49th-52nd day - everyday stories

Since Monday, there are now four of us at Waipara Gardens and we're trying to keep the place running. It seems like we're doing quite well: raspberries, currants, gooseberries, and beans, lettuce, spinach, potatoes - everything needs to be picked.

In between, we fight against the weeds and plant new plants, and of course, keep Bruce occupied. In short, we're not getting bored here!

In addition, it's garlic time during Christmas, which should be harvested, cleaned, and braided - quite a big effort for garlic!

Since Christmas is just around the corner, although we don't notice it, we try to get in the mood through culinary means.

However, on Thursday, we have our day off and we make the most of it. We drive past Christchurch, the second largest city in New Zealand, to reach the 'Banks Peninsula'. We take a winding road to Akaroa, a French-inspired village with many small local establishments.

After seeing everything here fairly quickly, we drive along the ridge of the peninsula, where we have a great view of the countryside and the sea.

The temperatures have settled back since Monday (about 20°) and it has been consistently cloudy since then, which is very convenient for us as working is much more pleasant.

We have discarded the 'strict' rituals of the family and allowed Bruce to stay in the house in the evenings (and in the morning and at noon). But if you give him an inch, he'll take a mile! ;)

We have adopted other rituals because we find them very meaningful, such as: Pizza Thursday, Waffle Sunday, and the newly created 'Stir-Fryday' (wordplay, Google will help further).

Bruce is regularly taken out and properly challenged. So it can happen that he is woken up at seven o'clock in the morning and forced to go for a morning run.

We hope that you have a stress-free time in the days before the holidays and that you can enjoy the festival.

We appreciate your comments, but also the 'silent readers' :)

All the best!