Napier is here we have been. My younger brother got married (again, as seems to be the custom these days!) and off we trooped to the North Island of our country. Napier is known as the Art Deco centre of New Zealand. It suffered a major earthquake in 1931 and has more or less stuck in a certain style of architecture. It's a great place to visit and was nice and warm, a bonus for us from the South!!

The photo of the Palms (above) has been "tweeked" by me to make it I hope more interesting, otherwise the Palms all tend to look the same. The street 'man-hole' covers even had Art Deco designs on them, as did the new flyover bridge. Looks good and the shops - where do I start!!? Found a wonderful shop selling 1920s stuff AND THEY HAD A 50% OFF SALE. Well, you don't have to be an empty-headed grandson of a horned toad to work out the value of that!! Mind you, sadly the only thing I really really loved was a red felt cloche, complete with feathers and sequins..a mere snap at $345.00 (about $170 on sale) - yes, its still in the shop.

Also there is a place called Marineland where we took the kids in the morning before the wedding. They are down to their last Dolphin and are not allowed to catch anymore, so I guess the Dolphin part may go belly up at some stage. However the sea lions and fur seals put on a great show as well, and we all enjoyed it. They have penguins (which you can have your photo taken with while holding an old one-eyed chap named Alfred, a penguin) and rescue facilities for injured sea creatures such as seals, penguins, birds etc too. One of the water cages held "sight-impaired" seals, they looked creepy with watery white eyes but appear to have inspired my youngest daughter to start writing an episode of Dr Who! My lips are "sealed".