Christmas

Where's Harry? My second-cousin plays hide and seek in the torn off wrapping paper.

We had the usual Judge Christmas. There is a three-year rotational system between Dad and his siblings. It was supposed to be at our house this year, but since Dad and Lynne just shifted they got passed in the rotation and we went to Aunty Susan's instead. She lives in one of those hill suburbs out Lower Hutt way. They have one of those trouts that sings Christmas songs. Many generations of cousins have enjoyed that.

There was confusion over who was picking up Nana and when...... so me and Dad ended up driving back out to the rest-home to get her. We drove into the carpark and saw her sitting up in her room (which overlooks the carpark) staring blankly at a tree. We tried to wave, but she didn't see us. She'd been waiting since 11.15am. It was nearer to 1pm by then. Poor Nana! She's the kinda person who is ready early, with her good shoes on and is sitting there clutching her purse in anticipation. It was Uncle Peter's fault (most likely) and he got a good-humoured telling off.

Zoe enjoyed the whoopie-cushion. The first thing each parent in the room said was 'They taste yucky when you blow them up'. Must be something they've all endured.

Harrison adored each and every present he opened.

Lynne noticed for the first time that she was now part of the 'older generation' as I was the one rushing around getting her and Dad packed and ready and in the car (after checking they had keys and phones and suggesting we put everything in a chilly-bin) and they sat passively while I drove down to the Hutt. I think she admitted this with a certain level of acceptance.

Lunch was smallish by our standards. We even had miniature Christmas crackers that only had hats and jokes in them. And salads instead of roast vegetables. It was far less grand than it has been. Sign of the times?

The best bit was watching my cousin's two kids open their presents from sundry relatives. Little Harry would actually hug each present as if it was EXACTLY what he'd always wanted. The pure joy of it! And Zoe discovered the joy of her first whoopie-cushion, much to her parents' amusement (the present came from naughty Auntie Lynne and Uncle Merv). Then Harry proved the well-known theory that kids enjoy the wrapping paper more than the actual presents by making us bury him in the discarded bits. He would then pop up and be a puppy (a naughty puppy at that). Sometimes we had to utter magic words in order for this to happen. There was a wand for us to use.

Then we went over to my step-sister's house. She has three little ones. Again, it's the kids who are most amusing.

Hannah and Ruby grin out for the camera from Ruby's new pop-up princess castle.

As was pointed out bitterly, several times, the littlest one who is only 2 got the three biggest presents. She got a pop-up castle, a ride-in car and a doll's pram. Finn put on a violin concert with his Aunty, after much prodding and bribery. Hannah was her co-ordinated self, doing flips on the trampoline, and Ruby just soaked up attention wherever she went, whether it be taking Nana for a walk or reminding us of the pure joy of blowing bubbles. Toddlers are enchanting, huh.

Finn and his violin.

This way, Nana.

Finn got some one-on-one attention from my brother, who spent ages outside playing catch with him (an intricate game they had devised that was like two-person juggling of soccerballs back and forth).

Dave and Finn play catch happily in the front yard - doing man-stuff.
Hannah doing back-flips on the tramp (much to Ruby's chagrin as she tried to do her bum-jumps at the same time).

One of Lynne's kids got her a Trelise Cooper top. Nice one! She says that's the payoff for all those hard years of parenting.

Then it was home again. Sneezing. I am allergic to everything at the moment. And they don't have tissues at Dad's house. So at midnight I was trapsing around trying to find SOMETHING to blow my nose on. And there were only about 5 bits of toilet paper left in the the house, so I had to chance going to the garage-toilet to get some (there is broken glass on the floor, as I learnt the hard way the other day, blood poured out of my foot).

Anyhow. I have finished my Black Swan Green and also finished The Orange Girl by Jostein Gaardner (whose books I always love, until near the end where they get too preachy and philosophical in an abstract way, rather than sticking to the narrative).

I miss Wellington.

