Success is getting what you want; happiness is liking what you get

Saturday 1 January 2022

Busy in Napier on the last day of 2021

We’ve had a busy old time on New Years Eve day.  First was shopping for “essentials” – to be truthful, not really essential food items, rather some “want them, need them” items only available up here.  Our first stop was at the Arataki Honey Centre for Robin to refill his honey jars with delicious Manuka honey.  The honey is kept warm so that it flows easily into the refill jars.  This place is usually full of tourists, but not lately in these Covid times, no tourists allowed into New Zealand just yet, only NZ citizens and residents are allowed to travel back home.   Whenever we are up in Hawkes Bay, we call in here – Robin now has so much honey it will last him all year.

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Arataki Honey Centre

Then we called into the cutest little sweet shop around, visiting here is just like walking back into yesteryear.  Remember all those boiled sweets from days gone by?  All lovingly displayed in large glass jars, every type of sweet imaginable.   We replenished our supplies of blackballs for him, and acid drops for her.

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Birdwoods sweetshop

Where to next?  It was time to purchase some tasty fresh cherries.  I love them and we knew there was a roadside stall reasonably close by.  Robin doesn't care for them, so they are all mine!

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I love cherries

And just to finish off this essential shopping trip, the next place on our list was  Silky Oaks for a delicious Iced Chocolate.  Completely decadent, probably a million calories, but oh so tasty.  This place has a café, a chocolate shop, and a gift shop, but we were rather restrained and didn't bother purchasing any more chocolate, I'm sure there is some left over in our Christmas gift bags.

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Iced Chocolate at Silky Oak

After lunch we went to visit caravan club friends Selwyn and Kath who were staying at Napier Beach Top 10 Holiday Park a little further up the coast.  We enjoyed afternoon tea followed by 4zees under their shady awning.  It was great to spend the afternoon with them.

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Kath and Selwyn

Arriving back at camp we found that the New Year’s Eve fairy had come calling and had left two packets of cat food on the doorstep.  Gemma found the scent wafting from these packets absolutely alluring!  We found out that Viv, who had called around to visit when she spotted Gemma outside on her lead the other day, had cajoled these goodies from her daughter and partner who own Pet Essentials.  Thanks so much Viv, much appreciated, and Gemma certainly gave them a thumbs up!

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A gift for Gemma

Our News Years Eve was spent quietly outside, sipping on some bubbly, and watching Gemma stalk and pounce on bugs as the skies darkened.   There didn’t seem to be any parties going on in camp, everyone was very quiet, in fact we didn’t even stay up till midnight, a sign of getting older, I guess.

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So that is how we spent the last day of 2021 in sunny Napier.  Lets hope 2022 will be a better one, and that Covid will finally run out of steam.  Happy New Year to you all.

1 comment:

Katie said...

Iced chocolate! Oh my! Sounds wonderful. :-)