Dad and Jamie: The Beginning

It’s true that I’m not sure there’s enough of interest in this settled kiwi life of mine to keep up a blog as regularly as I could in the early days. But there are events that will happen which may necessitate a blog or two, just to let those who might be following along see the highlight reel of our lives. These last days belong on that reel.

It began on Friday the 15^th of January, when Dad and Jamie stumbled off the plane and into our arms. It had been a weird week of coming and going. Michael left for a workshop in the US on the Tuesday, Naomi came home from 10 days at camp on the Thursday (missing our fantastic WWOOFers who left that morning), and in a burst of delight and exhaustion, suddenly Dad and Jamie were there as well. Rob, who came back from his cool bachelor pad in Wellington to help out, was the perfect host as we tried to keep our weary travellers awake the requisite number of hours (my theory is that if you make it until bedtime on the first day, you’ll be fine from then on out). But up they stayed, eating the amazing food Rob was preparing and soaking in the Paekakariki life. I have been waiting for them to stand in front of my house since we first moved here, have been anxious for the surprised inhale that comes from seeing the sweeping Tasman Sea which is our constant companion. And, while sometimes great expectations lead to grave disappointments, this moment was better than I ever expected, and their speechless delight in our life felt in every way like a dream come true.

The weekend was spent in Paekakariki gray, Jamie reading on the new green loveseat and taking endless walks on our endless beach, Dad sitting in the living room with me and talking and talking. We celebrated birthdays and Christmas past. Monday dawned perfectly clear and they headed into Wellington while I headed into work. The overwhelmingly busy work day was a blur, but the evening walk through the Botanic Gardens, the dinner on the restaurant on the harbour—those are in slow motion. Slow motion too was coming home to a Perry whose leg injury had gotten infected, who was a sick and unhappy dog. Tuesday at work was an agony of worry as beautiful Melissa took Perry to the vet and Dad and Jamie looked after him while I was at work. And on Wednesday, the rush of the work days, the anxiety over a healing Perry (now safely housed with Keith for the next couple of days) the endless housework of the working-mom-on-her-own, the pre-trip preparation—all of it was over and we were off.

We met Michael—newly back from the US—at the airport and we all flew to Christchurch to begin the journey (Michael now in airports or airplanes for 18 hours). We rented a van in Christchurch, and we were off. The first part of the trip was as boring as NZ scenery gets, but we were still so excited to all be back together again that we hardly noticed. And by the time we were ready to sit back and watch the country, the country had begun to dress up for us, getting our eyes used to a little beauty, and then a little more, and then a little more. Finally we were in Lake Tekapo, a magical glacial lake with waters brightly turquoise even in the misty gray afternoon. We marvelled at the colours and shapes—rough blue lake hurling against gray stone, green hills draped with gray clouds, spires of soft lupines alongside the hard stone of the tiny old church.

Onward to Twizel, a town we had heard was good only as a rest stop and not much for that. But our hotel (the Mountain Chalets Motel) was perfection and the little restaurant where we had dinner was unexpectedly delicious. We sat in the town square and drank New Zealand wine in the evening gray and hoped that in the morning the sky would clear enough to go visit Mount Cook. And in the morning, the visit to the local DoC office (where we said hello to one of the participants in my leadership development programme) ended with his walking outside to see if the mountain was out. And it was. We were off to see the highest mountain in the Southern Hemisphere. It was an auspicious beginning.