Fun in the Sun

The last few days have felt like a Trumpet or Cadbury advert or something.  Classic Kiwi Summer Family Fun.  The weather has been glorious (as it has been around the country everywhere), we’ve had free time, and a burning desire to chill.
 

Christmas day, unpacking presents

Christmas Day was a laid back affair with a yummo roast lamb Christmas Lunch followed by a quad bike ride up the ‘road’ looking for some cell phone reception for Christmas txts.  We have found THE fencepost that affords us 3 bars courtesy of both Telecom and Vodafone.  We have carefully marked the fencepost with a rock because it’s the only spot for quite some radius around our campsite.  The alternative is a 16 km return trip by car to Tai Tapu.

Christmas Lunch

 

Off to find some cell phone reception...
 

 In the evening we popped off to the rellies to say hi and feed the horses a bag of apples for their Christmas treat.  Lady Gee Gee, being a race horse, has got no concept of treats apart from a bucket of hard feed, so she needs to be educated as to the ways of a family pet.  She’ll get there.  She at least pawed at the piece of apple on the ground and looked at Frankie and Millie’s apple frenzie with bemused confusion.

The next couple of days were punctuated with a dash to this fantastic Laundromat that I’ve found (does 18 kg of washing in one 30 minute hit, yippee!), and Huckleberry Finn type adventuring for the kids in their new surroundings.  Hilarious to see the planning that goes into it.  For example the stall, named in honour of our horses, selling pine cones for fifty cents a bag.  Ingeniously constructed from stripped down branches courtesy of the old Christmas tree and bits of ply lying around.  As they were arguing about the price per bag and dragging the stall out to the gate, miraculously a punter drove past.  Unfortunately that was it for the day. So they need to work on the foot traffic component of their marketing plan a bit.

We also went for a bit of drive around Lyttleton Harbour and reacquainted ourselves with the wonderfully old world charm of Governors Bay Hotel where we had jugs of lemonade lime and bitters, before driving round the other side to check out our new yachting club ‘to be’ at Charteris Bay.  We were all full of enthusiastic plans for chidrens’ yachting careers after that.  Next summer they’ll start with an after school Learn to Sail program.

Governor's Bay Pub

 

We are now in the Marlborough Sounds living in the (now) relative luxury of our boat, our dear beautiful Manaia.  Lovely to have the comfort of old friends among all the change we’ve had over the last year.  The Sounds are so familiar, it’s like being back in Wellington, it’s a welcome rest from the energy required pioneering our new surrounds in Christchurch.  It’s been kind of exhausting, both physically and emotionally.  I was uneasy about going on holiday this year because I have this bee in my bonnet about getting settled and I was sad about some very good friends of ours not being able to be there.  Plus I feel bad about leaving the horses for a week (even though they will be well looked after).  But I’ve got to admit we need the holiday and it’s jolly nice blobbing.  First thing we did this year being the good parents we are, is throw the kids off the boat without life jackets to see if they can swim to the shore.  That way we don’t have any life jacket arguments the whole holiday.  Anyway, they can, so guess we can relax about the life jackets a little this year!  There are definite benefits to children growing up.