My last day in levin - why does it go so quickly? First call a coffee at the old court house and a dose of gay wit served by the barista who has left his heart and disco shorts in Sydney. He has a huge heart and is currently fundraising for an irrigation system for the rose garden. Then a quick visit to see grandma - she only has so much energy and we are finding small visits are less tiring. We are happy to see she is having a good day and has opened all the pr...

A lazy start to the day but that's what holidays are for. We stopped in to see grandma, then drove down to Wellington to pick Donna up from the airport. We had lunch first at miramar at the larder, then went to cafe l'affare once we had collected Donna from the airport. By the time we got back to levin it was 7pm, and we just picked up some takeaway fish and chips and settled in with a bottle of NZ wine.

A slow lazy morning with the family. We went to the town of Shannon to see what my cousin Rochelle had done with her shop. She has a large retail space that she rents out in small lots to local craftspeople and small businesses, and has her own secondhand babygear and babies shop on the premise. The town has had some unique clothes designers and homewares shops established and they are attracting the weekend daytripping crowd from Wellington and Palmerston north....

Another day in food paradise! I picked up my car and left a grey and windy Wellington behind and hit the road. After a particularly gusty drive through the rimataka ranges, I arrived at greytown for breakfast at the French baker - roast tomato tart and coffee! And sour dough for levin! The shops had great clothes and antiques to look at, but the only place I spent money at was schoc choc. New flavours to sample included curry and pappadom, rose and strawberry,...

The mojo coffee roasting shed is on the harbour just down the road from my hotel so that seemed like the logical place to go for my morning cappuchino. Today was devoted to shopping! Kircaldie and stains is an oldfashioned department store, in a beautiful building with very elegant things to buy, a great place to window shop. It has a small food department, nothing to the scale of Sydney David jones, but I added a few more foodie things to my bundle, and sampl...