G & J away from home

Saturday, 16 July 2016

Arrived in Auckland just after 6am - it was dark and rainy and pretty cold after 4 days in California and 7 weeks in much milder Northern hemisphere weather.  Normally feeling the cold is a Gary thing (hence the annual visit to Darwin to escape the Palmerston North winter) but today I was feeling it too.

The airport was fairly quiet with hardly any queues and the highlight for me was seeing the bio-security dog in action.  He was being told to inspect each person as he wandered amongst us while we waited for our bags to arrive.  He appeared to be totally indifferent to the lot of us until his handler was walking away from our group, past a couple of cabin staff waiting to one side.  About two metres past them he suddenly turned about and dragged his handler back and sat down at the side of the one of the trolleys.  The dog got a treat.  The handler gave him an instruction and the dog stood up on his hind legs and pawed at the bag in the basket of the trolley.  Another treat for the dog.  The cabin staff member opened her bag and surrendered something to the handler (one hopes she was at least embarrassed about it!) and the handler and dog took it off to a bin.  Once it was disposed of the dog got another treat and went on about his business.  It looks like a fun job for the dog!

And on the subject of things that ought not to be in ones luggage, we had Things To Declare.  Not exactly high-risk items; some food (instant coffee left over from our travelling supplies, British Marmite for the same reason, and a handful of Werthers Originals which are my great travelling standby 'food') and a wooden bookmark from Cleeve Abbey which I never would have bothered with except it was needed as a gift.  We Declared, the man stamped our form, we wandered out - all proving Mum's long-held theory that having something to declare is faster than having nothing to declare.

We shuttled across Auckland in the dark and then got settled in at Anne and Lloyd's place.  Despite showers, heaters, lovely afternoon sun in Anne's living room, and unearthing from the car the winter gear we had travelled up to Auckland in, we didn't really get warmed up.  By 3pm when we went out to buy supplies for tea we were still freezing but recognised the solution as soon as we saw it - meat pies!  After scoffing one of those each we finally warmed up; pies can fix anything.

When we weren't checking emails and letting people know we were back I started reading the Cherrys series from Anne's book shelves:


So many good books on those shelves ... perhaps I should offer to house sit for Anne and Lloyd sometime.


Reading: The Cherrys of River House by Will Scott

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