Sushi, sheep, spas and skate shoes. Not to mention the Smallblacks!

You know it’s getting close to Easter when day spas start adding chocolate facials to their treatment menu.
The East Day Spa on the ground floor of Auckland’s Skycity Grand Hotel is offering busy Mums time out with one-hour of pampering including a bite of Valrhona chocolate. A snip at NZ$115 a pop. Now that would buy the kids a lot of chocolate!
In other news, the annual Running of the Sheep went awry on the weekend, when about 400 of the 1000 sheep involved panicked and ran amok.
It’s the North Island’s answer to Spain’s Running of the Bulls and clearly was never going to end well.
The terrified animals leapt over barriers, ran down the main street of Te Kuiti, and headed for the hills. One woman was knocked unconscious in the stampede.
With 7000 spectators, authorities were lucky the injury rates weren’t higher. And I wonder just how the poor sheep faired?
Back home, in a reversal of our usual Saturday morning routine, H. enjoyed some Daddy-Daughter shopping time on the weekend, while C. and I trawled up the hill to our local library.
In typical C. style, he was dying of thirst and hunger by the time we got there (even though he’d demolished a bacon, egg and cheese wrap and a cup of tea not long before)! Anyway, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and we dropped into the local sushi bar for an early lunch.
Now, the Little Dude has loved sushi for as long as I can remember as long as it’s one type – smoked salmon. Until New Zealand.
Thanks to the influence of his multicultural mates, C. has come to enjoy the delights of wasabi, picked ginger, soy sauce and salad. He polished off four pieces of salmon and avocado sushi, plus two helpings of tuna and avocado sushi, with all the trimmings.
As for Missy, she was happy when Husband treated her to her very own pair of skate shoes. C. has had some for a while now, and it wasn’t until now that H. felt brave enough to try her own. It’s early days yet, but she’s having fun learning!
I had to work in the afternoon, doing my first story for New Zealand Women’s Weekly, so K. gallantly took the kids off to see Monsters Vs Aliens. A great time was had by all!
Sunday was spent mainly in the park, with a spot of weekend television thrown in for good measure. The kids love Kiwi telly, and I enjoy snuggling up with them on the couch, twittering, reading or doing laundry while they crack up at cartoons and silly segments.
One of their Sunday morning treats is Small Blacks TV, where members of the All Blacks entertain with fitness tips, cooking, and more. Then it’s time for What’s Now TV, which lately has included a hilarious spoof of Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen called Foul’s Kitchen. It’s really silly, and again features NZ celebrities happily sending themselves up.
Despite our differences, I think Aussies and Kiwis share a similar sense of humour. Just another thing to love about NZ.









The local skate park. Not sure whether to be thrilled it's nearby or not..











Gorgeous trees in Victoria Park. C. is cracking himself up!

















H., and her minions














More face-painting, this time at Victoria Park Markets (it was a bugger to get off!)











Mmmm, sushi...
See, you add a little bit of wasabi, just like this!