Nelson bye bye
January 25, 2006Ruby Bay, New Zealand
7:13am
It is just pissing out right now. I contemplated going for my walk about 45 seconds ago when it was just a pretty little drizzle, but now it is pelting the roof here like gunfire, and I can see the waterfall storming down the windshield of our car. Our car that needed a wash. Just hope it lets up for our drive today.
The summary entry. This place will always be where Hud spent his third Christmas. It will always be where I saw a dog pee on a dead penguin. It will always be where I witnessed a giant pig eat a massive round of venison salami.
It will always be where my father’s face almost slid off. Mostly it will be the place where we spent eight weeks on the South Island. Swimming at Kaiteriteri Beach and Rabbit Island. Walking part of the Abel Tasman Coastal Track then diving in the blue water on a secret beach.
Sailing with one of my best friends and my family as dolphins leapt out of the water and smiled at all of us, especially Hud.
Jumping into testicle squishing icy cold spring water at the source of the Riwaka River. Meeting a crowd of people who tend crops or serve coffee out of the back of a trailer for a living. Racing down the Buller River dressed like a Navy Seal only to be bucked into and under the water, thinking I may die until realizing I was really just living. Drinking cold beer sitting on hot rocks laughing with my wife as the surf saddled up to the sand. Lots of good times here. All of course with the undercurrent that, with each day passing we were getting closer to return to daunting yet oddly comfortable reality back home.
I did not finish my novel and will attempt to do so in the next seven weeks. I am close, but not three pages close, so at some point I will have to buckle down and get the words down so I can start the first edit. I did not lose all the weight I wanted to here. With Christmas and Tony and other beer related incidents I was more maintaining my weight as I still walked the 4.8 miles every morning. The next seven weeks will have to be more focused on shedding instead of simply maintaining.
The last two days were spent socializing mostly. On Sunday, a family that Steph met at swim lessons came over for a bbq. They were sweet and simple with two kids, a five-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl.
Hud and the boy raced around the grounds like madmen with the wee girl waddling on after them. They all played really well together and the adults were able to just gab about the differences and similarities in our lives. He was a former builder, who was now into the more administrative end of Aluminum siding sales and installation. He loved it and had warm eyes and a growing belly and talked so fast that I had difficulty understanding a lot of what he was saying. I just nodded and smiled and sipped beer after beer. We had a mixed grill bbq with sausages, drumsticks and burger patties. I made a green salad which only the woman and I ate, she also made potato salad which was still warm, but tasty nonetheless. It was a nice afternoon and they left around nine after getting here around four so we obviously didn’t mind each other’s company, even lamenting what a drag it was meeting them days before our departure. Such is life as a traveling wilbury.
Monday…what did we do Monday….oh yeah. Nevermind.
Yesterday Steph went into Nelson for Aqua fit and Hud and I hung in our underwear playing with all his toys he splayed across the carpet. We ate crackers and peanut butter and watched, I kid you not, The Six Million Dollar Man, complete with slow motion running and the furrowed brow of one of my childhood heroes, Lee Majors. The best part? The Marine Biologist who was taking underwater readings in powder blue short shorts, a tube top and high heels. She looked like a stowaway hooker. Ahh the seventies and its blatant sexism. Pass me a scotch; a mustache and a pantsuit would you?
Last night we had dinner at the main house here at Nelson Coastal Barnstay. It was long overdue as David kept hinting at it, but never coming through with a dinner invite. I marinated chicken all day in a peanut satay sauce, so we brought that as well as a chilled Chardonnay and a sixer of Speight’s. It was a nice night. Dinner was typical fare. The chicken I brought, the chicken they made, and have course, sausages. Gill made a green salad, a tomato onion salad, boiled new potatoes they picked out of their garden that morning, beetroot sliced thin, cut carrots, cukes and eggs to complete the table. It was all farm fresh and delicious. The couple staying at the cottage up top joined us for dessert. These are the Toronto people that arrived about a week ago. I could have easily written an entry specifically about her and her histrionics, but I am feeling warm and fuzzy about this place and do not want to offer up any barbs, however accurate they may be.
We left a little after ten, with Hud being the sweetest perfect little boy the whole night. He mingled with everyone and played with his trucks, mingled and played, batting his eyelashes at the women and grinning at the guys. He went to bed with ease when we got home.
I did too and my tongue is a bit fluffy this morning from all the wine and the beer.
We’re off to Blenheim for a night with the slow talker and his parents, the early retirees.
The journey continues.
Love to all,
J.
posted by Jason @ 1:48 PM
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