Since we last wrote we have spent a month apart (don't worry...we survived). We both had to return to the UK separately for interviews and other than that not much happened. Claire did go to the Wellington Sevens' festival one weekend but as she is unable to recall much of the event there's little to write about. Three days after we'd been reunited Claire's mum and dad arrived for a holiday. They landed late Friday afternoon and we immediately whisked them off t...

Feelin' hot, hot, hot! Not your traditional Christmas Carol we know but one that seems fitting for our festive period. With Christmas came the good weather and it was difficult to function let alone celebrate in such warm conditions. Never the less we persisted in true British stiff upper lip fashion. Because of the heat Kiwi Christmas' do not tend to include a roast dinner, but there was no way we were missing out on ours! After much research we settled on a s...

Now that the summer has arrived in Gisborne, the town has come to life with lots of goings on to keep us entertained. One of the first things to kick off the Summer Season is the first Speedway meet. This happens on/around bonfire night, which for some unknown reason is celebrated here. Slightly apprehensive about the evening's plans, we took ourselves along to the Speedway in order to enjoy what had been promised to us as Gisborne's best fireworks display at t...

Work at the hospital has had its moments of excitement in amongst the dull grind of everyday quietness. It is, like the mood of a bipolar person, from one extreme to another. Night shifts, for example are not unlike a Jekyll and Hyde type character. On one hand you have the ease of a small hospital with very little happening on the wards and the occasional A&E attendee, on the other you have the full ICU and multiple trauma call in A&E with no in-house ...

The long anticipated and talked about Gisborne Food & Wine Festival had arrived and the sun was blazing, unpredictably so. We made an early break to get there in order to bag our seats in prime position, this was successfully achieved by the girls directing the boys to drag a picnic table across the festival to the centre, in amongst the wine merchants and with a clear view of the stage. We had an initial conservative approach, we each carefully chose our v...