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

In other news, we also had Smitty and Claire blow through on the weekend. That’s twice now ! They came in on the evening ferry Thursday & we hauled them a block and a half from their backpackers (communications glitch — they couldn’t get ahold of us before they had to make the booking) to Cha on Courtenay place. It was cold and drizzly, but apparently they’d been having terrific weather their whole trip, so a little rain didn’t put them off.

Friday, Smitty joined the usual lunch crew at Wellington Market, then she and Claire picked me up after work (forgot to explain the one-way streets around the Michael Fowler Ctr — oops) & we went out to pester the alpacas before the rain came back. They kipped at our place after the Friday game & Stephen stuffed them full of breakfast before they blasted off for Kapiti and further north. Looks like they had good weather for Kapiti, too, lucky them.

Saturday night was Pat & Danie’s housewarming — they’re our neighbors across the valley whose house we watched built. It was good to hang with neighbors for a while, and meet some new people. Danie’s just gotten herself a horse — a big red gelding named Goldstien (after a character in a long-running banking ad campaign; she says she may change it). Bruce & Jenny (the people exchanging firewood for our rhododendrons) had us over for dinner Tuesday and as we were walking by, this huge red horse was, near as we can tell, doing happy dances in the paddock. He has this little red and white mini that is now apparently his bestest friend & the two of them together are a hoot. Anyway, this big gelding was jumping in the air and rearing up and pawing the air and bucking and kicking up his heels and rearing up and then jumping on his hind legs — I kid you not ! — and generally doing all on his own (except possibly for the benefit of his diminutive paddock mate) all those things you’re used to seeing Lipizzaners do at the behest of little men in jodhpurs. It was amazing to watch. Some combination of new home, new friend, and spring grass. And nice weather. All the animals will run around and frolick when the sun finally comes out. We sat and watched three sheep chase each other around in big circles on the back hill for about 20 minutes the other day. I swear at one point they were chasing a rabbit — or maybe the rabbit was just getting the hell out of the way.