Birthdays and Geocaching.

June was the month of birthdays here.  Rick (mine host) had his first with mine, next followed by Sue's and finally, Lynn's.  Sue chose to spend the day by the ocean so we went to a couple of different beaches.    We started out in the morning at Spenserville Park.  Bo’sun, in particular had a great time, searching out and snuffling stuff delightful only to a dog’s nose.  We walked there for over an hour enjoying the dunes and the oceans.  We watched sulky horses getting their exercise up and down the surf. After a cup of tea from the ever-present thermos, we drove further north along the coast where there are a view wineries. The birthday lunch was at a winery called the Mud House which, apart from wine, specializes in game cuisine.  I don’t remember who had what any more but our meals were wild goat, boar and venison.  Only because of Sue’s birthday did we shared something delightfully rich and Chocolate.  After lunch we headed back towards Canterbury stopping at another beach at Waikuku to watch the sun going down and the surfers hanging out long enough to catch just one more wave.

I had been hearing from sister, Liz and friend, Wendy about geocaching also known as  ”Hide and Seek” with a GPS. One has to sign up first;  as Sue and I didn’t have a GPS, I simply downloaded the maps and locations.   Saturday morning on the way to market in Darfield, we visited a couple caches.  First one was an absolute bust, and I found the second cache we looked for. After we had finished our trip downtown, Sue found the second cache of the day. 

 

 Later on that day we went into Christchurch.  Both of us were guests at Lynn’s (my hostess) 60^th birthday party, and I was invited to dinner for a mid-winter feast.  It is becoming common practice here to have mid-winter parties or dinners to provide some entertainment in the darkest time of the year- a sort of Christmas party in June.  I am quite content to have Christmas in the winter in Canada.   For us, the darkest, dullest time of the year is broken up by both spiritual and secular celebrations, with lots of time available to reflect over the impact of both.  Summer is then given over to the pleasures and experiences of that season.  Although the thought of a walk on the warm sand followed by a barbeque on Christmas day is definitely appealing, I am content to have something that breaks up the monotony of winter, apart from earthquakes and aftershocks.