Kia Ora

As promised little Kiwi chums here is the drink we all love. Funny we couldn't get in down under..

Still on a food theme, I made two pots of soup thie week - the first was using vegetables from Tesco - our supermarket. Leeks (Chanel Isles) Carrots (France) and Onions (New Zealand) 16,000 food miles the next pot was from our friends Dave's garden in Sandwick total 6 miles. And actually much more delicious.

Party party

We had such a great welcome home at the big birthday party - Fiona's sisters and neices had food from the past 50 years (before sell by dates were printed!) We think they got the last 2 surviving tins of Heinz Vegetable Salad. The various brothers in law organised the music for dancing and came up with a multicultural band 5 Nations featuring the small pipes. Fiona got to hang out with the girlies and Les got into the groove with his musical pals. Thanks to all those who planned, sang, danced, recited poetry or bought Fiona a pint or a present - you are a great crowd.

My promises are pants!

Sorry I forgot the promised invisible pants picture.. before we left I assembled all the pants for a final launder and hung them out to dry. If you count carefully you can see the invisible ones on the left 3rd row back but being invisible it is hard to tell when they are dry. Anyway I am sure these little wonders will catch on in New Zealand now that they have had a visit from Trinny & Susannah - maybe one day they will get a visit from that other fashion team Marks & Spencer!

On the King's business?

So it was a first for us both but being trainee missionaries we thought maybe the King's business entltled us to travel business class on the way home. We were met and shown to our seats with a rather nice bottle of Bollinger and it took Fiona the whole trip to finish it (the bottle, not the glass) Les had a nice claret with his cheeseboard and although we had proper beds , blankets and pillows we were enjoying it too much to sleep! In the in flight magazine was an article entitled "Destination Madrid!" so we took that as an encouraging next step. There was also

an article on Orkney and even a film choice on John Rae - Orkney's most famous explorer. When we watched a comedy show from last year's Edinburgh Festival there was a fullscreen shot of Andrew's godfather Martin laughing his head off - Fiona replayed that bit many times!

We were delighted to see our friend Cameron waiting at the barrier for us - just wher we said goodbye 11 months ago. He told us that Fiona's Mum was in Theatre with appedicitis but a couple of hours later we got a text saying she was OK - Welcome back to the real world!

Graduation

At last the day we have been working towards - the last one! We enjoyed a lovely day and were released from chores to prepare ourselves, clean the flat and pack. We passed our flat inspection at the 2nd attempt so we got our bond back as well. Cheers!! This is us with Pat and Karen the Principal and the College Mom, they have looked after us so well and deserve their furlough which also starts today - we all fly out tomorrow. Our certificates will follow as we have yet to get our final marks back - we were all presented with a nice white envelope with a special text on it but inside was a compliments slip saying your Certificate is in the post!!

Meet the team cos the guys are here

Last day of serving in teams.. and here we are!