Blue Haze Christmas 2011

The Blue Haze Christmas do was memorable for all the right reasons. The day got off to a great start for some of us with a rideout around some of the back roads in the Manawatu. The roll call  was
Paul De Lautour - Kawasaki H1750
Alan Clark - Kawasaki H1750
Kim De Lautour - Yamaha RZ250
Bruce Sangster - Suzuki T500
Gary Whiting - Yamaha XJ750
John McKeagg - Suzuki TS400 (briefly)
I still think we have some excellent roads in the Manawatu that are so close to town. Interesting listening to people now living in Melbourne complaining about the big distances they have to travel across town to get to some nice twisty roads. We don't know how lucky we are!  We finished up at a cafe we hadn't been to before, The Fusion Cafe in Ashhurst. Turned out to be a great spot for a cake and coffee with great service. Recommended. We all headed back into town to pick up our seventies and eighties food and other paraphenalia and headed around to Alan and Fionas 'pad'. What a hoot. Out came the T shirts,  and hats from the 70s and 80s along with some affro hair. On the beverage side the whiskey, gin and Mateus wine seemed unchanged but it is easy to see why Dions six pack of Rheineck remained unappreciated until near the end of the gathering! The fondu was interesting fun with the cheese fondu ending up with a lot of bits of bread siting at the bottom of the pot! Thank goodness the old barbie menu hasn't changed much with some great bangers from the Harris butchers on Cuba street going down a treat. Some excellent dessert to finish off with Dons extra special and world first  Blue Haze Lamingtons. We are sure this could be a new product line alongside his coffee business and in fact we are convinced that in time they will eclipse Fonterras as New Zealands biggest export earner! It was also a great opportunity for Alan and Fiona to blow the dust off the old LPs and crank the stereo up.  I think Alan treated it as payback time to all the student parties he and Fiona have had to listen to over the years. Only trouble was, the students had all left town! We were waiting for the noise control people to turn up and confiscate his stereo, including turntable and LPs. I bet they wouldn't have done that for a decade or two! We all had a great time and it was good to see Bruce, his wife and young family from Levin come up and also good to catch up with Tim and Leigh from Wellington. A big thank you to Alan and Fiona for hosting the event that was supposed to be a lunch, but some how became a dinner as well! To everyone else who contributed a big thank you as well. Their are some interesting rumours around about some people who attended had headaches the following day. Alan must have had the music up to loud!