weddings, Leonard Cohen, iphones and ipads and more

 Yes - it's that time of the year and for those who haven't seen this photo before (I must find a new one for next year) - this is us 42 almost years ago when I was but 19 - and yes it is all my own hair and yes I made my dress with a long train, covered buttons and roulade to loop them all up down the back and my father was thrilled because he didn't have to buy one although he was never happy about my shoe purchase (yes I have always loved shoes) and as you can see Ian had hair too. Well what this means is that we are off to NZ tonight for dinner on the 30th in Wellington (my favourite city in the world) and back on 1st. Our trip is a bit of a hop because we fly to Auckland, wait 5 hours, fly to Wellington, catch the ferry to Picton and collect a car to drive to Reefton on the West Coast.

The reason for the hop skip and a water trip is because we booked this ticket when we were in Madrid and got home to find that the Leonard Cohen concert was on last night so at great expense I closed my eyes and paid the punishment price to change the flying date.

The concert was worth it all - what a fabulous night - such consummate musicians and we loved every minute and it was a  good morale booster as well.

Many thanks for all the wonderful emails and comments - we both appreciate it very much. I am not a West Coaster but I have been priviledged  to have married into a fabulous West Coast family - Jean and Frank (who was a coal miner)  - my inlaws - were the most wonderful people and the coast is a special place to visit. The first time I went I did discover that they are different from the rest of New Zealand - they had the wrong idea of what a whole and half a loaf of bread was for starters.....  at the moment they are hurting badly and things will be difficult for a long time.

I-pad/I-phone further dramas. Yesterday I went to the Apple store and bought a connection so I could load my camera into my new i-pad. First the camera chip would not go in and after a long hunt Ian found the cord. So far so good. Took a photo and successfully loaded it and thought I would test blogging and adding photo. Oh no - i-pad doesn't support blog writing unless it is in html and no photos can you upload. Hair pulling time. Ian went for a walk as he couldn't stand it. Lots of web searching later I discovered that I can blog and send photos from my i-phone (I could have been doing this all along...) so for this trip - i-phone comes for taking pics, writing blog, phoning and i-pad for receiving and sending emails and maybe reading a few of the books in my library - Winnie the Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, Sense and Sensibility and looks like Grant has loaded Plato and Issac Newton. Not so sure about that.