Farewell Raglan, you gorgeous place you

We had ten wonderful days in Raglan. Supercool house to stay in, fabulous company, great food, excellent shopping and plenty of activities to keep us out of mischief. Other people may like the more flashy, glitzy holiday towns but I love Raglan. I even had a somewhat deluded "we could live here!" moment and browsed real estate.

Who knows when we'll next be back there. Hopefully not too far in the future.

Off to the circus

My children still speak wistfully about the wonderful holiday they had with all their aunts, uncles, cousins and grandmother (on my side of the family) in Waiwera just before my lot moved to Australia. The fabulous holiday we have just had together in Raglan is also likely to be something we all remember and reminisce about for years to come.

One of the new memories we now all share is of "the other Shona". My mother's name is Shona and several times in Raglan we encountered another quite different Shona. The other one is a very talented and hugely entertaining performer in Circus Aotearoa. Her hilarious segment as a steriod-crazed Eastern European hula hooper was a highlight of our fun outing to Circus Aotearoa.

The members of my household are pretty spoilt when it comes to seeing great, contemporary, non-animal circus. We have been fortunate enough to see Aurelia's Oratorio, Slava's Snowshow, Circus Oz, Mandurah's own Pulse WA (with their amazing show Harmonike), Raoul and Circa and many other amazing and beautiful circus style shows. Circus Aotearoa is smaller scale and closer to traditional circus than the other shows I just mentioned, but it did not disappoint. We went with a group of thirteen adults and ten children ranging in age from late seventies to preschool and we all enjoyed it.

If you get the chance I recommend you treat all generations of your whanau to a Circus Aotearoa show too. From their calendar I see that after Raglan they are off to Thames, Whitianga and Waihi this holiday season. Find out where and how to catch them at their website here http://www.circusaotearoa.co.nz/

I'd love to hear if your family enjoys the experience and delights in the antics of "the other Shona" as much as mine did.

Get lost, Evan

A couple of days before Christmas my family headed to Raglan and we have been here ever since. We are staying with my five siblings, their partners, their children, my mother and some friends. Our numbers change slightly from day to day as visitors arrive and leave, but there is a core group of eighteen of us holidaying together in two houses, two tents and two vans. Lots of fun. No punchups.

We do however have one uninvited holiday companion tagging along: Evan. Recently he made a jolly nuisance of himself in Samoa and then Fiji. By the time he made it to New Zealand he was tired and spent but he was still very, very wet.

Evan is of course a cyclone and due to Cyclone Evan's remnants we have had a lot of rain this week. But who cares about a bit of rain when hanging out with family in a gorgeous place? Not me.