Barbara

Today was all about Barbara. A wonderful and beautiful lady who flew from Poland to Scotland to Sydney to Auckland just to see us. We met for lunch at the Zealong Tea Estate and partook of the Green, the Pure and the Aromatic. Being the philistines that we are we didn't rate the Pure too highly but enjoyed the others enough to buy some of their ridiculously expensive shrivelled leaves.
It had always been a hare-brained idea, to meet up in the middle of nowhere really, but it worked perfectly. Having driven for a couple of hours to see each other didn't leave much time for the catching up, but the connection was made and strengthened and there was a lot of laughing which can't be bad. The food we ate for lunch wasn't bad either - Margie had the fish on avocado purée with tender stem broccoli and lentil pakora, while Barbara and I had a sophisticated three tiered High Tea with five savoury delights and five sweet works of art. We both thought the prawn toasts and the blue cheese fig and walnut tartlets were the highlight btw.
We made our overpriced purchases before we said our good byes and went our separate ways with another promise to meet up closer to home next time. Barbara headed to Hamilton to buy some gifts for her hosts in Taronga whilst we headed back towards the Auckland traffic jams to join Catriona and Jaq in their weekly Yoga session. Joints feeling stretched and sore tonight. Just saying.