Flying into 2011

Another Christmas has come and gone and we're racing toward the New Year. Marty and I have been very slack at organising our party this year so may end up having a total of 3 people here for the midnight countdown. Oops. It will be a cosy, lazy New Year which will actually be quite nice.

Christmas was lovely. Very relaxed and we've had spectacular weather. It's 30 degrees here at the moment and it's about 6.30pm. Crazy. But it seems we should make the most of it with severe weather warnings forecast for the next few days. Doesn't make me happy that Marty, Franck (a French wwoofer staying here at the mo) and Mark, a friend of Marty's, are all up in the ranges hunting deer tonight.

Anyway, on Christmas eve we gorged ourselves on Renata's beautiful fish with potato salad, a Czech tradition with a kiwi Pavlova for dessert and indulged in a few Aphrodite cocktails....

Mum, Brian and I all went for a walk through a dandelion soaked paddock and unexpectedly found quite a few mushrooms. The weather has been so humid here it's not really surprising, I guess....

And our ducklings are doing well, although their first unsupervised swim didn't go very well because they couldn't get out of the trough and unfortunately we lost one of them and had to administer Rescue Remedy and give them a good go with the hair dryer in order to save the other 3. But here's they are before the fateful day....

I can't believe how fast they are growing. They seem to double in size each night. BUt they are eating a lot. They're so gorgeous. As was the sky on Christmas Eve...

We finished off the night with a game of poker which I won! First time! I kept getting amazing hands. Flushes all over the place and even a 4 of a kind. I was pretty happy with myself :)

Christmas morning was a little bit rushed as we tried to get the canapes done before 11am but we managed. The tree looked beautiful, the pomegranate syrup with champagne went down well and the food, divine.

After the present opening we all stumbled outside to enjoy the sunshine....

Mono went and dug up a little treat that he had been storing away for a special occasion....

And then continued the talk of food.... And then the eating....

After all the food we decided the only thing to do was to go for a walk (after a bit of a ride and some jumps for me... Dino, once again, was an angel).... Can you spot Mum?...

And then there was dinner which was a little bit later than the feast on Christmas Eve but was still yum nonetheless. But huge. And then Christmas pudding and a game of Charades. We all had a laugh about Franck's depiction of Moulin Rouge and Marty's French-English Dictionary. It was mighty fun.

Boxing day was meant to just be us (even though Mum announced that she had bought 39 bagels for the 7 of us) but we ended up with a few visitors. Julia and Peter from Waipukurau came over as did Louise, Jared, Maryja and her friend Taylor (?) and we had bagels with cream cheese and salmon in the sun. But we kept having to move the table to avoid/follow the sun...

Today Mum and I went for a walk into unchartered parts of the river. I rode Dino and she walked with Mono. We found a beautiful little swimming hole which we will have to go back to for a picnic. And Dino was awesome. He loves the water. He splashed around and almost had a lie down in it.

So all in all it has been a wonderful few days. And nice to finally have a joint Christmas with Marty, Renata and Brian.

I think now I need to go and digest/sleep and really try to just blob.

Merry Christmas to everyone and Happy New Year!

K :)