Not the best nights sleep. Well it was one of those nights where I didn’t think I slept to well but I still appear to lie in bed till past 9am so it really can’t have been that bad.

Swimming was again on the agenda this morning after a successful swim in Auckland yesterday so off we went to the local pool. Considering the size of the town, the pool complex was amazingly big with three separate pools, a steam room and a sauna. And really not anyone about either. A leisurely 28 minutes was spent swimming up and down whilst the last two were spent challenging Claire to a race. We then eloped to the steam room for a few minutes before a freezing cold shower and a ride home.

Breakfast was kept simple, a couple of pieces of toast sufficed before I decided a wander was in order to explore all Palmerston North had to offer. An hour wandering into the city centre, round Rebel Sports (just to see how if differed from Oz), to the memorial in the centre and then a wander into Countdown (NZs Woolworths) and that was about all the highlights.

At the moment I’d wandered into Countdown, initially to get a paper but it then progressed to me innocently wandering up the beer aisle and gazing lovingly at the many beers I’d never tried, Claire messages and asked how far away I was. As an man in this situation would do, I took this as ‘come home now’ and so set foot slightly hurriedly back towards our Airbnb.

This afternoon was on paper for me at least a somber affair. A few weeks ago when we were in Coogee we learnt of the death of Claire’s grandmother. This afternoon was to be a memorial for her and the reason we’d flown to Palmerston North. I made it back in time for the second car over to the venue (Claire’s uncles house). In truth in the second carload there was just me due to my lateness arriving back. 
We pulled into the driveway of a beautiful large property with a very pretty garden, picturesque veranda and an ornately decorated house. I noticed as we pulled up at least 10 cars in the drive, so many more than I was expecting.

We walked towards the house and was instantly greeted my Claire’s uncle who I instantly found very warm, maybe it’s a bit of a NZ trait but everyone seems so welcoming and very happy to chat. Its not necessarily what I find in Australia and when you don’t know people it’s very nice because I’m feeling everyone is making an effort to come up and chat to me. It certainly makes events like this very easy and inspite of the reason we were there I really enjoyed conversing with a hoard of people about a variety of things from how we’d both met to what I thought of Brexit to how I came to Melbourne.
The more welcome and loved people make you feel, the more you let yourself become you.

The speeches were quite beautiful and although I never got to meet Claire’s grandmother it certainly gave me an idea of how she was and many of the traits I see in her granddaughter now make sense. Especially her strange love to grapes. Claire’s mother’s speech was particularly touching and gave a timeline of her life from leaving England in her teens to her final few years.

Much drinks and food was consumed over the course of the day and I thoroughly enjoyed being there. We arrived back in our Palmerston North home for a debrief and to head to bed after a long day.

IJS 13/11/2016