made them in a while so it was certainly touch and go when we realised they were running out of golden syrup. But MAN they were good. Really good – we ended up just making regular scones but with golden syrup and cinnamon drenched dates.

Boys went out for a spin in the ’stang.

We came home with some lovely fresh homegrown treats – lemons from Dean & Steph’s ancient constantly productive lemon tree and delicious smelling daphne from Nanna’s garden.

And for recording in the urban family history books, today’s the date Aidan ate/touched something that gave him a pretty bad allergic reaction – lots of sneezing, snuffling and huge swollen eyes and ears and a trip to the hospital. Showed improvement after that but it was pretty stressful!

Becoming a real little boy now – here with his new elephant that we got for him in Nelson, all sorts of fun trying to make elephant noises in the back of the car to amuse him on the trip! (Actually there’s LOADS of animals between Blenheim and Nelson so I discovered, I had a rather sore throat by the time we got there … cows, sheep, llamas, hens, deer, ducks …)

Trip to Blenheim this time has taken us further afield – all the way over to Nelson for a morning at the market and a wander around town.

Exciting in the South Island because everywhere you look there’s snow on the hills – this on the way into Nelson.

Boys in the back.

Fresh sour dough loaf from the market.

Had a fanTAStic lunch at Morrison’s Cafe – they served Atomic coffee and I had most of a ginormous cinnamon bun. YUM.