Sorry that it has been almost 2 weeks since my last confession .... but the weather has been glorious and I have been having way too much fun. In my last few days in Oz I went to the Blue Mountains, which was just as beautiful as I remembered, although much colder than I had packed for (only 7 degrees that night). It was so lovely to catch up with Pete and his wife, who are expecting their first baby any day now. They took me to Pulpit Rock which is a very high lookout over the Blue Mountains, so yet another knee knocking experience for me. We also went kangaroo searching in Megalong Valley, as I have never seen them in their natural habitat but unfortunately they were all hiding from me that day. My last night in Oz was spent in Bondi Beach and although I did watch some surfers, I forgot to take some photos for my website for all my female friends! It was very sad to say goodbye to my friends in Sydney and I now need to start planning when I can get across to visit them again. After a relatively short flight (less than 3 hours), I arrived in Auckland last Tuesday. Since then, I have had a wonderful week catching up with old friends particularly 'The Simpsons' and 'Mistress Butters', who are old work friends from my Guinness days. Some of the things we have been getting up to include: * Going to a Rugby Union match to watch the Hurricanes (Wellington) thrash the home team the Blues (Auckland) by 22-10. * Going to the Simpson's Family holiday home in the Coromandel Peninsular (Matarangi). Their house could sleep about 20 and was only 200 meters from the beach. I could really get used to waking up and going for a stroll on the beach every morning. * I also discovered French Toast that weekend, which is very different from French Toast back in the UK (or maybe I have been getting short-changed for the last 30 odd years as I have never been served bananas and maple syrup on it before!) * We also entered a pub quiz last night and I am proud to say that we came about 5th out of about 12 teams, so I can hold my head up high today. * I have eaten extremely well the whole trip and have unfortunately piled on a couple of pounds, but of course I am going to blame this weight gain on giving up smoking rather than the maple syrup! This has meant that I have had to 'invest' in some new clothes for the remainder of my trip as there is nothing worse than travelling in discomfort. Tomorrow I head off to Boston for the final few days of my trip, where I am hoping to do a bit of whale watching. I hope you are all well? hug m