Christmas Dinner 1

We had a festive dinner round at my flat on Sunday night. It was partially in honour of the two English fellows flatting at Ange's house. They both have no family here, so we figured they ought to have a proper christmas-ish dinner at some stage.

Early in the day there was scare-mongering by Ange, who thought her boys had all piked at the idea of a) cooking things and b) spending money on ingredients. But turns out she was worrying without cause, because they pulled through. Marty quite proudly brought forth the ingredients for a Greek salad (after instructions from Ange) and Dave produced a cheese-board (again, after instructions from Ange that 'no - a packet of peanuts is not enough to contribute to a pot-luck dinner'). Reidun made a miracle of a dinner in almost an hour and a half, including roast lamb and minted potatoes and christmas pudding with brandy-cream.

I stuffed some pepperdews with cream cheese and they were yummy.

In all-out fashion, Reidun instructed me to rearrange the lounge into a proper dining-room. So the table was brought into the centre of the room and sundry chairs were gathered from around the house. A kiwiana centre-piece of driftwood and succulants was assembled and we were so posh that we polished the wine glasses (which weren't even used, because it was beer-weather). I had to sit on the computer-desk chair with wheels on it.

Crackers were pulled. Ange lost all three of her goes. Hats were worn. Even Daragh got in the spirit. Dave had some meat with his gravy and some token greenary around the edge of his plate. Daragh went back for thirds. I spilt some of my beer. Mint sauce is yummy.

We had lashings of icecream and icing-sugared raspberries and strawberries with christmas pudding and flaked chocolate.

Then we played Scattergories. It was highly competitive. I do believe I won. I am still miffed that they didn't accept 'Gangrene' as 'something that grows' beginning with G. Marty is equally peeved that we didn't accept 'Pants!' as 'something you would shout' beginning with P. And Ange tried hard to persuade us that 'Dummy' was a 'term of endearment'.

I had a scary dream that night. I woke up and quite coherently and somewhat still half-asleepishly said to Marty, 'The lions jumped over the fence! Me and Ange had to hide!' I remember being very relieved to have woken up at that point. You can't hide from a lion. They can climb trees (we were in a forest). At another point in the dream our netball team was on a stunt-like amusement-ride, testing it out for Peter Jackson (Morgan is his personal friend and had volunteered us for the job....).

Funeral

We went to Fish's Dad's funeral today. I think one of the memorable things is that it started raining heavily, and quite suddenly, right at 11am. That is the time the funeral was set to begin. Me, Cass and Ant walked in and it was barely spitting, and by the time we had seated ourselves in the pews it was thundering down. Kind of appropriate.

Murray read out a lovely tribute from Fish and Carol. It was interesting. Hard to think how other people would sum up your life in a 15 minute speech.

As a complete aside, I thought Fish looked lovely in her green top and very slim.

I think funerals are a very necessary thing. I always find it hard to actually picture a body inside the coffin as it goes past.

I remember 12 years ago, at almost the exact same time of year, going to my mum's funeral. I tried not to cry, and made it outside afterwards before people hugging me made me crack. It makes for a quite sombre christmas, though in my experience with a lingering death you become almost ready to move onto the next phase of grieving, where you try to adjust to life without the person there. I still have dreams with my mum in them, and she's usually sick in the dreams and I have this half-aware feeling that she shouldn't be there or at least that she will be gone soon.

Reading

I have 9 books out of the library, as I previously posted. I have now finished The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. I really liked it. It was easy and fast to read, and had that innocence of a book about a 9 year old boy, but was poignantly tied in to history. Kinda hard to explain without giving away some of its loveliness, but I recommend it. Only took a few hours to read.

Now I am 120 pages into Black Swan Green, which we started teaching to our 7th formers this year and which they actually quite openly liked. Very rare! I like it so far. Quirky and lyrical with good humour. The narrator has a stammer.

Tra-la-la-la-la.

