A few photograps to capture a bit of the spirit of New Year celebrations here in Wanganui. A three day affair starting with a 'sokkie' and 'braai' into the wee hours of January 1st - a super fireworks display on the banks of the Whanganui river at the stroke of midnight, followed by a day of water 'sports' - plenty of team spirit rustled up for the 'sideline sports' like egg throw, tug-o-war, three legged races and apple bobs.

After all the slipping and sliding and flinging about of bodies (literally in many cases) the marquee was transformed into a movie theatre to screen a Leon Schuster trilogy - most of the sunburned, stiff water sport competitors not managing to keep their eyes open past the half way mark! Day three dawned - at about 11am for some - and everyone congregated at the Botanical Gardens outside Wanganui (quite near to Kai Iwi Beach) for 'backyard cricket, volleyball, touch rugby and frisbee-netball. Teams changed rapidly and fearlessly and there was much hilarity and cheating going on! We took our picnic basket filled to the brim with all the festive fare we had left over and some fresh dilectable nibblies, but some folks hauled out the firelighters and charcoal and did the braai number all over again! After a day in the sun, dusk saw the most fearless of the bunch headed back to the big marquee at the Top Ten holiday park for a 'chocolate fountain' and some good music. Sunday morning saw loads of folks from the surrounding districts bidding farewell and heading off home after church - where we once again provided the music - there is no organ folks so someone has to do something!

Jo and I ended up ambling down to the local Celtic pub for a bite to eat and a quiet and relaxed time with some of our new friends before closing another New Year's chapter.

(us old fogeys spent a couple of days recovering from all the exercising of muscles we'd forgotten we had! - we were tempted to haul out a walking stick or two for a laugh, but the old bones recovered and we are back to normal!)

Hope that you all had a good New Year and we wish you the very best 2010 possible, with plenty of love and laughter in your lives. We send our love to our special folks and our wish is that we get the opportunity to welcome some of you to Wanga- Vegas in the course of this year.

Dis al!