Christmas is here...

what an adventure it has been so far with still 10 months to go. today is Christmas and tomorrow i will have been in this incredible place for exactly 2 months.

i'm now sitting in a hostel in Christchurch, a German, all women's hostel on Christmas night, one of the only places with available rooms on this night. this evening i took a little stroll around cathedral sq in the middle of the city where almost every shop is closed and people were walking peacefully around with a many smiles. it felt good.

the day has been a pleasant one to say the least as i spent it eating wonderful food in the lovely company of Anita's family. it's warm outside so we had a huge lunch outside under some tents and a huge dessert to follow. i think there were over 20 of us and everyone was so friendly and welcoming. last night for Christmas Eve we had a large dinner with Johnny and Alastair's sister and her family which was also quite nice and warm and cheerful, just as Christmas should be. again i felt very welcome and even got a few Christmas gifts. Santa is quite faithful. I learned from Malin, the sweedish fiance of the brothers' nephew, that Father Christmas delivers gifts in Sweden the night before Christmas Eve, which made a lot of sense seeing as it would be very difficult for Santa to deliver gifts to the entire world in one night. takes the pressure of for him a little. :)

what news? things on the farm have been busy. i've remained on the same sheep farm in Kaikoura for nearly 2 months and have learned heaps and heaps! we've cut the tails off of lambs and drafted them from their mothers to be sent off to the meatworks or to other farms. we've also done some major fence repairs and driven new post and such...and when i say we drove posts, we actually dug old posts out, dug new holes, placed the new ones in, and filled in the holes with dirt and rocks. needless to say my arms were a bit sore after that. johnny also has some 75 cows and a few days ago we ear clipped and tagged the calfs. that was quite a task!

there is a fascinating lady that i've gotten to know a little here and there who comes to help muster sheep and cattle and do the tagging and tailing and such. her name is jenny wards and she breaks horses for a living, as in, she musters wild horses and breaks them and trains them to be ridden. she is quite impressive and incredibly talented in so many ways. she can do anything a man or woman can do! come to find that she and some other horse riders from Kaikoura were extra horsemen in the Lord of the Rings movies. she also helped to train some of the riders and figure out various manouevers (eye dunt noe howw tue spel)for the horses during battle scenes. i've had some awesome conversations with here about this and heard some great stories. i've also watched her work a horse in an effort to rebreak it of some bad habbits. i really wanted to see a mare foaling but they usually do it between 12 and 5am and even after staying up most of the night with jenny waiting for this horse, she didn't foal and i never got to see it. so bummed. hopefully i'll get another opportunity. i'm so fortunate to know this amazing woman!

the weather has been flip flopping all over the place. any time i ask alastair what the weather is supposed to be like he always answers, "it's going to clear up and rain." thus you can see that new zealand weather is always changing and hardly ever predictible. just 3 days ago it was very cold and rainy and today it was blazing hot and sunny. i'm headed tomorrow to Hanmer Springs which is a quaint village with natural thermal springs. i'll spend a few days there, enjoying a short break, and head back to Kaikoura on Saturday. i have yet to get bored with the awesome scenery here and only get excited to eventually move on and explore new places and people!

my internet time is up so i must go. but a very Merry Christmas to all!