Return to Paradise - Lagos

We were lucky enough to return to Lagos, Portugal this year, exactly one year after we had first visited. One of our favourite places to date, it was great to be able to go back to some where for a second time.

This time we set off with Simon, Keryn, Becks, Paul, Adam and Nay (Lol was in New York) - after an extremely early start (check in was moved forward due to the ash drama two weeks earlier) we arrived in a very sunny and warm Portugal.

We stayed in the same apartment complex as last time so we knew where we were heading. The boys took off quickly to check the surf (not good) and the girls hit the beach in front of where we were staying to soak up the sun and have a few drinks.

When the boys returned it was off for a dose of seafood (so yummy and so cheap) in Lagos town.

Lagos - at dusk

Ken, Nay and I at dinner on our last night

On our way for a post dinner drink

We took advantage of the cheap drinks and headed out after dinner, with the girls calling it quits slightly earlier than the boys (ask them about that night if you ever get the chance it's quite an entertaining story)

The next morning they were off in search of a surf (not fruitful again) and the girls had a wander around Lagos. Later that afternoon the boys took us on their second search for waves. This allowed me to return to the spot where Ken and Nay had left Gaz, Lol and I for 5 hours while they went surfing last year. However, this year they surfed at this particular beach (the only surf of the trip and not anywhere close to the standard of last year I was told).

The site of the only surf of the trip

Boys heading out for a surf (Ken on the far left, Paul, Simon, Adam)

The surf WAGs (as Becks put it) - Keryn, Becks and I

There were many more missions for the boys to look for surf and many more hours on the beach for the girls, lots of seafood and super bock beer consumed over the long weekend.

Me reading at the beach in front of the apartment

The local men have naps under their umbrella's waiting to take people on trips around the coves

Ken walking along the water's edge

Once again we loved our trip to Lagos, this time I even went for a swim, we were agreed that the water was far warmer than last year. I hope this is not the last time we visit Lagos before return home from our overseas adventure.

Next trip on the cards is surfing related again, and another repeat trip, we are heading back to Cornwall for the long weekend at the end of May. We are looking forward to it.

A trip home - New Zealand March 2010

A trip home was on the cards for 2010 and in March this year, a very excited Ken and I arrived back in the homeland.

First on the agenda was families, catching up with the Vazey/Wilson/Feary clan for lunch and meeting the latest addition to the family and then dinner with the Philip family. Followed by a few days catching up with everyone in Levin.

Ken and his niece Paige

Ken checking out the surf at Hokio

The it was off to Wellington to catch up with old co-workers and friends along with attending Barnes and Loren's wedding. Wellington turned on amazing weather and we really enjoyed our time back there.

Me going up the cable car

Jennie, Ken and I at the wedding

Ken and the old crew from Constable Street

We had planned on heading to New Plymouth, but there was no surf and the weather was better in Levin so this allowed us a few extra days at home, including my Dad's Birthday which we celebrated as a family in Palmerston North.

My family

We then made our way up North with a stop at Raglan for a hour or so and a night with Cappie in Hamilton before a weekend in Auckland. We stayed with the lovely Jennie and Gaz and we were able to catch up with my girlfriends from university and a large portion of our friends from Wellington who had relocated.

An afternoon in the sun at Devonport

With Gaz and Jen looking over Auckland

Brunch with the crew and the newly arrived Lol and Nay

We ended our time in Auckland with brunch with the crew and Lol and Nay who had arrived late the night before, before heading to Pauanui for a couple of nights holiday, in our holiday. This was where Ken managed to get his one surf of the trip and we had AMAZING fish and chips.

Ken with our feast

The it was back to Levin before Ken went to Taupo to meet up with Nay and Cappie and some of the other boys to celebrate their birthday, while I stayed in Levin to attend a 21st/5oth, BYO with my high school friends and I was lucky enough to get a ride in a hot air balloon.

Getting ready to lift off

Up in the air

Ken then returned to Levin so we could all see him on his birthday, we had a lovely dinner with Deborah, Pete, Gran, Grandy, Shane, Candice and Paige. And then our time was up, it was time to fly back to London with a 6 hour layover in Singapore. We returned back to London, where the weather was great and it was suddenly warm, light and sunny a big difference to what we had left. We loved our time at home and look forward to our next visit.

New Year in the French Alps

For New Year 2009/2010 we decided that we would be better off going somewhere and embracing the cold as opposed to trying to be a tourist in -5 degree weather like last year. So we booked to go snowboarding for a week in the French Alps.

We didn't have large enough numbers to book our own chalet so we booked to stay in a larger chalet/hotel that slept 50 people.

