where do I begin....

Hmmm lovely song that, but do not ask me to sing it, Rowing Man can do a pretty good version, but I am a bit tuneless, at best I hummmm along, and like Miche'le I can sing pretty good in the car - alone of course!

finally, I have managed to redo all my swap parcels -

and they are all away in the post - the last of them was posted last Tuesday. So all done and dusted, how awfully stressful 'tho, (losing swap parcels), I definitely do not want to repeat that in a hurry at all.

Twizel has a Mistletoe market and Santa Parade which is an annual event the last weekend in November, and most years we happen - or plan to be here. Rowing Man happened to be on call that weekend, so we stayed, and several of our other holiday friends came over for the weekend


For such a small town (population 1400 approx - but swells immensely over the summer and winter ski seasons), the parade was very well done, and every local organisation got in behind, and had a float of some description;


and of course, no Santa parade is complete without the jolly red fat man himself!


Mrs Claus is looking just a little bit tired of it all by now,

and these guys provided some wonderful entertainment, as we wandered around the market stalls, finding bargains and eating whitebait patties...

I did manage to find these, which have found a home at my place...

... and this little lass, doesn't she look so cute, slightly bohemian, but oh so cute - her mum had a stall at the market day, selling the dresses, tights and the cute wee critters;

Thursday was the last day for our Quilting Group to meet until there New Year, so we all headed off on a road trip, first stop Obsession 2 Quilt in Temuka;

and then Annie's in Ashburton (just about at your place Miss D);

and lunch here;


... and the other great news is..... the man came last week to dig this...


so we could have one of these....

all operational now, YIPPEE .... SKY TV is working now too, much to Rowing Man's delight so he can watch the rugby . The house is slowly coming together.... mush packing unpacking and repacking and sorting, sounds a lot of work, and it is, but with trying to amalgamate 3 houses, and then living in a teeny tiny one, I just have to be ruthless, and many of our possessions will just have to be in storage until we eventually build our home.

I have managed to finish this off, this quilt was our leaving gift to Tim's practice in Outram (which changed hands midnight Monday last day in November) - oh what a relief that is, and no more rushing back for Tim to work Mondays there altho' he is going to be doing the odd minor surgery day and vasectomy clinics down there by arrangement - Mon 14th being the first, but it will be very nice having him around this Monday for his first Monday off. He is building a garden shed - well at least putting it together.

... and this is Graciela from Argentina, and myself last Tuesday evening (we had only hours before got back to Twizel ourselves after our regular weekly Dunedin visit), I quite randomly received an e-mail from Graciela some weeks ago, saying that she was coming to New Zealand to visit; her daughter was here with her boyfriend on a 1 year working holiday. It was really wonderful to see her, and I am so pleased that she managed to get to Twizel, and that we were able to catch up. Her daughter was very good at interpreting for us at Graciela speaks a little English.

I am off to one of the local cafes now to meet Rowing Man for coffee, have a super Sunday!

Christmas cheers,