Holiday! Hol-iiiiii-daayayayayayay!
I'm so happy and replete just now.
We drove up to Hanmer Springs, which is up kind of in the mountains, and very beautiful: the air smells like clover. The weather is going to turn wet, I think: that may be even better. The drive up was absolutely beautiful: the landscape is all faded corduroy hills and rolling green, and absurd scatters of wild lupins all purple along the whole route. I think being a New Zealander, the relationship one has with the landscape is really important, not just because it is lovely, but because it is so vital and intense. I can feel my batteries recharging just standing in it.
Then, we had lunch, and checked into our quite frankly RIDICULOUS hotel. I have just emerged from a spa bath smelling of lavender (sadly my face is BRIGHT RED from the heat, which kind of messes with the sheer elegance of that as a mental picture) and I'm lying on the bed in a white bathrobe, looking out at the lake and all the wee ducklings, and finding there is lightning speed wi-fi. My life is complete!
This feels like a good way to end the year, which has been fraught at times. We're up here til January the first (just two nights, but it's been so hard to coincide time away this year that it feels long enough). Paul, my B-I-L, is looking after Zizou, and I had a text from my mum saying she got the cast off her arm okay. So everything is taken care of!
There's a place here I may visit tomorrow which has a large farm of animals you can pet and feed, and also an adjoining quilt shop and cafe. I'm past my quilting phase (although I have stacks of fabric still) because I don't seem to sit down still long enough to get anything done, but a gal can look! There are also thermal pools and swimming and beautiful bush walks and general NICENESS. I've brought some great reading -"Parrot and Olivier in America" continues on very brilliantly. It's as good as Peter Carey always is, but at this stage more joyful than some of his stuff: I'm loving it so far.
And that's the news!
We drove up to Hanmer Springs, which is up kind of in the mountains, and very beautiful: the air smells like clover. The weather is going to turn wet, I think: that may be even better. The drive up was absolutely beautiful: the landscape is all faded corduroy hills and rolling green, and absurd scatters of wild lupins all purple along the whole route. I think being a New Zealander, the relationship one has with the landscape is really important, not just because it is lovely, but because it is so vital and intense. I can feel my batteries recharging just standing in it.
Then, we had lunch, and checked into our quite frankly RIDICULOUS hotel. I have just emerged from a spa bath smelling of lavender (sadly my face is BRIGHT RED from the heat, which kind of messes with the sheer elegance of that as a mental picture) and I'm lying on the bed in a white bathrobe, looking out at the lake and all the wee ducklings, and finding there is lightning speed wi-fi. My life is complete!
This feels like a good way to end the year, which has been fraught at times. We're up here til January the first (just two nights, but it's been so hard to coincide time away this year that it feels long enough). Paul, my B-I-L, is looking after Zizou, and I had a text from my mum saying she got the cast off her arm okay. So everything is taken care of!
There's a place here I may visit tomorrow which has a large farm of animals you can pet and feed, and also an adjoining quilt shop and cafe. I'm past my quilting phase (although I have stacks of fabric still) because I don't seem to sit down still long enough to get anything done, but a gal can look! There are also thermal pools and swimming and beautiful bush walks and general NICENESS. I've brought some great reading -"Parrot and Olivier in America" continues on very brilliantly. It's as good as Peter Carey always is, but at this stage more joyful than some of his stuff: I'm loving it so far.
And that's the news!