s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

First, the last test came back negative, so we do, in fact, get to keep little Roadkill. We’re taking suggestions for names.

She’s getting bolder — we started letting her out of the guest room to explore a bit earlier this week, and any weird noise or sudden movement sent her scurrying under the nearest piece of furniture. Er…. still does, actually, but the catalog of noises and movements that still count as “weird” is gradually shrinking. We’ve taken to shutting off the back half of the house during the day, and letting her have the run of it, to gain a little more confidence. It’s bizarre to think that we can now divide the house into two parts each larger than our entire old house. Which means Slow Top doesn’t have to run into the basement to get away from the new Interloper.

Yes, we have started to introduce her to the others. Slow’s first response was, “Agh! Hiss! Flee!” Rasputin hissed, growled, and left. Azami stole her food, hissed, growled, and eventually left. Today, though, while Stephen is off playing toy soldiers, we’re having some more Supervised Interaction, with the living room as the DMZ. Azami’s reaction could still be characterized, in the local slang, as “aggro”. Slow is somehwat less concerned, and will largely ignore her if she doesn’t get too close. Rasputin has, in my interpretation of feline body language, decided to make friends. Twice today, he’s deliberately gone to a room he knew or suspected she was in, sprawled himself down no more than a couple of meters away, and yawned. She hasn’t gotten brave enough yet to take him up on it (and I can’t blame her, with the way Azami carries on), but I suspect eventally she will.

Meanwhile, it’s SUMMER. It’s only 24 degrees (75F), and breezy, but in the sun it is HOT. We went to see the jousting today up in Isengard (I mean, Harcourt Park), and hung out and chatted with the blacksmith’s dad, who runs alpacas in British Columbia (the Canadian alpaca industry, while politics- and ego-riddled, is nowhere near as looney as the US industry). Picked up a bottle of lovely dry, slighty fizzy pohutakawa mead from one of the local dancers, whose husband it turns out is the guy who wrote the book on gardening in some of the crazy conditions we’ve got in NZ (40kph prevailing salt-laden wind on a steep hill ? No problem !). Got a cute black sarong with batik skulls on it, too, because, you know, Pirate Camp is coming up. :^D

And, of course, the Main Event of the weekend was Phil & Dayna’s wedding. The ceremony was at this adorable little historic church in the Hutt valley, and then the reception was at a Scout hall on the other side of Wellington. For some reason, I’m always surprised when a wedding turns out to be fun, as this one very definitely was. It was all done in medieval dress, and the reception was a feast. Dayna and Phil are mead junkies, and it seemed like there was at least a bottle and a half of the stuff for every person there. I got to try a bunch of different kinds, which was good, because there’s definitely some I like and some I don’t. There was belly dancing, and toasting and lots of people we knew, and lots we didn’t. All good.