A beach, some birds and the first day of winter

Today, Monday, is the Queen’s Birthday holiday, the first day of winter and a lovely sunny day.  To celebrate, we drove up to Paraparaumu, had some lunch and took a walk on the beach.  It was warm and sunny and more spring like than winter, with temperatures jumping up to 17C or so.  We started with lunch at the Marine Parade Eatery, where Karl had the chicken sandwich on sour dough, with Swiss cheese and a very special coleslaw (I stole a bit) and I had the Welsh rarebit baked on sourdough with portobello mushrooms, parma ham and rocket.  Warm, cheesy and with just the right amount of mustard, it hit the spot.

Welsh rarebit with extras

We then went for a stroll along the beach, watching the birds and boats, collecting shells and generally enjoying the moment.

The beach

The sand

Watching the oyster catchers, run and look for food

The afternoon has been spent baking chocolate orange muffins (recipe in a later post), reading, listening to the radio, making soup and not thinking about work tomorrow.

Shells from Paraparaumu beach