It is the festive season well and truly! I stayed out of the Secret Santa lotteries. They always end up stressing me out at the last minute because I like to take pride in present-buying.... but this is such a rushed time of year.

The school magazine is due to arrive today. Will it? Or Won't it? It's a cliff-hanger every year.... I am afraid to ring up and ask them the ETA......

My desk is getting clear for the summer..... it's refreshing. I think I've talked to several people recently about how the state of one's desk is a reflection of the state of one's mind (same goes for their car). My mind has been frazzled and jumbled and disorganised for a long time, if that's the case. Now it's clearing.

I almost sat down and read a book last night. I had nothing else to do! Bliss.

I borrowed nine great looking books from the school library for summer. Come and browse them if you need some reading! I will of course read the book I borrowed off Kirsten a year ago first :) I have started watching Citizen Kane......... I borrowed that off Richard at the same time.....

BDO - Levin Style

The following blog entry is to stop Marty (the only person I know without Facebook, who has to rely on Blogger for all updates and photos) from complaining about being left out. Stop your whinging now!

Marty is a man of adventurous spirit. He wanted to be whisked away somewhere dangerous and romantic. So I took him home to Levin for the night.

On Saturday it was time for a tour of the town. Sticking to the main highlights because time was limited (he'd bought tickets to Beckham, not knowing it would drag him away from Levin so quickly).

First stop was, of course, the Giant Market Gardener. Marty was duly impressed by his impressive stature and ethnically vague features. Lynne had said that on Friday she'd seen that someone had put a christmas decoration around his neck. When we got there it was evident that some young hoodlums had set fire to the decorations and all that was left was charred remains. This defacing of the Giant upset me greatly, so Marty took it off. Many people stopped and watched as he jumped into the shrubbery and interacted with the Giant. Then, as can only happen in small-town NZ, an old man stopped and had a yarn with me. He'd seen me photographing Marty with the Giant and thus assumed us to be tourists. He said quite happily, 'That's our China-man.' All the PC-Wellington-ness in me wanted to point out to him that China-man was a perhaps not an appropriate name..... scenes from Crash were flashing through my head. But I appreciated his sentiment in that he was trying to support Levin tourism. He went on to give a quick explanation of the importance of market gardening in Levin. I said, 'But I thought maybe he was supposed to be ethnically generic..... ' and the old man gave it a serious thought and said, 'Maybe...... but no....... he definitely looks like a China-man to me.'

 Next stop was to New World. We made a B-line to the bananas, which was where Ange toiled away during her years as a Produce-Girl while at T-coll. You could be guaranteed to walk in and find her restocking bananas 9/10 times you popped in.

Then a quick stop at the Salvation Army Shop and it was on to Levin's best cafe, Whispers. My local knowledge led me to order the mocchachino because I knew it came with a Sante Bar and marshmallows in the shapes of little duckies. Marty got a stink old boring old latte. He said it was ok though.

Luck would have it that we were in town on the day of the annual Gardeners' Club of Levin's flower show. We popped in for a look. Marty bought a ticket in the raffle. Good luck, Marty! He was taken by the succulants and I tried to talk him into entering one of his pot-plants next year.

We drove down to me and Ange's old school for a peek. It looks pretty flashed up since our days.

Last stop was the Adventure Playground. I had billed it as the best park in the world and Marty had been dubious. But by the end he had to agree.

He warmed up the trampoline for Dave (who did competitive trampolining at high school and has promised us a demonstration one day).

And helped a four year old girl hop up on the flying fox (forgetting the sign that said you had to be 10 years and above...... she lived..... it's ok.....).

He sucked at the rotating barrell thingie. Assed over right away.

I was awesome.

I am happy because I was having a skinny-photo day. That meant I could eat Burger Wisconsin for tea and not feel guilty.

The End.

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Two Quotes for me to Remember

"All that learning you did at school was super-fluous"

"I'm gonna go graffiti 'philanthripist' on his picture"