The television here is mostly soaps, variations on human interest ('How to spend less money, see what the police/fire dept/Australian SPCA are doing, decorate your neighbours' wife and never speak again' type programmes), news broadcasts and CSI re-runs that were on in the UK 2-3 weeks ago!

We're not quite in the back of beyond but you can see it from here, so a stroll to the pub is out, and the games room has a pool table but no cues. There is a goat for the really adventurous but her owner (who's a sweetie and took us out for dinner last night) will not be pleased.

The trip to see the hobbits (in a town called Matamata) was a bit of a failure on 2 counts.. Firstly it was peeing down and secondly, it's a vastly overpriced, short bus tour. It is the actual set of Hobbiton; the holes are there and apparently you can wander around them, but the set dressing has been removed so they're all identical white fronted holes in a hill. To my mind, that's not really worth paying nearly NZ$60 (about 25 pounds sterling) per adult to see... Especially when it cost only NZ$80 for 3 adults and a child to spend all day at the Auckland museum and see an exhibition and Maori cultural show!

But, we had a jolly day out, despite the showers, found a large corrugated iron sheep, a giant corrugated iron pukeko and some corrugated iron poppies... don't ask!

Oh, I discovered last night that I like Tui beer as well as tui birds!

LTS