Funkydodo!

Hey there one and all,

So great to get back to NZ & Australia and catch up with everyone!

Left Mauritius on the 9^th of Feb & flew into Melbourne, Australia for a spot of shopping & cocktails (as you do!) with Emily (be thankful there are no photos!). Missed seeing Marty as he was out fighting the big fires that week (great effort, sorry I missed you!).

Next I flew into Wellington (WLG) and stayed the first night with my brother Jared & his girlfriend Jess & finally had my first meal of FUSH’N'CHUPS in over 9 months… yummo!!! Stayed up way too late chatting (as you do!). HUGE supply of my fave NZ confectionary under my pillow that night (they know me too well!)

Caught up with my bride-to-be the following day (I was specifically coming home to NZ to be (serial) bridesmaid for my friend "Lydia’s" wedding in Plimmerton) & then went up to Hawkes Bay (HB) via my lovely rellies in Levin, to see the folks & all my friends up that way. Had a gorgeous welcome pressie from Alison upon my arrival. Nice work with the "Welcome Fruits" Nades style (lollies of course! You sensing a theme here?).

Had a few days at home in HB before heading back to WLG for the big wedding. Finally met brand new baby "Casey" & caught up with loads of friends.

Lydia & Dave’s wedding day back in Wellington was great! And a huge success! I think my rendition of "the sprinkler" was probably the highlight of the trip (can be found on u-tube under "Nades most embarrassing moments").

Mum & I then shot down south to Christchurch where we caught up with our favorite’s, the Marshall family & I saw my old "Pacific Blue" head office buddies and all my Christchurch friends. Had a fab BBQ at Maree’s & caught up on all the goss.

We then went home to HB just in time for the weekend and the "Mission Concert" which proved to be true to it’s name… as the weather was the worst of my entire trip, but where there’s a will, there’s a Randell! Poncho’s & gumboots in hand we took on the weather & had a great afternoon with 10,000 other wet idiots until the concert was finally announced cancelled shortly before the main act. Never mind, never let the weather get in the way of a Randell get together. We just changed venue’s & partied at Shirley’s for the remainder of the evening (some more than other’s aye Kirk! ).

Dad & I then drove to Gisborne to see all the Thomas family relatives. Excellent to see everyone! Grandma organised a fantastic BBQ & I finally got to catch up with all the new family additions. Paul even made it over from Rotorua (nice effort!). Great to have so much time to spend with my special cuzzy Belinda too!

The next week or so was spent back in HB with friends and family. Had a fantastic time & nice not to have to rush around! Some excellent times at various HB functions, luncheons, out on a friends farm, coffee’s (even up the peak) & dinners!

Sad leaving everyone in HB. Thanks to those of you who popped out to the airport to say goodbye!

One last stop on the way before leaving the beautiful Aotearoa! A couple of nights with my great friend Louise & her GORGEOUS family up in Auckland! Also managed to sneak in one last catch up with Barghie & Darin.

WOW that went WAY too quickly!

Time to hit Oz for one last week of my trip…

Great to arrive at Brissy airport to find Emily, Adam & Jen waiting for me! It was always going to be HUGE times catching up with everyone in Brisbane!

Managed to fit in a tour of both the Virgin Offices (hugged to death, good times!), shopping (goes without saying really!), a VB Friday night drinks session (VERY big night including Karaoke at the Vic), the Races (for those who managed to recover in time from previous nights festivities), a picnic by the river, a yummy dinner at Brett’s Wharf, a great time catching up with Kent’s Mum Robin, more shopping & the bonus of meeting the lovely Jemima (Jo & Neil’s gorgeous daughter). Would definitely sum that up as a good time, not a long time!

Very sad leaving Brissy, but a good send off by Jen & Emily with our last glass of champers at the airport, lots of farewell texts from friends & a few tears.

A million hours later I arrived back in Mauritius to my other life Kent had dragged himself up in the middle of the night to come and pick me up. He had morphed into this body building guy, so he was lucky I recognized him (or was I the lucky one?).

I was spoilt by my great friend Barbara who popped around with a HUGE bunch of gorgeous roses & lunch out to welcome me home. Lots of friends sent txts to welcome me home & the maid & I had a good catch up over a cuppa. I have already managed to catch up with a few friends… lots more to go!

Thanks to EVERYONE for making my trip such a great time!!!!

XOX

Nades

PS: I will throw some photos up on the gallery site (pics link on the top of this page) shortly!

gallery is fixed. it’s telling that the only person who noticed was Nadine.

internet still isn’t fixed. please backup the internet to dvd and post it to me.

daylight savings sucks. when you’re a small island in the middle of nowhere that no software vendor has ever heard of it sucks even more.

gordon ramsay doesn’t have to put up with this crap

I upgraded a bunch of stuff due to active sploits… prolly broke a bunch of stuff. email me if you find something… normally i’d check myself but my adsl is being mauritian.

which leads me to my impending imprisonment. Imagine you had to reboot your adsl router every 5-10 minutes, each reboot takes about 1 minute and it *might* re-connect or then again it might not. And even if it does connect you know you’ve only got about 10 minutes before you have to do it all over again. Now imagine you’re also trying to get some work done that requires internet during all this. How long do you think you could live like this before you started busting caps in various mauritian telco mofo’s?

I give myself another 3 days. Please include fresh towels in your red cross parcels.