Counting Sheep.... I lost Count!!

After having a quiet evening watching tv and doing some mails I retired to my the bed in the Glenross Lodge Backpackers for an anticipated deep restful sleep in the quiet countryside with the only noise coming from the very occasional car passing along the road about 300 m away. I rapidly fell into a coma.. However my traquil sleep was fratured by the 5 sheepdogs a-barking at 05.30 and the farmer screeching at them to shut up. Apparently yesterday was shearing day and George the farmer had a shriller screech than the Keane Brothers of Ardmore in unison. George had less choice language though...!. I was therefore up with the dawn chorus of screeching George, several hundred baaing sheep and howling frenzied sheepdogs.. So much for the peace and quiet of the countrry. Still though it was part of the country experience and I managed to get a fantastic breakfast and some more work done onthe notebook. How better to start a day.. except my notebook pc started doing funny things and would not boot up... the screen kept disappearing and there was verticle lines appearing where the Windows 7 should have been.. This happened before but I have a theory and of course it has to do with who else but??? MELISSA! Every time I turned her on within an asses roar of the laptop the screen on the laptop went off on one. When the screen went off on one I went to a similar place!!!  I am beginning to find lots of reasons now to really hate Melissa.
Drove to a place called Pongaroa.. great names and then another 30km to a beack on the East part of the country called Akitio.. It was at the end of a 22km road with very few houses and then running along the side of the beach was a village(just suddenly appeared). All but deserted as the summer hols are over here and the 1st of March was the beginning of Autumn!  A beautiful beach about 2 miles long with loads of driftwood and unusual shapes and weather battered tree trunks stuck into the sand.  Of course I took another 5 million pics to bore the socks off ye on my return.. It started to rain a bit so I decided to head back and make my way to Wellington and to my distant relatives for dinner. It was gonna be a 4 hour drive. They were based in lovely place called Paraparaumu Beach 50km north of Wellington.  On the way there I had to try and solve the laptop problem and called into Palmerston North... a wide streeted town of about 80k people.. A strange place with a mixture of architecture from the art deco to the 60s concrete structures!! It looked a bit like town in a recession with lots of vacant shops and the only places that seemed to be doin well were the peep shows, strip joints and O Briens Irish sandwich bar!!!!!!!!!!!!! The people yet again were incredibly friendly . When I dropped the laptop in .. you can guess it.. it worked perfectly... Its DEF that Sat Nav Interefering Cow! The lovely lady in the Compu-clinic did not even charge me for wasting their time.
Got to Nanci and Tonys house at exactly 6 pm after changing in a car park at the side of the road. They are fantastic funny chatty hosts and the level of hospitality was wonderful. Its funny but even though we never met before and they are distant relatives its incredible the string of similarities that bind us.Not just the blood line. I am told that they welcome every distant rellie with open arms with similar hospitality.. It was beyond the call of any familial duty.
Superb meal with lovely wine and great chats and laughs followed by a sheepless noiseless sleep under egyptian cotton sheets!! What more could a bod ask for?
Bliss..........................!