10th Nov day 27 seeing Simon and Nicholas

I had an early start as I needed to be up and ready before 7am for the airport shuttle, it was another glorious blue sky day in Aus. The airport was easy as I had allowed plenty of time, I so didn't want to be late for meeting the boys at 17.40 in Napier. It was only a 3hr 30min flight plus the 2hrs Sydney is behind NZ. There was a tasty lunch about 11.30 of beef stew with vegetables and I ate it whilst watching the film Love and Mercy. It's a true story about the life of Brian Wilson of Beach Boys fame and you certainly couldn't make up the plot - truth is often stranger than fiction, definitely worth watching. Other than that I just read my book and the flight went whizzing by.

There was 2 hours between arriving and leaving on the internal flight from Auckland to Napier so I figured I had plenty of time - sadly wrong. There is passport control to get through in NZ which takes the usual time and they have introduced another Bio section since I was last here 6 yeasts ago. The queues there were worse than for passports and your bags have to go through another X-ray machine to prevent any natural products being brought in e.g mud on your boots. As a result despite my crazy dash like a woman possessed across to the domestic terminal, I missed check-in for my big case, but not the flight. So I had to pay another $100 to fly nearly 2 hours later. But of course the worst was being late to give those guys a big hug, very frustrating when I have come right around the world on 6 other planes and been on time for all the others but heyho.

But all worth it in the end, they had a made me Welcome Nan notice that I could see as the plane taxied up to the airport - it's only a little airport not a gigantic banner! It was wonderful to see them both and have long overdue (16 months actually) hugs from them both.

This is the plane I arrived on and Nicholas was a gem retrieving my big case, I can't believe how much he has grown.

We headed for Albert St and a late supper, it all felt very right being here. Nicholas's pjs from the Disney shop in San Francisco were the perfect fit and when he had gone to bed Simon and I did some delightful, overdue catching up before bed.