Somehow the morning passed very quickly even tho’ I didn’t finish off the cellar, as I had imagined I would. Still, that means another day’s certain work. I finished at about 12.30, changed + had lunch, + then Val + I hitched into town. We went first to the lady in the Travel Agency, + she had bad news for us. The MCOs that we presented were of no use as they had not been written out correctly – so did not specify the currency. The only thing to do, as the lady suggested, was to send the tickets back to TACA + ask them to send us another one, properly written out. She offered to do this for us, which saves us a considerable amount of trouble. Then, about to go into the Post Office to bank our money, we discovered that I had left the bank book sitting in the kitchen at River Park. A real pain, but nothing for it but to hitch back out. We were quite lucky in that Art Thompson was driving by + he was able to give us a ride. I shot down the hill + there was our precious book, sitting where I had left it. Just as well, I would rather that Wayne + Sue didn’t know how much money we had saved (about $4000). And so, back to town, bank the money, do a little shopping, + home once again. Where we had just a short break, before once more unto the bar dear friends once more… ie work again. Another quiet night, which Marion enlivened for me by asking me to do a stock-take. A right pain, but I got most of it done.
Another example of oir famous carelessness, with cameras, notebooks, whatever, somehow being overlooked by the gods. New Zealand is, as I think I’ve mentioned, famously safe and trusting, but it doesn’t do to test that notion to destruction.
It being something of a quiet entry, I am going to take a little time to comment on my own literary style. The most tedious part of this blog is transcribing the diaries – quite a task, believe me – but in catching forward over the past month or two, it has given me the opportunity to note certain habits. Far too many nice, pleasants, and interestings – its laziness, really, except that keeping the diary going was hard enough, let along interrogating them over the paucity of the descriptive words. Thousands of “of course”s, of course – which is art of the style, I suppose. And apologies too for all those sentences where I have repeated words. Actually, since I wrote these as a stream of consciousness, and never went back to correct and amend, the amazing thing is that they are as coherent as they are.
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