The Grill, All Blacks & Shadow Land - another full on weekend

We’ve had a fab week of being taken out, wined and dined - truly spoilt!

The first trip out was to a New Orleans restaurant at The Viaduct where I got to meet the lower limb team (aka 'legs' to Claire & Simon). The Viaduct is a dockland area in Auckland packed full of restaurants and we’ve had lots of people mention it to us as a great spot for an evening meal, and I’m glad to say that with a month to go before we leave we finally made it! Looks like there is a fish market there on Sundays so think that would be another excuse to pay another little visit me thinks.

Then it was the upper limb (aka ‘arms’ to Claire and Simon) team's turn to go out for dinner, and we headed to The Grill…based on the ground floor below Sky Tower - very swish and swanky. Dan and I had to give the Wagyu steak a try, where we were informed that these cows are fed beer and massaged to give a very succulent melt in the mouth full flavoured steak, and have to say it didn’t disappoint.

On Saturday however was the biggy, and a treat for the boys…and they went for their very first rugby match at Eden Park Stadium to watch the All Blacks vs England. Well I don’t know what it was, the All Black T-Shirts they came back with, the amount of sugar overload during the match, watching the All Blacks doing the Haka or the game itself having a nearly historical English win, but they both excitedly burst through the doors buzzing to tell me what had happened… think it’s true to say they enjoyed themselves and it was defiantly one to remember!

A slow start to Sunday due to the post rugby heavy head of Dan and we headed over to Devonport to meet up with friends Kate and Chris (also another suffering dad) and their little possie as they were up our way in Auckland to watch the rugby too. So we caught up with them on Mount Victoria, not quite the Mount Monganui that they have on their door step, but pretty great views of Auckland none the less. 

Unfortunately we hadn’t realised the Kate & Chris clan were coming up our way and had an afternoon show booked at the theatre so after a flying catch up over a coffee we headed into Auckland to see Shadow Land at the Civic Centre. But hopefully we’ll catch up with Kate and Chris before we head on back to Blighty in a few weeks.

Oooh before I talk about the show itself, just wanted to put in a quick mention about the car park… now this might be the norm around the rest of the world, but I’ve never seen it in the UK… car parking lights indicating whether there is a space available or not… pure genius. I have to say it saves so much time having to hunt for a space, especially when you have a husband who isn’t prepared to park further away and cover the small distance using one's legs, but would rather spend substantially more time driving round and round in circles hunting for the illusive space right by the entrance.

Right onto the show… this was on the recommendation from our eldest and it was brilliant. Very theatrical, just exceedingly fit (fit in the sense of very strong, good muscle tone, flexible… not as in phwoarrr… tut who do you take me for… well there may have been one or two …). Anyway getting distracted, the show was excellent with the dancers contorting their body into different shapes casting shadows of elephants, giant faces, crabs etc…  and we just sat there the whole time trying to work out how on earth they created these shadows shapes.

So low and behold it was inevitable the boys’ activities that evening involved a sheet and torch - happy days. Full on weekend yet again but “such fun” in true Miranda style.