All about the bakes, the brews and the bush

Crazy Owls for a work competition to raise money for KidsCan

Recovering from our big weekend, we had a quiet couple of weeks - a bit of swimming, singing, running and baking set us up nicely for the first key activity: bottling our Phatt Rob Doger brew.

Matt and Phoebe had conveniently jetted off to the UK over the bottling window, so we enlisted the help of craft beer connoisseurs Lucy and Rich to help us sterilise the equipment and photograph the action. Pretty much all the beer went in the bottles, but we won't know whether we were truly successful for another week, when we'll finally be able to drink it!

Roger played football on Saturday (a much-needed win) and I soaked up the sunshine in town doing some travel shopping and eating a Best Ugly Bagel bagel (which I did not photograph because I was on my own).

An unsuccessful straight face selfie

That evening we joined Sophie, Tim and (new friend alert!) Johnny for Beervana, after (un)wisely(?) eating a lot of homemade burrito at our flat. You may remember last year the emphasis was on sour beer; this year everyone seemed to be doing their beer in the barrels leftover from fermenting other stuff, e.g. whisky. There was some really nice hoppy cider too. We left the wider crew setting off to karaoke, in favour of sleep.

On rainy, squally Sunday we established that our packs would fit the gear we intended to take to South America, and gave into subscribing to a TV service on which we could watch Game of Thrones. Luckily Laura and Matt had invited us round so we couldn't accidentally binge watch. I made a pav! And we discussed personality tests - are you Powerful, Playful, Precise or Peaceful?

Ratanui

Wellington on a Plate was well underway the next week. We joined Lucy for a tasty alpaca burger at Bin44, after a small and eccentric celebration of Wellington cycling through the ages, powered by pedalling. 

Wellington on a Plate alpaca burger and matched beer

The golden bullet was back in action on Friday afternoon as we beat the weekend traffic via a cunning back route (thanks Google) over Paekaekariki hill to Trish and Andrew's. After catching up over dinner, we slept so well that the only Saturday activity option left was a gentle bush walk in Bushy Park. This nonetheless turned out to be very exciting: the Ratanui (largest Northern Rata tree) was majestic and the Saddlebacks (a type of bird) two a penny. We also learnt some plant names. A very civilised picnic with Peruvian tablecloth was cut short by the rain. What a useful campervan!


That evening we all enjoyed dinner with Chris and Andy and Sue and Dick, discussing the effectiveness of New Zealand's biosecurity. We watched the first Bledisloe Cup game in our pyjamas (actually just me in pyjamas) the next morning.

I had to get back to St Mary's, Karori, for an important choir rehearsal, but not before raiding the Craigend orchards and vegge garden for the most organic produce in the world! We went to Douglas' for supper - his signature Mediterranean chicken tajine and poached pears for dessert.