It was with a long face that Nissa stepped onto the bus on this glorious day. I told her that it bode well for the rest of her year that her school year started with such lovely weather, but I'm not really sure that she believed me!
After getting Nissa on the bus and getting some chores done, Kirsten, Shenna and I headed into Wellington to do a few things. Shenna needed some school supplies, and Kirsten had some things to do over at their house on Breaker Bay. It took us no time at all to do the shopping, and pick up a few meat pies (they are big in NZ). Around the corner (actually many, many corners) and we were at the house. We ate our pies on the deck overlooking the ocean and then Shenna and I left Kirsten to do her stuff, while we poked around the shoreline hunting for shells, and other interesting creatures.
It was a totally glorious day - the only thing that would have made it better would have been heavy duty water shoes to save our feet. I kept my sensitive toes in their shoes, but Shenna ooched and ouched her way around the bay, finding interesting things in the tide pools, and lovely shells to save. She found tiny crabs, little star fish, living pauo, interesting sea plants and sea urchins. We saw thousands of tiny periwinkles clinging to the rocks, and hundreds of other shelled creatures stuck to the rock. I shudder to think of how many tiny creatures that I inadvertently crushed :-(
At one point I got really excited as I thought I saw a penguin (the area we were in was known to have them sometimes). I took a whole pile of pictures, trying to get just a tiny bit closer. Then my smarty-pants niece came up and pointed out that it was a heron (all smunched up, but still a heron). Oh well, I got to live the dream for a minute or two!
Finally Kirsten was all done with her house stuff so we zoomed off as we were getting late to pick up Nissa from school. We got there just in the nick of time, and early enough for Nissa to give me a tour of her school. It is a small one room country school, with just 20 students, from (equivalent) Kindergarten to grade 8. It doesn't actually have just one room, but also has a lovely library with computers, classroom space, a swimming pool, playground, lovely grounds, and even a garden space.
We went back home for a while and then dug out our bathing suits (and picnic blanket!) and drove back to the school for a swim. Once we were back home from that I was Shenna's sous chef as she was making french onion soup (totally yum), but also had to do some horsey chores.
It was a busy day that is just ending now at 10:30pm. I'm exhausted and ready for a long sleep! These kids are wearing me out!
Happy Tails!
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