HOLIDAY!!

[quiregrrl]

Last thursday morning I flew to Christchurch, NZ, for five nights staying with my dear friend, aka Goddess, and her lovely boy P... I got in about lunch time and jumped on a bus to the city, where I wandered around a little, checked out some markets in Cathedral Square, had some lunch, and then got another bus out to Riccarton which is near where Goddess works, so she could pick me up after work... she met me there and we drove out to her home, which is on a small property out in the country in the Waimakariri district, near the town of Rangiora. It was so good seeing her and getting to see her new home, and meet her new puppy Tor (9 week old German Shepherd, in the delightful phase of puppyhood where everything must be put in his mouth and chewed, including overseas visitors and all their belongings, particularly their slippers!!!). Had a fairly quiet night at home, dinner and drinks and chatting and giggling...

Friday P had to work so Goddess and I went into her local town, Rangiora and wandered the main street, of course we had to visit the saddlery/pet shop as well so Goddess could buy a collar and leash for Tor... such a hardship, she loves saddlery's because she's a horsey chick and just loves accessories, and i love em coz they smell like leather and have lots of whips :o) Two happy gals! So we wandered the main street of Rangiora, did some window shopping, had much fun in a fabulous accessory shop that had some very very cute hats that ALMOST fit my enormous head, actually could get them on and they even looked cute, but they were tight, left a big red band across my forehead and had I worn them for longer than a few minutes in the shop i'm sure I would have ended up with a nasty headache... I can't remember what else we did that day, I think there was more but my head has gone into holiday mode where everything blends and details blur... that night we went for dinner in Christchurch at a fabulous restaurant Goddess had heard about called The Bodhi Tree, which was burmese cuisine, and oh my, it was indeed very fabulous!! Yum food indeed... P wasn't terribly impressed with it but Goddess and I enjoyed it muchly.. after dinner we wandered around Christchurch, down to Cathedral Square and took in the sights by night, which was quite gorgeous... less gorgeous was the number of louts and hoons cruising up and down the main street in cars, one of whom threw a glass bottle at us that hit me on the foot and shattered around me... no damage done but rather scary, and made me a whole lot more nervous about wandering around Christchurch at night. We also stopped in the park on the way back to the car and admired the fountains and Victoria Bridge and a very spectacularly huge and beautiful old Willow tree on the bank of the river... Christchurch is really a very beautiful old city...

The next day Goddess and I drove out to Akaroa, which was a couple of hours drive from her place through really beautiful countryside, even though it was all so very very FLAT!! When we finally got to hills the scenery changed dramatically and became even more gorgeous on the drive up the mountain, although nothing could prepare me for the view once we got to the top and looked down to Akaroa, which is a very quaint little town of French Colonial history (the only one in all NZ) on the edge of a giant inlet from the ocean, which is actually the crater of an extinct volcano... surrounded by lush green mountains, it's breathtaking... we wandered around Akaroa, drooled over several beautiful shops, took lots of photos on the new digital camera, and had some very good fish and chips and then headed back home again... got home just as the Rugby grand final was starting on TV, the Canterbury Crusaders vs The Waratahs... every where we had been in the last two days there was black and red streamers, balloons, decorations, people in Crusaders jerseys, even the giant plastic horse out front of the saddlery was wearing a black and red horse rug with "Crusaders" on the side of it!! These people sure do love their Rugby!! I wore my pale blue polo that C gave me for my birthday, which matched the Waratahs colours, in support of my home team... sadly though they lost to the home team (like I care)... so we watched the rugby, kind of, well, P watched the rugby and Goddess and I hung out in the kitchen and cooked dinner, well, she cooked dinner and I watched and occassionally cut or stirred things for her :o)

Sunday Goddess and I headed into Christchurch again to go to the Arts Centre Markets... they were small but quite good, not the cheapest of markets but lots of nice stuff to drool over... and in a really spectacular setting.. the Arts Centre is a collection of old buildings that now contain a huge variety of stores that have craft, wood products, art exhibitions, jewellry, all manner of things really... lots of fun wandering first through the markets and then through the Arts Centre shops... and aside from the tempting shops, the buildings themselves were just gorgeous, gothic style, interconnected with shops leading into other shops into other buildings into squares in the middle of buildings... on returning to the car in the afternoon we discovered we'd been parked in by two rows of cars and in spite of some very careful manouevering by Goddess and cautious direction from me, we couldn't get the car out so were forced to do another lap of the markets, which turned out to be quite good as we found a stall we'd somehow walked past the first time around that had hats, and on chatting to the lovely little old lady who had the stall, we discovered that she makes all the hats, and makes them up to a 66cm size head, which is HUGE, most commercially available hats only go to about a 58, maybe a 60, and I have a very big head (62/63cm) and can never get hats to fit... so I had the very unusual experience of trying on hats that were TOO BIG for me, and eventually gave in and spent far too much money on a very gorgeous navy blue wool cabbie cap coz it was just too cute, and I love hats, and it fit so comfortably and looked so cute, I had to have it :o) When we finally got the car out we headed home via the scenic route to take in the mountains near Goddess's house, which had recieved a dusting of snow the night before... unfortunately it was getting dark and there was also a lot of cloud cover so we could only see the low mountains at the front, but it was still very beautiful! We also drove through the Waimakariri gorge, but again, it was hitting dusk so we kept driving and didn't stop to take in the sights.

