Boxing Day. Tho’ not in England, which is 12 hours behind us. So, as soon as we stirred, more or less, we rose from our mats + trotted over to the Cascade in order to use their phone. Val rang her mum first, hers being the more urgent, since she only has the one day to be able to ring. She enjoyed her chat, I think, + even had time for a quick word or 2 to Dave + Pete. Then my turn, which took a little more time to organise, but which got to Mum in the end, once I’d gotten past the stupid lady who answered the phone at the hotel. Mum sounded quite chirpy, even tho’ I’d dragged her away from her dinner. The calls weren’t as expensive as we’d feared, tho’ mine was by far the most expensive, being person to person.
A swift cup of tea, then home again to eat a tasty cooked breakfast, which is good, + to clean the block, which is not nearly so good. Then, more or less in the nick of time, off to watch the football, to discover that West Ham are still up there somewhere. We’d intended to cook up some goodies for our own private Christmas dinner today, but neither of us could raise the energy to go to it, so we decided to postpone it. Filled the afternoon with domestic doings, + then off to work once again.
Quite a busy night for me. The weather was foul, chucking it down nearly all day, + a lot of the people who’d come up on holiday were there. We had all the rooms in the place full, with a couple of groups of people who’d delayed putting their tent up for a day, + come in to the motel to get out of the rain. One of these little groups got heavily into the cocktail scene, + one of them in particular, called Island in the Sun, was really elaborate. Still, it made things more interesting.
I finished work just in time to catch most of the Simon + Garfunkel reunion concert in Central Park on the telly. It was very good indeed. I’ve never been an especial fan of Garfunkel, but he was really good this time. I think his voice has got better. We’re toying with the idea of trying to get tickets for their concert in Auckland.
Phone calls home still remarkably rare,,, and expensive. Still, at least on this occasion they were completed successfully. And then work again. Not sure I have ever made an Island in the Sun since – I shall have to look it up.
Apologies for the paucity of photos – the situation really is starting to get desperate, as there is – slight plot spoiler here – quite a while yet in Paihia, with very few photos to cover the period.
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