This week

Well last Saturday was not rainy--- but we slept in anyway and did not go to work. Ha, take that! We had a quiet day at the vineyard and then Brian and I went to an English pub in Renwick for a beer and a cider respectively. We watched the end of an Air NZ Cup tournament rugby game on the telly.

Sunday Tadeu woke us up at 8:40 and said that his friends wanted to go skiing today and we were to meet them in Renwick at 9:30... so we got ready really fast! Skiing was fun. It was a nice drive we hadn't taken before. About an hour away at a place called Rainbow Ski Area. There were cattle grazing along the road we took from the highway to the base of the ski area. There was snow! It really is winter here. When we arrived we waited for 10 minutes so that the halfday rate applied and then got our gear. The skis Brian and I got were pretty old but having skied only once before I couldn't really tell the difference. There were 4 or 5 ski runs: one really tiny hill- the traditional bunny hill and a hill about 3 times bigger, then some big ones that I didn't have anything to do with aside from waiting at the bottom to catch a glance of Brian coming down.

The first 6 attempts I made on the 2nd smallest hill, I fell off the lift twice. Fear not, it was a hand pull lift, there were no chair lifts. On the 4 attempts that were successful, I fell at the top 3rd of the hill each time. The top part was steeper than the rest, once I wiped out and lost a ski and/or pole or two I could fairly easily make it skiing down the hill. I sat on a snowy bank and tried to find Brian going down a hill... but I missed it. I decided to take a coffee break and headed for the cafe. I sat there for almost an hour before deciding I should try once more to go down, 5 times down would somehow make it worth the time and money...

So I made it up the hill successfully and somehow made it down the hill without falling. Whoohoo! This skiing stuff is fun! So I went a few more times and at one point saw Brian and Tadeu at the bottom, Tadeu was having a try on the skis. I waited a minute to see if they would look up and watch but they didn't so I just skied right down to them like a pro (or like the innumerable 6 year olds with which the place was crawling). We went to the bunny hill to have a go with Tadeu but he decided to stay in the X-Country mode on the flatter areas. So I went back to my conquered hill a few more times and Brian hit the big hill. We then determined that the place closed in half an hour and we should get it all out of our systems... Brian went back to the big hill and in the time it took for him to wait in line, get up the lift and come down I had gone up and down twice and probably could have gone up and down ten times. But I waited at the bottom to watch Brian come down. A fun day!

Monday was back to work in a set of smelly rows (some irrigation business was making the ground sticky with mud smelling strongly of excrement... neat!). But then we made it to a different block away from the stench. We were going decently fast all week. A few mornings were slow and a few afternoons when our bodies started to rebel. But we knew it was our last week of working so we tried to talk our hands into that last burst of strength at the end of whatever metaphor you prefer....

It was a week of many pain killers nonetheless. Now that it is Sunday and my hands have had 2 days off and don't have to go back tomorrow (WHOOHOO) I am starting to regain some of the feeling in my most used fingers and starting to lose some of the intense morning pain and stiffness in my hands.

Friday at work there was a BBQ to celebrate the nearing of the end of pruning. Brian and I both won prizes (booze) which we contributed to a lovely fancy dinner we cooked Saturday evening for Marj, Bob and Tadeu.
After work Friday (we finished our row at 3 and got outta there quick!) we went to the store for a 6 pack and each enjoyed our long hot showers with a nice cold beer. Perhaps one of the best ideas ever.

Saturday we got up and did a load of laundry. Then we headed into Blenheim for a visit to the thrift store (where we always find good stuff), a library book return visit, and a rugby game. A Canterbury team was playing again and I thought it was against Renwick, but they didn't have names on the scoreboard this time so I can't be sure. We arrived in time to see the beginning and watch each team perform a Haka. We knew the national team, the All Blacks, did this before each game but we didn't know that other teams did it! Each team had a slightly different one, but it is mostly an intimidation and pump-up thing. It was really cool. The weather was perfect, really sunny, not windy, just beautiful! There was an ice cream truck in the front of the stadium and after about 6 people walked by with cones we decided we needed some too! Brian got some great photos of the game and I have a few too, I was mainly experimenting with my camera, so don't expect much of mine.

We hit the grocery store on the way home for ingredients for our fancy dinner (recipe on NYTimes, Shrimp Ragu, and also homemade pudding). We started prepping the dinner as soon as we got home at 3:30 ad were eating at 6:30. When we arrived home we saw Marj and Tadeu down at the yurt and knew that they had finished pruning and wrapping!!!!!! This was part of the reason for our feast, but also to express our thanks to everyone for putting up with us or putting us up or whatever... There are pictures of the fancy dinner in my latest album. It was really really really delicious and fun and just nice to be outside an enjoying the company for a few hours over dinner.

This morning we slept in and then Bob made banana walnut pancakes on the grill griddle. DELICIOUS. We dined outside again, in the little sun room over looking the pond. 2 ducks and a blue heron came to the pond to visit so we watched the heron with binocular as he enjoyed a lovely big worm for his breakfast. We got another load of laundry going since its a gorgeous day again, and hopefully we have another similar day tomorrow for one last load.

We are heading to Kaikoura on Tuesday to have our first WWOOFING experience. We called about 7 places throughout the course of the week but hadn't had any luck with finding someone to take us! They were already hosting or weren't hosting at the time. But Saturday morning someone we had left a message for called and wanted us! Yay!!! So we will have some tales to tell.

But now I will hand the machine over to Brian to get his pictures up. Don't forget to look at them!

Cheers!