Another day another country. We’re in Christchurch, New Zealand. Which is, geographically speaking, 11,800 miles away from Lila. But sometimes you have to make sacrifices. It’s just 3 hours from Sydney and you’d have to say that it is ‘quaint’. A double edged adjective implying sweet and small and charming, which it most certainly is, but also reminiscent of how towns (probably a city; it does have what the 2011 earthquake left of its cathedral) used to be. ‘Back in the day’. Before… before all the modern stuff took over. Though being Christmas Day you have to give it some slack in that there was probably not one native on the streets today.

They’re all eating too much and drinking even more to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus. Even though Jesus wasn’t a Kiwi at all. Wasn’t even English, which will come as a shock to some. He was from Palestine. Bethlehem, to be precise. And they founded a religion based on a baby born in a barn to a woman who was a virgin. I make no comments. Not my place. The first and last ‘virgin birth’. But its true. John Wayne said it at the end of ‘the Greatest Story ever told’. He said: “Shurely this is the son of Gaad”. In that very John Wayney “the hell I will” drawl. Took him 10 minutes to say it.

Tomorrow morning we head off to Mount Cook. I’m guessing it a mountain. On the other side of the South Island. I’ve seen mountains before, but never that one. So I’m rather excited at the prospect. And I have to drive slowly. Like in Australia, they have an almost ‘zero tolerance’ on speeding. So even though speeding is one of my favourite hobbies, I’ll reign it in. Particularly as the roads where we’re going are not exactly ‘big’. The mountains will be but not the roads.

But heh, I’m in the home of the All Blacks so I kind of ‘need’ to do the Haka. Do I do one when I fill up the car with petrol? In a cafe?? Not sure what the protocols are but I’m keen to remain culturally sensitive. Whilst effectively performing a war-dance to a waiter bringing me m lunch.

Happy Christmas Everybody

A xxxx