So another year on the planet already!

Have had some lovely pressies from The Duchess and my good friends Chris and Holly (though you can’t wrap a concert ticket so I will wait until March to enjoy Kris’ gift).

Also got a fabulously decorated chocolate cake from Holly that I will enjoy devouring over the coming weeks.

Now time to join the crowd and enjoy some German electronic music as Kraftwerk visit Wellington!

Where the heck did the last 25 years go?! Today marks 25 years since me and The Duchess being a thing. Can you see much difference?

Us in 1999

Us in 2023

Did the stereotypical presents – flowers (from our friend Rosie’s award-winning florists), some very nice chocs, a bit of silver bling and some slightly less romantic (but still silver) kitchen scales.

We’ve been out to the nicest Italian restaurant in Da Hutt, but boring old farts that we are we couldn’t wait to get back home to Fluffy and get into our jammies in front of the telly.

Even Fluffy got in on the fun, ripping the wrapping to shreds.

It pays you to be healthy in NZ as the health system is on its knees. Just booked a non-emergency appointment with a GP and the next available appointment is on 10th January 2024, over 6 weeks away!

Australia is starting to look like an option for our next move …

I can confirm that our English Springer Spaniel is a total Wuss like her furdad.

Today she found herself in a garden with a cat. She ran up to the cat barking and playing the tough girl. The cat arched its back, hissed then swiped at Penny.

Penny then gave a yelp just like Scooby Doo, jumped away from the cat and ran inside with tail between legs.

Cat 1 Dog 0

A useful lesson not to mess with a cat. Unfortunately the cat’s owner might have been watching so I chose not to put my foot up its arse in retaliation. But then it may have gone for me too and I suspect I would also have yelped and ran away.

The neighbours have been pretty noisy over the past few weeks so last weekend I decided to swap over my bedroom and home office so I’m further away from the noise.

This weekend will be the big test of whether it’s any better, being the time the window lickers start letting off fireworks at all hours.

One thing I noticed during the moves were the interesting choices of book titles. with my fake book