On Monday an amazing thing happened: the sun came out! Yes, folks, it's true; it doesn't always rain in Auckland. I have to admit, I had trouble believning my eyes, but over the course of the day the intensity of cloud cover diminished, and ever larger patches of blue sky collected overhead. Finally, it was actually sunny enough to lie outside reading my book without worrying too much about the windchill factor. This day will live long in my memory!

Other than that, it was a quiet day. I walked to the nearest shops, over the other side of the circular inlet onto which Sharon & Phil's house gives which is being colonised by mangrove. I had a wander around this area, which is multicultural and reminds me of bits of London. There were Indian restaurants, Chinese grocers, Maori coffee shops and all sorts of other small-town premises.

That evening I watched "Touching the Void" with Phil & Sharon. This is a film about two British climbers in Peru who had a bloody nightmare and by rights ought to have died several times over. Somehow they survived - human endurance is astounding - adn this docudrama is really quite gripping.

Tuesday was another quiet one. The sun was actually out long enough for me to go and lie on the veranda, but to be honest it was so windy I had to come inside again after ten minutes. So much for the balmy sub-tropical summer I was hoping for!

But things looked up later on that day, when I went to visit my cousin Alf & his wife Maureen over in Howick. Expecting just a coffee, I was pressed to stay for dinner - oh, go on then, twist my arm! - which Maureen cooked despite her ill state of health. She is a very independent-minded lady, and reminds me of my own mother in the way she won't accept the limitations her illness put on her.

Later that evening, Gayle & Kevin came home (just in time for dinner in fact) and we had a lovely evening sitting drinking wine & chatting.

The next day, after I enjoyed a lazy tea & toast breakfast with Alf & Maureen, Alf dropped me off back at Sharon & Phil's. But I didn't hang around there; I went into Auckland's Downtown area to do a spot of sightseeing. I caught the bus from Panmure to Downtown and saw lots of rain splashing against my window, interspersed with the odd sunny patch where I could actually make out the outline of the buildings on either side of me.

I had a divine lunch at a Japanese ramen noodle bar hidden behind the bus station. Wow! So big! And so cheap too! And so tasty! Then I popped in on Melissa at Queen Street Backpackers to enquire about tickets to Northland. It was bizarre seeing her in a (slightly) more responsible environment, having spent a more intoxicated time with her at the weekend.

Then I hopped on a bus and visited Auckland's aquarium, which was okay but I wasn't actually that fussed. Lots of tanks were being renovated, which didn't help. Still, there were some good sharks & stuff.

Later that afternoon I went to visit Lynley, Kerry, Ella, Conor & Logan over on the North Shore. I caught the ferry from Downtown to Devonport and then several buses up to Mairangi Bay. Reasonably scenic, but the weather still wasn't playing ball. It was really really lovely to be back at the Fordes' house! And the persistent rain made me feel even more at home, because that's just how the weather had been when I was staying here before. I can't help thinking of my nephews & nieces when I'm playing with Lyn & Kerry's kids.

The following morning, we had a little family outing to Conor's playgroup for their Christmas concert. The kindergarten, the most well-funded and well-run in the area, is run by one of New Zealand's more evangelical churches, and there was a lot of evangelist carry-on, but mostly it was about dozens of littluns up on stage singing and dancing. Cute!

Thursday afternoon saw me dashing across the whole of Greater Auckland in a public transport frenzy. Not content with travelling the bus route I already knew from yesterday, I went a different way and took different buses. With the result that I ended up going right round the houses! Still, if I hadn't taken that long bus detour I wouldn't have seen some of the more Maori areas of town, because they're tucked away out of the central districts.

I have to say that several hours of public transport ground my spirit down, especially when I got caught in the home-time traffic and my bus hobbled forward in stop-start traffic for over half an hour. Thankfully Lynley pressed a glass of sauvignon blanc into my hand the minute I put my head round their kitchen door, and the world seemed a better place once more.

Thursday was Ella's birthday, but her birthday party was to take place on Friday. Lyn & I took the kids on a last-minute shopping trip for party plates in the morning, which we rounded off with lunch at Long Bay in a lovely little café.

I dashed off to Sharon & Phil's in Lyn's car to pick up all my belongings and got back with the party in full swing - or should I say in full shriek! Ella had her six best friends from school there, and the seven of them had quite a cumulatively piercing way of making themselves heard. Conor, the only boy, did his best to match them, but frankly he was out-shouted by a long chalk.

Kerry, Lynley & I were monitoring the kids variously in the living room, the play room, and the garden where (between rain showers) the kids were loving throwing themselves on the big trampoline. The three of us all commented later on how pronounced the psychological interplay of the girls seemed to us as we observed them at play. It was like watching a miniature society expressing itself, creating leaders, alliances, exclusions, renegotiations and other phenomena that I thought I'd left behind in the world of work!

When at last it was time for the girls to go home, I think the adults were more exhausted than the kids! We watched a bit of telly, grazed on leftovers from the party (including a rather stunning bread-and-butter pudding that I threw together from the cut-off crusts of the kids' sandwiches; I was most pleased with myself, considering I didn't even know the recipe, let alone use one!) and nattered but soon retired to our respective beds.