Last day of freedom

So, the last day of my Christmas holidays. Back to work tomorrow. Not for Jo though. She's off until Monday. It's going to be strange being back at work. It's been less than two weeks since I was there but I feel I've forgotten everything already. It's also going to be interesting over the coming months seeing how everything shapes out following the structural changes. But yeah, my last day on holiday and it's been a busy one.

Following a second successive most enjoyable lie-in Joanne and got up and headed out to Lyttelton for lunch. I do like this idea of having the 2nd January as a public holiday. It kind of eases you gently back into the New Year of work. Going to work on the 2nd Jan always came as such a shock back in the UK. Although it does mean that finding a place open for lunch that wasn't a chip shop was tricky. And then they had the gall to stick a 15% public holiday surcharge on the bill. Cheeky.

So, Lyttelton, yeah. It's a strange place, kind of caught between trying to be a seaside town and trying to be a port. It kind of falls somewhere between the two - a port with a seaside feel. There were way too many tourists to be a bonafide port. It's a nice enough place, I guess, but I wouldn't go out of my way to see it, apart from visiting the timeball if you're into marine chronometry and that sort of thing. Much nicer than Lyttelton are the succession of little bays that surround the harbour. Of course, they were all very busy on a public holiday in summer but probably worth a visit another time instead of the fly-past we gave them today as we drove home.

This afternoon, while Joanne did a bit of weeding, I thought I'd take advantage of the good weather and head out on my bike. There's a place called Tai Tapu about 10km south of us that I thought was a decent distance away so off I headed. The ride down there was easy, a nice tail wind meant that I set a decent pace and was still able to take in the stunning view, the hills to my left, the plains and mountains to my right. Once I arrived in Tai Tapu and turned around though it was a different story. The wind today was blowing from th north. It only seemed like a small breeze as I cycled south. As I headed north with it blowing in my face head on the whole way home I realised it was a stronger breeze than I thought. Canterbury is flat and when you have a head wind there is no let up and no shelter. The 10km home took twice as long as the outward 10km. But still, it's all good exercise, eh? And if I hadn't intended to raise my heart rate a bit I might as well have stayed at home.

No rest for the knackered though as as soon as I got home there was time for a quick shower before we had to head out again. James, a guy who a few years ago was in our Christianity Explored and follow-up group is in Nuzziland on holiday and today we had a small window of opportunity to catch up. The joy of Facebook. We wouldn't have known he was in NZ if it wasn't for that. It was great to see him and say hi and found out how his hol is going and how he's doing generally. Plus he brought me in some of the good stuff from home - five packets of Airwaves Blackmint - just enough to see me through until my dad arrives in Feb!

Just time for a quick coffee and a bit of people watching with James in Cathedral Square before we had to head over to Sarah's house. She'd invited us for a barbecue. She may be Scottish but she's becoming very Kiwi ;) Also there were two English couples quite new to Christchurch and St John's - Dan and Fizz from Ripon who've been here about five weeks, and Tom and Sarah from Canterbury (the Kent one) who've been here about ten weeks. It was really great to get to meet them and have a chance to get to know them a bit. Sarah's so great at welcoming new people and having them round to her place and stuff. She does a great job. I was saying to Jo on the way home tonight that I'd love to have the guys we met tonight over for lunch to ours after church on Sunday. When we first arrived at St John's everyone made us feel so welcome and really opened up their homes to us. I'd really like to learn from our experience and make sure we are as warm and as welcoming to new people we meet.