The Book of Ashes

Photos - Two weddings and no funerals... 10:54AM

You can't really picture the holiday without seeing the photos, so here they are with a quick commentary...

Friday night at work I went home early. Partly because I was mother hung over and partly because I had to be up early flying down to Queenstown the next morning and I new I couldn't handle that after a big night out.

Flight from Christchurch to Queenstown. Beaut views the whole way down...

Quick stop over in Queenstown then we drove up to Alexandra for our first wedding (this is still Saturday).

5pm Saturday, wedding at Springvale estate. Although it was a slightly overcast day and could have been a lot hotter, it was still hot (around 27-30 degrees). No suit jacket and tie for this wedding...

Sunday, hung out in Alex then back to Queenstown for a meal at Mels new resturant. All the guys then left and we hung out for a week in Queenstown. We went for a walk up Deer park Heights and saw a Buffalo (a long horned highland cattle).

We also saw a Korean prison hut.

And a brillant view of the Kawara coming out of the lake...

We then drove up to Paradise for the scenic tour...

And up to lake Alta in the Remarkables for a swim but it was fucking freezing just standing around let alone going in the water (it had just snowed on the hills the night before, it snowed twice on the hills while we were there). Note the massitude of kids in the background on a school trip.

Towards the end of the week we headed out to the place where the reception was to be held. This was an amazing house (friends of Dad & Corne) on the shore of lake Haze which was owned by the owner of locations realestate. He was well-to-do indeed. After setting up we went for a kayak on the lake. It was a brillant sunny day and lake Haze is much much warmer than lake Wakatipu.

This was his house and deck.

Note the metal piece of artwork done by the same artist as the one in Frank Kitts park in Wellington. Its pretty heavy and had to be helicoptered in here. Speaking of artwork, this guy had about 20-30 paintings along his hallwall along with other pieces. They were good ones like Grahame Sydney originals.

This place was geared up for hosting. The guy was also a natural host. After going for a swim he came running down the hill with a chilly bag of beer, wine and bubbly and introduced himself (we had only met his wife so far), asked us what we wanted to drink and then proceeded to get us plastered (all except me who was sober driver, thank god) on about 10 bottles of $20 wine at his expense.

This was his awesome wine cellar. Note that my shorts look dorky wet as I had just been for a swim and was drying off.

Eddie, Tom & Ash, looking the most respectable we ever will. Just before Dads wedding. Note the day isn't as sunny as the day before, infact it was raining lightly most of the day. Tom was mother hung over from our generous host the day before.

The church, a cute little place just out of Arrowtown.

Jeff & Corne, just married.

A waka of ice, beer and wine. We invented a new saying that night; To drink the waka dry. That was our motto.

The guests on the deck, enjoying the grand venue.

Later that night we got onto the drinking games. Here you can see Megan playing figally-armo. She is currently two-figally-armo (hence the two fingers above her eye. I missed the photo of Darren who was quite drunk and ended up half-figally-armo, two-figally-armo with a hand over one eye and two fingers on the other and trying to make polite conversation with our grandma who he'd just met. He looked the right fool.

Anyway I ran out of film around this time. Spent the next two days in Queenstown chilling out and relaxing. We climbed a steep slope (with ropes and metal steps in the rock it was that steep) to the top of Queenstown hill and oh yeah after the wedding, Eddie and I went into town to the casino and he won 2 brand new 50s on black jack and I won 2 brand new 50s on the roulette table (my baby). Are we skill or what?

So rock and roll Mr Falcon. We're back in Wellington. Eddie has moved up here for good to flat with his mates and look for a job. We are having a BBQ today (Wellington had THE primo day of the year yesterday, sunny and windless and today looks like a repeat, must be al-nino!) to say goodbye to Robyn and Darren and then its back into the same old same old. Except of course that I now have a new job. The new job is weird, its like I've taken over someone elses life, different people, different stuff, its all good though, learning heaps and enjoying it. We'll see where it goes from here.