Nelson

I had a great weekend in Nelson catching up with my mate Alan, his wife Linda and their poodle Harvey. And before anyone asks "Yes, Harvey's fully grown - he's a toy poodle - and, yes they do have smaller poodles; the teacup!" It was really nice to be waited on hand and foot - which Linda excels at - and also to just vege out.

Alan and I worked together back in my Telecom days in the late 90's. When I say "worked" we did about as much as most people in a huge corporate and always seemed to manage to find time for a trip out for morning or afternoon tea. We've been in touch ever since and it was great to stay with him. Once again he delighted in showing me his rare book collection to which he's just added some documents in Arabic and Persian dating from a couple of hundred years ago. I think his oldest piece is from the 1200's!

Alan and Linda's house is just what I'd expected them to have. It's a Nelson one-level, detached version of the multi-level, attached townhouse they had in Wellngton. The colours and fittings are nearly identical. It's as if they took the townhouse with them and just got it squashed flat!

Alan's father, Doug is a keen handyman and is in the midst of redoing their garden. They got an incredible crop of vegetables last year and are looking forward to more of the same. We feasted on roasted vegetables on Suinday night manay form the garden and Linda made me a special vegan chocolate mousse using choclate rice milk. Absolutely yum-tastic!

While vegging out I managed to stay awake through the John Travolta film 'Phenomenon' - not because it was boring, but rather I was quite tired. It's a great film and raises some interesting questions about human potential.

The myPod over the weekend featured a lot of Susan Boyle's version of "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Mis. She sang it on Britain's Got Talent and she sure shocked the audience. She doesn't look like the sort of person who could sing like and angel, but she sure did.

Nelson is a lovely town and vies with Blenheim and Whakatane for sunniest place in the country. Ironically, with the rain coming I set off for the Nelson Lakes region......