Auckland for a change.

Spent the weekend at home seeing I had been at Waiheke all week and had been invited by good friend Carolyn to attend a fundraising garden party at Fernhall, a lovely old villa in Gillies Avenue. Persuaded Dieter to come too for company. It is a centre which offers development courses for girls and young women and they were on hand to speak about their experiences, show people around and serve afternoon tea. We sipped punch and enjoyed harp music too and I was suitably impressed by the place.

Today was more leisurely though we went down to have some icecream at Giapo. This is the place where Dieter has been taking many kilos of guavas off our tree in exchange for gelato vouchers. He has over $100 worth so far. Had a most delicious feijoa and tiramisu cone.

Went to a concert in the Town Hall by the Auckland Youth Symphony Orchestra after that seeing we stumbled upon it after getting off the bus to go and get our icecream. It was very enjoyable - a sorrowful lament, punctuated by tubular bell ringing for Benjamin Britten by the Estonian composer Part, then a Mozart piano concerto, followed by Tschaikovsky's Symphony no 5.