Weekend off with family

We have spent Friday night, Saturday and Sunday morning at Lake Tekapo with our family who are in New Zealand. On Saturday night we rang our son and daughter in law in Edinburgh. It was really good, my son in Auckland and his wife made the big trip all the way down, flying into Christchurch and driving a rental car down with our Christchurch son. In total there was my wife and I, my daughter from Dunedin and her husband; our foster daughter (who has severe intellectual handicaps) our Christchurch son and the Auckland couple. – Eight of us. While it was very short we had a good time. They are good company.

We arrived on Friday night and as we unpacked there was laughter. My wife and daughter had bought food for the weekend. They forgot who was buying what and had doubled up on quite a few vegetables. I had thought that the boys like a quiet drink so had bought a 15 pack of beer. My boys had thought that I would probably forget such a thing so both bought beer and cider. The fridge looked like a liquor store and as it turned out not a great deal was consumed.

On the Saturday after lunch the four “boys” went for a two-hour walk up Mount St John (listed as a three hour walk), which took us along side the lake, and then we wound up the hill to the observatory right on top. There is a café there and the girls drove up and met us there for coffee. We boys then walked down a shorter steep track through some trees back to our car.  The all around scenery was just so expansive and somehow relaxing. You are amongst snow-capped mountains, which are really the foothills of the Southern Alps.  Lake Tekapo is a bright blue colour because of small particles in the water from the surrounding rock. It all leads to stunning scenery.  On the drive there you go through flat green plains, rolling green hills and expansive brown hillsides and mountains. There are lots of pretty places throughout the world and this would be one of them, especially since the sun was shining. It was tee shirts and shorts weather. After a sumptuous dinner we adjourned to the hot pools for a soak. There are pools at three different temperatures. One has mini waterfalls cascading into it and our foster daughter just loved the feel of these on her back. (Pania is a sufferer of Retts syndrome. She is very limited in what she can do, but when her eyes sparkle and she is smiling she lights up the world) The weekend was well worth doing.

We have driven through to Christchurch to catch up on my sister and my terminally ill brother-in-law who has been in a lot of pain.