A full day

What better way to spend a sunny summer Saturday than out with old friends nosing around Matakana Farmer's Market (fresh pastries, hot HOT Jamaican beef pasty, crowds of relaxed people and interesting shops full of pretty stuff that I have no temptation to buy any more - what a lot of money saved!) And then to Morris & James pottery to admire colour and form, art and craft, and eat a healthy salad.

Followed by sinful creamy gelato from Charlie's for some, but virtuous zingy blackcurrant sorbetto for me. Then Brick Bay Winery and Sculpture Trail for a pre-tipple wander through sun-soaked vineyards and cool shady bush scoffing at the art-speak in the guide, but admiring the creativity, both abstract and concrete, that led to such delights as this:

And enabled a bit of fun like this:

Then a trip back in time for one of us, but for the rest to Martin's Bay for a classic Kiwi camp-site and beach, to paddle in warm water, walk on soft sand and watch little kids with fat tummies and bucket hats chasing seagulls, and old-fashioned tractors pulling flash new boats out of the sea.

And finally snapper and spuds on the beach at Orewa with more little kids playing and discovering that scooters on concrete ramps stop pretty quickly when they reach the deep sand at the bottom. Always good to see children learning useful lessons.