March 26th 1983

posted in: Innocents Abroad | 0
At Trish’s house – Val, Chris, Trish, Mandy, Steve, Andy, Ken

Not a good day for me.  The night went well, in that we slept, but yesterday’s vague feelings of discomfort overnight hardened into definite sickness – a pounding headache, with feelings of nausea.  I ate virtually nothing all day.  In terms of the weather, the day also deteriorated fast, from a brilliant morning to windy grey to heavy rain.   This last occurred while we were on town, forcing us to shelter in the tea shop, + then, when we were kicked out of there, in yet another Arthur’s Pass National Park shelter.  It was a pretty bleak place for, altho’ it was pretty crowded, none of the laggards had bothered to light the stove.  This we remedied, + then sat there for an hour or so, listening to the rain + playing cards.  Val eventually obtained a weather report from the Park office, which suggested the weather wasn’t going to change, so we decided to miss out on Arthur’s Pass, + head on to Christchurch.  Steve rang some friends of his on the outskirts, arranging for us to stay there tonight, so we returned to our camp-site, pulled up our tents, + headed out.  Even before we left, the sun was shining, but I think that shows what different weather conditions on either side of a continental divide can be, rather than the weather forecaster’s ineptitude.

We stopped just twice on the way to Kirwee, so that others could a) visit a geological feature, and b) visit a pub, but I just slept in the car both times.  And then we were at Kirwee, a beautiful big old farmhouse, inhabited at the moment solely by Trish, a young Australian housekeeper + her many animals.  I can write no more about today – I stayed up only long enough to be polite then went to bed,  Somehow I sweated my way thro’ the night.

I am sure you must be growing weary of my constant litany of illness, possibly as much as I was going through it. Am I a hypochondriac? Probably, a bit, more by way of allowing illness to dominate my day, rather than making stuff up. But I do also seem to get ill a lot (as later events in my life have testified – I have certainly got more than my money’s worth out of the NHS.)

As for the photo, I don’t know who Mandy and Ken were, but maybe this photo is out of sync.

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