The Emporer's new bus

We're having a farewell picnic on Sunday. It was intended to also be a chance for our family and friends to see our bus before we hit the road, but of course we won't actually have it.

Never mind, it's a great chance to catch up with everyone before Christmas and we're planning some good old-fashioned picnic games like egg and spoon races.

We took an enormous load of gear to Taupo yesterday. We're not bringing the bus back to Wellington before we head north, so we need to get everything up there, ready to be packed in.

We managed to visit the workshop without actually going into the bus - we don't want to see it before we collect it on Monday. A couple of inadvertent peeks did show the ceiling panels look brilliant, and the bench top is place.

There was a bit of a panic about the blinds last week - the manufacturing company made them 10mm smaller in both width and drop. Apparently this is their standard process, but it would have been nice if we'd know. But the brilliant bus builders have managed to work around this and the windows are looking very smart.