We arrived in Switzerland, slightly under the weather after our Christmas celebrations to be picked up by our host and driven over the border into France to Morzine where we were based for a week.

Morzine was perfect for the mix of snowboarders that we had, it allowed the girls who had only snowboarded once or never to make us of the beginner slopes and easier runs on the French side, while the boys were able to participate in this with us as well as heading over to the French/Switzerland side and snowboarding a lot of black runs.

Our first day we were kitted out with snowboards and boots and then were taken to the chalet, after a quick look around the village it was back to the chalet for some TV watching (all in French) and dinner that evening.

La Chaumiere - the chalet

Day One - it snowed our first night - this was looking out of our balcony over Morzine

The chalet was great, breakfast and dinner were provided for us which allowed the girls a much deserved break from cooking and our host would come and pick us up each morning and drive us to the ski store to pick up our gear which we had hired for a week and stored there and then the girls would walk to the 'bubble lift' and the boys would be driven to the lift on the other side.

Me getting the feel for snowboarding (I had spent one day 3 years earlier on a snowboard in NZ)

The boys came with us on the first day up the bubble lift to the Morzine/Les Gets side, Si and Bryce the most experienced boarders took off, and Nay and Ken soon followed, leaving Lol, Keryn and I on the baby slopes. We were all due to meet again at 1pm. Easier said than done. Bryce and Simon ended up in Switzerland and taking quite some time to get back, Nay and Ken were even further behind them. It was while we waited for the boys to turn up for lunch that we found out Paige Marie Vazey had entered the world.

A cup of tea and a de-brief on the days events

Dinner at the end of our first day snowboarding

After the first day the boys had found their snowboarding groove and decided to tackle the other side of town as they had bought Portes du Soleil passes which allowed them to ski Avoriaz side too - our hosted guided them for the morning with a word of warning - don't miss the last chairlift - it's cheaper to stay in Switzerland than to try and get back. The girls stuck to the Morzine/Les Gets side and by day two tackled their first blue run!

This continued until New Years Day. Lol and I did have one day off the slopes, we were tired and sore and wanted to take a look around the village - that day it rained ALL day so we were quite pleased. The boys and Keryn arrived back early soaked. The rain also meant that the snow was washing away. The village was no longer covered in snow and the lower runs were loosing some of their snow too.

Ken and Lol booting up at the ski store

Simon and Bryce at Avoriaz

New Years Eve our normal 3 course meal (prepared by owner and former chef) turned into a 4 course meal which was amazing. We were paying for all of our own drinks at dinner so Bryce snuck down a bottle of vodka in his jeans. This was not missed by the family that were sitting next to us, however, luckily we had been talking with them over a series of nights. One of the women in particular was very interested in who we were, where we were from, what we did and without saying it, how we could all afford to be there. They were very interested to find out we were all from a small town in New Zealand.

After dinner and a few stiff drinks we headed into a village pub to see in the New Year - even though there were only 7 of us, lots of fun was had. Bryce had to go home early after a few too many strong drinks. Si, Keryn, Lol and I left Ken and Nay in their own little world to arrive home to find Bryce still drinking at the chalet bar. I was woken an hour or so later to find two identical twins with snowballs in their hands, ready to attack Bryce who was happily unaware and singing in his shower at 2am!

Pre dinner drinks on New Years Eve at the chalet

New Year's Day the weather was amazing and the slopes were pretty much empty as everyone recovered from their hangovers. The boys took this opportunity to come and see how the girls snowboarding skills were going. They obviously weren't expecting much as Ken made the comment 'you girls aren't shit like I thought you'd be'. This was also our first experience on the chairlifts, it was great to do with someone who was confident and allowed us to feel confident for the rest of our time there.

Slightly apprehensive about the chairlift

Ken as it began to snow New Year's Day

It began to snow late New Years Day which meant that our last day in Morzine there was lots of snow, the boys enjoyed a big day snowboarding and the girls did lots of runs and got on and off the chairlifts a lot, finally mastering the art.

Morzine after snow

Ken, Nay and Si on the last day

Avoriaz - last day

The last day ended with the only injury of the trip - Bryce broke his arm. The next day we flew back to London before going back to work on the Monday. We had a great week away and really enjoyed our break and hopefully will be able to hit the slopes again soon.

Our second London Christmas

Our second Christmas had rolled around quicker than ever and the group of kiwi's we knew in London had grown considerably. We had definitely out grown our living room and our tiny kitchen would not be able to cook for over 20, so Christmas 2009 was a little different.

