New Plymouth 24-10-08

Back to our weekend in New Plymouth. After we'd settled in we were enjoying a cuppa outside our cabin - all bundled up against the cold but there was more room outside than in - when we were entertained with these old planes practising their aerobatics for a display they were giving over the weekend. Oh good, an excuse to get out the tele conversion lens for my camera, it's only a x1.7 though so this is as close as I could get.

And then these birds thought they'd get in on the act!

Soon after that it started raining and didn't stop all night, it just bucketed down and the cold was blowing straight from the South Pole!

To cheer ourselves up we read in the local paper there was a 24 hour book sale on that night so we found our way there and spent a happy two hours searching through all sorts of books. I'm into audio books but didn't find any of those, however, I was delighted to find these two Peter Mayle books, the first two in his series about buying a house & living in France, that I've wanted to read for awhile now. I can get the third book on audio from the library but the first two haven't been made into audio books so I was loathe to start with the third one! I wasn't even looking for them and there they were side by side. Along with the two other books on old NZ that are both loaded with old historic photos and another small very funny book that I read over the weekend I was a happy chappy - until we stepped outside the door to be confronted with the pelting rain, we were soaked to the skin by the time we ran to the car - and to top the night off there was nowhere in the cabin to hang clothes so we had them hanging from the curtain railings and all sorts of unusual places, hoping they'd be dry by the morning! BTW if you're looking for a delightfully funny book that doesn't take too long to read let me know and I'll post it to you, it's called "This Blessed House" written (in 1989) by Da'Vella who is a popular NZ artist. She bought a historic Catholic church and along with her 9 year old son built herself a house from it and another church she bought later at the beautiful Lake Hayes in the South Island.

And so to bed, looking forward to not hearing the rain when we woke up!