I came in late this morning, as it was fire drill here until 10am, and this involves lots of shrieking in Greek and rushing up and down stairs - I have previous experience of this, so avoided it this time. I sat at home and knitted (pink silk from Debbie Bliss, yum!) until 9am, then went to Gloria Jean's for coffee and an email check. Good thing I did not decide to sleep in, as housemaids were yelling outside my door at 7:30 am. No particular reason, probably they just come from villages where that is the norm, to speak so loudly that you can be heard from one mountain top to the next. But I am really good these days and get up around 7am during the week.

For the enquiring minds, I am flying via Auckland, but don't have a lot of time there, I think the plane from Hong Kong lands at 9am and then my domestic flight leaves at 10:30, something like that. I'll be flying to Wellington, my mother will arrive there from Napier two hours later, and we will spend the weekend with my sister, who lives in Wellington. Doing what exactly, I am not sure, my sister is in charge of this, but I have let it be known that I wish to go to Nancy's. I remember when Nancy's was first opened in Wellington, it used to be inside James Smiths department store - this dates me, it would have been pre-1968! So Nancy's is at least 40 years old. And the original lady was called Nancy as well, my mother knew her, but I think she is no longer with us.

Alec is back today, just for today and tomorrow. If you didn't know him, you wouldn't think he had just had an eye operation, no patch or anything. I can tell, because the affected eye looks a bit different, but that's about it. He also looks thin! He laughed when I told him I was supposed to be seeing that he didn't do too much... he seems in quite good spirits, but I guess he is worried about how much sight will return in that eye.