Christmas Tree on Christmas Eve

The crew from last year gathered at our flat on Xmas Eve (Becks, Paul, Bryce, Lol, Nay, Ken and I) along with our new flat mates Sally and Adam and our friends Katy and Crispy who were currently living in Portugal.

Nay pouring champagne on Xmas morning

We had a champagne breakfast on Xmas morning, after opening our presents from home and then proceeded to open our secret santa presents. Like the year before, we had all pulled someone's name from the hat and had a buy a £25 gift for them.

Ken opening his secret santa gift

The because of the large numbers we walked to Maida Vale (15mins) to the Elgin pub for our Christmas lunch. We had around 26 all together for this part of the day. The meal was good and it was nice to get out of the house for a bit during the day.

Xmas lunch

Xmas lunch

Ken and I - Christmas Day

After lunch we returned to our flat and the Xmas Day party began and went until the wee hours of the morning.

Girls Road Trip in Ireland

As previously mentioned the boys went on their surf trip so a week later during school holidays Lauren and I set off on a road trip around southern Ireland. We felt comfortable driving here as they drive on the same side of the road we are used to, we had also already been to Dublin so we could limit our time to the south.

We flew into Shannon and drove to Patrickswell, a small village outside of Limerick where a family friend of mine Paul Feasey and his wife Betty Ann and their two children live.

We had a lovely dinner and then went out for a few drinks, the next day slightly worse for wear we took a look around the tourist village Adare, had an awesome roast lunch and hit the road heading towards Blarney.

Thatched cottages in Adare

Myself and the Feaseys

After arriving in Blarney and finding a B&B, the next day after a full Irish breakfast we set out to visit Blarney Castle. We took a look around the grounds before heading up to kiss the Blarney stone.

Blarney Castle

Lol behind bars under Blarney Castle

The sacrifice

Giving the stone a wee kiss

That afternoon we drove to a coastal town just outside of Cork called Kinsale, it what came to be a theme of the trip the fish and chip store I had had recommended to me was closed on Mondays. Instead we took some sandwiches along the 'scenic' river drive to eat. We could not see a thing - FOG - also became a theme of our trip to Ireland.

Eating Lunch in Kinsale

After lunch we drove back into Cork to a B&B (the worst of our stay) it was slightly worse for wear, again with recommendations for restaurants in hand we set off for dinner only to find everywhere was closed that Monday evening! In the end we asked a girl of our age for any recommendations and she listed all the places we had already been to visit. A bit of a disappointment.

However, we found food and got a good nights rest before heading in the direction of Killarney the next morning. We took another trip to the coast on the way, this time to Baltimore - again there was little to sea because of the fog but we wandered around before heading back to a small town on route to Killarney where we have cake and tea (we drank alot of tea on this trip).

We reached Killareny and stayed in lovely B&B there. The next day we hired bikes and biked through part of Killarney National Park and then went to visit a castle just outside the town centre.

Me on my bike in Killarney National Park

After another night in Killarney and loads more tea and another Irish breakfast we set off to drive around the Ring of Kerry heading towards Dingle, another coastal town.

Now I'm sure that this stretch of Ireland is stunning in good weather but again the fog returned. In a spur of the moment decision we turned off the road to visit an old fort that dated back to pre christianity. This was quite impressive and in the fog so much easier to imagine what it would have been like when people really lived there.

Lol walking around the edge of the Fort.

We arrived in Dingle - after driving along a coastline similar to Kaikoura. The B&B we had intended to stay at were closed (typical) so we wandered the street and found an amazing little B&B and took their last room. The lovely Irish lady recommended a number of places to eat and listen to traditional Irish music so off we went.

Lol and I after our dinner at an Irish pub

At another pub waiting for the music to start.

We woke to another day of terrible weather and set out on our longest leg Dingle to Galway which included a ferry crossing.

On the way to Galway we stopped at the cliffs of Moher, regardless of the weather this was impressive and the rain did stop for us.

Lol and I at the cliffs of Moher

We reached Galway and had two nights here before flying back to London, we took a look around the city and went out for a few drinks one night. We also took the opportunity to enjoy a nice room, a large plasma and some good ol X Factor.

We did venture out one afternoon to a castle we could see on a map - but in typical fashion it was closed. However, on closer inspection I could see that my jumping on the bridge that led to the castle into the paddock below and running through this I was likely going to be able to scale an outer wall of the castle and go inside the grounds, so this I did. Lol then joined me and for once we got to inside a closed attraction and wander the grounds.

Me back outside the castle where I should be.

The trip was great fun, we still look back now 6 months on and laugh with the weather and so many closed attractions and resultants we are not likely to forget this trip for a while.