NO No No No ......... this morning we woke to the hum of wings but not of birds! At 6 a.m. we were woken to the sound of helicopters hovering over the local vineyards trying to dry off the water from all the rain we had yesterday, three months worth of rain in one go!!!!!!!
It has been dry here for a month with temperatures of over 30 degrees for much of the time we were away - it is a desert after all - and two days after we come home, a deluge! So much so that we were outside for two hours yesterday in the pouring rain filling buckets full with the stuff and throwing them onto the street because our soakaways are blocked and we haven't gotten round to digging them out (it means going down about 5 feet and removing all the sand that has now clogged them up over the years onto a flatbed lorry and having it all taken away before the men fix it!!!!)
So we got soaked yesterday but fit! So much for the cherry picking we had planned too.
On a good note we got to see Clare, Deb, James, Donna and our grandchildren too on Skype which was sooo nice. They all looked very happy in the snow in Canada.
So this is todays offering for the table; spinach, snow peas, golden french beans and a cooked beetroot, not straight from the garden of course, I did put that in the oven! but it is from the garden. Lord knows what I am going to make with that little lot but it will go a long way to our daily 5, 4 if you are counting!
I think Derek must be sick of vegetables by now as we had homemade pea and courgette soup with mint yesterday and very nice it was too and free - we had such a glut of peas after a week away I didn't know what to do with them all. Of course, I have loads of courgettes as well and am trying to find ways of preserving them - chutney?
I took this photo out of the window of the plane as we were going over the mountains. You can see Queenstown to the middle left with the golf course like a little island in the middle, Lake Wakatipu curving round, the Frankton Arm of the lake in the middle them Lake Hayes back right with the Crown Range mountains in the background.
(These mountains all have lots of snow on today Derek says - he has gone in to work - as it was so cold with the rain yesterday it fell as snow higher up!)
The mountain in the foreground is the one we used to look at when we lived in Sunshine Bay, Mount Cecil.
Good view though isn't it?
Our first night we went to see "The Hobbit: An unexpected journey" at the iMax in 3D which was such a great experience (did make me feel a little sick at first especially when the film shot goes really fast). The actors were great and so was the film and am so glad we got to see it. The iMax makes you 'feel' like you are in the middle of the action with them, very nice when you like Richard Armitage as much as I do - he played Thorin Oakenshield in the film. He is the one in the middle of the photo below (the dark haired one with the beard not the ginger one!) and to be fair, doesn't look quite as grungy as the rest of the dwarves. Would definitely recommend it for Hobbit and Lord of the Rings lovers.
It is one thing I don't think I will ever get used to here. Christmas should be cold, a time to snuggle up with family and eat lots. You can't snuggle here cos it's too hot and all you want to eat is salad!!
Which is hardly the point of Christmas now is it?
We did have a couple of mince pies and I did make a small cake. Christmas Day we had a champagne breakfast at the hotel which was gorgeous and as many courses and as much food as you could stuff into yourself for breakfast. Cereals, porridge, hams, cheese, smoked salmon, pastries, bread, fruit, yoghurt, full cooked English breakfast, the list went on and on. We did have a good go though as we weren't sure what we were going to eat for the rest of the day. We had a hot pie and ice cream later!!!
Just about everywhere you go the hillsides and full of these magnificent Pohutukawa trees, the New Zealand Christmas Tree.
They are so vibrant and must be from the same family as the Australian bottle brushes - we had one of them in our garden in Baring Road which I loved. We can't grow them in the South Island which is a shame, it gets too cold down here, and they obviously love the more humid temperatures they get up north.
So that is enough for one day I think. We had a great Christmas Day in the end, I love exploring new places and never get disappointed in this country and the scenery it has to offer.
We have been very lucky in the places we have visited and to be able to 'do' this country nearly in its' entirety is such a wonderful experience. Thankfully Derek now enjoys 'just going around that next corner' and stops without hesitation when I yell STOP so that I can take yet another photo. But when we are old and can't do this any more, we will so love looking back on all these beautiful places and remembering the wind in our faces and how warm the water was and just how it felt to be there.
(The young lad next door is practising his bagpipes, I can just hear him and it is a good job I like them so much!)
TTFN, take care of each other and A Happy New Year to all of you who read this, may it be a wonderful year filled with hope, new experiences, fun, love and laughter. xxxx