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

So, as our dear readers know, we have beeen very slack about updates recently. Let me try a bit of catch-up.

The last weekend in January was filled with events. Our friends Sylvia and Michael got “civilized”, that is they had their civil union ceremony. They rented out the Carter Observatory, which is located in the middle of the botanic gardens, for the event. This provided a lovely outdoor setting for the ceremony (under the glaring yellow eye of Mr Sun), and the reception afterwards was held in the observatory buildings. They had informative space-type videos running in one room, and ran periodic planetarium shows thorughout the night. Once it got dark enough they fired up the two telescopes and you could look at a star cluster in the magellanic clouds, or look at Saturn- the rings and some moons were visible! Very cool!

That same day our friend Emily arrived from Auckland. She is staying with us while she apartment/job hunts down here in Wellington. We would have dragged her along to the CU, but after a 9 hour drive she was a bit shattered.

Last week was the frenzy known as “preparing for Cantebury Faire”. This is the biggest SCA event held in NZ each year, sited about an hour north of Christchurch. Tam spent the week working madly to create two Dells, which are a mongolian/central asian garment that has been worn for thousands of years. They are very nifty, her design is a double-sided/reverseable one with silk on one side and cotton on the other. As is so often the case, doing something for the first time takes waaaaay longer than anticipated, due to the whole learning curve. She got one done in time though, so we had new garb at an event! (For the first time in many, many years.)

Canterbury Faire (CF) was fun. We went down Friday morning, catching the 3 AM ferry. This “cunning plan” allows us to get on site by lunch time, without having to take a vacation day on Thursday. Like two years ago, we traveled with Steve and Jennifer, allowing us to switch passengers between cars to vary the conversation. The event was not too hot (which Cantebury can be at this time of year), with periodic showers cooling the place down nicely. Dillan designed some very fun war scenarios, and with a hundred or so hay bales we made a fort (which we took turns defending, whoever could hold it longest won), a ship, and other sorts of battlefild terrain that we fighters (and combat archers) could run around and in. At peak we probably had close to 35 or 40 combatants on the field, which was pretty nifty. The total population at the event peaked at about 200, with a number of participants over from Australia, inclding the King and Queen. (And I killed the king the first time I met in him in single combat! Woot! The unexpected style of the Katana led him to make a mistake the the local fighters know all about now. I just need to get more tricks in my basket so I can win a _second_ bout against a skilled swordman!)

Satruday evening we left the site and drove 30 minutes south to visit Silverstream Alpaca Stud. We had met Kiet and Sheryl at many previous events, and they were happy to have us crash their BBQ. A fun evening of socializing, but we got so into chatting, we forgot to tour their farm before it got dark! Ooops! We did get a glance at their new $100K stud male (Jolimont Attitude). It would be nice to have such money to throw at problems.

One bit of Drama was on Monday night. Tam and I were helping in the kitchen to prepare dinner, as they were short on staff (and not very organized). At 5 PM the deperate cry went up “we need butter!”, as 2 kilos of needed butter was missing from the fridge. I hopped in my Ute and zoomed down the road to Amberly, the nearest town (about 6 km away). Problem! It was Waitangi day, and little Amberly’s (Pop 1100) one small supermarket was closed. Nearest supermarket- Rangiora. Distance- 26 km. Insert scene of ute zooming down Cantebury back roads at 107 km/hour (just below the limit where police will tag you). I made it back just before six, when dinner was to start. The head cook looked up from her work, said “Oh, I found the butter”, and without a word of thanks walked away. Not so impressed with that lady now.

On the way to the ferry yesterday we had a lovely long lunch in Kaikoura, and stopped for a chat at Totara Grove, an old alpaca/llama farm outside of Picton. Totara Grove is the first alpaca farm Tam and i visted in NZ, back in 1999 when we came here on Vacation. Russel is one fo the pioneers of camelid husbandry in NZ. We made it home by 10:30.

And now our short work-week begins. After the long weekend I expect a certain zombie-factor these next few days. But it was a fun event.