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Published: January 1st 2008
First of all, we would like to wish everyone back at home a Happy New year. We might just have to have another countdown to celebrate midnight at home! However, we may not be up for more toasting of alcoholic beverages due to some effects of over-indulgences while bringing in 2008 here....
I'll backtrack a bit to where I left off last blog. Our Canadian friends Kirby and Christina joined us on Christmas Eve. They are also doing a working holiday here. It was great to catch up with them, and hear about their journey to Fiji. We had some laughs over kiwi pronounciations of words, and contemplated the appropriate response to the typical greeting here, "How ya going mate?". This means "How are you doing?"
We took a relaxed pace for Christmas. We had some omelettes in Henderson tradition. We opened some gifts and tried out a new New Zealand fishing board game. Our dreams of a beach picnic were dampened by the rain. We did catch some sun on the front porch, and marvelled at the novelty of being outside on Christmas day in a t-shirt. I cooked my first turkey with the help of Christina's previous
turkey experience. I wanted to have my birthday cake outside, but due to the downpour, the closest thing was the celebrate it in the Armstrong's van. Another first!
In between Christmas and New Years, we did more relaxing. On boxing day, we chatted with our families. I had a video-cam call with the Smith family which was nice. Duane worked at the Bakery a few days. We toured the Speight Brewery in Dunedin. The tour guide was excellent, and the beer tasting was great too. We had about 10 minutes to come behind the bar and pour ourselves some tastes of the different beer.
And now I'll come back to New Years. We had heard about a Folk Music festival just outside town. It was a camping festival, so this really appealed to us. When we arrived, we realised that it was actually a folk
and dance festival. We arrived at 9 and it was solid square-dancing until midnight! This was not what we had expected at all! There were people of all ages and characters. We joined right in and learned to do four-squares, baskets and dosidoes alongside the locals. It was quite a fun and original
way to celebrate the last hours of 2007 (and the first few of 2008)!
Thank you for all the Christmas cards, letters and emails. We hope that the New Year holds good health and pleasant times for all!
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Garnette
non-member comment
Happy New Year!
Love the square dancing story! Looks like a really fun time!