Oops - last blog was 4 days ago!

Again, best intentions! So let's see, last Wednesday we worked for wine and came home pretty tired and a bit sore. Some good food, good company and good wine took care of that. Woke up feeling good and ready to spend a little more time labeling boxes of wine that morning. We pretty much spent the rest of the day doing a few errands and stuff around the house such as moving the wood that was delivered to the driveway over the previous weekend. Joelle, Ernie, Jasmin and I moved the wood from the drive and stacked it in the shed.

We woke up Friday to cold and rain - a lot of it. Ernie and I decided it was a great day for a movie - Super 8. The movies start at 10 a.m. and it really works out great. You can see a movie and still have the whole afternoon to do whatever else you wish. Being in a smaller city, we were really happy that there is a cinema here. It has 4 screening rooms and we were in the newest addition. It probably had around 100 seats in the theater. It was stadium style seating with some of the most comfortable seats we've seen at a movie theater. Got an e-mail from the transfer company in Christchurch that is handling the goods we shipped. Woo-woo, finally! Our goods were packed and removed from our apartment at the end of February (in preparation for a 3/15 move to NZ). When we found out that our visas were going to take longer, the moving company agreed to hold our goods and just ship them around the same time we were rescheduled to leave for NZ (May 15th). They were advised that we would be on holiday until 6/1 and to plan on delivering them after that date. Wen we got back to Blenheim, we had an e-mail from them advising that they were told by their carrier that the case of wine we were sending could not be shipped. They were not licensed to handle alcohol. It turns out that our goods had not even shipped yet. We had them remove the case of wine (Chris would pick it up and hold it for us) and to ship our goods ASAP as there were items that we were waiting for - like hiking boots, winter clothes, etc. We are now working on completing the customs forms so our goods can be received into NZ and brought to us. We still do not have an arrival date but think that should happen within the next week.

Saturday brought better weather and we saw our first netball game. Jasmin plays for her school team and they had a game scheduled that afternoon. It's basically outdoor basketball with no dribbling. Ernie says it's like ladies basketball used to be. It was an interesting game. Unfortunately they did not win that day but we had a great time trying to figure out the game and cheering for her team.

We had dinner that evening with the winemaker from Huia and her husband, Vicky and Johnny. Johnny's folks ranch and they game them some meat from one of their cows. Joelle and Vicky kept referring to having a beast roast - now I know what they meant by that. We each cooked a small roast and combined the efforts for a great supper - roasted beast, mashed potatoes, gravy, sauteed peas and onions, fried beets, and maggot pasta. Yes, maggot pasta is what they called this salad that Vicky made. There are no maggots in it. It's made with orzo (a rice shaped pasta), feta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, parsley and a little red wine vinegar. It was great! It seems that Vicky had made this dish before and somebody said the orzo looked like maggots and the name stuck. I personally think a great name and definitely creates an interest in the dish.

Let's see, that brings us up to Sunday. Ernie helped Joelle plant some grape vines in the yard, we transplanted some rhubarb and then restrung the laundry line outside. Other than that, it was an easy day. So when does vacation begin?????? Seriously, we're having a great time helping out and getting familiar with Blenheim. In fact, some of the shopkeepers now recognize us when we come in and ask about our week and what are we planning for the next few days. It's like we've been here so much longer than we actually have. Folks are so friendly!

Today was a trip to Nelson for Jasmin's first orthodontist visit. Yes it will be braced for her in about another year. It seems that this is the only orthodontist in the area and they have a small satellite office in Blenheim that they visit once or twice a week. So they determined that Jas will need braces and they will contact Joelle when an opening comes up in Blenheim so they can start her work - probably in a year or a year and a half. We toured the old town area of Nelson. Some great architecture here and the cathedral is beautiful. Dedicated in 1887 and they have a pictorial presentation of the original building of the church and the changes it has undergone through the years. They have an absolutely gorgeous stained glass 'rose' window and an amazing pipe organ. We spent a little time at the mediterranean store to purchase some Italian foods that we became addicted to while living in Italy. Then on to the Wurstladen - a great German sausage and cheese shop. What a treat! We finished with supper at Stephano's Pizza. I can honestly say his pizza was as good as any we had while in Italy. I didn't realize how much I missed it.

Unless one has visited the south island of New Zealand or studied a map of NZ, one would not realize that the Alps have extended down here. The southern Alps are quite spectacular. Snow-covered mountains, lots of skiing, and yes they have glaciers here. In fact, the last time we visited (6 years ago), we did a glacier walk. We walked from the car park to the base of the glacier, put on crampons and walked up the ice stairs on the side of the glacier and then proceeded to walk on the glacier and through some small crevasses. WOW! Anyway, to get to Nelson from Blenheim, you have to cross the mountains. The roads here are mostly 2 lane, narrow and windy. On top of that, the only time I saw roadside barriers were on the curves. When we were on just windy stretches and the ground just dropped off, there were no barriers at all - just the drop off. I thought I was being a good passenger and pretty calm but Joelle pointed out that there were several stretches where I was pretty white knuckled.

We arrived home to find out that Christchurch just had 2 more earthquakes today - one at 5.6 and the other at 6.0. Those poor people were just starting to recover from the one in March and today's quakes undid all the work they just finished. We haven't felt anything here and we are grateful for that. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

Hope y'all have a great night!