Christmas, New Year 2007 -08

Well here we are the week before Christmas and people are sending us greetings and email messages. Things have gone along well at Nelson, with more people participating in the training programme, and a great response from schools to a sailing experience day, which has kept Me busy. This is just as well because life out of work hours during the week sucks with Lorna being in Auckland. The community at the Holiday Park has been much more sociable this season, with Wednesday roasts at the shop and regular Sunday barbeques.
There has been the occasional hilarious moment, like the other week when two of the boys were launching their Optimists. I keep telling all my pupils to launch in pairs with one person holding the boats while the other puts the trolleys away. Two brothers were doing this with the older boy holding the boats standing between them. He allowed the boats to move into deeper water until he was suspended by the armpits. The boats sailed gently away from the shore while younger smaller brother called from the shore “Bring my boat back”. As I had not fully launched the patrol boat it was a couple of minutes before I could take one boat away and allow elder brother to sail away. We were then able to commence the evening’s activities.
There are some advantages in being in a smaller centre. The other week we were preparing to take Lorna to catch a flight departing at 0840. Lorna checked her ticket at 0755 to discover that the flight left at 0810. We made it!
At the end of this week Mike will park the bus in a storage yard and fly to Auckland for Christmas with the family.
2008
Damn, Christmas caught up to us and here it is 4th Jan and I have not sent the blog I wrote. Since then we have had a great Christmas at Struan and Deb’s, while staying with Phil, Erin and Zoe. We did not over eat like we used to and Boxing day we bought plywood and screws for Grandad to repair the playhouse floor. That afternoon I spent preparing the old floor to take the new plywood, and by midday on the Thursday the job was finished ready for the parents to buy some covering to make Zoes little house cosy.
On Friday morning I delivered Struan and Debbie to the boat for their cruise to the islands. Friday evening I met up with Pat for a barbeque at Louise’s place. It was great to catch up after about 10 years. We both decided that the other was looking well!
Sunday we took Zoe to the beach at Torbay. She had a great time playing in the tiny surf; retreating 20 metres up the beach and charging back in to the water.
Monday was the start of the “P” class regatta and I have been occupied on the water each day until the final race yesterday. Our Nelson kids had very mixed results, but learned a lot which, if they put it into practice will stand them in good stead for the future.
New year's eve we went to a party at Greg and Fi Cole's home in Mount Eden. They have a pool and I managed to get myself splashed while sitting near the barbeque. I spent about an hour in the pool and spa after that. We saw the new year in with fireworks.
Today has been spent doing housework and washing sailing gear. Struan and Deb arrive back tomorrow and I fly back to Nelson on Sunday to start work on Monday.