While staying in Ngaio, we visited Otari-Wilton's Bush...

"Only 5 kilometres from downtown Wellington lies a unique treasure; 5 hectares of botanic gardens created for the collection and preservation of New Zealand's native plants nestled against the largest block of natural forest on the Wellington peninsula to survive initial settlement."

We've put our photos into this fern-filled gallery.

After landing in Auckland and being compelled to declare our chocolate at Customs, we caught our Wellington flight without any problems. The actual flight itself was not such easy going...

There haven't been many updates to the site lately, and that's because we've been very busy. Now it's time to catch up and to let you all know what we've been up to. Read on for the first instalment...

Eilidh had her viva on Tuesday, and it went very well. After a small number of corrections are made and various administrative meetings are held, it'll all be official. Somewhat surprisingly, on the very same day, Eilidh also realised that she was not 28 but was in fact 27.

image:1678 align=right width=150 Last weekend the Edinburgh Festival Fringe kicked off, and we went to see our first show - Tim Minchin. We saw his show last year (for which he won the Perrier Newcomer Award), and thought it was fantastic, so we booked tickets to see him again as soon as this year's program came out.

This years show, 'So Rock', was very good indeed. The songs and standup were almost all new material, with the balance a little more towards the standup side than in last year's 'Darkside'. The only repeat from last years show was the song 'Canvas Bags', where Tim implores the audience to take their canvas bags to the supermarket instead of using plastic ones. The song is funnier than it sounds, I assure you.

We are now the proud recipients of our very first parking ticket. Great.