Welcome To Tauranga

My Dear Fellows and Dear Princess,

We are having a long weekend in the Bay of Plenty. This is because it was Feefs's 40th birthday yesterday and - never one to do things by halves - she has organised a massive birthday bash for tomorrow night.

Er Indoors has organised everything for this weekend, and all I need to do is show up. It is great, and surprisingly stress-free. Her plans ticked along like clockwork and if our plane was delayed by 45 minutes, that just gave me more time for people-watchi-

"Oh my god! Oh my god!" said Er Indoors, grabbing my arm.

It turned out she had spotted one of the cast of "Survivor: New Zealand".

"You know, the one who was a total dick in love with himself."

That didn't narrow it down very much. I vaguely remembered the dude and as it turned out he sat on the plane directly in front of us. Er Indoors did not attempt to engage him in conversation which is just as well as her opening gambit would probably have been, "I know you! You're that total arse off the telly!"

Er Indoors and I noted the pronunciation of "Tauranga" was always pronounced by airline staff as "Toe-runga". This is the correct Maori pronunciation but I feel self-conscious saying it like that. David Sedaris wrote a piece about one of his lecturers at uni, who did South American politics. The lecturer was fastidious about using the correct pronunciation and the students had great fun making him say words like "Hwata-ma-la" for Guatemala and "Ellll Salvadorrrrr".

But their favourite was "Man-a-gwa Nee-he-rah-gwa". And they would often ask him stupid questions like "What country has adopted Marxist ideology in Central America?"

"Nee-he-rah-gwa?" he would reply.

"Yes, yes, and what's the capital city?"

"Have you learned NOTHING from my lectures?" the lecturer would reply exasperated. "It's Ma-na-gwa, Ma-na-gwa Nee-he-rah-gwa!"

And then it was a challenge for the next student to try and get him to say it AGAIN.

I worry that I may sound equally arsey saying "Tau-oo-po" instead of "Taupo" or "Roh-to-rua" instead of "Rotorua" and indeed "Toe-runga" instead of "Tauranga". But on the other hand I want to be respectful.

It is hard being a self-conscious liberal.

Anyway, I managed to get some decent shots out of the plane window, the best of which is above. In the picture you can see Tauranga airport in the foreground with Mount Maunganui in the background. Mount Maunganui is Er Indoors's home town. It is built entirely on the sand-spit between the land and the Mount itself. So she grew up on that thin ribbon of land you can see there. We got in at about 2 o'clock and booked ourselves into the "Baywatch Motor Inn".

I was disappointed there were no Hasselhoff pictures up ANYWHERE. Huh.

She said she loves the feeling of coming home. I get that, I had similar feelings on my trip to Scarborough last year.

We had been invited for dinner at the house of Dani and The Cop. You may remember we were round there at Xmas too, where I was traumatised when one of Dani's mates was very in-your-face with her fanny.

"Yer poor b@stard," lamented The Cop. He was a great host. He made a huge roast dinner of lamb AND pork with all the fixins. Their adorable dogs Tink & Oscar sat looking adoringly at us while we ate. Then the Cop brought out a couple of tins of something to make me feel at home. See the extra.

I didn't have the heart to tell him it wasn't really my thing. But I was actually very grateful for them. Beer was followed by whisky and port and I was happy to knit one, purl one - with the thought in the back of my mind that I needed not to spew on anyone at Feefs's big bash.

But it was a great night. They are very funny people and The Cop loves the chance to tell his stories as a Kiwi policeman. He told us how, during the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-Operation (APEC) meeting in Auckland, he was given the job of escorting the Hong Kong motorcade.

Him and his mate were just having a cup of tea when Jenny Shipley, then Prime Minister of NZ swanned past. She had a job for them, they were told. 

She was going back to the Prime Minister's residence in Auckland, but she wanted her handbag to be there when she arrived.

And that is how The Cop and his mate ended up driving 170kph through Auckland, escorting the Prime Minister's Handbag.

He then brought out his dessert. It was choc chip cookies soaked in kahlua, and slathered in cream then accompanied with ice-cream. It was this long, elephantine dessert. It looked quite intimidating.

"It looks a bit like me nob," he commented.

"Dreamin' bloody dreamin," replied Dani.

So we had great fun trading rude banter and getting quite pished. We got back to Baywatch around midnight. I'm glad we left at that time - it could have got really messy otherwise.

Now it is the next day and apart from a slight headache, we seem to be okay. Am I ready for the birthday bash? Probably not. But I will be upright and non-spewing, and that is the main thing.

S.