Just back from Wellington and have some tales to tell. Before I do that though I'll keep you up to date with life here in Nelson.

The Italian Film Festival finished with a bang, showing a great film (So Many Kisses) which was the Italian version of Love Actually. Well we loved it. Not as cerebral as some of the films but perfect for a warm summer's evening after a glass or two of bubbly.

Staring at his Crunchy Nut Cornflakes box the following morning (you can take the boy out of England but......) Paul spied a recipe for cookies (yes, C N c'flake cookies!). We went out and bought the ingredients and with almost no help at all he whizzed up a bakers dozen-the extra one was for him. Be amazed, be very amazed; they were yummy. Katie and Matthew are hoping he'll do some more when they arrive.

We had an invite out to drinks and things with some friends of M & P's. Very sociable early evening (they served Oyter Bay, Geoff!). Then we went on to a Latin American evening at a pub. Oh my word! We saw a whole side of Nelson we hadn't yet encountered. The place was jumping. There wasn't an inch on the floor that wasn't full of wild salsa dancing and I can't tell you how many single ladies tried to get Paul up for a jiggle. Had a long chat with one of the band members during an interval as he was from Chile. He has family in Rengo and I know that many of you will fall off your perches at the chances of that! I gave him your address, Gill and Brian, so they could call round for a coffee (no, I didn't really).

Patsy's Mum is our very favourite person at the moment for finding us some tennis racquets! Let's hear it for Kath!! All we did was buy her coffee in a paper cup and half a muffin at the Crusty Crab.

Then we flew to Wellington. What can we say about NZ's capital city? Lonely Planet love it but I'm afraid we didn't. We were lucky with the weather as you'll see from the photos. It's pleasant enough round the harbour but everybody goes to bed at half seven (or so it seems). Anyway, there were some great bits so here they are.

The Karori sanctuary is an amazing project to turn the clock back to a time before settlers arrived and completely destroyed the land and wildlife. It took ten years for the whole forest to be burnt off and turned over to cultivation and it will take 500 years to put it back. It's all centered around a decommissioned reservoir within walking distance of the city. The reservoir, they realised, sits directly on the fault line and an earthquake would have fractured the dam and sent all the water surging down into the city. So now it's an urban sanctuary of one square mile surrounded by 8.6 kms of predator-proof fencing specially designed to keep out non-native mammals and allow 30 species of native birds and reptiles including tuatara, kiwi, saddleback, hihi, kaka and giant weta (thank goodness we didn't see any of those!) to flourish. The whole thing just captured my imagination and it was almost deserted on the day we were there-it felt a bit like Jurrasic Park. We saw a mother saddleback feeding her baby and we saw several tuataras because it was hot and they like to sit in the sun. I could go on for pages about it all but you can up look anything you want to find out more about.

The original plans for the city of Wellington were drawn up in England but nobody had bothered to tell them that it is just a series of incredibly steep hills so it all had to be modified! There's a cable car and some people who live on the side of steep hills have their own private cable cars! There's an observatory but it can't make up its mind when to be open so even thought we went three times we never got in. The famous Te Papa national museum is ok. An hour or so was enough. Paul went to the cricket ground and museum and enjoyed that. There was a game on but you just wandered in without having to pay.

The highlight of the city was our night at the theatre to see Apollo 13-an interactive event! It was incredible. We sat on the front row as it was unreserved seatng. I was Alpha Comms with a phone I could use to ring anybody I was asked to such as Ayers Rock to get the satellite moved and the florist to order flowers for the families of the crew when things were looking bad. There was always somebody at the other end! You wouldn't believe how completely wrapped up in it we both got. At one point when they were running out of oxygen on board most of the 'cast' went off to have a big argument and just left the audience in charge. The one guy left was sitting at the end of our row and he shouted at Paul who was 'support' to get up and take over. He did! He stood up in front of the whole theatre, put on the headphones and started telling the crew (who were on two huge screens at the front) how to make a 'thingy' that would enable the oxygen levels to be restored. He was brilliant! A whole career missed. At the end I was asked to go out to the front to meet 'Walter Cronkite' (the stupid but famous newsreader) as my contribution had been invaluable and I had to take all the bows with the cast! What a priceless evening so thank you, Wellington. for that!

Now we're 'home'. We returned to the sad news that there had been a further explosion at the mine and that the miners' lives are certainly lost. A sad time here. As Matt, Katie, Neil and Ali are in Cambodia, we were anxious for news of them after the awful disaster there but they are fine.