Christmas visitors at our house

My Mother came to Christmas Dinner with us, we had a lovely meal,enjoyed a glass of wine, exchanged gifts.
Here Mother is unwrapping one of her presents.













My Daughter Nyle, brought my Great Granddaughter over on Boxing Day to spend the afternoon with us. Such a pleasure to have her at our home.










Our little Burmese Cat Porsche, received her present in bed. She played for ages with it before carrying it all though the house. She was even brought the toy to Katie to play with.

Merry Christmas.

Ho Ho Ho. Merry Christmas. I wish you peace and joy and family around
you during the Festive Season.
Don't forget the Reason for the Season ....... Christ

Marlborough Sounds blue on blue.

Blue on Blue in the Marlborough Sounds an a lovely calm sunny day. This a wind swept head land of the Outer Sounds, not much grows on these cliffs, but it is farm land, a few sheep find a living on there.

Cape Jackson Lighthouse

Sky Watch for this week, please check out other posts of sky from around the world.

Cape Jackson Lighthouse beacon. It is situated in the open ocean off Cape Jackson, set on a small platform of rock, quite some distance from the Cape, where there is a second small light house. The sea is usually rough at this point being a convergance of ocean currents but this day it was a calm sea and a light breeze we found when we stopped off to fish over the reef between the lighthouse and the Cape. About 25 years ago a huge Russian Cruise ship hit these rocks and sank in the bay just around from here, with the loss of one person amazingly all the elderly passenger were lifted off to safety before it sank. Lots of little boats went to the aid of the people and did a wonderful job saving all but the one man who was an engine worker.

Ship's Cove Picnic.

Ship's Cove Picnic with Bob and Jan.
After we had trawled for the scallops and done a bit of fishing, ( in the previous post) we called into Ship's Cove for a nice picnic lunch.
Ship's Cove is where Captain Cook who is credited with discovering the Marlborough Sounds and most of New Zealand really, he came into this quiet bay to beach his boat and clean off the barnacles that had attached during his long sea journey here. he also brewed up a type of beer from a native New Zealand tree, Manuka tree leaves to fend off the scurvy illness that troubled all the sailors on long sea voyages, and the brew worked.


There are lots of memorial signs set up on the shore to commemorate his visit to the bay.



Plus a big monument. with a set of canons from his ship the Endeavor.


We set out our food and wine in the sunshine on a special table shaped like a canoe sort of and ate our filled rolls and fruit and drank our wine, toasting old Captain Cook while we drank.




Then we had a little wander around looking at the Whare/shelter shed and the Maori bridge
A Whare is the traditional Maori name for house.
across the small creek with its carved posts.


There was a big Maori totem pole to examine too. it tells a story if you can read the carving, which I can not.


This bay is where the Marlborough Sounds Walkway starts that thousands of tourist walk every summer to admire the fantastic scenery and the lifestyle of the sounds people.
Soon it was time to race down the sounds in Bob's boat,for home to get back before the sun went down.


What a fabulous day we all had, must do it again soon.
That is My World for this week, please have a look at many other glimpses into other peoples worlds on this Meme.

Scalloping in Marlborough Sounds.

Scalloping with my Brother, Bob, and Sister-in-law Jan and Erle.


Bob is very comfortable Skippering his boat, Jan is all ready for the picnic.

A few weeks ago when the season had not long opened my Brother Bob rang and asked us out for the day in his boat to do a bit of scallop dredging and some rod fishing, plus a picnic on the shore.
Wow we could hardly wait for them to arrive, it was such a lovely day all over blue sky, sunshiny and calm seas, there was no wind either, making it a wonderful smooth ride.



We had a lovely cruise down the sounds to the outer sounds near Ship's Cove. Bob rigged up the dredge and we made a couple of sweeps but the dredge kept lifting and letting all the scallops go, so he dragged it in and set about making adjustments to realign it with the oceans bottom, he is a mechanic and good at these kind of things. We dropped it again and made a quick sweep, lifted the dredge to test whether it was working and found a heap of wonderful big scallops, so it was back to dragging the dredge back an forth across the bay till we had about 100 scallops, not the full quota allowed but plenty enough for us four.
We did an hour or so of rod fishing but it wasn't our day for fish we got masses of bites but no fish big enough to keep, so we headed back to Ship's Cove for a picnic., thats Bob's boat tied to the wharf at Ship's Cove.
Back home we shucked all the scallops and had a big meal of wonderful sweet scallops.