Yesterday we had a fairly quiet day, just a short drive out to the Waimakariri gorge and down onto the river itself... the river bed is, like most rivers in NZ apparently, very wide and filled with stones, although the river itself only flows through a small part of the bed. So we parked down on the stone river bed, and let the dogs out of the car so they could have a run, Pup (the older dog) wanted to go paddling in the river but Goddess wouldn't let her (good plan really!), took some very beautiful photos of the gorge, collected some lovely rocks and then headed a bit further out to get a better view of the snow covered mountains which had got a further dump of snow over the night, unfortunately the battery on my camera died so I only got one photo, but it was good to see them properly without the obscuring clouds... on the way home we stopped at a very gorgeous shop in Cust (yes, it's a real town) and spent ages wandering there, checking everything out and chatting to the shop owner (who used to live in Cronulla!).

The weather for the whole time I was there was just gorgeous, sunny every day, not exactly warm but nowhere near as cold as I had been expecting based on my last visit at this time of the year, it was generally 15 - 18 degrees during the day and because it was sunny it was quite pleasant... of course, sunday and Monday the wind picked up and that made it a bit colder, and it was VERY cool in the wind when you weren't in the sun, but I had been very worried about not having enough warm clothes and in the end I barely needed all the clothes I had taken!

Reading this it doesn't sound like we did very much for five days of holiday, but it was actually perfectly paced... we slept in every day till 9/9:30, nothing was rushed, goddess had time to do stuff at home most days like feeding the horses in daylight, mucking out Dom's stable, and other general horsey stuff and it was lovely getting to spend time with her just in her space, seeing her life, and her world, building a picture of her world and her days in my mind... it was relaxing, and peaceful, and made me slow down and just chill... it was exactly what I needed, at exactly the time I needed it, and also made me feel far more peaceful and happy about Goddess living in NZ... she is so happy, and she is so RIGHT there, her boy, her horses, her home... it fits her perfectly and I can't wish anything greater for those I love than that they are happy, and i am very reassured on that count now!

so I flew home today, and that was all fine and good, until I got home and discovered that some FUCK has stolen my car, Chloe... why they would do that i am completely befuddled, as she is old, and not terribly well, and not at all flash, and not an obvious choice for either profit-theft or joy-riding... but she was parked out front when I left on Thursday, and she's not there now... I'm half furious and half thankful... furious that some cretin decided to just help themself to MY car that i had to work my arse off to buy and maintain, and just to not have a car anymore, even if she was a bit crappy, she went and I kinda loved her, and i relied on her a lot... on the other hand, she is old, she is a bit crappy, she has been quite unwell and on the verge of dying for a couple of months, and I have been worrying about how I would afford to get her fixed and keep her going and pay for rego in a couple of months.. so it's kind of a blessing in disguise as I won't have that stress now, and she was fully insured so I can at least get that money back for her... even though it won't really be enough to buy a new car with... I'm still going to be carless and that doesn't make me happy at all... I'm still kind of hoping that whoever took her realised she was crap after a few blocks and decided to ditch her and steal something better and the police will find her and return her to me.... *sigh* not the best ending to a fabulous holiday...

Have to go back to work tomorrow which I am NOT looking forward to, but kind of have to especially as I fucked up transferring my leave from my old job and could only get three of my four days of leave approved, so today was leave without pay and that's going to hurt very much next pay packet... especially if I have to find $500 to pay the insurance excess.... grrrrr.....

Comments

Tor Misses his Slippers!

[(Anonymous)]

or should that be Your slippers? Either way he's missing them. Mine just aren't quite as chewy and fun to throw around the room. My RM Williams boots on the other hand have a fabulous flight span!!!!

Princess, thank you for coming and sharing my world with me. It was soooo lovely! Lovely to see you and hug you and talk to you face to face! I haven't had such a lovely weekend in a VERY long time. and it was really too long between drinks for us wasn't it??! LOL!!!

I look forward to seeing you again real soon, and I hope that Chloe makes an appearance in the near future. That would be nice. I'm also glad that you are happy about my world. I am too. Its nice to know you've made the right decision, and regardless of whatever happens in the future, I know that I will never regret coming to New Zealand. It's lovely.

Look after yourself and I'm glad that you enjoyed your stay.

loveyoulongtimefiftymilliondollarsplussome!

Goddess

*mwah*