Christmas is coming!

It's that time of year again and Wanganui, New Zealand is gearing up for Christmas!


Carols by Candlelight was held at Virginia Lake again this year - loads of people for a very poor musical performance. The brass band raced through the carols 'hell for leather' where some of the carols had verses omitted altogether. It seemed as though 'we'll get through this gig as quickly as possible - move on to Santa's visit, lollies for the kids and we can all go home, put our feet up in front of the telly and have a cold beer'. Remarkable that folks don't seem to know any of the traditional Carols anymore - all the 'We wish you a Merry Christmas' and 'Snoopy's Christmas' type of numbers, some folks sing, but for the most part it all appears to be a bit of a yawn.
Enough said about that.


ACK New Zealand has branches all over NZ now - the 'Kerssangdiens' was held at Levin this year - combined music teams from Wanganui and Wellington provided the music for the good turn out of ex-South Africans. Jo and author up front doing our thing! It's very reassuring for the really 'new and fresh off the boat' folks to enjoy a Carol Service like this one. Home from home if you will.


We have made some really fine kiwi friends here in Wanganui and made home made Buttermilk rusk prezzies for them - 'n karringmelk beskuit sal hom wat verbeel om so mooi te kan vertoon!'
Once again, the virtues of the two dollar shops come to the fore in the cellophane and ribbons and bows - 'cheap as chips' and making the parcels look so festive and special!


Ulysses Motor Cycle club in conjunction with the Wanganui Classic Motorcycle club put on a Christmas toy ride for charity and although we cannot compete with the thousands of bikes seen at these events elsewhere in the world, the sentiment is no less heartfelt and the toys no less appreciated by the children who receive them.

It was good being part of a large group of bikes riding sedately behind a guy in a Santa suit through the streets of Wanganui, before heading out onto the open road for a circular route and stopoff for a good pub lunch - how fortunate we are!
And so glad that we know that one more child will have a new, very soft and cuddly bear for Christmas this year.
Dis al!

Dress up!

We celebrated Junès fortieth birthday at the Holiday park over the weekend. The theme for the evening was 'P' and most everyone got into the spirit of it all and dressed up for the occasion.
Priest, prostitute, pirates, photograher, pink, pumpkin, painters, playboy bunny, pimp ,papparazzi, punk rocker, pastry chef, palastinian etc and even a pair of 'plants of paradise'!



Had this particular pirate not been the husband of the birthday girl, he would have surely won one of the prizes for his efforts!

A Palestinian - complete with two dollar

shop shades!

The whole costume loaned especially for the occasion and earning it's place amongst the winning 'p' outfits!

Alna and Nelda - usually appearing on this blog as sophisticated professional ladies and part of 'le girls', got into the swing of the 'p' theme as pumpkin and pink.

Pukeko

Bruce and Anna live almost literally on the beach at Kai Iwi and are presently renovating their home - for them, they could just pick up a couple of old empty paint cans and come on over at the end of the days' work!

Although Junè won't actually hit the big four-oh until just after Christmas, we think she had a marvellous birthday bash!

In spite of the inevitable 'prophets of doom' who predicted that no party with combination guests - South Africans AND Kiwis, could work, this particular one did!

Dis al!

Pike River mine tragedy

It has been a very difficult time for the people of New Zealand with the horrifying realization that the 29 miners in the Pike River mine, are not going to be heroically rescued. After the whole world cheered the eventual rescue of the miners in Chile, everyone here was desperately hoping for a similar ending to this horrible situation.

This picture was published of The Beehive - the New Zealand 'head office' and where, as you can see, flags flew at half mast for the miners - mostly from New Zealand, but also from Australia, the UK and South Africa.

Similarly, at the rememberance service held at the racecourse in Greymouth, the flags flew at half mast as a sign of respect.

Messages from all over the world were received and some of the most notable, read out at the service - Her Majesty and

The Pope only two of the literally thousands received.

The service was attended by about 3,000 people and was broadcast live on television.

Hearing that one of the lads lost was only 17 years old and that it had been his first day underground was truly heartbreaking and is all the more real to us since it's a year ago this week that we lost Estan, who was also just 17.

Now, it's a question of whether all the efforts to extinguish the raging fire in the mine will be successful so that the teams of guys can get in and retrieve the bodies so that their families can close the chapter and try to move on with their lives.